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INTRODUCTION |
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Page 17 |
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(Newcastle Daily Journal, April 1, 1901). As a matter of fact the
main line of the Ogles is mentioned as holding land in Fowberry in
1341, the name Ogleburgh may have been coined but in inquisitions
post mortem the detailed names of places are generally omitted so
that it may be an old name.
Bosworth, in his dictionary, says that "ea"
[in the]
Anglo-Saxon
[language]
is equivalent
to
[an]
0 long
[in the]
Gothic
[language and the result];for the word "eye" we have "oog" in Dutch and
"eag" in Saxon. In Irish "Ogal" and "Egal" each mean fearful, but the
prefix "Og" is common in Irish and not "Eg" (O'Reilly, Irish-English
Dict.); the form "Eagal" for fearful is found in the Gaelic. In the
Saxon the prefix "Og" is rare and "Eg" common. Professor Stephens, in
speaking of the change in Scandinavian characters, enumerates "e" as
amongst the lost letters, so a point was put in the "i" which became
"e"; he says there was a tendency to slur or elide
[omit or slur] the N (or M) and
"I"
was written for "IN" "o" for "on", etc. (Runic monuments, G. Stephens, pp.
22, 23), so that it seems that any writer transcribing from Runic
writing might, according to the system adopted. Interpret a name
such as Oggil into Eggil or Iggil, or even Engil and Ingil.
Westmorland and Cumberland were evidently at one time peopled with
Danes. To the south of Englewood, or Inglewood forest, the manor of
Oglebird and Oglebird beck
[beck, A small brook] used to lie; to the north lies Thursby,
which was an old possession of the Ogles (Hutchinson's Hist. of
Cumb., vol. ii., p. 457; Nicholson and Burns’ Hist. of West. and
Cumb., vol. i., p. 399). It is probable, therefore, that the name
Ogle of its equivalent was Gotho-Scandinavian and this race extended
to Jutland - whence it was probably taken over as a personal name
and possibly the island now known as Inishmore was named after the
person. In a similar manner the name was extended to the shores of
the Forth and from both of these the name still further developed
itself. The name also appears in Sweden in the
eighth century as a
personal of a descendible personal name and in Danish times it
appears to have existed as a personal name but it seems probable
that by the difficulty of exactly giving the right interpretation to
the runes of different orders that the name only appears in actual
English history under the name of Eggil or Egil. If the name originated from the Irish language, as attributed by Joyce, how is it found in its simplest form in Inishmore whose inhabitants are of a fairer type than is usually found in the Irish, and who have been supposed to have been of Danish ofigin, whose predecessors, the Jutes, had settlements in the north of Great Britain where a similar name is found, unless the name spread naturally in that direction? For "Working from Inishmore north and east we come to Cloonoghill and Ogulla, parishes in Roscommon (Joyce, Parl. Gazetteer, Ireland, 1884-5) then in Sligo, the parish of Cloonoghill and an Oghil House (Joyce, Index Geographicus), then in Londonderry, Desertoghill church, of which St. Columba was patron (Histns. of Scot. vol. vi., p. lix.). The connection of St, Columba with Scotland is well known as is also the connection of his followers with Northumberland. Allowing that a connection between the personal name and the place name has been established the question of the surname involves much more difficulty, for it may have been taken, quite Independently, from the place name. When the Conquest seated the Norman on the throne of England, the estates of the heirs who had fallen in battle, or had fled, were parcelled out among his followers, but the rest of the English occupiers were left in undisturbed possession of the legal state to which their castle entitled them (Rot, Norm, i. Xvii.). Mr. Dixon says, a few years after the Conquest the Saxon gentry and landowners were gradually dispossessed and driven from the soil to make room for the Norman families, and the conqueror easily found favourites to marry the Wives or daughters, and to take into their own hands the lands and privileges of the Saxon nobility, whom, on the slightest pretence, he caused to he beheaded or driven into banishment. |
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The Saxon slave, or villan, who belonged to the soil, then became the property of
a Norman master, while the Saxon thegn and churl soon became
exterminated. In Northumberland one or two Saxon families
survived - the Ogles of Ogle and the Roddams of Roddam - who
probably did homage for their lands (Whittingham Vale, D. D.
