Page:Devon and Cornwall Queries Vol 9 1917.djvu/138

I04 Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries. find another Robert de Helyun establishing his claim to the family property {ibidem, Nos. 407 and 374), which property, including Ashton, passed by right of marriage to Ferrers, Prouz and Chiidleigh. Robert de Helyun, junior, therefore died sine prole, perhaps was never married, and I believe that the Purbeck marble slab in Ashton Church covers the remains of the widow of Robert de Helion, crusader. The chancel may have been added just previous to her death as memorial to her husband, and this place of sepulture in the thickness of the wall then prepared, in which case the re-dedication of the altar was probably performed by Bishop Wm. Briwere before his death in 1244. In any case Dr. Oliver is in error in ascribing the dedication to St. Nectanus on the 22nd Nov., 1259 {Mon. Dice. Exon, f. 445). On that date Bishop Bronescombe dedicated the church of Aiscunibe, i.e., Ashcombe {Reg. Bp. Bronescombe, f. 67). Ashton Church, as the figure placed in the adjoining panel to the Virgin and Child in the door of the rood screen perhaps bears witness, was dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Ashton Manor transferred by marriage from the De Helion to the Le Pruz family. — In volume v. of D. N. S- Q., f. 151, Sir Fulk Ferrers, of Throwleigh, is shown to have married Alice, daughter of Sir Hervey de Helion, of Ashton. The Rev. O. J. Reichel repeats this in his summary of the owner- ship of Ashton Manor {Trans. D. Assoc, vol. xlvii,, f, 216). From the evidence afforded by the Feet of Fines, Fulk, son of Gilbert de Ferrers, was married to Lucy, daughter of Richard Folyot {Devon Feet of Fines, Nos. 345 and 543), and both were living on loth May, 1254, when they are defendants to a claim made by William le Pruz, of Gidleigh, as to a moiety of one knight's fee and the advowson of Throwleigh {ibidem). If Fulk de Ferrers married Alice, the daughter of Herveius de Helion (Herveius died ante 1220), it must have been either subsequent to 1254, when Alice would be at least 35 years of age, or, what is more probably the explanation, the marriage with Lucy Foliot, which apparently took place in 1238 {Devon Fine, No. 345, being the marriage settlement), was a second marriage of Fulk de Ferrers, he having first married the only daughter of de Helion. Presumably by the first marriage Fulk de Ferrers had