FACTITIOUS PEDIGREES: DIXON OF BERSTON.
(Vol. ix., p. 221.)
The inquiry of Mr. R. W. Dixon is one that I feel should not remain unanswered; and a few circumstances that I can detail will be sufficient to prove that his brother Mr. J. H. Dixon only exercised a just discretion in rejecting the information offered by William Sidney Spence.
On 4th March, 1848 (a few months, therefore, earlier than the letter which has been quoted), a communication was forwarded to me by Mr. Spence so similar, as to warrant the supposition that a set form was kept on hand to be copied in different applications with such variations as each case might demand, though even then a discrepancy has crept in that would render the evidence suspicious.
The first paragraph is the same, except that Mr. Spence states he was engaged by the "widow of Sir John Cotgreave," instead of the "sister."
In the second the pedigree is said to be the "work of Randle Holme, 1672, from documents by William Camden," instead of the work of "the great Camden." Monsons, of course, are substituted instead of Dixons. Four generations from Sir John Monson temp. Edward III., instead of five generations from Ralph Dixon temp. Henry VI. And this Sir John is slain fighting under Lord Audley at the battle of Poictiers, 1356, as a counterpart to Ralph Dixon, slain at the battle of Wakefield, 1460.
The third paragraph is word for word the same, except that, to be consistent with the descents, four shields with sixteen quarterings are offered instead of five shields with twelve.
Lady Cotgreave is to vouch for the authenticity instead of Miss Cotgreave.
The quarterings promised in the next paragraph are only partially the same, and the conclusion merely differs in wording by the substitution of the names of "Sir John Monson" and "his mother Elinor, daughter and coheir of Sir John Sutton, de Sutton and Congleton," in place of "Ralph Dixon and his mother Maude, daughter and coheiress of Sir Ralph Fitz Hugh," &c.