CHAPTER I
BIRTH AND LINEAGE
Man is known among men as his deeds attest,
Which make noble origin manifest.
ISABEL, Lady Burton, was by birth an Arundell of Wardour, a daughter of one of the oldest and proudest houses of England. The Arundells of Wardour are a branch of the great family of whom it was sung:
Ere William fought and Harold fell
There were Earls of Arundell.
The Earls of Arundell before the Conquest are somewhat lost in the mists of antiquity, and they do not affect the branch of the family from which Lady Burton sprang. This branch traces its descent in a straight line from one Roger de Arundell, who, according to Domesday, had estates in Dorset and Somerset, and was possessed of twenty-eight lordships. The Knights of Arundell were an adventurous race. One of the most famous was Sir John Arundell, a valiant
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