Thursday, March 25, 2010

Post 23. The Triptych at Tamworth Castle ( Staffordshire ).(Updated version).

The Triptich at Tamworth Castle.
The Triptich consists of three heraldic panels sequentially numbered 53, 54 and 55 in a Commemorative  Collection  numbering  61, on the ceiling-corniches of the State Withdrawing  Room  and  the  Breackfast  Parlour, on  the   first   floor   at Tamworth Castle in Staffordshire. These  rooms  have  a  fireplace  each,  back to  back  through  a  shared  wall. There are a total of sixty one heraldic panels similarly painted,  in  these rooms, all quartered  per  pale  to commemorate marriages by and to the House of Ferrers,  with a few exceptions,   a  few being   individual Arms, the  one about Sir George Vere-Ferrers-Townshend, either the 16th or 17th Baron Ferrers de Chartley, Knight of Tamworth Castle, Baron Compton, Marquess of Townshend of Raynham, Earl of Leicester, being multi-quartered, displaying   28   Arms.
Most  Arms  are   in  the  State  Withdrawing   Room  as   this  is  the  larger  of  the  two,   the  Tryptich   being  on  the  ceiling-corniche   direcly  above  the  fireplace,    however,   although  being  the   smaller  room,  the  Breackfast Parlour   displays  right  onto  the   fireplace  a  magnificently  carved  oack-panel  showing  a   COA  of   12  quarterings,   complete   with   Crest,   Supporting  Animals,    Motto,  War   Cry  and  Mantling,   at  the  centre  of  a  corniche  of  symbols  and  mythical   characters,    favourite   fruits,   animals,    some  of   which  have  esoteric  links  to   Templar  and   Illuminati-thought  and  beliefs.
I  discovered   this   to  be  the  COA  of  Sir  Robert  ( Sewallis  or  Seswalo...the  ancient  pre-conquest  surname  of  the  Shirley ) Shirley-Ferrers   1692-1714,
(  died   sine   prole )  Viscount  Tamworth  1711 ,   son  of   Anne  Ferrers   heiress   of   Sir  Humphrey  Ferrers,   who   died  in   1678,    who  married   Robert  Shirley,  who   died  in   1698.
The series was commissioned in the times of the Hannoverian Dynasty (1714-1901 ), following the fall of the Stuart Dynasty ( 1603-1714 ), as panel 54 appears to refer to the reign of King James II ( 1685-1689 ), just before whose reign, John Ferrers, the last Ferrers Knight of Tamworth had died, in 1680. His daughter Anne had then inherited the Honour of the Knighthood of Tamworth Castle which was passed on to the son of her marriage to Robert Shirley Esq., who died in 1698, yes, her son Robert of  the  same  name  as  the  father,  (1692-1714 ) who styled himself Viscount Tamworth  in 1711.
Robert Shirley died without issue, and all Ferrers’ resources assembled in turn in the hands of the Shirley, the Compton, the Townshend, the Ferrers of Baddesley-Clinton being unable to accede to these probably owing to their lack of adequate rank, in spite of the marriage of Edward Ferrers of Baddesley-Clinton to the Ferrers-Townshend-heiress, Lady Harriet Ann Townshend, who died in 1813.
Owing to the presence in the series of the already mentioned, multi-quartered Coat of Arms of a Sir George Vere-Ferrers-Townshend, Marquess of Townshend,
either the 16th (1755-1811 ) or the 17th Baron Ferrers de Chartley ( 1788-1855), both of the same name, and with the same Titles and Honours, it is quite possible one of these two gentlemen may have been the one to have either commissioned or at least to have had the works completed.
There are a few errors, either pertaining to heraldic representation or of an historical nature in the Arms of the collection.
Although the principal aim----------there being several goals aimed at in the collection of heraldic nuptial Coat of Arms, all discussed in my book------appears to be to summarise and commemorate the most influential alliances with other noble Houses, since the beginning of the House of Ferrers at the landing at Hastings from Normandie, then known in the Latin used in those times all over Europe for legal purposes, as de Ferrariis, the Triptich holds a central position in the Nuptial Collection and focuses on the Britishness of the Ferrers by its summary of the links of this House with the Scottish Crown and its British traditions and aspirations, about which Sir Laurence Gardner ( of St.Clair, the traditional hereditary guardian of Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland ) writes so well and extensively in his books about the Holy Graal and the sacred Desposyniic Dynasties. Gardner fails however to ask vital questions about the failures of the Desposyniic ( Davidic ) Lines, thus also failing to seek suitable answers and to synthetise this knowledge for our times, a task I am trying to accomplish.
