FEUDAL BARONAGE 



We now return to Robert Banastre, the younger brother of Thurstan II. 

 In a petition presented in Parliament in the sixth year of Edward I., 1278, 

 the great-grandson of this Robert declared 



that his ancestor Robert Banastre, came to England with the Conqueror and had the manor 

 of Prestatyn 'in Englefeld ' (co. Flint) and other lands 1 which the petitioner still holds of 

 conquest by the Conqueror (du Cunquestre par le Cunqueror), which the said Robert held for 

 a long time. Who died possessed of that land, leaving his son Robert Banastre, who during 

 the time of King Richard built a tower at Prestatyn which still remains. In whose time 

 Owen Gwynedd, lord of Wales, made war in the land whilst the king was over the sea, 

 and having taken the king's castle of Rhuddlan, drove all the king's subjects out of the land. 

 Thus Robert, the son of Robert Banastre, lost his land in Wales and brought all his people 

 from Prestatyn, and from thence into Lancashire, where they are still called Le Westroys. 3 

 At his death Robert left three sons, Richard, Warin, and Thurstan, and during all his time 

 Llewelyn, the elder, made war. When Thurstan died he left one son named Robert, aged 

 but one year at his father's death, being twenty years in ward, who when he came of age, 

 lived but three years before he died, leaving one son, Robert, the petitioner, who was in 

 ward nineteen years. He prays the king for an inquest to be held by Englishmen, to declare 

 his right to the manor of Prestatyn, because the king has twice before commanded inquest to 

 be made by Englishmen and Welshmen jointly assembled, but the Welsh refused to attend, 

 declaring it to be contrary to their franchises, unless all the people of the district be at the 

 inquest, whereby Robert suffers delay to his great loss, and prays the king for remedy, if it 

 pleases him. 3 



By inquest held in accordance with the king's writ dated 24 October, 1279, 

 it was found that King Richard gave the manor of Prestatyn to Robert 

 Banastre, the petitioner's grandfather (sic), to hold by his service in fee and 

 inheritance, that Robert thereafter held the manor in peace by the space of 

 3^ years, within which time he built a tower which remained in part to that 

 day, and thereupon Owen Gwynedd, Prince of Wales, drove him out of the 

 manor and threw down his tower there. 4 



Whilst the petition and inquest contain some genealogical and chrono- 

 logical inaccuracies, they no doubt in the main record the true fact that 

 Prestatyn was granted by Henry II. to Robert Banastre, possibly for his good 

 services in the war of 1165, when he, with Randle de Bylines and William de 

 Curcy, was commissioned to munition and defend the castles of Basingwerk, 

 Rhuddlan, and Prestatyn. 5 Between 1 1 54 and 1 1 57 the king confirmed 

 various grants to the abbey of Basingwerk, including land called Kethlenedei 

 given by Robert Banastre. 8 The grantor of these lands was no doubt that 

 Robert who takes an important place in the attestation clause of several of 

 the charters of Ranulf, third earl of Chester of his line, which belong to the 

 period I I4I-9, 7 but he belongs rather to the generation of Thurstan I., whilst 

 the grantee of Prestatyn was a younger brother of Thurstan II. About the 

 year 1165 the vills of Walton-le-Dale, Mellor, Eccleshill, Little Harwood, 

 Over and Nether Darwen, all within the hundred of Blackburn and honour 

 of Clitheroe, were granted by Henry de Lacy, lord of Pontefract and Clitheroe, 

 to Robert Banastre to hold by the service of one knight's fee. 8 Soon after 

 Robert's expulsion from Prestatyn with his Welshmen or Westreys as they 



1 This no doubt refers to Robert de Rhuddlan named above, amongst whose lands Prestatyn was included. 



* This happened in the year 1 167. 8 R. of Par/. (Rec. Com.), i. *a. 



* Lanes. Inquests (Rec. Soc.), xlviii. 242. 6 Pipe R. Soc. ix. 67. 



6 Man. Angl. v. 263. A charter of Ranulf Gernons, earl of Chester, to the monks of Lancaster which 

 passed at Lancaster in or about 1149 is attested by Robert Banastre (Farrer, Lanes. Pipe R. 296). This 

 Robert may have been a younger brother of the elder Thurstan. 



7 Ches. Sheaf, iv. 114, from the Chartul. of St. Werburgh. Farrer, Lanes. Pipe R. 296. 



8 Kuerden MS. Chetham Lib. Fol. vol. 248, No. 268. 



I 369 47 



