Notes
Note N1805
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The Peverel (Vail) Beginings
1100s , England
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THE BATTLE ABBEY ROLL.
WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NORMAN LINEAGES.
BY THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
IN THREE VOLUMES.-VOL. III
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1889.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
This electronic edition was prepared by Michael A. Linton, 2007www.1066.co.nz
THE BATTLE ABBEY ROLL. --------*--------
Peuerell :
This family is said to have been possessed of Tinchebrai in Normandy : but the name is clearly not territorial, as we never find the Norman de prefixed to it. "Sir William Pole, speaking of the branch settled in Devonshire, says it was Peverell, or Piperell; and in Domesday we find it continually spelt Piperellus: Terra Ranulfi Piperellus. This does not, however, illustrate its derivation. I have a fancy-I confess that it is but a fancy-that, like Meschinus and similar appellations, it had a personal signification; and that it is a corruption of Puerulus, which is almost identical with Peuerellus, as we find it written in the Anglo-Norman Pipe and Plea Roll."-J. R. Planche.
Ralph and William Peverel are both found among the tenants in capite of Domesday, but very unequally portioned. While Ralph's barony comprised sixty-four knights' fees, William held one hundred and sixty-two, including the Honour and forest of the Peke in Derbyshire, with the greater part of the town of Nottingham. He was likewise entrusted with the custody of its castle, then newly built "on the site of the old Danish fort that had previously crested 'the dolorous rock' (as it is called by an ancient writer) overhanging the river Lean."-Ibid.
The Conqueror's singular favour towards him is easily explained. He was, by all accounts, his son [1] by a noble and beautiful Saxon lady, the daughter of Ingelric, whom he had given in marriage to Ralph Peverel, on condition that her base-born child should bear her husband's name. Another and more probable version makes her already Ralph's wife at the time this son was born. "Ingelrica (as Leland calls her), to atone for past vices, founded at Hatfield Peverell a college of secular Canons, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. Here she spent the remainder of her days, till her death in 1100, and was buried in the chancel, where her effigy, cut in stone, was to be seen (in Weever's time) under one of the windows. Her legitimate son by Ranulph, William Peverell, converted, in the time of Henry I., this college into a Priory of Benedictines, as a cell to St. Albans Abbey."-Morant's Essex. Besides this second William-styled William of Dover-Dugdale asserts that she had two other sons born in wedlock, Hamon, and Pain. But we will first pursue the fortunes of the bastard brother.
William Peverell of Nottingham, as he was termed, chose the site of his caput baronies as an eagle in the air might have done, in one of the wildest and most inaccessible recesses of the Peak. He built his castle on the brink of a threatening precipice overhanging the yawning chasm known as the Devil's Cavern, from whence a mountain torrent bursts forth in showers of spray. On all sides but one the rock is impracticable; and the single passage by which it can be approached is a narrow ridge, guarded on either side by a bold escarpment, which, in these degenerate days, few people are found adventurous enough to cross. This Castle of the High Peak-"the true vulture's nest of a robber knight"-gives its name to the neighbouring town of Castleton. Peverell's usual residence was riot, however, in this lofty eyry, but in the important Midland fortress that had been committed to his charge. Nothing more remains to be told of him, except that he was the founder of Lenton Priory, and died in 1113.
His son-a second William-led the men of Nottingham at the famous battle of the Standard, and was through life the firm friend and champion of King Stephen, with whom he was taken prisoner at Lincoln in 1141. His castle of Nottingham was delivered into the hands of William Painell. But in the year following, he was again at liberty, and had surprised and re-captured his castle, his soldiers stealing in through the underground passage since known as Mortimer's Hole. It was Henry II. that finally dispossessed him of his inheritance. He was accused of having, with the connivance of the Countess of Chester, poisoned her husband, Ralph Gernons, and "fearing," says Dugdale, "the severity of, the King for that foul crime, he fled to a Monastery of his own Patronage (which doubtless was Lenton), where he caused himself to be shorn a Monk; but being privily advertised of King Henrie coming that way from York, he quitted his habit, and privily fled away, leaving all his Castles and possessions to the King's Pleasure." This story, with the date 1155, is circumstantially given by Matthew of Paris, Matthew of Westminster, and several other authorities. "But how are we to reconcile it with the fact, that Henry, before he ascended the throne, most probably in 1152, and certainly not later than 1153 (the year" of Ranulph's death), gave to this Ranulph, Earl of Chester, the very man Peverell is accused of poisoning, the castle and town of Nottingham, and the whole fee of William Peverell (with the exception of Hecham) unless he, William Peverell, could acquit and clear himself of his wickedness and treason. This important document is printed at length by Sir Peter Leycester in his Prolegomena (v. Ormerod's Cheshire, vol. i.). Should we not therefore be justified in believing, upon this evidence, that Peverell was dispossessed of his estates, not for assisting to poison the Earl of Chester, but for supporting Stephen manfully and faithfully against Henry and his mother?"-J. R. Planche.
Hecham or Higham in Northamptonshire, the one estate excepted from the general confiscation, was, with some other lands, suffered to pass to William Peverell's daughter and heir, Margaret; and still, as Higham Ferrers, retains her husband's name. So far Dugdale; but here again Mr. Planche tries to prove that no such person as Margaret ever existed, and that Earl Ferrers entered into possession of this part of Peverell's property by less lawful means.
