from what has already been stated, Sir Andrew Judd had a "capital mansion" here. Whether this could have been that erected by Comyn, cannot be ascertained. The house, in the time of the Waldrons, was evidently one of no mean pretensions.*

The present house, called Charley Hall, is evidently an erection of the last century. It may be then that Whitwick Castle, another possession of the Comyns, becoming untenantable, or the quiet little glen of Charley, and the spiritual comfort to be derived from the holy Monks, presenting to Comyn (long harassed by the factions in Scotland) a more congenial retirement, that he then erected the mansion called the Earl's Hall. Be this as it may, I cannot believe that such a name could possibly have originated from the mere occupancy of rooms in the Priory; and a careful examination of the place itself, and of the records connected with it, can scarcely fail to impress any one that the Hall was a separate mansion. However, whether contemplated as an ancient monastic foundation, or as the residence of the Comyns and many other distinguished persons, Charley is a place of great interest to the topographer, the tourist, and the antiquarian. Embosomed, as it once was, in majestic woods, with the Priory and Earl's Hall as its centre, it must at one time have been the Chartreuse of the Forest; even now, the scene is full of beauty. The lake-the streamlet that feeds it--the remaining woods and rocks, and the few farm houses and cottages that form the hamlet, render the little dell one of the most charming spots imaginable. Several stone coffins, and I believe one of lead, have been discovered at various times near the spot on which the Priory stood. One was taken up from beneath the floor of Mr. Orgill's kitchen, a very short time ago. A spot very near is called the Giants' Graves. The coin of Robert Bruce, engraved below, now in my possession, was found in making a drain near the Hall. The locality in which it was discovered renders it historically valuable.

Mr. Mackay, who published a "Tour through England" in the time of George I., says, "by the coats of arms in the windows of most of the Churches in this county, and some old monuments, I perceived that great, noble, and ancient families, had their residence here: and was particularly pleased at Loughborough and Charley, to see the arms of Comyn, Earl of Buchan, to whom Edward I. gave the lordship of Charley, with a Forest twenty miles' circumference, for his assistance to his designs in Scotland, and married to one of the coheiresses of Roger de Quincy * * * but the family being entirely rooted out of Scotland by the Bruces, for their treachery to their native land, the son of the great Comyn retired to his estate at Charley: and having an only daughter, married her to Lord Beaumont, a great family in these days ***. They inclosed Beaumont Park, in Charley Forest. They were pretty even with the Bruces for extirpating them from Scotland, for as Robert de Bruce was Earl of Huntingdon before he was King of Scotland, and that county joining this, the Comyns plagued the Bruces so that they were forced to change their names to Cotton."

SCO

* A gentleman informs me that he finds, in the note-book of an ancestor, accounts of sums of money lost at cards, at Charley, to Lord Swords, brother-in-law to Sir Thomas Waldron.

Р

GROBY.

(Grooby, anciently Grobi.)

Hugo de Grentemaisnell tenet in Grobi 6 carucatas terre, 3 bovatis minus. Terra est 4 carucarum. In dominico sunt duæ; et 10 villani cum 1 sochmanno et 5 bordariis: habent 3 carucas. Silva ibi 2 leucarum longitudinis et dimidiæ leuca latitudinis. Valuit 20 solidos: modo 60 solidos. Ulf tenuit has 2 terras (Ratebi et Grobi) cum sacâ et socâ.-Domesday, fol. 232, a. b.

Here was an ancient Castel, whose walls, as I find in old records, were beaten down by commandment of Henry II. Here also had been a very faire Chappell, but all these goodly buildings are now ruinated and gone.-Burton.

GROBY, the head of the second division adopted in the arrangement of the Parochial History of the Forest, is situated on the VIA DEVANA, in the parish of Ratby, and nearly in the centre of the tract lying between the Forests of Charnwood and Leicester. Its antiquity, its privileges, and its connexion with the noble families of Ferrars and Grey, render it a place of peculiar interest. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, six plough lands minus three oxgangs* with sac and soc, were held by Ulfi and valued at twenty shillings. These, in Domesday book, were stated to be worth sixty shillings, and were then held by Hugh de Grentesmaisnell, afterwards created by King William Rufus Baron of Hinckley and High Steward of England.