The three panels of the Triptich are in fact floating in a badckground of five-petal Rosae Rugosae or Templar Roses, pink and silver, which symbolise par excellence the Holy Graal tradition of the British Monarchy .
Let me quote from page 286 of Sir Laurence Gardner’s “ The Bloodline of the Grail Kings ”-:


On 26th March 1371 the Royal House of 6th century Arthur [ b. 599- d. 603 ] mac Aedan of Dalraida, the key Graal successions of Britain and Europe had conjoined in Scots Royalty, and the Stewarts’ ancient legacy of kinship was fulfilled.


Unquote.


Another Article in my book shows the links of the House of Ferrers to the Order of the Knights Templar since its origins, their contributions to and participations in the affairs of the Order, founded by Sir Godfrey de Bouillon, under the instigation and inspiration of Saint Bernard de Clairveaux, the reformer of the Cistercian ( Cluniac ) Monastic Order along stricter Benedectine Rules, until the loss of the Earldom of Derby at the time of the eighth and last Earl, Sir Robert Ferrers ( 1241-1279 ).
I shall come back in this Article, to this stage of Ferrers’ history, which has been much maligned and misrepresented by most historians slavishly protecting the reputation of the English Royal Dynasties of the Plantagenets and of the Tudors, among whom there were some really abominable and diabolical Kings, worthy of the worst and sinister side of their ancient barbaric anscestors. Being of the blood of Jesus has not been, does not necessarily mean a guarantee of sanctity as God’s Will, Grace and the assent to God’s Grace by the individual are required.
Both King David and Sholomon were corrupt, King Arthur was incestuous with his sister and we all know about King Henry VIII of the Tudor Dynasty.
Being related to Jesus can mean however a natural ( inherited ) predisposition to and openness to Grace.
Origins   in  accordance   to   blood  and  flesh/ancestry  do not  really   count   unless  ideals of the  spirit  are  also  embraced   and   made  visible   into   one’s  praxis.   Please  remember   Galatians   3:28.




Digression.


In a short but necessary digression, it is important to note that all modern democratic ideals of personal liberties, freedoms and priviledges, unless complemented by their corresponding duties are but shallow and hollow, aimed by abusers at justifying the liberties of corrupt leaders and rulers, including present Mafiosi ( i.e., anti-society, anti-civilisation, anti-State ), Repubblican Governments               ( a typical example being Italy to-day, in 2009). These abusers of Modern Democracy claim in fact to be democratic while abusing and corrupting the ideals of freedom by separating these from their corresponding complementary duties, and by neglecting a suitable and satisfactory education of the people, alienating these from their histories, noble traditions and heroic, sometimes saintly, referential witnesses, thus giving rise to generations of Pinocchio-like individuals, who have lost most of the knowledge of their national and even personal identities/histories/ glories/honours, becoming open to the evil, shallow manipulations of their soulless, mercenary leaders who fill these with hollow heroes taken from ball games, sports, the stages etc., a repetition in a different, bloodless form, of the Gladatorial Games of corrupt Imperial Rome.
All Modern Democratic ideals had their origins in the Golden Age of Greece which reached  its peak  at  the times of the ostracised, exhiled, persecuted oligarch Pericles, the last of the true, noble Greeks, and were championed and implemented in Medieval Europe, before the rise of the corrupt National Monarchies, by the Templar Movement which has its roots in the times of King Zedekiah
( 597-587 ) of Judah, martired by his Assyrian captors, whose daughter TAMAR was brought to Ireland by either  the Prophet Ezekiel   or  Jeremiah  together with the Royal Guards of the Temple of Jerusalem or Sion ( the anscestors of the Templars) and married in ca. 586 BC, to EOCHAID I, the King of the Irish, giving rise to the ‘Stone Royal Dynasty’ reaching down to UGAINE MAR THE GREAT of Ireland in the 4th century BC and from the latter down to the ‘Royal Scots and Welsh Dynasties’ of ARTHUR OF DALRIADA and ARTHUR OF DYFED  in  the  9th  century  AD.
