CHAPTER VII.

The Audley Family.

HENRY DE AUDLEY, FOUNDER OF HELEGH CASTLE AND HULTON ABBEY. -TIMES HE LIVED IN.-ROYAL CONFIRMATION OF HIS ESTATES.LINEAGE.-INTRODUCTION OF FAMILY NAMES.-HIS WIFE. HIS OFFICES UNDER HENRY III. HIS DEATH.-JAMES DE AUDLEY (SON OF HENRY,) HIS DIGNITY, &c.-HIS ACCIDENTAL DEATH.-HIS ISSUE. NICHOLAS, FIRST BARON AUDLEY.-THOMAS, SECOND BARON.-NICHOLAS, THIRD BARON. JAMES, FOURTH BARON. THE WARD OF ROGER MORTIMER, WHOSE DAUGHTER HE MARRIES.-HEROISM AT POICTIERS.-NICHOLAS, FIFTH BARON, LAST OF THE MALE LINE.-SIR JOHN TOUCHET, SIXTH BARON, A WARRIOR UNDER HENRY IV.-JAMES, SEVENTH BARON,— KILLED AT BLORE HEATH.-JOHN, EIGHTH BARON.-JAMES, NINTH BARON, REBELS, AND IS BEHEADED.—JOHN, TENTH BARON. GEORGE, ELEVENTH BARON.-HENRY, TWELFTH BARON.—GEORGE, THIRTEENTH BARON, CREATED EARL OF CASTLEHAVEN,—WASTED HIS ESTATES.SUBSEQUENT FORTUNES AND DECAY OF THE HOUSE.-REFLECTIONS.CATALOGUE OF THE STAFFORDSHIRE ESTATES.-FAMILY PEDIGREE.

THE AUDLEY FAMILY, which we have had occasion to mention so frequently, once possessed, not only the large manorial territory of Tunstall, but immense possessions besides, in the Northern parts of Staffordshire, as well as in Cheshire and Salop; and their honourable name and valiant deeds are highly conspicuous in our national annals.

The acknowledged founder of the greatness of this house, was HENRY of AUDLEY (or, de Alditheley,) who lived in the reigns of Kings John and Henry III.; erected the castle of Helegh, for his security on earth; and built and endowed the Abbey of Hulton, to propitiate the

favour of Heaven towards his soul, and the souls of all his ancestors and posterity.* His extensive possessions appear to have been partly hereditary, and partly acquired; and, out of them, he, in 1223, bestowed on the Abbot and Monks of Hulton, the Vills of Hulton and Rushton, the Wood of Sneyd, the Hay or Small Park of Cavermont, Lands in Bucknall and Normacot, and the Vills and Estates of Mixne, Bradnop, Middlecliff, Arpesford, Morridge, Oncott, and some others. Camden supposes this Henry to have been a person of singular virtue; or a very great favourite, or an able lawyer; or, perhaps, endowed with all those qualifications:† and Fuller, in his "Worthies," exclaims, "What man of men was this Henry, that so many of both sexes should centre their bounty upon him! was it for fear, or love,—or a mixture of both ?"+

Of the violence of the times in which he lived, Hume has given an interesting relation ;§ from which, and all contemporary history, it appears, that during the long reign of Henry III., when the violent proceedings of the Barons sometimes drove that fickle monarch into unwarrantable courses; and at other times altogether superseded his authority; and when the monastic orders were endeavouring to engross the property of the kingdom to themselves, by the most unscrupulous means; other men's estates were held by a very precarious tenure, and were often wrested from them by the powerful chieftains, or artful priests; Henry thought a royal confirmation material for strengthening his title; and he obtained a very ample one, from the Crown, in the eleventh of Henry III. (1227,) of which we give a copy in the Appendix.|| This might seem to imply, that he felt doubts as to his legal rights; but, it may bear a more favourable construction;

* Vide Appendix, No. II. Fuller's Worthies, p. 50.

+ Gibson's Camden, p. 531.

§ Cap. 12. ad finem.

|| No. III.

HENRY DE AUDLEY.

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for, before the Statute De donis,* all Estates of Inheritance were fees-simple; and if land had been given to a man, and the heirs of his body, this became a fee-simple, conditional on the donee having issue; who, after issue born, could alien the land, and thus defeat the gift to his heirs; but a further condition arose, that, if there should at any time be a failure of issue, the land should revert to the donor ; so that the titles of purchasers became often insecure; and the times being unsettled, and many of the great Barons unscrupulous as to the means by which they acquired their possessions, a Charter of Confirmation from the King, as Lord paramount of the whole of his Dominions, was had recourse to, as the most effectual bar, against dormant reversions, as well as defective acquisitions.

