88 THE MANORS OF DERBYSHIRE. 



been bequeathed by his mother's brother, Cornelius Clarke, 

 of Ashgate, near Chesterfield. The fact, however, that Cornelius 

 Clarke had acquired the estate by purchase in 1666 raises a 

 question as to whether the manuscript has always descended 

 with Norton Hall, and beyond this date it seems impossible to 

 follow it. 



A curious story* is told in connection with the inheritance 

 of the estate by Urith Offley and her sister, which contains much 

 of the supernatural, but which bereft of its romance is as 

 follows : — On their father's death in 1751 the estate was inherited 

 by his only son, Edmond, a minor. Three years later, he died at 

 Edinburgh, where he was completing his education. To the 

 amazement of all concerned, it was discovered that the un- 

 scrupulous tutor of the youth had induced Edmond Offley to 

 make a will under which he and his wife would take the whole 

 estate. Eventually, the sisters compromised the matter by a 

 sacrifice of ^3,940. 



As the origin of the manuscripts cannot be further traced, 

 it is a matter for speculation as to the reason why the informa- 

 tion contained in it was collected, why the lists of manors 

 is not exhaustive, and why the tenure by which they were held 

 is always so carefully stated as, for example, the comparisons 

 with that of East Greenwich, in county Kent, so often quoted, 

 and by other minute particulars. 



It has been suggested in explanation that the manuscript was 

 a return of a Commission of Enquiry, for some reason unknown, 

 though possibly in consequence of the alienation of Lands 

 after the Reformation, as to what manors, church lands, etc., 

 existed in Derbyshire in which the Crown could claim rights. 

 The reference to the tenure of the manor of East Greenwich 

 was a phrase frequently used in legal documents of the sixteenth 

 century to express the conditions of title under which certain 



* See Mr. Augustus Hare's " The Story of My Lije," vol. v., p. 368 ; and 

 the Rev. Joseph Hunter's " Recovery of the Estates of the Offley s of Norton, in 

 1754," by G. Pickering, in 184.1. Mr. Hunter connects the family with that 

 of the present Lord Crewe. 