One must also mention at this stage, the other judaeo/christian alliances through Jesus and Mary Magdalene, James of Arimathea and other intermarriages between Celtic, Gothic and Shythian Princes during their migrations from the Caspian Sea to Northern Europe and its islands, begun in ca. 6000 BC and even earlier prehistoric mediterranean semitic ones to the prehistoric anscestors of Cro-Magnon origins of the mentioned Celtic/Gothic/Shythian groups, which occurred in ca. 30,000, prior to the Last Glacial Maximum ( L.G.M.) that occurred between 25,000 and 13,000 BC.
There  is  also  a   publication  from   The  Covenanmt   Publishing   Co. Ltd.,  London,  “ The  Royal  House  of  Britain  an  Enduring  Dynasty ”  by  Rev. W. M. H. Milner......which   gives   at  page 21  a  genealogical  list   not  much   differing   from   the  one   supplied   by  Sir  Laurence  Gardner.   We  are  not  here   concerned    swith  exact  details    but   must  be    contented   with  the   fact    the   agreement  about   this  pre-historical    data  is   close   enough.  
In   the  former  document   Tamar   is  rendered  Tea   Tephi  of   Tara   and    the  prophet   Ezekiel  (   some  say  it  was  Jeremiah...............The  fact  is  a  Hebrew  prophet  was   involved    who   was  in  charge  of  the  Guards  of  the Temple  of  Jerusalem    in  the   times  of   King   Zedekiah  of  Judah. )   was   by  the  Irish  called   Olam  Folla.   According   to  the   ancient   Epics,    Tamar  married,  sometime   after her  father’s  death  in   587 B.C.,  a  Milesian (  from  Miletus/Greece )  Prince   of  Celtic  origins    with   ancient    origins  origins  in  the  area   around   the  Caspian  Sea  in   6000-4000 B.C.,   whom   she  met  in  Spain   during   their  migrations   to  Ireland   where   they  soon   landed   founding   a 
Dynasty  that   gave  rise  to the  Royal  Irish  and  Scottish   Houses,   through    which   the   existing   Stewart   (  Stuart )  line   as  well  as    those  of  all  Desposyniic   European   Monarchies    can  be   traced.
One  must   also  mention   at   this  stage  the  other  judaeo/christian   alliances    through    Jesus  and  Mary  Magdalene,  James  of  Arimathea   and  other intermarriages   between   Celtic,  Gothic,   and  Scythian   Princes   during   their   migrations   from  the    Caspian   and  Black  Seas   to   Europe   and   its  remote  northern    islands   which    began  in   ca. 6000  B.C..   One  must  not   forget   even  earlier  pre-pre-historic   migrations   by    mediterranean   semitic  people  of  the   ‘E’, ‘I’ ,’J’, ‘K’,  etc.    Y-DNA   Blood   Haplogroups,   who    mixed   with   the   Cro-Magnon   anscestors  of  the   mentioned    Celtic/Gothic/Scythian   groups,   of  the   ‘R’  group  which  occurred    in  ca.   30,000  B.C.,  prior  to the   last  Glacial   Maimum  (  L.G.M.)  that  occurred  between   25,000   and    13,000  B.C.


Constantinianism,  which   marked  during  the  early  centuries  of   the   first  millennium  A.D.,   the  divergence  of   Roman  Catholicism   from   the  Israelitic   brand  of   Christianiyt  of  Jesus’ followers,   although   motivated   in  the  times  following  Emperor   Constantine’s   death,     ( who was incidentally a Desposynic Ruler through   st.Helena,   his saintly mother’s anscestry ),    by then plausible historical and political reasons, has attempted during the first centuries of the Roman Christian Church to erase or somehow manipulate all these memories and origins and give Western History an exclusively Latin/Hebrew-dressing.    However   to-day, when this dressing has become alienated and corrupted by the rise to power on the waves of a corrupted and abused Democracy, of the moneyed, collusive, scheming, sinister, goat-herders and shepperds, ex-slaves brought into Europe by the naive Romans, or later Barbarian Invaders, who are also religious hypocrits, to-day has the time come to bring these memories and traditions back, to purge Constantinianism from its Mafia accretions, affiliations and infiltrations, to reform, revive   Christianity, and save Western Civilisation and its democratic achievements, by looking back to the original Templar understandings about a healthy and godly government.   It is important to remember that the Scottish King Robert The Bruce ( 1306-1329 ) gave sanctuary in Scotland to the Members of the Order of the Templars which is still active there in hiding, its ideals also being still alive to-day.
