68 REPORT 0'^ THE MEETINGS FOR 1899 



destroyed in the same manner in January 1822, and has 

 not been restored.* 



The family of Delaval, related to the Norman Conqueror 

 by the marriage of Guido or Guy de la Val to Dionysia, 

 William's niece, obtained large grants of manors and lands 

 in Northumberland and other parts of England. Gilbert 

 Delaval took up arms against King Jolm, and was with 

 the barons at Stamford at Easter 1215, but was not, as 

 has been sometimes stated, one of the twenty-five barons 

 who were sworn to see the due execution and observance 

 of Magna Charta and the Charta de Foresta.f 



Sir Ralph Delaval, a cadet of the family, and a distinguished 

 naval officer, fought gallantly at La Hogue, rose to be Yice- 

 Admiral of the Red, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. 

 It was more particularly during the time of Sir Francis 

 Blake Delaval (died 7th August 1771), and his brother, Sir 

 John Delaval (who in 1783 was raised to the peerage of 

 Ireland), that the family acquired their reputation for courtl}' 

 splendour, profuse living, and open-house jollity. Sir Francis 

 Delaval having determined to enter Parliament, went down to 

 Andover,;|: which then returned two members to the House. 

 An utter stranger to the place, he obtained his election by an 

 original manoeuvre. On the nomination day he discharged, 

 from a culverin, five hundred guineas over the heads of 

 the multitude assembled round the hustings, which soon 

 determined the choice of the free and independent voters, 

 and he was elected as one of their representatives. Other 

 singular stories are told of his subsequent elections, one of 



* For fuller description of the hall see Wallis, Antiquities of North- 

 umberland, Vol. u., p. 276 ; Hutchinson, View of Northumberland 

 (ed. 1778) Vol. ii., pp. 330-333 : and Mackenzie, Northumberland, Vol. 

 u., pp. 418-420. 



t For an extensive, and in every way admirable, account of the 

 family history and genealogy of the family of Delaval see the Rev. 

 E. H. Adamson's Attempt to trace the Delavals from the time of the 

 Norman Conquest to the present day, printed in Archceologia Mliana, 

 Vol. XII., pp. 215-228. The results of more recent investigations into 

 this history of the Delaval family may be found in the Rev. R. E. 

 G. Cole's History of the Parish of Doddington, Lincolnshire. 



X cf. Hewitt's Visits to Remarkable Places, Second Series, pp. 367- 

 371. 



