Historical and genealogical memoirs of the House of Hamilton

24 MEMOIRS OF THE DE BELLOMONTS,
robert, together with the forest and knights' fees. He afterwards made a pil-
3U11NAMED . I TT 1 T 1 1 • 1 1
fitzparnell. grimage to the Holy Land, where, in a tournament, bearing the arms of
~ Richard, he unhorsed the Soldan.
Anno 1206. He married Lauretta, daughter of William, Lord Brause,* a powerful
baron, whose principal estates lay in Devonshire and on the borders of
Wales. Dying without male issue, he was buried before the high altar in
the Abbey church of Leicester, leaving all his great inheritance betwixt
his two sisters.
circa 1230. The title of Earl of Leicester was afterwards revived in the person of
his nephew, the so much celebrated Simon de Montfort. Some lands in
England falling to his family, — the elder brother, who enjoyed more opu-
lent possessions in France, transferred his right to Simon the younger.
Simon, coming over to England, did homage for the lands, and was raised
by Henry the Third to the dignity of Earl of Leicester. In the year
1238 he married the King's sister, the Dowager Countess of Pembroke,
by whom he had a numerous issue.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES CONCERNING THE DESCENT
OF THE FAMILY.
I have thus traced the history and descent of the renowned and potent
Earls of Leicester, because it is from this noble stock that the great pro-
genitor of the Hamilton family appears to have come, and from them
through an intermediate ancient family of the name of Hamilton, who
formerly possessed the lordship and manor of Hamilton in Leicestershire.t
* Burton, in his History of Leicestershire, says his name was Reginald de Bruis,
Lord of Brecknock ; and Wood, in his Peerage, designs him William de Brechin,
Lord of Brechin. Burton published his work in 1623.
f From Nicholls's History of Leicestershire, vol. iii. fol. 53.
" Hamilton is a small lordship, bounded by Scraptoft, Humberston, Barkby,
Thorpe, and Beby, and was once the property of Hugo de Grentesmainell.
" Hamilton," says Mr Burton in 1642, " is in the parish of Barkby, and had a
chapel within it. In this town was the seat of the antient family of Hamilton, which
belonged to the old Earls of Leicester, from whose grant they had this land, and
therefore bare for their arms, gules, three cinquefoils ermine, alluding to the said
Earl's coat, who bare gules, one cinquefoil ermine, both which stand together in St