9* s. vii. FEB. 16, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
123
clerk in that office, was directed to make a
search for them. In the course of that search
he came upon two locked boxes which gave n
external indication of their contents, and
about which no one knew anything. They
were opened, and were found to contain papers
relating to Selwyn, who had been Surveyor-
General of Crown Lands, &c., and to have
inside the lids directions in his handwriting
that in case of his death they should be
delivered to his executors. They, or the
survivor or representatives of them, were
duly informed, but failed to take away the
boxes, which remained at the Office. It was
from these papers, as my father told me, that
the letters published by Jesse were derived.
In the preface he says :
"To those who have kindly and liberally per- mitted the editor to avail himself of the letters in their possession, the editor takes this further oppor* tunity of expressing his sincere thanks."
But my father's impression was that the publication was unauthorized, and was resented by the Carlisle family. Of this, however, I have no proof.
In the first paragraph of his preface Jesse refers to Selwyn's habit of preserving, " not only every letter addressed to him during the course of his long life, but also the most trifling notes and unimportant memoranda." The contents of the boxes were of this miscel- laneous character. A few unimportant documents were taken by my father, and are now in my possession. The only one of any interest is a scrap in the handwriting of Horace Walpole, which is as follows :
DEAR SIR, Do send me the 3 rd vol. of Rousseau ; take care, for a few leaves of this 2 d are loose. I am this instant going to Strawberry-Hill ; I don't know how to ask you to go and dine there, but if you should like it, I will bring you back as soon as we have dined. Yrs., &c.,
H. WALPOLE.
I am not sure whether the second word is Sir, or Sn, or St.
Whether Jesse returned the MSS. he had made use of I do not know. From what is said in Mr. Roscoe's letter to the Athenaeum it would seem that he did not.
Some of the Selwyn papers still remain at the Office of Woods ; but as there is a question who is entitled to them, the public are, very properly, not allowed to examine them. Probably Jesse published all that were of interest and fit for publication.
Edward Jesse, J. H. Jesse's father, was a clerk in the Office of Woods, &c. He was appointed Deputy-Surveyor of Royal Parks and Palaces before 1830. Whether he then ceased to be a clerk in the Office I do not
know, nor whether J. H. Jesse was a clerk in
the Office before he obtained a clerkship in
the Admiralty. J. F. ROTTON.
THE FATHER OF EUSTACE FITZ JOHN.
MY suggested identification of the father of Eustace fitz John in 'N. & Q.' nineteen years ago (5 th S. xii. 83), which the writer of the article on Eustace in the * Dictionary of National Biography' was afraid to adopt, has been recently confirmed by some new particulars to be found in Mr. Round's valu- able * Calendar of Documents in France,' Rolls Series, published last year (i. 253).
The received pedigree of the Burkes is completely overthrown ; it was obviously fictitious, and can now be replaced by one on a sure foundation, but still showing a hitherto unsuspected connexion between Eustace and William fitz Aldeline.
It is the mill of Viem(Vains,near Avranches), given to the monks of Mont St. Michel by Robert, Count of the Normans, which has revealed these facts, or rather confirmed my suggestions. It appears that at the time of the count's death in 1035, when he was returning from Jerusalem, Abbot Suppo (1033, ob. 4 Nov., 1061), in spite of the opposition of the monks, sold this mill to Ranulf the moneyer. " But afterwards, in the time of Abbot Ranulf (1061-8), the mill came to Gualaran, son of [the above] Ranulf other heirs failing " as the memorandum, not contemporary, asserts, " and was bought [back] from him at a high price. Some fifteen years, more or less, later [1076], the said John [fitz Richard] suddenly claimed the mill and seized it without making any proof of his right, the Abbot Ranulf vigorously resisting." The matter was brought before the king by the abbot, who obtained judgment in his favour. This is undoubtedly the John fitz Richard 1 took to be the nephew of Waleran and father of Eustace fitz John long ago, and whom I think so still the John "monoculus" of the printed pedigrees, so called from a misreading of a passage in the 1 Chron. of Roger de Hoveden,' where his son Eustace is described as "luscus et proditor nequam," unless, indeed, both were one-eyed.
If we could trust the memorandum in the Register of Mai ton Priory ' made in the time of John de Vesci (1254-88), John had a brother named Serlo viz., Serlo de Burgh or de Pembrocke but what we know about him from the history of Fountains Abbey would place him a generation later. I cannot explain the reason why John fitz Richard should have given the tithes of Saxlingham, in Norfolk, to the distant abbey of Gloucester,
