Or, in English, thus

Here Lyeth William, son of Walter de Aincourt, Cousin of Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln, who built this Church. The aforesaid William, being of Royal descent, died, while receiving his education in the Court of King William, son of the Great King William who conquered England, on the 3rd of the Kalends of November.

It appears from the inscription, first, that Walter the father was nearly related by blood to Remigius de Fescamp, Bishop of Lincoln, which must have arisen from a connection between the families in Normandy, prior to the Conquest which brought Remigius and Walter d'Eyncourt to England in 1066. Secondly, that William (not Walter) was of Royal descent. This must, therefore, have been through his Mother. Thirdly, that William d'Eyncourt died in his youth, for he was then receiving his education in the Court of King William II. That monarch came to the throne in 1087, and died in 1100. We cannot exactly fix the date of William d'Eyncourt's death, because the year is not specified in the inscription, but it was evidently after the completion of the Cathedral, which, according to Matthew Paris (p. 12) was finished in 1091, and probably also after the decease of Remigius, who died in May, 1092, on the eve of the day appointed for its consecration.' [W. Malmesb., lib. iv., p. 290. Edit. Francof. 1601.] Supposing William to have been sixteen or seventeen years of age, and to have died in 1093, his birth would have occurred about 1076, that is, nine or ten years after the arrival of his father in England.

From all this we may conclude (especially if William was, as Dugdale supposes, the eldest son) that his father married eight or nine years after he had settled in this Country, and as the Conqueror sometimes rewarded his favourites by contracting them in marriage to wealthy and distinguished Saxon heiresses, thus carrying their inheritance into the Norman line, it is

1 W. of Malmesbury, ubi supra, speaking of this noble work says,

"Ad Lindocolniam, civitatem unam ex populosioribus Angliæ, emporium hominum terra marique venientium, Remigius in honorem Domina Matris fundatam Ecclesiam Canonicis multis implevit, et ipsis literarum scientiâ et divitiarum affluentia quas ex suo coemerat eminentibus. Cœnobium monachorum apud Sanctam Mariam de STOU ex novo fecit: alterum apud Bardenei ex Veteri favore suo innovarit. Quod eo jucundius erat, quia ipse pro exiguitate corporis pene portentum hominis videbatur, luctabatur excellere et foris eminere animus, eratq:

Gratior exiguo veniens è corpore virtus. Quem ideo natura compegisse videtur, ut sciretur beatissimum ingenium in miserrimo corpore habitare posse. Feliciter ergo acta vita in ipso apparatu consecrationis suæ Lindocolniam pridie futuræ dedicationis æmula illum mors tantis gaudiis subtraxit. Na et magnanimi viri hortatu omnes undiq: pon

tifices regium edictum acciverat. Solus Robertus Herefordensis venire abnuerat, et certâ inspectione siderum dedicationem tempore Remigii non processuram viderat, nec tacuerat." And Matt. Paris, p. 12, says in reference to Remigius and the Cathedral, "Mercatis igitur in ipso montis vertice prædiis, ecclesiam ibidem construxit. Et licet Eboracensis Archiepiscopus, locum et Civitatem ad suam diocesim assereret pertinere, assertiones tamen ejus Remigius parvi pendens, opus inchoatum non segniter peregit, peractumque, clericis, doctrinâ et moribus probatissimis decoravit. Erat quidem Remigius staturâ parvus, sed animo magnus, colore fuscus, sed non operibus, de Regiâ quoque proditione aliquando accusatus, sed famulus suus igniti judicio ferri dominum purgans, regio amori restituit, et maculam dedecoris pontificalis detersit. Hoc autem autore, hoc tempore, et his de causis incepta est, ecclesia moderna Lincolniensis." See also Hen. of Huntingdon, p. 371. Edit. 1601.

probable that Walter had married a scion of the Anglo-Saxon Royal Family. It is difficult to imagine what other royal family could be referred to, unless we suppose the lady to have been a daughter, perhaps illegitimate, of the Conqueror himself."

The name of the deceased son "William," might favour this last notion. The arms, A.D. 1301, of Baron Edmund d'Eyncourt,-a Fesse dancette, between ten billets-as shown on his seal appended to the famous letter, protesting against Papal jurisdiction in temporal affairs, addressed to Pope Boniface VIII. by the Barons of England, assembled in Parliament at Lincoln, 29 Ed. I., are in an escutcheon placed in a square, as on a banner, having four lions passant, one at each corner. It is the only coat of arms so placed, and these lions may have been adopted to commemorate his descent from the Conqueror; the education of William d'Eyncourt in the King's Court, invites the supposition of such a connexion, if, indeed, the language of the inscription does not imply it. See Vetusta Monumenta, Vol. i., plate xxviii., for a copy of that remarkable document and an engraving of the seal of "Edmundus de Eyncourt." [Also Rym. Fœd, II., 873.]

