cessful intruders, for it is recorded that in the year 1070 he divided his possessions among his sons. Tudyr, the eldest son, had his father's lands in Whittington and the district of Maelor; but he clearly held them under Roger de Montgomery, for he is recorded in Domesday as a tenant to the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, to whom he paid a rent of £4 5s.

"Bleddyn, the eldest son of Tudyr, had at his father's death the lands of Maelor . Ranulphus (in Welsh Gronwy, Ronary, or Wrenoc as he was variously called), the younger son, had the lands in Whittington. In Welsh pedigrees he is styled Gronwy Pefr-i.e., Ranulphus the smart, or handsome. He married Maud, daughter of Ingelric, a noble Saxon, who had previously had a son named William, of which the Conqueror himself was the father. By Ranulphus (who had a grant from the Conqueror of Hatfield in Essex), she had three sons, Hamon, William, and Payne. It may be presumed that William, the son of Maud by the Conqueror, was brought up with his half-brothers, for they all bore the appellation of Pefr, Anglicised with the name of Peverell. The Conqueror's son, William, had a grant of estates in Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, etc., and the other sons of Maud were amply provided for. Hamon Peverell, after the attainder of Robert de Belesme, had Whittington, to which his brother William, and subsequently his nephew (Payne), and eventually his niece (Miletta) also succeeded."

Mr. E. Owen informs me that from this article by Mr. Morris can be adduced the following:

The late Robert Eyton, unquestionably the greatest of our English historians (so great was he, indeed, that

he may almost be called our only historian), was greatly exercised by this pedigree; and whilst frankly admitting his great respect for, and indeed his indebtedness to, Joseph Morris for many important facts, which he had embodied in his History of Shropshire, yet he positively refused to accept him as a guide upon this question. Perhaps if Eyton had had the advantage of studying the great work of the Salusburies, he would have given way to its irresistible logic. In writing respecting the grant of Whittington Castle to Roger Powis, by Henry II, in 1165, Eyton, who was a great student of this work, records the fact that the Archæologia Cambrensis (New Ser., vol. xii, p. 285) has stated that Roger was the brother of William, Hamon, and Pagan Peverel. He writes sententiously, and not in very good temper, perhaps: "In short, we do not know, and are not likely to know, who the father of the three Peverel brothers was (vol. xi, p. 31); and yet somewhat inconsistently he accepts the Welsh statement that "Roger Peverel was son of Wrenoc, son of Tudor, son of Rhys Sais;" and Eyton himself quotes that Domesday under Whittington, records that a certain Tudor, a Welshman, held of the Earl Roger Montgomery a fine or commot of land in Wales, for which he rendered £4 5s. rent. Surely this confirms the Salusburies to the letter, and settles the question.

The writer, as he always does in Welsh matters, has thrown himself upon the generosity of Mr. Hughes, of Kinmel; Mr. A. N. Palmer, of Wrexham; the Honourable George Kenyon, Major-General the Honourable George Wrottesly, and last but not least upon Mr. Edward Owen; but from none of them has he succeeded in obtaining any distinct assistance, though the proposition is admitted to be as interesting as it is perplexing; and he trusts that some reader of the Archæologia may come to his assistance.

Mr. Hughes of Kinmel points out that the scribes must be in error in giving Eva verch Gr ap Gr ap the

6TH SER., VOL. IV.

10.

Lord Rhys as the wife of Rhys Sais, because Rhys was first cousin of the Lord Rhys (they were sisters' sons); nor can Mr. Hughes find any confirmation of a second wife of Rhys Sais given in Salusburie; the three sons of Rhys, Tudor Elida, and Iddon, are clearly established in Welsh history as the murderers of Gwrgenan ap Silsilt, Prince of Powys, in 1079.

