Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/439

EXAMPLES OF MEDIyEVAL SEALS. 375 feast of St, Faith, 22 Edward III. (1348), and is preserved among the Compton Vcrney deeds in the possession of Lord Willoughby de Broke. We are indebted to Mr. Evelyn P. Sliirley for the communication of this example hitherto, as we believe, luidescribed. We have here the personal seal of a lady, bearing on an escutcheon, flanked by two wyvcrns, the arms of Ferre, a cross moline over all a baton,' dimidiated with, no doubt, her paternal coat, a lion rampant within an orle of trefoils slipped. The legend is * : sigill' : elianore : fehuk : . She was the widow of Guy Ferre, or de Ferre as the name is sometimes written, a son of another Guy Ferre, who in all probability was the brother of Otto, and son of the Jplin Ferre, whom we find mentioned as receiving aylandsome gratuity from Henry III., on eonveyinpp' to him the intelligence of the birth of J^ilB^rtle first-born son of Prince Edward in 1266.^ The family was most likely from abroad, and perhaps originally Norman ; for the name occurs several times as Fere in D'Anisy's Archives du Calvados, without any apparent connection with England, and there was t. lien. I., a fief of the Bishop of Bayeux, which was held by William and Uurandus Fere. Her parentage has not been discovered, but there is great reason to think she was a foreigner, and that her father's name was Montendre ; for the only coat we have found, corresponding with that on the sinister side of the escutcheon, is attributed by Glover to Mountender, namely, gu. a lion rampant within an orle of trefoils slipped or ; and according to Segoing the same arms were borne by one of the French families of Montendre. It is true the trefoils are not stated by Segoing to be slipped, but in French heraldry they are usually so' borne, and no mention made of the slip in the blazon. Guy Ferre, the father, and Margery his wife, daughter of Roger, son of Peter Fitz Osborn, according to Morant, had in 14 Edward I., a grant from Edward and his Queen of the Manor of Aythorp Rothiug, Essex, for their good service ; and, according to the same authority, this Guy had in 16 Edward I., a grant of the Manor of Netherhall, in Guestingthorpe, Essex. ^ Morant, in regard to his death, must have confounded him with his son Guy, as he states that he died in 16 Edward II. (1322). It is more probable that he died about 22 Edward I. (1294), or possibly a few years later, and was at that time seised, not only of the manors just mentioned, but also of the manor of Benhall and free warren in Kelton (Carlton) and Farnham, Suflblk.* In that year, 22 Edward I., Guy, the son, had a confirmation of the manor of Benhall, and according to Hasted, he had obtained in 19 Edward 1., a grant for his life of the manor of Chatham, Kent. In 25 Edward I., he or his father was a witness to the delivery of the Great Seal to John de Langton.^ Soon after this one of them is found to have been the King's Lieutenant in Gascony."* In 28 Edward I., Guy, the son, appeared before the king and his council at Westminster, on Tiiursday before Palm Sunday, and presented to the kino- 1 The Roll of arms t. Edw. IL gives ^ Cal. Liq. p.m. i., l2]. those of Sir Guy Ferre under Suffolk as ' Cal. Kot. Pat., .")7. " de joules, a un ler de niolin de .irgeiit, Vol. ii., 66. c un bastoun de azurt." ■" C;d. Kot. Pat. .).'». - Cal. Rot. Pat. 38 l>. ^ Rdt. Pari, i., 151. •* Mox-ant,ii.,467,307. Cal. Kol. P;it.,.ir..