128 EPONYMOUS FAMILIES OF DORSET. 



BAIEUX. 



It is uncertain when the first "De Baieux," or " De Baiocis," 

 arrived in England, but it seems probable that this name was 

 attached to some follower of the turbulent Eudo, Bishop of 

 Baieux, and brother of the Conqueror. With Ranulph de 

 Baieux, however, of the time of Henry I., we pass from the 

 region of conjecture into the realm of substantial fact. This 

 Ranulph had a son, Hugh de Baieux, who was living in the izth 

 year of Henry II., and still alive in the 8th of Rich. II. Hugh's 

 son John, succeeded to the estate, and, being childless, 

 founded a chantry at Waybaioux (now Upwey) in the 28th 

 year of Henry III., but died without children five years after- 

 wards, leaving his brother, Stephen, his heir.* 



This Stephen was in high favour with King Henry III., who 

 remitted the payments due upon succession ; but Stephen 

 appears to have made an unfortunate choice of a son-in-law for 

 his elder daughter, Maud, in the person of Elias de Rabayne, or 

 Rabel, who, having married one of the co-heiresses to the 

 Waybaioux estate, had the effrontery, after the death probably 

 of his father-in-law, to carry off both his wife and her only 

 sister, Joan, beyond the sea, " with the intention of defrauding 

 his lord the King " (of the profits of wardship and control of her 

 property) and "of seizing her inheritance for himself."f The 

 nearness of France and the remoteness of the County of Dorset 

 from the capital, may have led him to think he could escape 

 unnoticed, but the King heard of these proceedings and at once 

 ordered the Sheriff to seize the Manor of Waybaioux on behalf 

 of the King, who then granted part of it to Stephen de Boys, 

 while another part went to enrich some quite new people, Henry 

 de Beaumont, called a " cousin of the King," and his sister, 

 Isabel, who was married to John de Vesci, Lord of Alnwick. 

 King Edward, however, relented in course of time, and, upon 

 the marriage of Matilda, niece to Stephen de Boys, with 



* This pedigree from Nicholas Hist. Peer. 

 t Hutchins II., 4. 



