THE

PLEA ROLL PEDIGREES

HE Plea Rolls of all the courts contain numerous entries valuable to the genealogist, but those relating to the sheriffs are among the most interesting. Every now and then it seems to have occurred to one of the parties to a suit that the sheriff or coroner was a kinsman, perhaps a very distant one, of his opponent, and the suspicion entered his mind that the jury summoned by this official was not a fair one. Such a case occurred at Chester in 1491, when William Stanley was sheriff. He was said to be son of Sir William, son of Thomas, son of John, son of John, brother of William, father of William, father of William, father of Isabel, mother of Dulcia Legh, the plaintiff in the case, who was a sister of James Legh lately rector of Rostherne.' These Leghs were of the Adlington family (see Ormerod, iii. 661), and the descent given is of some importance as showing that John Stanley of Lathom, ancestor of the Earls of Derby, was younger brother of the great-grandfather of Isabel Legh, a point left in doubt in Ormerod (ii. 415, 416). It also makes the sheriff to be a son of Sir William Stanley of Holt, not of Hooton as in Ormerod (i. 73). William Stanley, in right of his wife, Joan Massey, became lord of Tatton and left an only daughter and heir, Joan (Ormerod, i. 442). He was dead in 1499.

1 Chester Plea Roll, 191, m. 29.

2

The Record Office List of Sheriffs gives the following: 1463, William Stanley of Hooton; 1489, William Stanley [not a knight]; 1492, Thomas Stanley.

Again in 1496 John Ashley, coroner of Bucklow, was said to be son of Margaret, daughter of John, son of Margery, sister of William, father of Thomas, father of William, father of Thomas Venables, the plaintiff.1 In 1506 Ralph Birkheved, the undersheriff, was stated to have married Alice, daughter of John, son of Alice, daughter of Richard Donne, brother of John, father of Sir John Donne, father of Anne, wife of George Cotton.2

In a case in 1558 both officials were concerned. The sheriff, Philip Egerton, had married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Randle Brereton, son of Sir Randle, son of Sir Randle, father of Alice Brereton, wife of Edward Broughton and mother of Jane, wife of Griffith Lloyd, mother of Randle Lloyd, father of Randle Lloyd the plaintiff. This plaintiff had married Joan, daughter of Henry Hockenull, son of Margaret, daughter of Sir John Donne, father of Elizabeth, mother of Sir George Calveley, father of Christiana, who had married Richard Hough, the coroner. This last is at variance with the pedigree in Ormerod (ii. 768); the Visitation pedigree of 1613 makes a Margaret Done the grandmother of Sir George Calveley, and a Janet Done wife of John Hockenhull, which John was, according to Ormerod's pedigree (ii. 316), brother not father of Henry Hockenhull. This last statement seems to be erroneous, but it will be seen that several confusions require to be cleared up. Sir George Calveley's mother was Christiana Cottingham, but his grandmother may have been a Done.

The Lancashire Plea Rolls contain similar fragments of pedigrees. They are of importance as containing the names of wives and mothers which are often omitted in the deeds on which the genealogist has to rely. In 1488 Henry Risley, 1 Chester Plea Roll, 193, m. 36d.

2 Ibid. 207, m. 53.

3 Ibid. 268, m. 10.

having to answer John Hawarden, alleged that plaintiff was a kinsman of the sheriff Edward Stanley (afterwards Lord Mounteagle) and also of the coroner Lawrence Starkey. Stanley was son of Thomas, Earl of Derby, son of Thomas, Lord Stanley, brother of Margaret, mother of Margaret, the wife of John Hawarden; while Starkey was son of Joan, daughter of Agnes, sister of John, father of the said John Hawarden.' Again in an Abram plea of.1481 it was alleged that the sheriff, Sir Thomas Pilkington, was kinsman to Henry Byrom, one of the parties to the suit, viz.: son of Edmund Pilkington, son of John, son of Roger, brother. of Margaret, mother of Adam, father of William, father of Margaret, mother of the said Henry Byrom.2 According to the late Col. Pilkington's account of the family, Margaret married (1) Sir John de Arderne and (2) Sir Robert Babthorpe, and had an only child, a daughter Matilda, by the first marriage and no issue by the second. The mother of Henry Byrom was Margaret Lever of Great Lever, so that Margaret de Pilkington must have married John de Lever, father of Adam.*

1 Pal. of Lanc. Plea Roll, 65, m. 24d. For the Starkey pedigree see Cheshire Sheaf (3rd series), ix. 103.

2 Pal. of Lanc. Plea Roll, 54, m. 10%. 3 V.C.H. Lancs. iv. 152, n. 17.

4' Ibid. v. 183.