The Stuart Dynasty ( 1603-1714 ) tried to spread these ideals for the benefit of Europe, however England was then bent onto becoming a World Empire, a process begun under the Tudors and the religious wars among christian hypocrits and fanatics of various denominations, who made a mockery of Democratic Ideals, destroyed their well-intentioned attempts. The English Empire is now no more and the Tudors fizzed out in a couple of generations, killed by STDs contracted by King Henry VIII, paradoxically also a Desposyniic Royal. England ( I do not say Britain ), although still in better moral shape than Italy, France, the Balcans and the USA, etc. is fast degenerating too under Anglo-Saxon laissais-fairism which is not Democracy but its corrupted form.
. We all   realise  now  in  the  Era  I qualify  as “of Manure ”, the catastrophic events the Western World and the whole world  have  had  to  endure since the French Revolution and the Era of Enlightenment, without any real or permanent political progress,   including  the  rise  of  Neo-Islamism,   global demographic expansion  and  a  great  wastage  of  resources  that  are  threatening to obliterate Western achievements.
With the rise of a United Europe a possibility has now eventuated for another attempt at returning Law and Order to governing bodies infiltrated by moneyed power groups ( vulgarly called Mafie) who are so mercenary, selfish and stupid, as to not be able to realise the number of further catastrophic events looming at the horizon of their self-deluding ways. The Mafie have ruined the USA, are sabotaging Europe, and even Australia, a Continent the Cities of which can show such a transparency due to their open and clean areas and suburbs that organised crime should not be able to exist, is fighting a loosing war against Organised Crime since, even the High Police Force Commissioner has admitted the goal is now to just maintain existing Crime manageable. We are referring here principally to the drugs’ traffic that is damaging our young generations for which so much money is being invested when adolescents, a great deal of which is being wasted due to the damage caused by substance-abuse and a lack of identity. The inability to effectively hit Crime is the result of Democratic Laws that insist in dealing with it with an excessive amount of safeguards protecting the Criminal. Drug-users should also be prosecuted and punished. Gentlemen are required at all governmental levels, not just a couple of them as puppets at the top, members of the ancient noble Houses. In order to get these gentlemen to leading positions, the restauration of all Desposyniic Monarchs is required, joined into Monarchich Assemblies, with elected Monarchich leaders, ranked in accordance to their educational achievements and experiences, according to merit, working together to balance and check Parliaments, Senates, Congresses, all governmental levels, through series of Permanent Royal Commissions, in relation to issues of corruption, selfishness, delusionary fraudolent practices ( including bubbles of all sorts and descriptions ), monopolies, in relation to all moneyed powers in the Western Nations. These Monarchich Assemblies would also ensure the protection, survival and perpetuation of our Western Cultures, Traditions, Languages, Values/Ideals, Religious Beliefs and Liberties from the infiltrations, encroachments and take-overs of foreign, alien, opponents, mostly masquerading as Immigrants or lovers of   Democracy.
The West should remain open to adoption of Immigrants but these Immigrants should be West-Lovers, else they should remain where they came from,    not       emigrate just for the sake of acquiring political rights and to benefit from higher standards of living and being. These people, if serious, should remain in their own Countries and actively fight their corrupt leaders if needs be through armed
Revolutions.
There is no room for loafers and fake pacifists in our World. There has never ben a place for these fakes and yellow bellies, unless they are prepared to renounce the world like some ancient catholic, buddhist or islamic saints did.
These Immigrants must either fight their Revolutions at home or be prepared to fight in our armies.


End of Digression.


The Triptich is a Templar legacy for the Ferrers who are members of “gensferreria/ferraria/farrar ”. The reason for my spending so much time and effort in researching the Ferrers is therefore in the fact that they are Desposyniic, have these strong Templar links, which have also existed in other European families of “gensferreria ” as exemplified by the Arms of the Ferrari of Genova, have behaved extremely well when compared to noble families from the Middle Ages, surviving by the Grace of God until our present times, having given rise to this Clan which is unique in the History of Europe, and can be used as an example of Desposyniic excellence, in spite of the general failure of Desposyniic Monarchies. This legacy, this tradition, being of a spiritual rather than a material nature, can serve as an archetype for all those in the West who have descended from Celts, Goths and Scythian tribes who as the “gensferreria....... ” migrated to Europe from the Middle East prior to the establishment of the civilised borders of the Roman Empire. The Triptich is about all these issues I have written above, once one has taken the step and made the effort to know the History it has been associated with, this history having been interpreted correctly   in  the   spirit  of  Galatians 3:28   sith  which   I  try   to  permeate  my   historical,   theological,   phylosophical,   escatological,  etc.  world-view.
