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WARENNIANA—ANCIENT LETTERS AND NOTICES
RELATING TO THE EARLS DE WARENNE.
PARTLY FROM ORIGINAL MSS.
BY W. H. BLAAUW, ESQ., M.A., F.S.A.
partly read at the arundel meeting, august 9,1849, and subsequently enlarged.
The prominent and intimate connection of the Earls de Warenne with the history of Sussex, and the enduring traces of their influence, still represented by the descendants of their family, justify the contribution of any fresh notices of them. Among the long series of earls from the Conquest, the usual proportion of loyalty and violence, of enterprise and failings, has been put on record; but it is not intended here to dwell on their genealogy or general biography, which have been amply illustrated by Dr. Watson in his 'History of the Warennes.' It will be readily remembered that the first Norman Lord, on whom so much Sussex wealth was bestowed, the husband of the royal Gundrada, had only two male lineal successors of his power and title, after whom the heiresses of two generations, in 1148 and 1168, carried them to members of the royal family, by whose descendants they were enjoyed until, in 1847, the title became secondary when absorbed by the Fitz Alans, Earls of Arundel.
The following scattered notices, necessarily miscellaneous, only purport to add any incidental light, derived either from printed documents little known, or from manuscripts, among which are some letters, now six hundred years old, offering genuine evidence of the manners and feelings of the times.
The first letter here introduced has been frequently printed in Latin,[1] but the spirited reproaches of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the widowed Countess de Warenne, deserve to form
- ↑ By Selden, in his Hist. of Tythes; by Vincent, p. 517; by Watson, p.l39; and by Sir H. Ellis, Orig. Lett. 85, i, 23, from the original in Cott. MSS. Vesp. F. xiii, f. 3.
