A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



For the next hundred years the succession is 

 uncertain. The heirs of Jordan de Hulton held 

 Melling, paying the ancient los. in 1297,' and in 

 the extent of the lands of Thomas earl of Lancaster 

 made in 1324 it is stated that ' Peter de Burnhull 

 (Brindle) holds the manor of Melling by the service 

 of los. for all services." Jordan de Hulton had 

 occurred in connexion with Melling in 1259-60, 

 when Henry de Melling claimed 8 marks from him, 

 the arrears of an annual half-mark due. 8 There is 

 nothing to show how the manor passed to Jordan, or 

 to Peter de Burnhull.* Peter's two sisters were his 

 heirs Joan, who married William Gerard of Kingsley 

 in Cheshire, ancestor of Gerard 

 of Bryn ; and Agnes, who mar- 

 ried another Cheshire man, 

 David de Egerton. 4 The Eger- 

 tons disappear, and in the feo- 

 dary of 1483 it is stated that 

 'Thomas Gerard [and others] 

 hold Melling.' It is to be 

 noted, however, that the in- 

 quisitions relating to the Gerards 

 do not claim any ' manor ' there, 

 but only a rent of a few shil- 

 lings. Thus Sir Peter Gerard, 

 who died in 1446, had ;/. and 

 I $1. rents in Melling, 6 and Sir Thomas Gerard in 

 1523 held land there of the king in socage worth 

 3/. clear. 6 



Although this succession is supported by the sheriff's 

 accounts, it is not quite satisfactory. The Byron 

 family or a branch of it had certain manorial rights 

 in Melling ; and as Jordan de Hulton, rector of War- 

 rington, is found to call Geoffrey de Byron 'my 

 cousin ' 7 it appears probable that their right origi- 

 nated through him." Again, the Molyneuxes of 

 Thornton had a fair estate here from an early time, 

 and claimed a share of the manor. 9 In I 292 Robert 

 son of Robert de Molyneux appears as claimant of a 



tenement against Henry son of Henry de Bootle, and 

 the latter Henry's widow Alice, 10 and as defendant in 

 suits brought by William son of Adam de Sefton, the 

 ' Demand ' of Sefton, as to tenements which he claimed 

 in right of his grandfather Award de Sefton. In one of 

 these claims, which included a share of the wood, 

 Robert de Byron was the other defendant." Robert de 

 Molyneux relied on a technical plea that his mother 

 Margery held a third in dower ; but Robert de Byron 

 denied that Award was ever in possession, and the 

 plaintiff withdrew his claim. 



Some years later (1300 onwards) Adam the 

 Forester of Melling made a number of claims against 

 various people of the vill," in respect of the inheri- 

 tance of his wife Anabil, daughter of Bernard son ot 

 Richard. One of these suits placed Robert de Byron, 

 Robert de Molyneux of Thornton, Margery late the 

 wife of Robert de Thornton first among the de- 

 fendants. Their defence was that they were lords of 

 the town of Melling, holding the waste in common ; 

 Adam the Forester had enclosed part of this waste, 

 and they had pulled down his hedge, as it was lawful 

 for them to do. The jury accepted this defence and 

 dismissed Adam's claim. 13 Robert de Byron, Henry 

 and Nicholas de Bootle and others were in 1303 

 charged with assaulting one Henry de Moss, and 

 carrying him off to prison at Lancaster, for which he 

 claimed 1,000 damages." 



Robert de Byron was succeeded by two daughters 

 Isabel, who married Robert de Nevill of Hornby, 

 and Maud, who married William Gerard of Kingsley, 

 father of the William Gerard above mentioned." 

 The latter thus had a double right in Melling, by 

 his mother as well as by his wife. The Nevill share 

 descended with Hornby to the Harringtons, and in 

 the division of Sir John Harrington's 16 estate between 

 his two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, Melling went 

 to the former. She married John Stanley, son and 

 heir of John Stanley of Weaver, in Cheshire (a 

 younger brother of the first earl of Derby)," and Jane, 



