THE ORIGIN OF THE SHIRLEYS AND OF THE GRESLEYS. 1 65 



physician. Among the under-tenants, also, the name is quite 

 a common one.* The fact that a man bore it does not 

 create even a presumption that he belonged to the house of 

 Albini. 



We saw, in discussing the origin of the Shirleys, the 

 importance of the entry relating to their ancestor in the great 

 Ferrers return of knights in 1166. It is immediately followed 

 by that which relates to the Gresleys' ancestor : — 



Willelmus Alius Nigelli feoda iiij. militum ; et Robertus Alius suus, modo 

 tenet eosdem milites. 



Here we have, there is no dispute, a pedigree of three 

 generations ; and we who uphold the Gresley pedigree recognise 

 the Robert who was holding these four knights' fees in 1 1 66 

 as Robert de Gresley. t The Bishop of Coventry's return in 

 1 166 mentions Robert de Gresley as holding one of his fees. 



* See Ellis' Introduction to Domesday, II., 357-8. It is impossible to 

 agree with. Mr. Yeatman's views on the frequency of Christian names. 

 On p. 280 of Sec. II. he writes that " both Fulc and Sewell are common 

 christian names," though the latter is, on the contrary, rare in the twelfth 

 century, and valuable in Derbyshire as pointing at that time to a descen- 

 dant of " Saswalo." So, too, on p. 190 of Sec. VII. we read that " If 

 Mr. Round had only examined some of the original charters which he has 

 edited, he would have discovered that the names of Alan and Flaald were 

 both extremely common in Brittany." On the contrary, while Alan 

 was one of the commonest names in the Duchy, Flaald was one of the 

 very rarest ; so extraordinarily rare, indeed, as to be really distinctive. 



\Not an Albini, nor of necessity a Toesni either. Mr. Yeatman asserts 

 (p. 121) that " Mr. Round . . . warmly confirms the statement of 

 Mr. Jeayes of a Toesni descent." This is the exact opposite of the truth. 

 I did not even mention Mr. Jeayes in my article, and I praised Mr. Madan 

 for his candour in admitting " that actual proof is wanting " for the 

 descent from Toesni (The Ancestor, No. 1, p. 196). Here, then, we 

 have another of Mr. Yeatman's characteristic assertions. And yet another, 

 I am sorry to say, is found on pp. 211-12. After stating that I have 

 " adopted without any acknowledgment " the views of the author of 

 The Norman People, and " adopted the absurd theory " of that writer 

 (pp. 186-7), and thereby " fallen into his ditch " (p. 189), Mr. Yeatman 

 boldly asserts that " The author of The Norman People has boldly 

 annexed Alan fil Flaald, of Monmouth and Norfolk, as son of Guihenoc the 

 Monk . . . and Mr. Round adopts this affiliation." This, as in the 

 instance preceding, is the exact opposite of the truth, for I mentioned 

 that affiliation only to reject it absolutely. The author of that work 

 makes Flaald (not, of course, as Mr. Yeatman, blundering again, asserts, 

 his son Alan) son of Guienoc. What I wrote on this was that " the 

 rashness and inaccuracy which marred that book resulted in his being 

 wrongly pronounced a 'son of 'Guienoc'" Peerage Studies, p. 117). 

 Oddly enough it is my critic himself who has adopted the baseless theory 

 of that work that Flaald was a son of Guihenoc (see 203 of his work). 



