Original Documents.
SELECTIONS FROM THE MUNIMENTS OF LORD SCARSDALE.
By the kind permission of the Lord Scarsdale we are enabled to publish some of his ancient deeds. A brief statement of the early history of the family seems necessary for the purpose of explaining who were the parties to those deeds, and also to correct some errors which occur in Collins' Peerage. The annexed Pedigree, with the numbers affixed to each name, will assist the following statement.
Giraline de Curzon or Curson (I.), the ancestor of this noble family, came into England with the Conqueror, and had the manor of Lockinge, and divers other lands in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, granted to him. He had three sons; Stephen, the eldest, succeeded to the estates in Berkshire and Oxfordshire, and had the manor of Fauld in Staffordshire granted to him by William Earl Ferrars, He died without issue male, and so did Giraline, the third son.
Richard (II.), the second son, held four knights' fees in Croxhall, Kedleston, Twyford, and Edinhale, in the reign of Henry I. (1100—1135). He was succeeded by his son Robert (III.), who lived in the reign of Henry II. (1151—1189), and had a son Richard (IV.), who had issue Robert (V.), whose line terminated in an heir female, Mary, who married Edward Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
Richard (II.) had a second son Thomas (VI.), and he had a son Thomas (VII.), who had issue Richard (VIII.), living in the reign of Henry III. (1216—1272), and he had issue another Richard (IX.), who, according to Collins, held the fourth part of a knight's fee in Kedleston in 25 Edw. I. (1297). His son Ralph (X.) was the father of Richard (XI.), who held three parts of a knight's fee in Kedleston in 4 Edward III. (1331), and from him the present Lord Scarsdale is lineally descended as heir male.
As the first deed here given was made in the 10th Richard I., and is a grant by Richard de Curzon to Thomas, the son of Thomas de Curzon, it is plain that the Richard here mentioned was Richard (IV.), and that Thomas (VII.), the son of Thomas (VI.), was the grantee of that deed, and that the grantor and grantee were first cousins. Croxhall, Kedleston, Twyford, and Edinhale were held by Earl Ferrars in the time of Domesday, and the second deed shows that Kedleston had been granted by one of the Earls Ferrars to one of the Curzons; for it shows that Richard, the releasor of that deed, held immediately from the then Earl Ferrars; and as Richard (II.), his grandfather, held Croxhall, Kedleston, Twyford, and Edinhale, the inference is that that Richard was the grantee of those manors from the then Earl Ferrars.
