CHAPTER IV.
CANNON HALL.
Hunter begins his notes of Cannon Hall by observing that "the interest at Cawthorne of the Lords of the Manor has been much overshadowed by the growth of this large estate, which appears to have been enfranchised by some early lord, and in which in 4 Richard II. (1381) the owner, then Thomas de Bosvile, had a grant from the king of a free warren."
By a grant of this kind, the king, in whom after the Conquest rested the exclusive right of taking and killing game of any kind, conceded this privilege to one of his subjects, "with the principal intention of protecting the game, by giving the grantee a sole and exclusive right of killing it himself, provided he prevented other persons." (Blackstone.)
The first clear and undisputed instance of the name of "Cannon" being applied to land at Cawthorne is in the le Hunt deed mentioned in the last chapter, in which a wood called "Cannon Greve" is named as being sold for fuel for the smelting of iron ore in the earlier part of the fourteenth century.
The word "Greve" here is the olden form of the word "Grove." It is found in Chaucer’s "Knight's Tale."
That al the orient laugheth of the light,
And with his stremes dryeth in the greves
The silver dropes, hongyng on the leeves."
The next mention of this estate is in an "Inquisitio post mortem" of John Boswell in 21 Henry VI., who was found to die seized of Cannon Hall in Cawthorne. This "Inquisitio," which has been more than once incidentally mentioned before, was the inquiry made by the king's justices through a jury of the county on the death of any man of fortune, to ascertain the value of his estate, the tenure upon which it was holden, and who and of what age the heir was, in order that the king might know what profits might arise to the Crown.
