THE ORIGIN OF THE SHIRLEYS AND OF THE GRESLEYS. 1 75 



Let it be clearly understood that all this difficulty and 

 confusion arises solely from the desperate endeavour to prove 

 that the Gresleys of Gresley were really Albinis of Cainhoe. 

 Nor have we even yet exhausted the difficulties thus created. 

 For if the Albinis, as alleged, were the holders of the Gresley 

 manors, how did they come to lose them ? Why did not these 

 manors descend with the rest of their property, as did Catton ? 

 Mr. Yeatman confesses that he cannot tell us. Here are his 

 own words : — 



How the Albinis lost the greater part of their Derbyshire possessions 

 is unknown, just as it is uncertain how the later Gresleys crept into them ; 

 but it is quite sufficient to prove that the older Gresleys were Albinis, 

 and to show a continuous holding by them and by the St. Amands of 

 portions, and it is not necessary to prove how they lost them.* 



On the contrary, it is most necessary to prove that they did 

 lose them, Mr. Yeatman having failed to produce any vestige 

 of proof that they ever held them or that " the older Gresleys 

 were Albinis." 



I have already shown (pp. 164-5) tnat m tw0 P assa g es 

 Mr. Yeatman has charged me with making the early Gresleys 

 Toesnis, and " confounding the Toesnis with the Albinis." 

 In yet a third he calmly states that — 



Mr. Round took the Albini history so far as it is recorded, but misread 

 it, and guessed, wrongly, that they were Toesnis, and then, by means of 

 tampering with the records by most unwarrantable additions and glosses 

 of his own,f he converted the Gresleys (Albinis) to his own satisfaction into 

 an unknown family, who merely took the name of the territory, and who 

 evidently intruded without a shadow of right, + etc., etc. 



I never took " the Albini history " or even had any Albinis 

 in mind when dealing with the early Gresleys. On the contrary, 

 I reject and repudiate, as a perfectly baseless delusion, the 

 view that these Gresleys were Albinis, which is merely 

 Mr. Yeatman's own. Moreover, I do not even accept it as 

 proved^ that those Gresleys were of Toesni stock. Who, then, 

 is guilty, in Mr. Yeatman's words, of " confounding the Toesnis 



* Sec. vii., p. 123. 



+ 1 shall dispose of this gross charge on p. 176. 



+Sec. vii., p. 186. 



§ See p. 164. 