It should be noted that the Salusburie MSS. gives Grono as a bastard son of Tudor ap Rhys, and Joanes as his illegitimate son; perhaps his fellow-countrymen so treated him on account of his paying tribute to the Earl Roger Montgomery: a fact which would excite their contempt. The dates given, 12 William I, and 1070, are inconsistent with our ideas of the date of Domesday; but probably that great work was not, as our savants suppose, accomplished in a single year, but more probably occupied the full twenty years from the Conquest to 1086, the date assigned by Ordericus for its completion; and, in that case, 12 William I may be the true date of the Shropshire portion of it. It would be of value to collect every date that can be found in connection with it-in which Welsh records may materially assist.

The mother of Rhys Sais is given as Jonet, verch Rivallon ap Cynfyn, Prince of North Wales; apparently he was second husband of Angharad v. Mdd ap Owen, and was married after 1025. The pedigree just given of this lady in vol. ii, p. 25, of Add. C. No. 177, in the Bodleian Library, which gives some dates. Owen, her grandfather, was son of Howell Dda, who died 948, and brother of Angharad, wife of Tudor Trevor; her father was Mdd ap Owen ap Howell, who died 998; and her first husband, Lln. ap Silsilt, is said to have died 1023. Looking at the fact that Ranulf Peverel and his son William were coeval with the Conquest, it seems impossible that the mother of Rhys Sais could have been a granddaughter of Cynfyn ap Gwerston. It would seem also that some of the Welsh wives had been selected at random; the males would rank fairly in these Poems, but not necessarily their wives.

Robert Eyton was too much carried away by scorn for pretentious quacks to do full justice to the Peveril pedigree: he rashly declared that in no instance did any of the Peverils succeed Ranulf or Wrenock in his possession of Domesday property. This is manifestly inaccurate as regards the Norfolk property, which most certainly descended from Wrenock to the Peverils, as well as to Alan fil. Flaald, who seems to have been chief Lord, and who, under the advice and influence of the Lords of Monmouth, granted interest in Sporle and Mile ham, so William Peveril of Dover succeeded, in Herts, Essex, and London, Ranulph Peveril and Robert Gernon (or the "Bearded One"), whose posterity crept into part of the Peveril inheritance at Bakewell. More curiously still the Peverils, under the name of de Hesding, or Hastings, succeeded him in that rape in Sussex Ernulf de Hastings, put to death by King Stephen. Ordericus calls him "Avunculus" of William fil. Alan: which may mean his father's or mother's sister's son, or probably a female relative through Alan's mother. It is quite clear, in spite of Eyton's objections, that several of the Peverels succeeded to Wrenoch's Domesday estate, and in so many places, that it could only have been as his heirs by the Welsh or Roman law of gav elkind: Eyton, having been equally misled respectthe family of Warin de Metz, whom he fails to as the direct descendants of Warin the Bald; study of their lawsuits with the Peverils, exover 100 years, proves conclusively that they asserting the rights of their ancestor Warin against the Welsh usurpers of his estates. But the warens also acknowledged the over-lordship of the

more

ing

recognise

but

a

ten ding

were

Fitz

Fitzalans, whose ancestors might have paid tribute to

the

who

Norman lords, as occasion made it necessary, but

generally asserted their descent from the Earls of

Mercia, the ancient Lords of Whittington and Oswestry. The MSS. open to the writer, except those of the Salusburies, gave no help on this subject. Griffith Hughes has no mention of Rhys Sais, nor has Peter

Ellis; and the Bodleian MSS. are also silent. Peter Ellis, indeed, in his pedigree of Tudor Trevor, adds one element of doubt. He, indeed, confirms the Salusburies' account that Ednoved ap Llowarch ap Lluddic ap Tudor Trevor married Jenett verch Rivallon ap Kynoyn, but he makes Rhys Sais not the son but the brother of Ednoved, whom he makes the husband of the impossible wife, Eva verch Griffith Hir ap Griff ap ye Argelwydd Rys; and to Tudor, son of Rhys Sais, he gives a wife, Jane, verch Rys Vychan ap Rys ap M'dd; and to him he gives two sons, Blethen and Grono; but obviously their date precludes the latter from being Ranulf Pever, of the time of the Conquest. Salusburies' pedigree makes Tudor only the father of a bastard son, Grono.