your Name, you may have the Honour, in good Measure again to raise it. It will be a Matter of great pleasure to me to see you inclined to endeavour so to do, as it is my present Comfort that I hope from what I already see in you, that you will want neither Parts nor Vigour, in order thereunto. Let me therefore raise this Ambition, betimes, in you: And that I may the better do it, Let me desire you diligently to read, and carefully to consider, what you will here meet with, concerning the Family, from which you are descended, and of which I shall now proceed to give you such an Account, as I have been able to recover concerning it.

Whosoever were the first Inhabitants of this Country, certain it is, that the Brittains are those of which we have the most ancient Accounts remaining in History. To these successively, came in the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans: and from some or other of these Nations, whatsoever is of any real Antiquity among us, must be derived. And to which of them it is, that we owe our Original, must, in the first place, be considered by us. Now this,

it will be no difficult matter to determine: the

very 'Name of Wake being not only apparently

2 Verstegan Ant: 8vo. pag. 334.

of a Saxon Original; but having a proper Signification in that Language, and of which I shall speake more particularly by and by.

But thô it be certain therefore from the very Name itself, that we must look for the first Original of our Family among the Saxons; yet will not this be of any great Help to us, in our Search after the Antiquity of it: nor carry us farthur back than to the Norman Conquest, about which Time the Names of Familys first began to be fixed, and descend from Father to Son; which before they were not wont to do. Here therefore we must recurr to such Accounts as we can derive from our ancient Historys, and see what Light they will afford us in the pursuit of our present Enquiry.

Were there any Credit to be given to those Copies which remain to us of Battle Abby Roll, in which the Conquerour is said to have Registred the Names of the most eminent of those who came over out of Normandy with him, and fought in that famous Battle which gave Denomination to the Abby founded by King William 1st. in memory of it; We should in these find

3 Holingshead Chr: P. 5h. Stow Pag: 207. Fuller Church Hist: lib: ii Pag: 161.

a very publick and authentick Record, not only of the Antiquity, but of the Honour of our Family, in those Days. But as in the best of these Copys, our Name does not appear; So the many Grounds I have to suspect altogether the Credit of Them (at least as they have been transmitted down to us) make me unwilling to lay any Stress upon so weak, and uncertain an Authority.

There is indeed, an old piece of Poetry to the same purpose, preserved in the Chronicle ascribed to John Brompton, which pretends to give us a List of the great Men, who came over out of Normandy upon this Expedition, and to whom the Conquerour gave Lands for that Service, And in this also our Family has the Honour to be mentioned. But I must confess that this Piece is to me of as little Credit as the Rolls of Battle Abby: And had we the good Fortune to be found in that third Piece of the like kind, preserved by "Mr. Fuller, of the Coats of Arms of those forty Worthies whom the Conquerour quarter'd upon the Monks of Eli, to secure that Island to his Interests, I should still think, that these three Monuments

4 Script: X Coll: 963.

5 Church Hist: lib: ii pag: 168.

together would scarce amount to one good Proof, of our Ancestors being concerned in that Expedition.

And as the Credit is not great which I suppose ought to be given to these sort of Registers. So much less may we rely upon the arbitrary Conjectures of our yet more modern Writers: An eminent Instance of which I cannot but take Notice of in our Church Historian, who diverting himself in some Remarks, which he thought fit to make upon the Rolls of Battle Abby before mentioned, tells us that he was credibly informed, that some of the English being weary of Harolds Usurpation, went over into ffrance to fetch in the Conquerour, and by that Means are found in the Catalogues of those who came over with Him. And this, He says, was the Case of our Family, of which he there speaks in a very friendly and honourable Manner.

If this Gentleman had the Authority of any good Historian for this Remark, as far as our Name is concern'd in it, I heartily wish he would have been so kind, as by some Mark or other, to have referr'd us to Him, But if he took it up upon the Conjecture of some of his

C

Acquaintance, who being unwilling to lose the Authority of those Rolls, thought this the best Way to account for so many Saxon Names occurring in Them. I do not see how either our Historian could say He was credibly informed of this Matter, or what Reason there is for any One, without some better Proof, to give his Assent to it.

But to pass therefore from these imaginary Pretences to Antiquity, to such proofs as we may justly give some Credit to: And to search out not only the first Rise of our Sur name, but the Occasion that was given for the fixing of it, on that Person from whome it decended to us.

Among other Persons of Note in the time of King Edward the Confessor Leofricus le Brun, was none of the least considerable, "He was Cosin to Ralphe, Earl of Hereford, who marryed Goda King Edwards Sister; and is represented to us as a person of a noble Family, eminent in military Services, and 'Lord of Brun in the County of Lincoln, which from him de

6 Ingulf: Hist: Croyland Pag: 67.

7 Dugdal: Baronag: To: 1: p. 21. says that he was Son to Goda by Walter de Mant: But he cites no Authority for what he says, and Ingulf: is expressly against him.