Page:VCH Warwickshire 1.djvu/339

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THE DOMESDAY SURVEY in Lincolnshire (fo. 337!)) and in Nottinghamshire (fo. a8ob) Domesday mentions him among those local magnates who enjoyed sac and soc, and we can hardly doubt, therefore, that he was also the ' Siward ' who was the predecessor of Henry de Ferrers in his only two Nottinghamshire manors, Leake and Sutton Bonington in the south-west of that county. He was probably also, therefore, the ' Siward ' who had preceded Henry at some two places in Derbyshire, and the ' Seward ' or ' Siward ' whom Henry had succeeded in three valuable Berkshire manors. To finish with Siward while discussing him, we observe that his lands about the mouth of the Trent did not pass to Henry de Ferrers, although Henry, we have seen, claimed Amcotts. Another Warwickshire tenant-in-chief, Geoffrey de la Guerche, who was great in the Isle of Axholme, secured Haxey on the Lincolnshire and Adlingfleet on the Yorkshire side of the county border at this point. 'Seiard bar' had some outlying lands, in addition to all these, just to the west of Cromer ; but neither Henry nor Geoffrey obtained a share of them. Now Siward Barn, by that name, appears once on the page of history ; he was one of those who came by ship, in 1071, to join the rebels in the Isle of Ely, 1 but were forced to surrender to the Conqueror. Mr. Freeman, without giving his reasons, calls him a ' Northumbrian thegn' and makes him identical with the Siward who made his submission to William after the latter's coronation. Among the magnates who submitted on that occasion was a Turchil, who may not impossibly have been Turchil ' of Warwick ' himself. 2 But the fate of the smaller holders under William is our difficulty. Mr. Freeman seems to have held that in Warwickshire they fared ill. It is painful, on looking through the Warwickshire Survey, to compare the vast estates of Thurkill with the two or three other thegns of the shire who retained some small fragments of their property. It is plain that here, as elsewhere, the men of the shire at large were patriotic and paid the penalty in the confiscation of their lands. 3 Mr. Freeman, of course, was speaking only of Englishmen who still held their land direct of the Crown ; the names of these, five in number, follow that of Richard the forester in the place where Domesday enters the English thegns, but, with the exception of a certain Leofwine, who was possibly brother to ./Elfwine the sheriff, they had but small holdings, When, however, we turn to the English under-tenants, we are struck at once not only by their number, but by the frequent cases of men who held under Norman barons the same estate that they had held themselves in the days before the Conquest. This is a feature of the Warwickshire survey which makes it contrast, it will be found, with those of the surrounding counties. On some fiefs, such as those for in- 1 See the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and also Florence of Worcester : ' Morkarus vero, et ^Egelwinus Dunholmensis episcopus et SitvarJui cognomento Barn et Herewardus vir strenuissimus, cum multis aliis, Heli insulam navigio petierunt.' Simeon of Durham makes the bishop and Siward come from Scot- land. 1 Although his father was then living, Turchil is entered under Warwickshire as having held some, lands himself under King Edward, so that he must have been of sufficient age to attend. 3 Norman Conquest, iv. 189. 283