As, according to Stapleton, the best authority, it is in this survey that the name of Marmion first appears in England, it may not be inopportune to examine here the accepted pedigree of that house. In the Roger Marmion of our survey we have its undoubted ancestor, but of Robert Marmion, who appears on its opening folio as a tenant of Walter de Gant at Winteringham, one cannot speak so positively. In Domesday Winteringham, as 12 carucates, was held of Gilbert de Gant by 'Robertus homo Gilberti' (354b): in our Survey eleven[22] of these carucates were held of Gilbert's son Walter by Robert Marmion, and the twelfth in capite by Roger Marmion. Mr Waters (p. 17) identifies the former with the Domesday under-tenant, which is a tempting solution, were not the Domesday Robert also under-tenant at Risby (which was held in our survey not by Marmion, but by Walter de St Paul). It seems to me more probable that Robert, the under-tenant in our survey, was, as Mr Waters, contradicting himself, elsewhere observes (p. 14), the son and heir of Roger. Yet of Roger Marmion's estate at Fulstow, Mr Waters writes (p. 27): 'Roger's father, Robert Marmion, was tenant there in Domesday of Robert Dispenser.' This would give us an interesting clue. But on turning to Domesday (363b), we find that it is only one more mistake of Mr Waters, its 'Robertus' being no other than Robert Dispenser himself.[23]
Stapleton, who worked out the descent, held that Roger's son Robert, who had succeeded by 1130, and who was slain in 1143, was father of the Robert who died in 1218. I would rather interpolate another Robert between the two:
The pedigree really turns on the charter of Henry III in 1249, to Philip Marmion, confirming the royal charters to his ancestor. Mr Stapleton declares that Henry inspected and confirmed
The charter which King Henry, his great-great-grandfather, had made to Robert Marmyon, great-grandfather of Philip Marmyon, of having warren in all his land in the county of Warwick, and especially at Tamworth; and likewise of the charter of King Henry, his uncle ['Avunculus noster' is the reading transcribed on the rolls, obviously in error of 'atavus noster'], which he had made to the said Robert of having warren in all his land of Lindesay (Rot. Scacc. Norm., II. cvi.).
This abstract is strangely inaccurate, considering that Stapleton had, clearly, examined the Inspeximus[24] for himself. Henry VI inspected and confirmed:
- (1) The charter of Henry I, granting Robert Marmion freewarren in Warwickshire (specially at Tamworth) as his father had.
- (2) The charter of Henry II (confirming the above charter), 'T. Tom. Canc. apud Brugiam', and therefore granted in 1155.
- (3) The charter of Henry III, who had inspected—
- (a) 'Cartam quam Henr' rex avus [sic] noster [i.e. Henry II] fecit Roberto Marmyon proavo Philippi Marmyun';
- (b) 'Cartam Henrici regis avunculi nostri quam fecit Roberto'; and confirmed them as the charters, 'H. Regis avi nostri et H. regis avunculi nostri', to Philip Marmion.
It is clear then that Henry III inspected the charter of his grandfather ('avus') Henry II (not, as Mr Stapleton wrote, his great-great-grandfather'), in 1155, to Robert Marmion, 'proavus' of Philip. This, it will be seen, could only be the Robert whom I have inserted in the pedigree. Nor can Mr Stapleton's 'atavus' assumption be accepted in view of the facts. The 'avunculus' and namesake of Henry III would duly have been the 'young king' Henry (crowned 1170). If 'avunculus' is a clerical error, the word to substitute is 'avus'; but the careful way in which the charter distinguishes the King's two predecessors is quite opposed to the idea that they were in both cases his grandfather.