| The History of
Yorkshire by General George Henry de Strabolgie
Neville PLANTAGENET-HARRISON, 1885 Preface.
THIS History of the County of York was compiled
exclusively from the Public Records, and no part
of it has hitherto been printed. In order that
this History may be properly understood by
everybody, it is written entirely in the English
language, translated from the abbreviated Latin,
in which all the ancient Records are written. I
considered it useless to print copies of records
in a language which so very few, even of the
highest educated people, can either read or
understand.
Under each village or manor
will be found everything relating to it which is
upon record, arranged in chronological order from
the earliest times - thus giving to each place
its own chronicles and separate history.
Especial attention has been
paid to the genealogical part of this work, which
is of the highest importance, inasmuch as the
pedigrees of families constitute the history of
manors, the same as the pedigrees of kings
constitute the history of countries. In this
behalf I have carefully abstained from copying
out of any of the fictitious pedigrees hitherto
published; and I have also repudiated the
genealogical MSS. in the British Museum, and all
the Heralds' Visitations as worthless, being
either fictitious inventions, or the erroneous
result of tradition.
The Records which have supplied
all this information, from which the public will
be able to judge of their value, are - first,
Domesday Book, which was compiled in or about the
fifteenth year of the reign of William the
Conqueror.
This ancient Record is simply a
schedule of the lands of the King's geld, and
does not mention any of the lands held by the
people at large in their own right. The
collectors of the King's geld in those days were,
like a great many collectors of more recent
times, always ready to put other people's money
into their own pockets, either honestly or
otherwise; and it was on account of the numerous
complaints made to the King of the frauds
committed by these collectors in the collecting
of this revenue that the King ordered this
schedule to be made, so that all the tenants of
those lands might know exactly the amount which
they ought to pay. This was the doomsday for
these collectors, and it was thus that this
survey was called the "Doomsday Book."*
Some information contained in
this work is derived from Ancient Charters, made
before the Norman Conquest, all of which have
been at different times enrolled in the Pleas
Rolls for safe keeping. The following records
have also rendered up their secrets: viz., the
Patent Rolls, Close Rolls, Subsidy Rolls,
Coroners' Rolls, Memorandum Rolls, Judgment
Rolls, Decree Rolls, Fine Rolls, the Ladies'
Roll, Escheators' Rolls, Charter Rolls, Pipe
Rolls, Recovery Rolls, Military Rolls, Hundred
Rolls, Originalia RolIs, Norman, French, Scottish
and Irish Rolls, Black and Red Books of the
Exchequer, Books of Aids, Templars' Books,
Coucher Books, Special Commissions, Inquisitions
post mortem, Inquisitions ad quod damnum, Testa
de Nevill, Kirkby's Inquest, Humberton's Survey,
Ministers' Accounts, Receipts of the Treasury,
Chancery and Exchequer Bills, and other law
proceedings, and many other records the names of
which at the present moment I do not remember, -
all of which are invaluable, but fall into utter
insignificance when I mention the Pleas Rolls,
which are worth all the other records put
together a thousand times told. These glorious
and unique records, called the Coram Rege, De
Banco, Quo Warranto, Assize and Exchequer Rolls,
contain the History of every family, estate and
church in England, and are as little known as the
archives of Babylon, they having hitherto lain as
pearls before swine; and it was from the contents
of these priceless rolls, the examination of
which occupied me daily for more than a dozen
years, that I extracted the hitherto unknown
facts which will be found in this HISTORY
OF YORKSHIRE.
These Pleas Rolls begin in the
5th Rich. I., and are continued ever since that
period, and contain millions of membranes, each
one of which is numbered as a separate roll, and
which, from their immensity and being unindexed
have hitherto remained as a sealed book.
An attempt was made some years
ago to publish some of the early Coram Rege
Rolls, but the transcribers could neither read
them correctly, nor understand their contents;
and the consequence was, they left out all the
most important entries upon the records, and thus
only created a vast amount of waste paper at a
very great cost to the public.
I have not been able to make
the recent history of some of the manors as
complete as I had desired to do, because of the
hostile attitude of the clergy and modern
landowners; who would not render me any
assistance with respect to the information I
required. I have not been allowed access to the
public library at the British Museum since the
year 1850, - the reason for which according to
Sir Henry Ellis, the then chief librarian, being
because I claimed to be the Duke of Lancaster, as
heir of the whole blood of King Henry VI.; and he
therefore adopted the fine old English custom of
locking the stable door after the horse was
stolen.
Every obstacle has been placed
in my way with a view to prevent my compiling
this work; which has ever been the grand object
of my life, and which by the providence of
Almighty God I have now accomplished; and the
contents of this book I trust will teach my
readers that "tempus omnia revelat."
With respect to the Charities,
considering that their insertion into this work
would fill up too much space, and that they have
all been given in full in the reports of the
Commission appointed by Parliament, which can be
easily obtained at the price of waste paper, I
have omitted the whole of them - my object being
to print nothing but such matter as has been
lying dormant for so many generations.
My readers must not look for
the blood of the ancient nobility and gentry of
Yorkshire amongst the present landowners, but
amongst the farmers and agricultural labourers,
many of whose ancient names are the sole remnant
of the many long lines of ancestry which will be
found recorded in these pages.
My own thanks, and the thanks
of all future generations which may be interested
in the history of Yorkshire, are due only to two
illustrious men, who, resisting all the evil
combinations of my contemptible enemies, in their
attempt to exclude me from the Public Records,
did, by their courtesy and kind consideration
afford me every facility to obtain that
information which has enabled me to compile this
work. The names of those two illustrious men are,
The Right Honourable Sir George Jessel, Master of
the Rolls, and his predecessor, the Right
Honourable Lord Romilly.
G. H. DE S. N.
PLANTAGENET-HARRISON
"Deus laus et gloriam."
* Hitherto Domesday Book has
been erroneously supposed to contain particulars
of all the lands in England, and immense sums of
public money have been at various times, at the
suggestion of senseless people, expended upon it
through sheer ignorance - lately including a
facsimile by the process of Photozincography,
which cost the public £17,000, and was simply
useless, as scarcely anybody could read or
understand the meaning of it.
I applied to the authorities
for the use of these plates, in order that I
might republish them with a verbatim translation,
for the public benefit; but I was informed that
those costly plates have been destroyed - a true
edition of the "Dog in the Manger."
The new Domesday Book which has
been devised, and which is now in progress, is
simply a public swindle: if Parliament require a
new Domesday Book, they must first of all abolish
the Statute of Limitations, and reverse all the
attainders since the time of Henry VI., calling
upon all the present landholders to show their
titles to their estates; then we should have a
real Domesday Book; but the present attempt to
waste vast sums of the public money, set about by
the late Radical Government as one of their acts
of retrenchment, ought not to be allowed by the
present Ministry. Better give the money to the
starving poor than thus throw it away amongst
useless people for a useless purpose. Why should
the people be taxed for the purpose of compiling
a book full of errors, supposed to contain a list
of the present landholders, most of whom are mere
mushrooms, of the most obscure and doubtful
lineage?"
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