Notices of the Ellises of England, Scotland, and Ireland, from the conquest to the present time

15
united charges, are to be traced upwards to them ; such investi-
gation tending to augment the proofs sought after.
The first of these families is that of Venus, or Venour, of
Hants and Wilts. The forests of Woolmer and Alsieholt, or
Alisholt, were royal property, and this family were bailiffs or
chief foresters thereof. 1 William de Venuiz (or Venusia, 2 it
would seem, a barbarous Latin word for forest or hunting-ground)
paid a fine to have inter alia the forestership of Alsiholt. 3 No
arms of Venour, or Venus, occur in England, containing leopards'
faces or fleurs de lis ; but Vanner bears gules a fess argent be-
tween three leopards' heads or ; and Venois, in Normandy, bore
four coats, each containing six fleurs de lis, variously placed
and tinctured. Sir Adam de Gurdon, of Hants, who married
Constance, daughter and heiress of John de Venus,* in the
thirteenth century, bore three leopards' faces jessant de lis,
being, there is little doubt, the arms of his wife, the arms of his
family being three boars' heads. Madox, in his History of the
Exchequer, gives an account of the office of marshal of the
King's Court, about which a contest arose, in the time of Henry I.,
between John, son of Gilbert le Marshal, and Robert de Venuz.
The latter, it appears, held the manors of East Worldham in
Hants, and Dray cote in Wilts, by the serjeantry of performing
the office of marshal. These manors, by the Domesday Survey,
are said to be held by Geoffrey le Marshal. From the proximity
of the period, there admits of little doubt that this Geoffrey left
two daughters and coheiresses, married to Robert de Venuz and
Gilbert le Marshal, which latter seems to have acquired the
office indicated by his name, not however without a dispute from
his co-inheritor, whose lands being held by virtue of serving the
office, would entitle their holder to fill it. Henry III. confirmed
the gift of the manor of Draycote to Henry de Cerne, by John
de Venuz, whose descendants possessed it for several generations. 5
The family of Came of Nash, according to Burke's Landed
Gentry, bore for their ancient arms three fleurs de lis ; their
origin, as there given, is Welsh ; but it is much more likely, from
1 Jbbrev. Rot. Orig. p. 198.
2 Herbert de Venatione, or de Venaison, occurs in the Rot. Oblat. Nor-
mannice, 2 John, quoted in Madox's Hist, of the Exchequer, ii. 179. This
would seem to be one of the same family, and another orthography of the
name. In the Pipe Roll for Hants, 1131, Robert de Venuiz pays for the
guardianship of the daughter of Herbert the Chamberlain, whom he
perhaps married to one of his sons.
3 Mag. Rot. Pipce, 4 Richard I.
4 In Burke's Landed Gentry, art. " Gurdon," erroneously said to be
Makarel, to an uncle of which name she was also heir. — [Vide White's
Selborne.)
6 Hutchin's Dorsetshire, iv. 198-9.