Imagine the confusion which ensued. Stories of innumerable quarrels between the brothers as they grew up to boyhood's estate have been handed down to their posterity. The father himself was at a loss what to do. He had a great love for both his boys, and not knowing which was the elder and which the younger son, he had a vast fear of doing an injustice either to the one or to the other.
What could he do but ask the advice and ascertain the wishes of his suzerain liege? This we are told he did as soon as the children had reached the mature age of ten and owed military service to their lord.
King Edward III we all know was a model of justice and of sound common sense. He declared it impossible that either of the boys should be deprived of what might be his lawful inheritance. Therefore, by a special decree signed by his own hand manual, he declared that on the death of his faithful cousin, the Baron of Stowmaries, the title, estates in fief or military tenure and other lands and appurtenances thereof should devolve jointly on the twin sons of the said lord, and that the first born child in the next generation should then once more reunite in his own person the titles and estates of Stowmaries.
Moreover the King decreed that if at any future time, a Lady of Stowmaries should take it into her gracious head to present her lord with twins, this same rule of succession should apply.
Thus said His Majesty King Edward III, and my lord of Stowmaries was thereby satisfied. The brothers were henceforth brought up as joint heirs of one of the finest baronies in the Kingdom and we hear nothing more of family feuds or dissensions.
That the twins eventually did jointly succeed to their father's title and estates we know from the records anent the twin Barons of Stowmaries who fought under the banner of John of Gaunt in the days of Richard II; and from the fact that King Henry IV in 1410 created the then Baron of Stowmaries, Earl of Stowmaries and Riveaulx we may infer that one of those turbulent twins did have a son who succeeded alone to his father and uncle, and once more united in his own person all dignities and lands belonging to the ancient family.
Thus the carelessness of a tiring-wench had for the time being no further serious consequences on the fortunes of the Kestyons. For some generations to come it seemed that the ladies of Stowmaries had no predilection for twins. But in the year 1552, so the family archives tell us, the wife of John, Earl of Stowmaries—Grand Master of the Ceremonies to King Edward VI—presented her lord with a sturdy pair of boys.
As like to one another as the proverbial peas were these two new scions of the ancient family of Kestyon, and mightily proud of them was their fond mother, but there never was any confusion as to their identity. One of them—Rupert—was born fully two hours before his brother Michael, and was ever after looked upon as his father's heir. Nor, on the death of the Earl, did any one seem to have thought of disputing his sole right to the title and estates of Stowmaries.
Rupert succeeded his father and in his turn was succeeded by his son. But what we do know as a certain fact is that Michael, the younger twin, had a son born to him a full year before his elder brother took unto himself a wife, and that if the decree of King Edward III had been duly enforced by law, Rupert and Michael should have been joint Earls of Stowmaries and it should have been Michael's son—the first born in the next generation—who should have united the title and estates in his own person.
Why Michael did not endeavour to enforce the ancient decree of Edward III we shall never know: there are neither letters nor other documents to explain this supineness, which is all the more inexplicable since it affected the future of his own son even more than his own.