I have said that Dugdale furnishes William Peverell with three legitimate half-brothers, Hamon, William of Dover, and Pain. Eyton, in his History of Shropshire, maintains that they were not his brothers, but "of unknown origin"; and on the authority of the Monasticon, adds a fourth to their number, Robert, the last born. All (except this rather problematical youngest brother, of whom we know nothing but the name) were richly endowed.
Hamon, the eldest, married a great Shropshire heiress, Sibil, daughter of Gerard de Tournai, and was one of the barons of Roger de Montgomery; but left no legitimate children; and at his death (before 1138) appointed his brother's son, William Peverell the younger, and Walchelin Maminot his heirs, "though we have not," says Eyton, "a hint as to his relationship with the latter." He is conjectured to have been the son of his sister.
William of Dover was so named as castellan of the renowned fortress, always spoken of by old writers as "the lock and key of the kingdom." He, too, according to Eyton, had no heir to his barony but the nephew already mentioned. Dugdale gives him a son of the same name, styled "of Essex": but it is doubtful whether this was not the same person that he elsewhere enters as William Peverell of London, holding a separate barony.
Pain [2] was a celebrated soldier, "highly famed for his martial enterprises," who was standard-bearer to Robert Court-heuse in the Holy Land, and received from Henry I. the great Honour of Brunne in Cambridgeshire, that had been forfeited by Robert Fitz Picot for conspiring against the King's life. His wife, it is said, was Robert's sister; and he is generally believed to have been the father of the younger William Peverell (who became the heir of his two uncles), and of four daughters. But Eyton declares he was but another uncle, and that William and his sisters were the children of Robert Peverell, the youngest of the four brothers, and of his wife Adelicia (v. Mon. Angl., vol. ii. p. 601, No. viii.).
Whether son or nephew, on this fortunate heir, William, styled of Dover and of Brunne, centred all the possessions of the family, for in 1138 he held the three baronies of Hamon, William of Dover, and Pain. He is described as "a man of military genius, crafty and fierce," and very powerful in Shropshire and the Marches. "He had," says Ordericus, "four castles, namely Bryn, Ellesmere, Overton, and Geddington; and elated at this, he augmented the force of the rebels." This was when he raised his vassals in Shropshire and Cambridgeshire, and joined the first outbreak against Stephen. "After this, and in 1144 (as I suppose), William de Dovre appears in Wiltshire. He built a castle at Cricklade, subdued the country north and south of the Thames; harassed Stephen's partisans in every direction, especially those who occupied Oxford and Malmesbury. Similar was his work in the year 1145, when he caught the Castellan of Malmesbury, one of Stephen's ablest Lieutenants, in an ambuscade, and handed him over a prisoner to the Countess of Anjou, as the Stephanite Chronicler calls the Empress."-Eyton.
Two years after this, "sickened with civil war," he took the cross, and after performing many glorious deeds in the Holy Land, there fell in battle against the Moslem. He left no children, and his inheritance was shared by his four sisters, Maud, wife of Hugh de Dovor of Chilham, Kent; Alice, wife of Hamo Peche; Roisia, wife of Rollo de Harcourt; and Ascelina, wife of Geoffrey de Walterville.
Of William Peverell of London (who, by the way, is the only son conceded by Eyton to Ralph Peverell), Dugdale tells us only that William de Tregoz farmed his lands under Stephen, and that in 1186 they were in the King's own hands.
There must have been many collateral branches of this mysterious family. The name certainly continued in Shropshire for two hundred years. Hugh Peverell occurs in the reign of Coeur de Lion: Peter Peverell in 1255: and in 1331 Edmund, son of Robert Peverell of Pitchford, died, leaving his son John, then a year old, as the last male heir. Margaret, sister and heiress of this John, then of Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire, married William de la Pole. In Devonshire, the last Baron of Dover and Brunne and his eldest sister, Maud de Chilham, "did enfeoff the ancestor of Hugh Peverell of Sandford in the Lordships of Sandford, Haure, and Carswell." This was Samford-Peverell, "the auncyent dwelling" of William Peverell 8 Hen. II.-Pole's Devon. "Hugh Peverel de Saunford" was summoned to parliament in 1260. "Thomas Peverell of Park, who was also of Ermington and Sandford in Devon, was Sheriff of Cornwall 13 Richard II, and Sheriff of Devon 20 Richard II.; Richard, his son, was Sheriff of the same county 14 Henry IV.; and dying without issue male, his lands went in marriage with his daughter to Basset of Umberleigh, Botreaux, and others. These Peverells are especially memorable here by two crosses of moorstone in the highway, set up by them, still extant, and called Peverell's Crosses."-Gilberts Cornwall. Another Devonshire manor, Aller-Peverell, keeps the name, and in Hampshire we find Burton-Peverell. Andrew Peverell was one of the Hampshire knights summoned to serve against Llewellyn in 1264. "A family of Peverell held Bradford-Peverell in Dorsetshire of the Honour of Boulogne from the time of Edward I. till Henry VIII.: but bore different arms from those of the baronial Peverells.-Hutchins' Dorset. Finally, in Sussex, Tarrant-Peverell, and Sompting-Peverell, till late in the fourteenth century, belonged to the owners from whom they received their name.