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

10 MANOR OF HURST-PIERPOINT.
and had achieved a reputation and a position that placed them
on a level with the most renowned dukes and earls of the
kingdom. The fame, indeed, of the Poynings' seems to have
rose as that of the Pierpoints fell : for we do not read of a
Poynings going to the Holy Land, and being afterwards com-
memorated by a Crusader's effigy remaining to this day, as
was the case with the Pierpoints ; nor does it appear that a
Poynings as well as a Pierpoint was at the battle of Lewes,
and got noticed in history ; nor could the annals of Poynings'
or Pierpoints match what is recorded of their neighbours
the Kahaignes and Cheneys, who before the close of the four-
teenth century had founded several distinct houses, all bearing
their hereditary Norman name, but distinct armorial bearings,
indicating alliances with heiresses ; and, while no branch lost
its original position, some attained more exalted rank. So
wide-spread, indeed, was their name, that it is affixed to more
than twenty towns or manors ; and Fuller, writing in the six-
teenth century, observes of it — " The name of Cheney is so
noble and diffused through the catalogue of sheriffs, that it is
harder to miss than to find them in any county." But the
proofs of the wealth, populousness, and consequent extended
fame of a race or a house, are often delusive. The Cheneys
showed evidently a proud tenacity of their name, though they
frequently changed their coat armour ; such was the case in
both points with the Nevills, perhaps the greatest of all the
great houses of England ; yet, who by their Norman name
would appear to be also of Norman blood, are in reality, in
all their distinguished branches, direct descendants in the
male line of the Saxon Earls of Northumberland. The Pier-
points and Poynings', therefore, we may fairly presume, from
the infrequency of their names, did not keep up their patrony-
mics in the persons of their younger sons, whose descendants
are doubtless to be found named after their manors or offices,
or fathers' Christian names.
Some remarks on the armorial bearings of the Pierpoints
must conclude this digression from our otherwise matter-of-
fact narrative.
The arms borne (according to Dansey's Crusaders) by
Eobert de Pierpoint at the siege of Acre, were Azure, a chief
chequy or and gules, and by Simon de Pierpoint, Chequy or