A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



the earliest. He was thus only five years old in 124.6* when he manumitted 

 two of his natives of Poulton, near Warrington, 8 a liberty extended to other 

 natives of Ashton and Newton, in Makerfield, in 1256* He obtained on 

 13 January, 1257, a charter of free warren in his demesne lands of Walton- 

 in-le-Dale, Newton-(in)-Makerfield, and Woolston, near Warrington,* and in 

 December of the same year a weekly market on Tuesday, and an annual fair 

 on the eve, the feast, and the morrow of St. German the bishop, at his manor 

 of Newton. 6 In November, 1268, he was appealing Richard de Holand and 

 eight others in the king's court for the destruction of his fish pond at Newton, 

 and for carrying away and imprisoning his wife and sons. 6 He was commis- 

 sioned in 1 279 with two others to inquire of those in the county having land 

 to the value of 20 yearly who had not taken up knight's service. 7 The same 

 year he was commissioned to inquire of trespasses done in the forests of 

 Lancaster. 8 In 1280 he was one of the justices appointed for the gaol delivery 

 at Lancaster. 9 We have dealt at length with the petition which he presented 

 in Parliament in 1278 for the recovery of the manor of Prestatyn, lost by his 

 great-grandfather a hundred years before. He failed to obtain a re-grant of 

 this estate, but there is some evidence that in lieu thereof the king gave him 

 the manor of Little Mollington, co. Chester, afterwards known as Mollington 

 Banastre, to hold by the service of a fourth part of a knight's fee. 10 In 1284, 

 whilst Richard was prior of St. Oswald's of Nostell, Robert Banastre obtained 

 licence for a chantry in his manor of Rokeden in Newton, in return for 

 which he endowed the church of Winwick with a yearly rent of 1 2d. for 

 lights for the altar of St. Mary the Virgin. 11 To Cockersand Abbey he con- 

 firmed all grants of land made by his tenants in Makerfield, but reserved 

 ' Infangenthef et Utefangenthev ' over the tenants of those lands, as pertain- 

 ing to him by reason of his barony. 18 To the monks of Stanlaw he 

 gave ten acres of land adjoining the chapel of the Low in Walton, 

 and estovers in his wood there." He married Alice, daughter and heir 



1 The arms of Robert Banastre are recorded as Argent, 3 chevrons gules ; Greenstreet, ' Harleian Roll of 

 Arms,' Genealogist, N. S. vol. 3, p. izo. One of his earliest charters granting lands in Woolston to Robert de 

 Samlesbury, and attested by William le Botiller, Richard le Botiller, Richard Phyton, then seneschal of Maker- 

 field, and others, is sealed with a seal bearing a water bouget and the legend S' ROBERTI BANASTRE. 

 (Ibid. 403. Chetham Soc. xcviii. zi.) This latter seal was evidently used by the grantor immediately after 

 attaining possession of his inheritance, and may possibly have been an old seal of his father's. Another charter, 

 attested by Richard Fitun, then seneschal of Makerfield, who died before May, 1246 (Lanes. Inquests, Rec. 

 Soc. xlviii. 161), grants lands in Newton, between Receruding and Kocshaewet, to Paulin, son of Richard de 

 Neuton. (Raines* Lanes. MSS. xxxviii. 113.) Another charter, granting to Philip, the clerk, of Chester, a 

 ridding in Walton is attested by Adam de Blakeburn, Henry de Whalley, Adam de Hoghton, Thurstan de 

 Holand, Adam de Holand, Hugh de Haydock, Gilbert de Suthworth, William de Sonky, Hugh de Hyndelegh, 

 Gilbert de Haydock, Jordan de Kenyan, Richard de Golburne, and Robert de Lauton. (Ibid. 121.) Most 

 of these were his tenants in Makerfield. His usual sealings are made with a small circular seal of green wax 

 bearing 3 chevronels upon a small triangular shield with two long sides, surrounded by the legend S' ROB : 

 BANASTRE >J<. In some of his seals a rather larger shield appears between 2 water bougets with the legends 

 SIG : ROBERTI DE BANASTR' fa or S' ROBERTI BANASSTER %. This seal is exemplified by 

 Chris. Towneley from the de Hoghton charters in Add. MSS. No. 32,106, ch. 520. All his later sealings 

 were made with the 3 chevronels. 



3 Lanes. Fines (Rec. Soc.), xxxix. 100. z Ibid. 125. 



* Cal. Chart. R. i. 458. 



6 Chart. R. No. 53, 42 Hen. III. m. 5. 6 Cur. Reg. R. No. 1 86, m. 24^. 



1 Cal. Pat. R. 1272-81, 342. 8 Ibid. 406. 



9 Ibid. 450 ; Cal. Close R. 1279-88, 395. 

 10 Ches. Inq. 41 Edw. III. No. 3. " Chartul. of Nostel, Cott. MS. Vesp. E. xix. f. 179. 



18 ' Prout ad me pertinet racione baronie mee occasione hujusmodi latrocinii ubi sacrabel sequitur.' 

 Cockersand Chartul. Chetham Soc. 643. 



13 Coucher of W bailey, Chetham Soc. 113-6. 



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