The explanation is extremely simple: the whole pedigree is concocted with a view to making the Irish Hervey uncle to Robert fitz Stephen. This was done to satisfy the supposed requirements of Giraldus, whose words Col. Morres thus triumphantly quoted:
Robertus Stephanides ... Inter cæteros Herveius de Montemaurisco Roberti patruus, nepoti suo se comitem præbuit (p. 77).
Unfortunately for him, he had gone, not to Giraldus, but to 'Stonyhurst de rebus Hibernicis i. 69-70, d'après Giraldus Cambrensis'. Stonyhurst had carelessly made Giraldus speak of Hervey as uncle, not to Earl Richard, but to Robert fitz Stephen, and the pedigree was accordingly constructed to fit this error. When the error is corrected, the pedigree collapses; and the very passage which is quoted to confirm it at once unmasks the concoction.
And now having made it clear that both sides were in error, I shall set forth the true explanation of the words of Giraldus. The clue is given us by those Deeping charters which, oddly enough, Col. Morres duly quoted and appealed to. The first is found in the Monasticon, ii. 601:
Adeliz, uxor Gilberti filii Ricardi et Gillebertus, et Baldewinus, et Rohaisia pueri Gilberti episcopo Lincolniensi ... salutem.... Hiis testibus, Gilberto filio Gilberti, Galterio, Hervæo, Baldwino fratribus ejus et Rohaisia sorore eorum, etc., etc.
The next is the confirmation of this grant by Robert Bishop of Lincoln (ob. 1123) as 'donum Adelidæ de Montemoraci' (p. 602). The third is a charter of 'Adeliz, mater comitis Gilberti' (p. 603), who is also styled in the Thorney Register 'Adelitia de Claromonte'. Col. Morres also relied much on a grant to Castleacre by 'Adalicia de Claromonte', to which the first witness is 'Her. de Montemorentino',[5] but the relationship of the witness to the grantor is not stated.