Dixon, p. 1:2). But before the Conquest, as has been seen, there
are abundant evidences of a place name, there are also evidence
of the same being used as a personal name and
evidence in the
eighth century of the name being a descendible name in Sweden,
but this is very early for a surname in Great Britain, although
it might not be so for Sweden and other places. Yet in the tenth
century, Kenneth MacAlpine was king of Scotland, whose surname
has descended to the present day. |
| Page 19 |
| Halfdene and Guthred (Hodgson I., p. 140), and the people between the Tyne and Tweed, it is said, are nearly of a pure Anglian race and quite different from those of Durham and Yorkshire which are Anglo-Saxon (B.F.C. Pap.). In the year 882, Guthred, a Dane, became vassal king under Alfred. In about the year 930 the famous Egil occurs under King Athelstan, who annexed the province to his own dominions, but the Danish power seems to have been prominent until the year 953, after which earls ruled the country, Osulph being the first. Between 959 and 975, king Eadgar ceded Lothian to the Scots. The subsequent inroads of the Danes in 995 and 1008 do not seem to have affected the present county of Northumberland, which was as an earldom often separate from that of York with which it was generally associated. In 1008, Siward became earl of both the provinces. Towards the latter end of his rule, it is presumed the father of Humphrey Ogle was born, a date which is arrived at as follows: -- The earliest family charter was a grant by which Walter fitz William, baron of Whalton, confirmed to Humphrey de Hoggel certain rights in his own land in fee and inheritance, etc., to which charter William de Merley, Richard Bertram, William de Insula, and Osbert the Sacristan of Horton, are witnesses (Ap. 3). Hodgson says (Hodgson II. i. Ped.) that William de Merley was dead in 1138, which statement is confirmed by a charter of that year, when Newminster abbey was founded. Again Hodgson (Hodgson II. i. 372) says William de Merley and William de Insula died in the time of Henry I. Again (Hodgson II. ii., 374) he says William de Merley died in 1129, and his name is found in the Pipe Rolls for that year, after which the records until the year 1158 are lost, when other persons of the same names occur; but that these witnesses are the earlier individuals is partly borne out by the fact that, in 1129, Osbert, the mason of Bamburgh, paid £100 for Danegeld, and is possibly the same person who built Brinkburn in the time of Henry I., and appears to have been a cleric of some sort (Ap. 275), as also is the Osbert in the charter under consideration. The pedigree of the Ogles, formerly in red letters on the chancel of Bothal church, asserts that Walter fitz William came into England with William the Conqueror, who gave him the barony of Whalton, and the said Walter, by his deed, without date, granted to Humphrey de Ogle aforesaid, all such lands and liberties as he or any of his predecessors had before the coming of the Normans into England (Harl. MS. 1363) (AP. 155). The pedigree given in Archaeologia Aeliana. vol. xix., p. '.251, was in black letters on the walls of Bothal church, but is not the original one --- it asserts that Humphrey Ogle, esquire, lived at Ogle castle at the Conquest, to whom William the Conqueror, by his deed without date did confirm unto him all his liberties, etc., as before. The first of these agrees with the charter. However, a Walter fitz William occurs in the Pipe Rolls up to the year 1181, in which year he probably died. A fitz William also occurs as a knight in the roll of Battle Abbey, and as the name fitz William descends as a whole surname, Walter fitz William may be a son, who also may have had a son named Walter, either of whom may be the one named in the charter. Thus We should have two of the same name occurring after each other. If the barony of Whalton was formed, as has been said, by the Conqueror, then it seems certain there were two Walter fitz Williams, for if only one - and subject to his death in 1181 - it is unlikely he could have had the barony much before the year 1125, and the charter could not be dated much earlier than this date, and in the other case we might go back further than 1095 or perhaps to the days of the Conqueror. |
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Preserved at the Guild hall is the Conqueror's charter to London: --
William, King, greets William, Bishop, and Gosfrith, Portreeve, and
all the burghers within London, French and English, friendly; and I
do you to wit that I will you be all law-worthy that were in King
Edward's day. And I will
that every child be his father's heir, after his father's day, and I
will not endure that any man offer any wrong to you. God keep you.
