JONATHAN OLDBUCK, JUN.
Dr. Bolton, Archbishop of Cashel.—Any information respecting the family, the arms, or descent of Doctor Theophilus Bolton, Archbishop of Cashel, in the early part of the last century, will oblige.
X.X.
Dec. 31. 1850.
Genealogy of the Talbots.—In some of the printed genealogies of the Talbots, to whose ancestry you have lately made several references, descent is claimed for that noble family from the emperors of the East, through Anne, wife of Henry I., King of France, and daughter of Iaroslaf, or Georges, King of Russia, whose father, the great Vladimir, married Anne, sister of Basilius, Emperor of Byzantium.
Now that excellent authority, L'Art de Vérifier les Dates, gives the date of 988 for the conquest of the Chersonese by Vladimir and his marriage with the emperor's sister, and that of 978 for the birth of Iaroslaf, who must, therefore, be a son of one of the many concubines mentioned in that work as preceding his wife Anne.
Can the rare honour of descent from the Eastern emperors be substantiated by the correspondents who appear to take interest in the pedigree of this house?
I may add, that L'Art de Vérifier les Dates, though seldom incorrect, seems to err when it asserts Enguerherde, wife of the above-named Iaroslaf, to be
the daughter of Olaus, or Olaf, "King of Norway, and not of Sweden," as the Heims Kringla of Snorro Sturleson gives a long account of the betrothal of Ingigerd or Enguerherde, daughter of Olaf Ericson, King of Sweden, to St. Olaf, King of Norway, and of her subsequent marriage to Iaroslaf, or Jarislief, King of Russia.
Can you say where the best pedigree of the early kings of Sweden is to be found?