The abridged Genealogical   Charts preceding this Article have been supplied to provide some of the landmarks required for this understanding of the imperfect/flawed  human resources and their progress in experience,   evolution,  distance and time and of the European scenario, which gave rise to the Templar movement from its Biblical origins in the times of King  Zedekiah  ( 597-587 B.C.),  of  the Prophet Ezekiel/Jeremiah, the Temple of Jerusalem and its Body of Guards of Syon.
The Triptich begs the honest and enlightened reader to ask and to consider the question why did all these somehow well-intentioned Nobles and Monarchs,
related to the Davidic Lion of Judah, to the Royal House of Israel FAIL?
The House of Ferrers at least, which is a member ot  the Clan  of “gensferreria/ferraria/shirleia/farria”   as  well  as  of  the   wider  Desposyniic Davidic Circle,   has always been extremely well intentioned and behaved better than most, when contrasted to various Dynastic and noble Houses, all fallen along the way.
It still has to-day, representatives at the House of Lords  as  the Earl  Ferrers.The explanation asked above about the reasons for all this failure,   a question which is not asked or answered by Sir Laurence Gardner  (   who  as  a  claimant  to   the   title  of   Knight  St.  Clair   should  know   better  than   anyone  else )  and the present descendants of the ancient Desposynic Monarchies, still bent on and bound to try and repeat the errors of the Past,   if allowed to do so,    is the spirit of  all-exclusive  pride,  greed  and  murderous  competition  that animated all  these Desposynic Monarchs, as well as their predecessors,  since the Fall of the Roman Empire of   the West   in   ca. 450 A.D.,   who tried to eliminate one another in continuous fratricidal wars, including and up to WW I,   falsely   motivated     to   unending  wars    against  the  ideal  of  a   Christian  European  Unity,   under  the   mutually   balanced  supervision  of   the Sacred  Roman Empire   and  of   a   truly   spiritual  Christian  Church.
One  must  consider  at   this  stage  that  the   beginning  of  the  fratricidal  rot  in  the   West   was  the  usurpation   by  the   Carolingian   Dynasty,   under  the
encouragement  of  the  Roman  Church  ot  those  times,  of  the  rights   of  the   Merovingian  Dynasty,  issuing   from   the   ancient  Line  of  the  Fishers  Kings  that  was   from   King  Clovis  the  Merovingian,   who   had  become   King   ofthe   Salian  Franks    in   481  A.D.   with  the  blessings  of   both  the   western   and  the  eastern   Roman  Emperors.  This  usurpation   began   anew   a  chain   of   treacheries   that    reflected   those  of  the  Roman  Empire   when    oaths   had   ceased   to  have   sacred   importance   in   western   culture.
Western  man   must  be    retaught   the  sacredness  of   oath-taking   and  a
return   should   be  seeked  to  the  most   possible   pristine   oaths  taken  at    the   end  of  the  Western Roman   Empire.
The  interferences   of  the  Constantinian   Church  in  Rome   aimed   to  generate  an  Imperial  hyerarchy  totally   dependent   from   and  submissive  to  the  Roman  Church   and  tried  to   achieve  this  aim   by  manipulations   and  exclusions  of  scriptural  texts  (  at  the  council   of  Nicea  and   later   ones  ),   by  the  total   Judaization/Latinisation  of  the  biblical  sources,    by   reducing   the   importance  of   all    mesopotamian   cultural  and    ethnic   contributions,   the  removal  of   Desposyniic  mandates  and  missions  from   the  nordic  Royal   Lines   that   had  intemarried   with   the  Davidic  descendants,  etc..  As  a   contrast   one   can   see  in  the  Empire  of  Byzathium   the  opposite   scenario, one in   which  the   Church  was  obedient  to  the  Emperors,   not   without   struggles  or   violence  though.   So  one    observes   the    struggles   between  Church  and  State  for   dominance  in  Europe,   and  the   evil   rise  of   competing
Monarchies  in  Europe   encouraging    and    stressing  un-Christian,   nationalistic  divisons  with   the  Roman  Church’s   blessings.       Sir  Laurence  Gardner   speacks   well  in  his   works  of  these   manipulations,  in  spite  of  his  inability   to   synthetise   what  he   knows   for  our  times.  A   typical  example  is  the   incorporation    by  the   Jews  in  the  Pentateuch, of   the  racial   Noetic   story  of  God’s  rejection  of  the   blacks,   when   we   all  know  that    Moses 
himself,   Joseph of  Egypt,    Aaron,  Akhenaten,  Nephertitis  etc.   had  marked   dark   skins   and   ethiopic   features.    So   Michelangelo   ended  painting   God  as  a   white  patriarch  on  the   ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel   and  the    Hebrew  Scholars   still  debate   whether  Adam   was  of  the   white   race   and  God  Itself   white.