STRAY NOTES

ST. MARY DEL KEY.-All that relates to this little sanctuary is of interest, so that it is desirable to note that William Brand, rector of Settrington in Yorkshire, by his will of 5 May 1475 (proved 27 May) left his gilt chalice and his vestment "blodii coloris" to the chapel of B. Mary de Key at Leverpole. He also left £4 to the building fund (fabrica) of the house at the east end of the chapel of Liverpool, i.e. St. Nicholas's. Blodius is variously interpreted as "deep red" or "blue." William Brande in 1462 exchanged his half-selion in the Whitacres in Liverpool fields for another half-selion belonging to John More (Moore MSS., No. 190). He was therefore a Liverpool landowner; possibly a son of the Thomas Brand who was witness to a local deed in 1444 (ibid., No. 178). William Brand's will is printed in the Testamenta Eboracensia (iii. 216) issued by the Surtees Society, and in the notes he is described as "a Lancashire man, kinsman, domestic chaplain and registrar of Archbishop William Booth," and an outline of his career is given. In the same volume (p. 331), among the marriage licences, is another Liverpool entry, being the archbishop's dispensation, dated 26 July 1449, for the marriage of John, son of Richard Cross of Liverpool, to Joan, daughter of Richard Calcott [for Caldecote] of Chester; they were twice related in the fourth degree. A dispensation by Pope Nicholas V. is cited.-P. N.

THE PASLEW OAK.-The Clitheroe Advertiser of 23 June 1916 states: "The famous oak on which tradition says that John Paslew, the last abbot of Whalley, was hanged, was cut down on Wednesday [21 June] by workmen on the Moreton Hall Estate. This tree stood prominently on a mound in a field known as the Holehouses. ... Some idea of the oak's great age may be gathered from the fact that it measured 13 ft. 6 in. in circumference and only one green branch remained. Its death may very

properly be attributed to decay." The "tradition" that Abbot Paslew was hanged at Whalley is interesting and not intrinsically objectionable, but there is no evidence to show that he was not executed at Lancaster as was the rule.-R. T. B.

THE BROTHERS BEATTIE.-In the account of these artists and their drawings of Old Liverpool in vol. lxvi. it was stated (pp. 123, 124) that their father first resided in Russell Street and then at 31A Bold Street and that E. R. Beattie was born at the latter house. It has since been discovered that he was born at 92 Bold Street in 1845, his parents removing to 31A soon afterwards. While this volume was passing through the press, Edwin Robert Beattie died suddenly at Preston, on 13th February 1917, in his seventy-second year.-C. R. H.

PARDON FOR GOOD SERVICE.-The following translation of an entry on the patent roll of 24 Edward I. (m. 10), is of some interest locally, both Livesey and Knoll being surnames occurring frequently in Blackburn Hundred: "The King to all his faithful bailiffs to whom, etc. Greeting. Whereas we have learned on trustworthy evidence that William de Lyveseye hath served well and faithfully in our Scottish war, we have pardoned unto him the said William the suit of our peace which pertains unto us for the death of Thomas Knol, wherewith he is charged, and we do therefor grant unto him our firm peace, so that nevertheless, etc. In witness whereof, etc. Witness the King, at Berwick-onTweed, the 30th day of August [1296].”—J. L.

HOSPITALLERS' LANDS AT TARPORLEY.-This estate does not seem to be noticed by Ormerod, but in 1502 an accused man pleaded that he fled to a house belonging to the order of St. John of Jerusalem in Tarporley, of which one Thomas Ridley was tenant, and he was therefore privileged. (Chester Plea Roll 203, m. 4.)

WINPENNY.-This odd name occurs in a Chester Plea Roll of 1477, when Richard Wynpenny of Eaton, near Tarporley, appeared as a juror. In 1481 a John Winpeny of Acton in Delamere is named. Later the surname is said to have become Wimperley.