Cylchgronau Cymru

26 THE CAMBRIAN REMEMBRANCER. JAN., 1878. Our American cousins have been paying great at¬ tention to genealogy of late, but they doubtless find it difficult to carry down the lines of descent with sufficient exactitude to enable them to institute legal claims to property. This applies to the Saluaburys as much as to any old English family I know. John Salusbury, a son of the Llanrhaiadr branch, emigrated to America between 1630 and 1640; Henry Salisbury, of the Llanrwst branch, in like manner emigrated to America. ; Hugh Salusbury, of the Rhugbranch, did the same; and Sir Thomas (the third Bart.) in a published lettei says :—" Should I now leave my country, being the only hope of the direct line of my house, having no more a hopeful successor, should it please God to c 11 for me, than Robert Salsbrie, one whose dissolute life hath made a scorn to his country." Poor wild Robert had gone abroad too, but he went to Germany, *nd it is said on fair authority that he had sons, and they too had sons, and that in 1848 a descendant in that very line was living and thriving; not a hundred miles from Frankfort, on the Maine ! The mysteries of genealogy and of entails are happily dear toys to play with; were they not so, I can well believe that many a proud lordling would have cause to quake in his shoes, lest some •' claimant" should arise to give him trouble. Mwos. JANUARY 5th, 1878. NOTES. The Hanmers of Hanmer.—In the beginning we may assume that King Edward I., as was his wont, sent an English officer to Hanmer to hold for his use as much land as he could lay hands upon. One Thomas de Maccleefield, a Cheshire knight, would seem to have been the king's instrument in this business, and long before the close of the thirteenth century Macclesfield appears to have secured for himself and his heirs some of the rich possesions at Hanmer, which now own Lord Hanmer for master. A grandson of the aforesaid Macclesfield, I opine, must have been the first Hanmer of Hanmer on record, and Sir Samuel Meyrick calls him Sir John de Hanmer, who appears to have married Hawes, daughter of Einion, Lord of Powis, thus converting himself by kindred and estate into a Welshman of the first water. I pass over his begottens, down to— Sib David Hanmer, who in the 49th of Edward III was a well-known se^jeant-at-law, and in the6th of King Richard II. a justice of the K ng's Bench. This wise and learned judge was a pe^ onaee of whom we may be proud—"Yr Arglwrdd Hanmer," far-famed for his tongue and counsel, "the asserter of justice, and the moderator of meted law," —a pattern man, according to allacconnt&,v.hoknew how to deal learnedly andhonourably with every case brought before him. He had married Anghared, daughter of Llywelyn Ddu, ap Griffin ap Yorwerth Voel, of the race of Tudur Trevor, and thus put away from him the Anglo-Norman stijjma that gave so much offence to his hot countrymen, who gloried in all that was Cambrian—be it humble or be it high. He had sons and daughters many, bat I pass them all over but two— Griffin Hanmer, his eldest son, who married Guervila, sister to Meredith father of Owen Tudor, who was grandfather to our Henry of- Pembroke, and— Margaret Hanmer, his second daughter, who married Owen Glendower, and who thus became mother to a right noble race of Shenkins, of whom we have just reason to be proud. I must not dwell upon this theme, for time and space forbid it; but old David's revered son, John Hanmer, cannot be Eassed over without a word, for unless history has een false, he held fast by Glendower in all his campaigns, and proved himself to be a mettlesome gentleman who feared no foe, and stood true to his native land and its sorely afflicted people. 'Twas he, who in 1404 accompanied Griffith Yonge, Glendower's chancellor, to the French court and succeeded in getting Charles VI. to enter into the celebrated treaty whhh so strengthened the Welsh arms agaiost King Henry IV. of England. We sanDOj but rejoice that he lived long enough to die tn peace, and to laave behind him a worthy son to succeed to his possessions. I pass over numerous ■nembera of this family to mention— Sir Thomas Hanmer, who died in 1545, who, acceding to my judgment, had gathered many laurels to his home by his gallant and loyal conduct in the service of that suspicious king, Henry VIII. Envy, malice, and uncharitable- ness throve amazingly in his lustful court, and the very fact that Sir Thomas had been useful to his master assured to him that share of suspicion which befel every true man whose business carried him to the courts of Henry's habitations. Luckily he passed thn ugh the ordeal in safety, and was allowed to die in hl3 bed, leaving behind him a famous son— Sir Thomas Hanmer, who for his valour was knighted at Musselburgh, in Scotland, and returned to his home to be "a succour and comfort" to his conntry. He died in 15S3, and, as, I suppose, was succeeded by his son— Sir John Hanmer, who sat at one time as M.P. for Flint. He married Jane Salusbury of Lleweni, and although Lord Hanmer has despatched him with the remark that he was "more concerned" about rabbits than aught else, I am inclined to think from a reference made to him elsewhere, that he was somewhat of a scholar and a gentleman of consider¬ able attainments. Indeed Lord Hanmer admits that h9 has in his library a work by Philip de Comins with his name written in it, and that trifling incident speaks volumes in his favour. Death overtook him in 1604, when his son— Sir Thomas Hanmer, became Lord of Hanmer. He too sat in Parliament for Flintshire, was one o f the Council of the Welsh Marches, and accompanied the Earl of Derby to France in 1585 to invest King Henry III. with the Order of the Garter. He married Katherine Mostyn, of Mostyn, and dying in 1619 was succeeded by his son— Sir John Hanmer, who in 1620 was made a