Henry de Audley possessed not only great property, but power in an equal degree, and supported King John in all his contests with his Barons. Randle de Blundeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, the greatest subject of England in his day, was his friend and patron, and appears to have been the uncle of his wife Bertred, whose mother Amicia, the wife of Ralph Mainwaring, an eminent person of Cheshire, was the sister (though illegitimate, as Sir Peter Leycester contends,†) of Earl Randle; and this Earl granted to him the Manor and Castle of Newhall, in the County of Chester, with other property.

Henry was the son of Adam, whose grandfather Adam is said, by Erdeswick, to be the first of that name he could discover, and to have been, likewise, the ancestor of the Family of Stanley, (now Earls of Derby ;) and, as he infers from their armorial bearing, of the race of the Verduns; and Dugdale comes to the same conclusion. But this is uncertain; for Erdeswick afterwards distrusted his own previous opinion; and suggested, that the Audleys

13 Edward I., A. D. 1274.

† Antiq. p. 138.

T

may have been an ancient house, standing of themselves, though not at the first bearing that name, nor descended paternally from the Verduns. We think it sufficient, however, to commence with Adam, the great grandfather of Henry; and shall not attempt to trace the family back to their first great ancestor, whose name they adopted, and who lived 5000 years before; though we should by no means despair of doing so, by the aid of some of the old monkish historians, who reckoned only about forty-seven generations from Shem, the son of Noah, through the Gothic and Anglo-Saxon tribes, down to King Henry the Second of England.*

It may not be amiss, however, to observe here, further, with respect to Surnames, that soon after the Norman Conquest, in order to obviate the confusion incident to single names of persons, owners of lands began to borrow distinctive personal appellations from their possessions; which names were sometimes changed, as the parties, or their families, removed to other localities. Brethren of the same house, often adopted different surnames; and probably, Adanı de Audley first assumed that appellative, from the Vill, or place at which he settled, and which was purchased or acquired from Nicholas de Verdun.

Henry de Audley is said, by Erdeswick, to have married Petronella, daughter of Eugenulphus de Gresley, (grandson of Nigel, the elder brother of Robert de Stafford,† mentioned in Domesday,) by Alina, or Edelina, grand-daughter of Ormus le Guidon, Lord of Darlaston; and by that marriage to have obtained Tunstall, Chatterley, and Chell. But Erdeswick, in this instance, appears to have been in error, as Dugdale gives his wife's name, Bertred Mainwaring; and it moreover appears, from the "Placita de Quo Warranto," (Temp. Edw. I.‡) which must be indisputable

JAMES, SON OF HENRY.

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in a matter of pedigree, that Tunstall, with Chatterley, Chell, and Normacote, first came to Adam de Alditheley, by the gift of Eugenulphus de Gresley and Edelina ux. ; so that their daughter Petronella was probably Henry's mother; and whatever might have been his paternal descent, she conferred a lustre on the Audley family as the great-grand-daughter of Nigel, (who was a son of Richard de Toeni, a relative of the Conqueror, as we have already stated,*) and as being descended maternally from Richard the Forester, the King's Ranger of Cannock, and father of Ormus le Guidon.

Henry was appointed Constable of Ulster and Cashel, by Hugh Lacey, Earl of Ulster; and had, from him, a confirmation of lands before granted to his father Adam. He served the office of Sheriff of Salop and Stafford, on behalf of Randle, Earl of Chester, during the first four years of King Henry III., and afterwards, for several years, on his own account;† was constable of Bridgnorth Castle, in 10 Hen. III.; and farmed the profits of both Counties, 13 Hen. III. That young King, in the seventh year of his reign, presented him with twelve hinds out of his forest of Cannock, to store the new park of Helegh, and fourteen years afterwards, on the death of John Scot, Earl of Chester, without issue, appointed him Constable of Newcastle-under-Lyme, (which castle had been held by the Earls of Chester, in fee-farm, for some time previously.)

Henry de Audley died in 1246, and was succeeded by his son JAMES; who inherited, with his father's honours and estates, the favour of his King. He also was appointed Constable of Newcastle, (35 Hen. III.) and was a Baron of the Welsh Marches. He had considerable possessions, and some castles, on the Borders; and was formidable to the Welsh marauders, who took the opportunity, during his absence in Germany, (on his attending the coronation of

* See p. 27.

+ A. D. 1219-1227.

† A. D. 1237.