A duplicate of the letter itself, with the seals appended, is extant in the Treasury of the receipt of the Exchequer: Chapter House, Westminster. In 1741 (see Archæologia, Vol. i., p. 31), a body, sewed up in leather, was discovered near the West door of the Cathedral, in what was supposed to be the very tomb where the Inscription had been found in 1670, and the writer in the "Archaeologia" naturally imagines that this might be the body of William d'Eyncourt. The singular manner in which it was encased, may be accounted for by the circumstance, that William having died, as it appears, in the King's Palace, at London or Westminster (dum in curia Regis), had been brought to Lincoln, a very tedious and rude journey in those days, and the body would, therefore, be protected by some unusual means from the effects of such a removal. Of this Inscription another copy, purporting to be a fac-simile, is to be found in "Hearne's Works," No. IV. of the Appendix to his Preface to Thomas Sprott's Chronicles and referred to in page xxvi. of that preface. Gough has also, in the second part of his Introduction to his Sepulchral Monuments, p. 232, and in his Camden's Britannia, vol. ii., edit. 1806, and p. 208, edit. 1789, given two representations of it. Pegge has given it in his "Sylloge" of Inscriptions, p. 27, No. 17. It is, moreover, peculiar, from the example it affords of small letters being included in the Capitals. Three other instances of small letters so inserted, are noticed in "Archæologia," Vol. ii., p. 188, viz.: one at Monkton Farleigh, found in 1744; another found in 1733, in taking down the steeple of St. George's Church, Southwark; and a third in the nave of Salisbury Cathedral, of the time of Henry I.

2 It is stated in Blore's Rutland, p. 149, that her name was "Matilda." But the authority which he cites, clearly refers to

Matilda, the wife of Walter the grandson and third Baron, in the reign of Hen. II. [Mon. Ang. III., 529, 30, 31.]

The copy, in its original character and present condition, with which we have illustrated this notice, is free from the errors in those given by Sir William Dugdale, Hearne, and Gough; but the leaden plate has sustained some injury by having been exposed, during 180 years, to frequent manual examination. It has, however, by the care of Mr. Albert Way, during the Meeting of the Institute at Lincoln, been lately secured by a frame and glass from future accident of the same nature. The accurate representation of it, now first submitted to the antiquary, is drawn to a scale of half the actual dimension.

Sir Wm. Dugdale informs us, that to Walter d'Eyncourt, mentioned in the Inscription, succeeded Ralph, as his son and heir, who founded and endowed the Monastery of Thurgarton, Co. Notts, one of the Lordships of which his father was possessed, temp. Will. Conq.-Walter, son of Ralph, was the 3rd Baron, and it appears (Mon. Ang. i., 93) that his son Oliver, when a youth, was rescued by a Priest, from captivity and death, in the Battle of Lincoln, 1141, when fighting on the side of King Stephen; for which service his father bestowed upon the Priest a considerable gift of land, in Braunceston (near Lincoln), to pray for the soul of Oliver, who had died in his father's lifetime, and was buried at Belvoir. (Mon. ii., 532.)

This powerful family flourished during more than four centuries in Lincolnshire, held high and honourable positions in the state, and performed distinguished services. [See Blore's Rutland, Parish of Kelthorpe ; Dugd. Baronage; and Burke's Landed Gentry, Tit. Tennyson d'Eyncourt.] It was expressly in consideration of such services on his own part, that Baron Edmund, who in 29 Edw. I. was party to that remarkable letter from the Parliament at Lincoln to the Pope, being much alarmed lest his name and arms should be extinguished by their descending to his great granddaughter and heiress, Isabel, obtained, 7 Edw. II., a special license from the Crown (of which there is no other example extant) to limit his Lordships to his grandson, William d'Eyncourt. [See Dugd. Baronage, vol. i., p. 388; Camden's Brit. vol. i., p. 559; Blore's Rutland, p. 149; Riley's Plac. Parl., p. 547.]

Edmund's female heir afterwards died without issue, and the Barony remained, by descent as well as by virtue of the License, in William d'Eyncourt and his posterity until its forfeiture, 11 Hen. VII., by the last Baron d'Eyncourt of Blankney, who then also bore the title of Viscount Lovel. This William was an eminent warrior, and one of the most distinguished men of whom the County of Lincoln has had to boast. He signalised himself, both in war and council, during the glorious reign of Edward III., in England, France, and Scotland. He attended, as a Guard of Honour, Queen Philippa, when she appeared in the field and exhorted the soldiers before the battle of Durham, in 1346 [See Barnes' Edw. III., p. 379, and Froissart]; and, having had a chief command in this great victory, he was thanked for his services on that occasion by a letter of the King. [Hollingshed and Rot. Scot., 20 Edward III., m. 5.] Afterwards he had the custody of John, King of France, who had been taken prisoner by Edward the Black Prince, at the Battle of Poictiers, 1356.