This  is   why   “gensferreria/ferraria/farria”    is   such  a  unique  phenomenon   in  Europe  and  in  the  world,   since   the  members  of  this  Clan,   unconsciously   retained  in  their   surnames,   by  remaining   at  least  true   to  their   surnames-:   i.e.,   in  the  Latin   irregular  verb  fero-tuli-latum-ferre................the  evidence  of  their   common   ancestral   roots.   This  amidst   the  chaos   and   disorder   of  European  history,  like   the  struggles   between   Welfs  and Ghibellines  and  those   caused  by  the  religious  wars,  just  to  name  a  couple  of  issues    that  caused   divisions,   enmities   and  dissents.
I  am   not  against   Roman  Catholicism    and   Democracy  which  I  wish   to    synthetically  retain  as  one  of   the  major western  forces,  but    pointing   to  a  need   for   reformation  and  truth.   


This is why I am suggesting to-day a restauration of all existing surviving Monarchs to the ancient European seats of Monarchich Government, under democratically controlled conditions and safeguards, afforded by modern Media and Communications, benefiting from the new realisations and understandings afforded by our present knowledge of History, interpreted according to the lines pointed out here in this Article.
These  Monarchs   should  have   advisory   and  legislative  powers  in  parallel   with  Parliaments,  Congresses,  Senates,  etc.   and   would  provide   a  guarantee    of  thre perpetuation   and    safeguarding   of  our   cultural  tradition   and  heritage   from   opponents   and    infiltrators,   due   to  the  fact   they   would  only   be  allowed   to  inter-marry   within   their   European,  christian,  historical   circles,  in  the  same   way   Islamic  Monarchs,  see   Saudi Arabia,   have  been   doing   and  are   doing   even  to-day.  


Panel 55 of the Triptich shows the marriage alliance,   his  second  marriage, between Sir William Ferrers, the seventh Earl of Derby, wrongly designated in the Panel as the 2nd Earl, to Margaret de Quincy, the eldest daughter and co-heiress from the  marriage of Roger de Quincy, the Earl of Winchester,  to Helen, daughter of Lord Alain of Galloway and Margaret of Anguss & Huntingdon.
The House of Anguss & Huntingdon,   being  related   to  David   the  King  of  Scots (1124-1153),   and   to   Hugh II (  Keveliok )  the  fifth  Earl  of  Chester, 
( died in  1181 ), is also the pivot of the alliance between the Bruce and the Stewarts who gave rise to the present pretenders of the Royal House of  Scotland.
The three panels are self explanatory. There is an execution error in the de Chartley Arms, vairee or et gules, shown on panel 55 in so far as the design should begin with gold, not red. The differences in the Crowns, distinguishing between a baronial, earldom or royal rank, should also be noted.
The heraldic roses are a fundamental symbolism pointing to the Templar associations and affiliations of the Houses represented and their sympathies for the Stewart Dynasty. This does not have to detract from present loyalties to the Windsor Monarchy, which should in justice do something about a Stewart-restauration in Scotland  and  Ireland.Since my book is about the Clan I call “gensferreria......... ” of which the Ferrers are illustrious and important Members, I would like to say something about the Clan, the Ferrers and to point out, in particular, paradigmatically, the injustices, abuses and persecutions which this House had to suffer from the Plantagenet and Tudor Dynasties,  in  spite  of  both  Dynasties   being   of   Desposyniic   descent and  the  Ferrers   becoming  related   to  them  in  addition   to  also   being  originally  Desposyniic  through  mesopotamic  links.
At page 2 of this Article I have mentioned Sir Robert Ferrers, the eigth and last Earl of Derby who lost all the Ferrers’ resources belonging to the male side of their ancestry with the exception of those inherited from the marriages to the Peverell, the Chester and the de Quincy heiress or co-heiress.
