170 THE ORIGIN OF THE SHIRLEYS AND OF THE GRESLEYS. 



Whichever of the two men above is referred to as " this 

 knight," he did not, and could not, appear in Domesday, and 

 he did not hold Catton. Moreover, even on the writer's 

 showing, there was no such person as " Robert hi Nigel, Lord 

 of Cainhoe," no Robert among its lords having a Nigel for 

 a father. Mr. Yeatman proceeds to state on the same page 

 that " Ailmer de St. Amand " married the Albini co-heir, 

 although it was Ralf de St. Amand (as elsewhere stated by 

 himself*). 



In the next paragraph we read that- — 



At this period the Gresleys were not certainly tenants of the Ferrars 

 family. + It is clear that they were knights of the Honour of Peverel, etc. 



To this I reply that they were knightly tenants of Ferrers 

 under Henry II., as the very next paragraph, it will be found, 

 admits,| and that they were not, either then or at any other 

 time, " knights of the Honour of Peverel." . 



I will take this last proposition first, in order to clear it 

 out of the way once and for all. For the Derbyshire Gresleys 

 were never " knights of the Honour of Peverel." 



If I were suddenly to announce that " two and two are 

 five," I should probably find "great difficulty " in explaining 

 the fact. Mr. Yeatman's difficulties are at times due to similar 

 discoveries. We read in his latest volume that — 



A great difficulty is to be found in the fact that three fees were held 

 in Derbyshire {sic) by a Gresley of the Honour of Peverel, but records 

 give no particulars of their manors. . - . . . Ralf, the second of these 

 five sons, held three fees of the Peverel Honour in Derbyshire [sic) in 

 3 John, and there is a good deal of evidence in the Pipe Rolls showing 

 that this Ralf was no myth, but not showing who he was or what were 

 his fees '.' (pp. 131-2). 



* Sec. vii., p. 174. 



+ Six pages further on it is definitely asserted that — " It was not until 

 about the year 1200 that the Gresleys of Drakelowe became knights of 

 the Earl of Ferrars " (p. 286). 



+ This paragraph, referring to " the duel of the Earl de Ferrars " in 1177, 

 speaks of " the list of his knights (see p. 121, where the names of a 

 number of the Earl's tenants of that date are to be found)." We refer to 

 p. 121, and duly find a list of men whose families are known to have 

 been knightly tenants of the Earl under Henry II. Among them are 

 Robert and Henry de Gresley, two brothers who appear together in 

 several of the Gresley charters now at Drakelowe and in one of the 

 Okeover charters. Robert was the son of William Fitz Nigel, who held 

 four fees of the Earl in 1166. 



