1 66 THE ORIGIN OF THE SHIRLEYS AND OF THE GRESLEYS. 



General Wrottesley has identified this fee as lying in " Morton, 

 Tamhorn, and Wolseley," Staffs., all of which were held " by 

 Nigel, the grandfather of Robert de Gresley," in Domesday, 

 and were subsequently held by Robert's descendant, Geoffrey 

 de Gresley, temp. Edward I. {i.e., 1 284-1 286).* This is of 

 the greatest possible importance, as affording independent 

 testimony from Staffordshire to the Gresley descent. For 

 Gresley itself, etc., descended in precisely the same way Jo 

 the above Geoffrey de Gresley, who held it in 1284-1286! 

 (Kirkby's Quest). 



" And here it is imperative to notice," as Mr. Yeatman 

 himself would say, \ his treatment of Kirkby's Quest. 

 Insisting that "to write history correctly, one must first study 

 our great national records," he complains§ of the Testa de 

 Nevill, that "the Editor, who, in 1833, prepared this edition 

 for the Master of the Rolls, || took no trouble whatever to 

 ascertain its true date."U For the question of date, of course, 

 is all-important in dealing with such returns. 



Now, according to him, " Kirkby's Quest shows that Galf 

 de Gresley held three fees in the reign of Edward I."** Yet 

 in the same volume, when he comes to Kirkby's Quest, he 

 pronounces it, after careful consideration,! t to have been "taken 

 22-25 Henry III." J J (1237-1241); that is to say, more than 

 thirty years before Edward came to the throne ! In the 



* See his paper on " The Liber Niger Scaccarii : Barony of the Bishop 

 of Coventry" (Salt Society, i., 153). It is important, we shall find, to 

 observe that he also considers the " Willelmus Alius Nigelli," who wit- 

 nesses a charter of the Bishop of Coventry, temp. Stephen to be probably 

 William de Gresley. 



t Feudal Aids, i., 248. 



X '■' And here it is imperative to notice another and most astounding 

 instance of Mr. Round's mode of writing history." (Sec. vii., p. 124.) 



§Sec. ii., p. 381. 



|| This is yet another of Mr. Yeatman's inaccuracies, for although he 

 begins his account of the Testa by stating that it was "printed under 

 the direction of the Master of the Rolls" (p. 365), the Master of the 

 Rolls had nothing to do with it. It was edited for the old Record 

 Commission. 



II Sec. ii., p. 365. 

 ** Ibid., p. 288. 

 ft Ibid., p. 458-9. 



XX Ibid., p. 457. Accordingly we find, in the index, the date "22 

 Hen. III." against some names that occur in it. 