(See Blore's Rutland, pp. 153,154; Barnes, 538.) During a considerable period of that Monarch's residence in England, Lord d'Eyncourt held him in courteous and gentle captivity, at Somerton Castle, an extensive portion of which still exists, about six miles from Lord d'Eyncourt's residence at Blankney, and about eight miles from the city of Lincoln. Blore (ubi supra) gives, with the authorities on which they rest, the very curious details of King John's journey into Lincolnshire, and afterwards, on his return to France, in 1360, through Lincolnshire, &c., to London; that monarch being, on both occasions, under Lord d'Eyncourt's charge. John, his younger brother, represented Lincolnshire in Parliament in 1336, 11 Edw. III.

A female heir, Alice, Baroness d'Eyncourt, temp. Hen. VI., carried the barony into the family of the Lords Lovel, where it was lost, temp. Henry VII., by the above mentioned forfeiture of her grandson, Lord Lovel and D'Eyncourt, whose skeleton (as it was supposed to be,) was found about 140 years ago, seated in a chair in a concealed room at Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire, where he had probably been secreted, after the battle of Stoke-upon-Trent, and subsequently abandoned.-(See "Banks' Baronage," and "Burke's Extinct Peerage.") A lineal descendant of this ancient stock, through William, second son and ultimately heir male (unattainted in blood) of Alice, Baroness d'Eyncourt, now resides at Bayons, antiently Bayeux, Manor, Lincolnshire, which was the property of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, brother of the Conqueror, and subsequently part of the vast inheritance of Lord Lovel and D'Eyncourt. (See Statutes of the Realm, 28 Hen. VIII. c.46.) It is a castellated and stately pile, 16 miles N.E. of Lincoln, and well corresponds with the romantic history of this baronial family. The proprietor, the Rt. Hon. Charles Tennyson d'Eyncourt, M.P. for Lambeth, in compliance with a direction in his father's will (to commemorate his lineal descent from the Barons d'Eyncourt of Blankney, and his representation as co-heir of the Barons d'Eyncourt of Sutton), bears the name and arms of D'Eyncourt, by Royal license, thus responding to the anxious wish of Edmund Baron d'Eyncourt, gratified by Edward II. as above related. He also possesses an interesting property and residence at Aincourt, situated in a high and beautiful country, about two miles from the river Seine, between Mantes and Magny, within the French Vexin, on the borders of Normandy. Hence came, at the Conquest, Walter de Aincourt, named in the inscription, who figures in Battle Abbey Roll, and whose English possessions are recorded in Domesday Book: his name having been gradually corrupted by English pronunciation and orthography, into "Eincourt" or "Eyncourt." This residence stands near the remains of the ancient castle, which was the stronghold of the Seigneurs de Aincourt before and after the conquest of England, and would have been the inheritance of William, to whom the Lincoln memorial relates.

The accurate representation of this remarkable memorial has been kindly presented to the Institute, accompanied by the foregoing Memoir, by the Right Hon. C. Tennyson d'Eyncourt, M.P.

THE DESCENT OF THE EARLDOM OF LINCOLN.

BY JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS, ESQ., F.S.A.

THE nature of a modern earldom is readily understood. It is a dignity which is inalienable, indivisible, and which descends in regular succession to all the male heirs of the body of the grantee until they fail. Such is the dignity of Earl of Lincoln, which has now existed for two hundred and seventy-six years in the family of Clinton. It has descended without interruption in two successive direct lines. Having been conferred by Queen Elizabeth in 1572 on her aged High Admiral, Edward Lord Clinton, it descended in the first line of his posterity to Edward the fifth Earl, who died in 1692; when the Barony of Clinton fell into abeyance between his aunts, and has since been successively vested in the several families of Fortescue, Walpole, and Trefusis, but the Earldom devolved on Francis Clinton, the cousin and heir male, of whose direct descendants there have been five more Earls, so that the present Duke of Newcastle is the eleventh Earl of the creation of 1572.

But the descent of the ancient Earldom of Lincoln, of which it is my purpose to treat, will be found to differ in all respects from the simple succession of the modern dignity. In the course of its chequered history, we find it divided between coparceners; we find it more than once transferred in an arbitrary manner; we find it retained in the hands of the Crown and let to farm; and, throughout its early history, instead of a quiet succession from father to son, it exhibits an almost constant dependence on the rights of female inheritance. At the same time, we have further to remark that, during all its vicissitudes, it never became extinct, until it finally merged again in the Crown, and its rights and estates became parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster. Though it descended very irregularly, and was vested in several