Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/215

THE ANCESTOR 163 qualitie and wicked disposicion of the said Rob'® Baildon, had dyvers and sundri tymes in moste grevous manner thretened yo' pore subiect, Rob'*" Murrowes, to hange him, and that he would hange him, and that he would make him run his countrie w'^'in few daies ensewinge ' — which seems a litde out of the natural sequence of events. The cousin William mentioned in Edward's postscript was the eldest son of Robert, as already mentioned. His wife was Margaret, daughter of Arthur Maude of West Riddlesden, his mother's brother. The young cousins referred to were probably Robert's daughters and William's two sons, William and John. 1 know very little of the elder William. He was visited by Roger Dodsworth in 1 6 1 9, and gave him some items of local information. Dodsworth records in his notebook — ' to Bail- don, where Mr. Baildon liveth, as his ancestors of long time have done, in good repute.' Somewhere about this time he became blind. In 1625, he complained that one William Cowper of High Bendey, in the county of York, was ^ takeing advantage of yo"" Orator's age and infirmity and disability to follow and prosecute sutes of lawe, yo' Orator being very aged, and having bene blynde by the space of seaven yeares now last past or thereaboutes.'^ He died on December 20, 1628. The pedigree given by Robert Baildon in his reply to Edward's letter contains two errors ; he has left out a genera- tion and married a mother to her son. The name of the wife of the first Nicholas should, of course, be Fitz William, not Saint William. She was in all probability a daughter of Sir John FitzWilliam of Sprotborough, who had property at Baildon. Their son was Robert Baildon, who, in 1447, mar- ried Amice, daughter of Walter Calverley of Calverley. The marriage settlement provides that Nicholas ' shall hold and fynd y^ said Rob' at Courte at London two yere, at y^ costages of y^ same Nicholas . . . excepte two marcs whiche y^ said Wauter [Calverley] shall pay to y® expenses of fyndynge of y^ same Rob' duryng y® said two yere.' ^ Walter was Robert's son ; he married a daughter of Thomas Gargrave. The remainder of the pedigree is correct. Turning now to Edward Baildon, the writer of the letter, although he calls himself Robert's nearest kinsman, I have not ^ Chancery Proceedings,' Mitford, liv. No. 66. 2 British Museum, Additional Charters , No. 16939.