From Hugh Grentemaisnell this manor passed to Robert Blanchmaines, by his marriage with Petronella, daughter of Hugh. Robert Fitz Parnell, son of Blanchmaines, had two daughters, one of whom, Margaret, carried the manor by marriage to Saër de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, to one of whose granddaughters it came as her portion of the inheritance when that noble family failed in the male line. She married William de Ferrars, Earl of Derby, and bestowed this manor on her second son William de Ferrars, who was in consequence created Baron of Groby by Edward I.†

The Baron paid the King a fine of forty marks, and held the lordship in capite by the accustomed services. He also assumed the arms of his maternal grandfather, Roger de Quincy, till the male line of the elder house (the Lord Ferrars of Chartley) became extinct. He married Joan, daughter of Hugh le Despenser, and had issue by her William his son and heir, and Anne, married to John Lord Grey of Wilton. He died in 1287, leaving his

Yeoman, earle or vassal knave,
That was of wealth an ox to have,
He made them all to keep a plough,
So that the realme had corn enow,
And so arose from such command
That oxgang measure was of land.

The mightier and the wealthier peers

That herds of oxen had and steers,
Drove many ploughs, and hence appears

A ploughgate land for aye synsyne,

A certain measure was of kine.

Wynton.

+ Groby est de feodo Wintoniæ, quæ est pars Leicestrie; et Dominus Wilhelmus de Ferrer tenet manerium de Groby, et habet in dominico tres carucatas terre in eadem et duo molendina aquatica et duo vivaria et quatuor parca

*. Item partem bosci de Chernewode in quo est libera chacea. Et dictus Willielmus tenet, &c. * * de dono Margarete de Ferrer, comitisse de Ferrer faciendo indè servicium debitum et consuetum: Habet etiam visum franciplegii pertinens ad regale, retorna brevium, et omnes alias libertates, sicut et Comes Leicestrie.-Inquisitio, 1279.

son William, then aged seventeen, and Eleanor* his second wife surviving. The jurors found that the said William held the manor of Groby with the appurtenances, of the King in capite, by the service of half a Knight's fee, and that the capital messuage in Groby, with the gardens in Groby and Ratby, and dovecots, were worth yearly 20s. And there were at Groby 204 acres of demesne arable land, and at Burgh, which is part of the manor of Groby, four acres of arable land, every acre of which was worth yearly 6d. ; also there were hadlands worth 28.; 15 acres of meadow worth 30s.; and a piece of meadow called Ley Field worth yearly 40s.; also at Groby a Park, the pasture and pannage of which was worth yearly 66s. 8d., and the underwood of the said Park was worth yearly 6s. 8d.; also at Bradgate a Park, the herbage and underwood whereof was worth yearly 40s.; also there were certain outwoods in the Forest of Charnwood, the pasture of which was common, and the pannage was worth 35s.; two pools, the fishing of which was worth yearly 40s., two mills upon the said pools worth 46s. 8d.; a rent of assize of the freeholders there, at three times in the year, of £7. 5s. 2d. ; a rent of assize of the Forest of Charnwood of new grubbed up ground, of £7. 6s. 4d.; a rent of hens of the said Forest 9s.; five pounds of pepper, nine pounds of cummin seed, five pairs of gloves, one ounce of silk, one dozen of knots of kalcedon, six dozen of iron arrows, one clove gillyflower, worth yearly 7s. 7d.; and also 43 vergerers, who held 43 yard lands and a half in villanage; 25 of which yard lands and a half pay yearly 13s. 4d., and the 18 residue thereof pay yearly 10s., making the sum of £26.; and every one of the said customary tenants ploughed once in the winter time and once in Lent with his neighbour, the lord finding them victuals, and every ploughing is worth 3d. ; and every one of them gardened at the said seasons, and every gardening was worth 1d.; also the copyholders used to reap, cut, and carry the hay of 15 acres of meadow in Groby, the same being worth 4d.; and they used to mow and lay together the lord's demesne lands, which were reputed to be nine score and six acres, yearly, which service was valued at 62s.; also they used to carry the corn in the autumn, which was 6s. 8d.; there were two customary tenants who held two yard lands and paid yearly 26s. 8d.; cottagers who paid yearly 61s. 10d.; also there were 17 acres of arable land in Middleham, which the customary tenants farmed at 11s. 4d.; also the pleas and perquisites of the Court of Groby and Leicester, which was the share of the said William, were valued yearly at £8.

WILLIAM, the second Baron, was summoned to Parliament in 1293 as Baron Ferrars of Groby, and died in 1324, leaving his son Henry heir.