(See also Forsyth's History of Trial by Jury, p. 95.) Again in a notification by William II. to Osmond (de Séez), Bishop of Salisbury, and all his barons and lieges, French and English, in Wiltshire. of his grant to the church of St. Martin de Bello (Battle Abbey, county Sussex), by order of his father, of the manor of Bromham Wilts). Witnesses, Eudo le Dapifer, Roger Bigot, and others; dated at Winchester (1087-1099), Latin (Cot. MS., Aug., 1153). Mr. E. J. Wilson gives a charter of Queen Matilda before the year 1107: -- Matilda, of England, Queen, to Roger Bigot, and all the King's Barons, French and English, in Northumberland, greeting be it known, that I have granted to God, St. Alban and St. Oswin, and to Richard the Abbot, the land of Archi Morell (Bewick), to be possessed for ever, for the soul of my father. And I will that St. Alban's hold it with peace and honour, and Sac ancl Soc and Tol and Team and Infangentheof, and all custom. And I command you, Roger, that you do faithfully defend the Church of St. AIban's and St. Oswin. Witness, Bernard the Chancellor.· In the Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland is a charter, 1124-1140: -- [D]avid, K. of Scots, to all the good men of this whole land, French, English and Galwegians,' giving to Robert de Brus, in fee and heritage, to him and his heir, etc. Witnesses, Walter the Chancellor, Hugh de Morville, Walter fitz Alan, Odonell de Umframville, etc. In (1166), ‘W[illiam], K. of Scots, to his Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justices, Sheriffs, and other good men, French, English, Scots, and Galwegians.' gives, etc., to Robert de Brus as freely as they held them in the time of K. David, his grandfather, of K. M[alcolm], his brother. Witnesses, Ric. De Morville, Walter Fitz Alan, Odonell de Umfremville. Thus the charter in question agrees with a style in vogue about the year 1130, but not in vogue in 1166, and therefore to give to it a date between 1095 and 1125 is permissible. Assuming then that the inheritance spoken of belongs to the past as it did in a later charter (Ap. 4) and so agrees with the pedigree in Bothal church, and that taking Humphrey's age at forty and that he must have had at least one ancestor in possession of Ogle, we arrive at the birth of the father as being in the latter part of Earl Siward's rule. This agrees with the remark that the Norman found them there lords of the soil long before, under Saxon earls and Danish kings’ (Welford), also ‘The name Ogle seems to warrant its Saxon origin, and the family affords a rare instance of the descendants of a Saxon nobleman obtaining power under the Norman Dynasty' (Fam. Ogle). After Siward, Tosti became Earl, and then came a second Osulph, earl of Northumberland and Morcar, earl of York. The former was displaced by the Conqueror, and Copsi placed in his room, and then Robert Comyn. In 1068, William I. defeated Edgar Atheling, and Malcolm, king of Scotland, but it is doubtful whether he wholly subdued Northumberland which was more under the sway of Scotland (Camden, vol. i. p. 133), and he did not include it in the Domesday Book. Hartshorne says that it was only some years after the Conquest that William, if he ever succeeded in weakening the spirit of independence the Scandinavians had planted (Feudal and Mil. Ant., p. 99), and ,Worsaae says that neither William the Conqueror nor his immediate successors obtained such mastery over the north of England and the Danish population as over the rest of the country, since the inhabitants of the north fought with the bravery inherited from their forefathers. Humphrey Ogle was no doubt living in his day, or at least born in his days, for he was a juror or witness with his son Gilbert to the issues of a trial by battle (Ap. 4), and this charter is by Hodgson stated to be in the reign of |
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