11 



pistarg of ^rwjjjjton (Siffortr. 



By the Rev. John "WrLKiNsoir. 



Continued from Vol. v. p. 341. 



The Hardings. 



P3*lj^HE next most considerable proprietor is Edward Talbot 

 ilffP Day Jones, Esq., 1 of Hinton House, Co. Somerset. These 

 lands came by the Hardings, whose genealogy I have endeavoured 

 to trace through family deeds, Court Rolls, and the Parochial re- 

 gisters of Broughton Gifford, and Hinton Charterhouse. "Whatever 

 the labour, it has been well bestowed, for there was an especial ob- 

 ligation to preserve from oblivion the ancestors of that family, to 

 which our place and people are indebted for righteous deeds and 

 alms, which here at least should always be had in grateful remem- 

 brance. A few particulars will be sufficient to illustrate the pedi- 

 gree. The earliest mention of the name occurs in an inquisition 

 held on Guido Palmes, in which one William Harding appears a 

 tenant 1507. The next notice is in the Court rolls of the manor, 

 in which one John Hardinge was (1544) tenant to Robert May ; 

 he was also in that year one of the jurors, as well as one of the 



1 The Parish is to he congratulated on still having a Talbot among its pro- 

 prietors, and one so worthily representing the name. Mr. Jones is a nephew of 

 Lord Talbot de Malahide, who is descended from the same original stock as 

 John the first Earl of Shrewsbury. Both have probably the same remote ances- 

 tor. But the Malahide Talbots went to Ireland in the time of Henry II., and 

 the family have continued there ever since. They were summoned by writ to 

 the Irish House of Lords as early as Edward II. They include in their quar- 

 terings the original Talbot Arms, Bendy of ten pieces. They have at different 

 times married into the Shrewsbury branch, and the late Earl of Shrewsbury 

 (who died 1852) included an Archbishop of the Malahide branch among the 

 effigies in his chapel at Alton Towers, and even said he considered that family 

 to have a better title to the Earldom than the Ingestrie line. In this he was 

 mistaken. The Ingestrie claim, is, after all, doubtful : but it would be impossi- 

 ble to include the Malahide Talbots among the descendants of the first Earl. 

 There might have been the same common early progenitor, but there was a 

 divergence before the time of the first Earl. 



