[309] Desultoria, p. 6.
[310] This roll professes to give the names of the distinguished personages who accompanied William the Conqueror in his invasion; but it is a fact strongly militating against its genuineness that many of the names occurring in it are not to be found in the Doomsday books.
[312] The reason assigned by Peacham for Polydore’s thus playing ‘old gooseberry’ with the records is that “his owne historie might passe for currant!”
[313] Vide Sir H. Ellis’s Polydore Vergil, printed for the Camden Soc. 1844. Preface.
[314] Vide notices of each in Horsfield’s Lewes, vol. i.
[315] “The proof of pedigrees has become so much more difficult since Inquisitiones post mortem have been disused, that it is easier to establish one for 500 years before the time of Charles II than for 100 years since.” (Lord C. J. Mansfield.)
[316] I, 10, p. 91, in Coll. Arm.
[317] The register of Alfriston, co. Sussex, begins with marriages if I mistake not, in the year 1512, but as all the entries up to 1538, or later, were evidently written at one time, they were doubtless copied from a private register kept by the incumbent prior to the mandate of the Government. I mention this fact because I never heard of another parish register of equal antiquity.
[318] In the MS. the tinctures of these shields are shown in the usual manner by lines, &c. Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, are quarterly, or and gules. The bordure of No. 2 is sable; the label of No. 3 is sable; that of No. 4 purpure; and that of No. 5 sable, charged with plates; the charge of No. 6 is a plate; the chief of No. 7 is quarterly, or and gules; and that of No. 8 gules and or. The coat No. 7 is identical with that of Peckham of Kent and Sussex.