Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/110

82 Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. 1191, when the King was nearly captured by the Saracens, whilst hawking outside Joppa, he was enabled to escape by the devotion of William de Preaux, the fourth son, who was himself taken prisoner. The King, however, before returning to England, reclaimed him by exchange for ten of the most noble of his captives. He was sent by King Richard, with certain Bishops and Earls, to represent him at the Election of the Emperor, Otho IV., and in 1203 King John made a grant to him of the Manor of Okehampton (the Okementon), co. Devon {vide Rot. Litt. Pat., Vol. I., p. 36). This, however, does not seem to have been confirmed or carried into effect. John, the eldest brother, held lands in Oxford, Kent and Gloucester, but none in Devonshire. He was, in 1200, one of the Sureties for King John in his Treaty with Philip H. of France. Ingelran, the second brother, held lands in Oxford, and was witness of a Charter of John (before he became King) in 1199, fc the Forests of Devon, Dartmoor, etc. Peter, the fifth brother (called Miles Peroptimns), held lands in Hants and the Channel Islands. As to his being the first of the Gidleigh branch of the family, as given in the traditional part of Westcote's Prowse Pedigree, Dr. Prowse knows of no evidence connecting him with that place. Obviously Peter, who married Mary, daughter and co-heir of William de Redvers de Vernon, in 1200, and died 1212, and was the great-great-grandson of Eudo Dapifer, could not be the grandfather of W^alter Prous, or Probus, Eudo Dapifer's grandson who, Pole tells us, held Gidleigh in capite in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I.; and although a John le Pruz followed Walter at Gidleigh, it is equally obvious that he could not have been Peter's eldest brother John ; Westcote also makes Walter's son William to have married the daughter and heiress of Giles de Gidleigh, and so to have (presumably) acquired Gidleigh for the family; whereas, as above, Walter, his father, was in possession earlier than 11 89. Dr. Prowse indeed considers the five brethren to have belonged to another branch of the family, which had separated from the stock at least three generations earlier than Peter's marriage in 1200. But to turn to the memorials in the church. On the