Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/229

THE ANCESTOR 177 sometimes happen that a nephew is older than his uncle ; but the story is that they came together. Hugh, at any rate, with his palatine earldom, and estates in many counties besides, was now handsomely provided for, and had broad lands to bestow. Yet, if the tale be true, how shabbily he used this nephew of his. Strange also that Gilbert should receive nothing whatever from the king, with whom, as the earl's nephew, he would be not distantly connected, though we may ignore the theory of an office at court. Contrast his position with that of another Gilbert, also called a nephew of Earl Hugh — de Aquila, the baron of Pevensey. Compare his miserable moiety of Lostock with the estates which the barons of the palatinate received, or even with those granted in more settled times by later earls as a reward for good service, to le Roter, for instance, or to Fitton. But indeed Gilbert is made altogether a landless man, for even the moiety in question was only granted — if we are to believe Holford — to Robert his son. We shall find that not without a certain significance. By reference to Domesday, we can surely setde whether the story is true or false. Now Domesday knows nothing either of Grosvenor or of de Ronchamp, the alleged tenants of the two Lostocks. Indeed it has no mention of Lostock at all. At a later time both Lostocks are found to be members of Weaverham, the capital manor with which King Edward en- dowed his abbey of Vale Royal. Grosvenor, for his moiety, paid the abbey a rent of lyj. a year and 2 pigs, with suit of court at Weaverham, finding 4 men to serve in the Welsh wars, when Weaverham found 8, and when 6 or 4 in the same proportion. He also found a doomsman for the court of Weaverham on behalf of the town of Lostock, viz. his own moiety and the other.^ In Domesday Weaverham is rated at 13 hides, Lostock no doubt being included, just as subordinate manors were included in the 7 hides which Mascy held in Eastham, these expanding afterwards into Bromborough, Bid- ston, Saughall Massey, Morton and Claghton. In other words, Lostock was still in the earl's hands, and had never been granted out. There remains a possibility that Hugh Lupus might have made the alleged grant later than Domesday ; but clearly it was not made at or soon after the conquest. As a matter of fact, we find evidence that Grosvenor' s estate there was acquired several generations later. ^ Ledger Book. MS. Harl. 2064, fF. 258, 273 seq. 275, 281.