An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

FAMILY HISTORY. I may begin with a safe boast that there is no older 1 name in Norfolk at or after the Conquest than my own, and if you refer to Mr. Hamon le Strange's "Norfolk Lists," you will :find that the Barony of Rye of Hingham, which he considers to be in abeyance, is the oldest existent Norfolk peerage 2 • Some of my name held land in the county, and appear in the :first Domesday of 1086, and some in that of the recent "Domesday" of 1873. One of them, Hubert de Rye, was Castellan of Norwich Castle, and part founder of Norwich Cathedral, and was the son of another Hubert. The tales of how his father saved the life of the Conqueror of Normandy iu 1044, and how his brother Eudo secured the Crown for William II. are told in the Romaunt de Rou and elsewhere. Whether they are true or were myths as Freeman (the Freeman who is now in his turn so cruelly criticised by Round), thought I must leave to others to decide, merely remarking that there seems much more evidence for the truth than for their falsity, but a I bs.ve gone into the matter very fully else– where, 3 I will not weary my readers with any arguments. That I descend from them I cannot legally prove, for the pedigrees of junior branches are hard to trace before wills were made, and parish registers begun, for inquisitions post mortem, do not deal with yeomen families. All I can say is that for the last 500 years the name occurs continually in East Norfolk, and that when the great Barony of Rye, which at one time consisted of 34 knight's fees, or about 25,000 acres, went (I presume for political reasons) to the female descendants of the last Baron instead of to the male descendant of junior branches, three of their manors were Buxton, Lammas, and Scottow-the latter not to be con– fused, as I once did, with Stocton. 1 Tyrrell, Mallet and Warren and possibly Daubeny are as old. · • 2 This is denied by Round, who says a feudal Barony caunot be 1n abeyance. 3 History of the Family of Rye, see Norf. Families, p. 762-771, and Accouut of the family of Rye, 1876. , , B

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