This HENRY married Isabel, youngest daughter and one of the co-heiresses of Theobald

* Mr. Fraser Tytler, generally so accurate in his facts, and other Historians seem at fault about this lady. Mr. Tytler appears to have considered her a daughter of Lord Ferrars. Her maiden name was Poynings. To this Eleanor (16 Edward I.) the King assigned the manors of Stubbing and Woodham Ferrars, Co. Essex, till she should have her dowry set forth. This being soon after assigned her (on her taking oath that she would not re-marry without license) she went into Scotland there to obtain her dowry of such lands as belonged to her. Being at Tranent (the Manor-house of her kinswoman Helen la Zouch in that realm) William de Douglas, the companion of Wallace, took her thence against her will and carried her to another place. On this, a complaint being made to Edward, he sent his precept to the Sheriff of Northumberland to seize the goods and chattels of the said William de Douglas which were then in that bailiwick. But shortly after (19 Edward I.), in consideration of £100. fine, the King granted Douglas the benefit of her marriage.-See Dugdale's Baronage, page 277.

de Verdon. He procured the privilege of a market at Groby, to be held every Friday, and a yearly fair on the eve and day of St. George and two days after, which grant is dated March 12, 1337-8, and dying in 1343 was succeeded by his son William.

This WILLIAM dying in 1371 the estate came to his son HENRY, who died in 1388, leaving a son WILLIAM, who died without issue male in 1444, his only son Henry having predeceased him. This Henry left an only daughter ELIZABETH, married to SIR EDWARD GREY, eldest son by the second wife (Joan, daughter and heir of William Lord Astley, of Broughton Astley) of Reginald de Grey, Lord Grey de Ruthyn, who in 1410 recovered in the Court of Chivalry against Sir Edward Hastings, the right to the name and arms of Lord Hastings. It is singular that, after a lapse of more than four hundred years, these families and honours should unite in the person of the present Earl of Rawdon, son of the Marquis and Marchioness of Hastings.

Edward Grey, Lord Ferrars of Groby, died December 18th, 1458, seised of the manor of Groby with the appurtenances, held of the King as of the honour of Tutbury, by the service of half a Knight's fee, and Sir John Grey, Knight, his son and heir, was then aged more than twenty-five years. The inquisition states that Edward Grey, Lord Ferrars, held the manor of Groby, &c., in right of Elizabeth his wife, by the gift of Margaret de Ferrars to William her son, whose cousin and heiress the said Elizabeth was, viz. :-son of William the son of Henry-the son of William, son of the said William the son of the said Margaret.

The issue by the marriage of Edward Grey with the heiress of Groby were Sir John Grey, Knight, who married the celebrated Elizabeth Widvile or Woodville, Edward the second son (created Lord Lisle by Edward IV. in 1475, in right of his wife, daughter of Sir John Talbot, and sister and heir of Thomas Viscount Lisle, and advanced by Richard III. to the same dignity), Reginald and Anne.

Strongly attached to the House of Lancaster, Sir John Grey (for he is little known as Lord Ferrars-probably from his not surviving his mother) was slain at the battle of St. Albans, February 17, 1460). He left two sons-Sir Thomas Grey, who in 1460 succeeded as Lord Ferrars of Groby, and eleven years afterwards was created Earl of Huntingdon, and subsequently, viz. in 1475, Marquis of Dorset, K.G.—and Sir Richard Grey, whose melancholy fate we shall shortly have to record. The vicissitudes of their illustrious and highminded mother seem first to require notice.

To trace Elizabeth Widvile from her girlhood, when she wrote that remarkable journal of her daily duties and daily feelings,† to her closing scene, would occupy too much space.

Lady Ferrars survived her husband, Sir Edward Grey, and afterwards formed a second alliance with
Sir John Bourchier, Knight.

THURSDAY MORNING (May 10, 1451).—Rose at four o'clock, and helped Katherine to milk the cows: Rachael, the other dairy-maid, having scalded one of her hands in a very sad manner last night. Made a poultice for Rachael, and gave Robin a penny to get her something comfortable from the apothecary's. Six o'clock.-Breakfasted. The buttock of beef rather too much boiled, and the ale a little the stalest. Memorandum to tell the cook about the first fault, and to mend the second myself, by tapping a fresh barrel directly. Seven o'clock.-Went out with the Lady Duchess, my mother, into the court-yard; fed five and thirty men and women; chid Roger very severely for expressing some dissatisfaction in attending us with the broken meat. Eight o'clock.-Went into the paddock behind the house with my maiden Dorothy: caught Stump, the little black pony, myself, and rode a matter of six miles, without