caution—that actual proof is wanting for the relationship of 'Nigel de Stafford' to his alleged brother Robert de Stafford, who was an undoubted Toeni. Indeed, he holds that 'there is no evidence whatever of this (fraternity), and chronological probabilities are against it.' Falling back on 'more or less probable conjecture,' he suggests as a likely solution that Nigel 'the great crux' as he terms him, 'of the Gresley pedigree,' was a son, rather than a brother, of Robert de Stafford. The problem must, we fear, be left in this condition, nor is it likely that evidence enabling us to solve it will yet come to light. As to the chronology, however, one may offer a small criticism, because the point is one which others may be glad to note. Mr. Madan argues from the fact that two of Nigel's sons, 'William and Nicholas, are alive in 1165.' The experienced student of genealogy will hesitate to reject an assertion as impossible on the ground of chronology alone; but it is, on the face of it, suspicious that William and Nicholas should be living some eighty years after their father's appearance as lord of Drakelowe, nor can we find any evidence in Mr. Madan's pages that they were.
This correction removes a difficulty in the way of accepting the early pedigree. Mr. Madan reminds us that 'the century and a half after the Domesday Survey of 1086 is the darkest of all the byways which the genealogist has to tread,' and this is more especially true of the first half of that period. It is therefore peculiarly satisfactory to have such excellent evidence for the first few generations, though the fact that the great-grandson of the Domesday lord was living 130 years or more after the Survey reminds us that there is always the possibility, where Christian names recur, of a generation having been omitted, as indeed is sometimes the case in pedigrees at a much later date.
A far more difficult question is that of the descent of Drakelowe, of which no really satisfactory explanation has yet been given. In Domesday it is held immediately of the king, but we find it subsequently held of the mighty house of Ferrers—with which the Gresleys appear to have been associated from the first—by virtue of a special grant from King John. Sentiment would make one desire to prove that the tenure of Drakelowe by the Gresleys had been continuous from the Conquest; and Mr. Madan does his best to prove that this was so; but it is frankly admitted even by him