These resources were confiscated by the Crown with the blessings of Parliament at a stage when the latter had begun to be infiltrated by the new nobility of  pen and law, like the Dugdales ( i.e.,   Sir  William  Dugdale  of “ Antiquities of Warwickshire’s ”  fame ) and given to the Lancaster Branch of the Royal House. The  Title  of   Earl   of   Derby   went  to the  Stanley.      This   at  a  time  when   Parliament   began  to  play   the  Monarchy   against  the  Barons  and   vice-versa,   in  a   similar   way   the  Papacy  had   done    with  the  Monarchies  and  the  Emperors.   These  games   are  very  dangerous   and    damaging  ones   to  play   and  can   result,  in  spite   of   an  apparent  paltry   and  temporary   improvement   to  the   new   players’  status  and  resources,    in   the   serious  and  permanent damage  to  the    governing  structures   and  the  general   character   and  fabric  of  anation’s    society   that   can   become   visible   later   on  in  history.    An   extreme   example   of   such  damage    is   evidenced   by  the  genetic  one  resulting   to   French   society   from  the   murderous  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution   in   1789.   The   Westminster  System   of  opposing   parties   debating  in  Parliament   must  never   be   abused  by    fanatical   partisans’   enmities   and   the  system   must  be  seen  as  a   tool  of   government   not  as  an   arena    for    mutual   destruction.     Love  of   Civilisation   and  nation   must  always  be  paramount   in  the  order    given.   The Plantagenets ended  badly   and   were   replaced   by other Dynasties,   even   worse  than  they   had   been . It is possible to show, in a way that English Historians have failed or have been unwilling to do, that the Policy of the conquering Norman Dynasty in relation to neighbouring Scotland had  initially  been one of recognition, toleration and respect of the then ruling British Monarchs of Scotland and Ireland, provided these reciprocated the same attitudes.  This  criterion   of non-aggression,  if   mutually  respected,  in  the   absence   of  the  many   interfering   forces,    would  have    been  a  minimum  requirement   for  a   Dysposyniic   balance.  The  de  Quency    are  notorious   for  their    services   as  facilitators  of  the   friendship   between  the   two  Nations  as  well  as  the  inter-marriages   between   English   and    Scottish     families   and  the  favours   the  Scottish  Monarchs   granted    Anglo/Norman   nobles,   the   Bruces   having  originally  been,  in  fact,   an  Anglo/Norman   house.   The   first  to  break   the  mutual  understanding   was King Henry II,  the Plantagenet   from   Anjou,  of   Visigothic   descent,   who, having obtained the English Crown by marrying Eleanora d’Aquitaine,  a  Norman,  the daughter of King Henry I, embarked in wars against his neighbours for the purpose of dominance and conquest. Eleanor d’Aquitaine, who had been during her father’s reign the ruler of Aquitaine, showing great wisdom and ability, opposed in fact, together with her sons, her greedy and power-crazy husband twice, first when Henry refused to return the Scottish territories of Northumberland and Cumberland to William The Lion ( 1165-1214 ), the second time, when Henry asked to divorce her, bent on marrying Alice the daughter of the King of France who had been living at the English Court, as the betrothed of Richard, one of the King’s son, aiming at the conquest of France as a step towards the the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor.   Much has been said about Henry’s reforms of the   Judicial  System  of   his  times ( even  in  a   recent   BBC  Documentary   by    an   historian  and  archaelogist  called   Anderson )   and the enpowerment  and   marvels  of Common Law.   However, England is the only western Nation that has not yet achieved a Constitution, thus leaving all Law in a state of flux.   Moreover,  Henry’s own character and way of living showed he was without scruples, morality or good intentions, a dissembler of truth.  His real aim was to increase Royal Power  by increasing the authority and jurisdiction of Common Law and of his appointed Judges   by  creating  a  new   Nobility   of  Pen   and  Law,    the   arm-chair   fighters,  wrongly   believing  he could always control and dictate to them,  since  he  alone had the power to choose and elect his clerks and   judges,   at the expense of existing cheks provided by the Church and the Nobility of the Sword, which is the true Nobility, insofaras it is the only real people prepared to fight injustice consistently for honour and justice.    Eventually  these    new  creations  eroded  even  the    authority  and  the  power  of  the   Monarch   destroying  the  old   nobility,   opening  the  way,    after  the   French  Revolution   and  the  rise  of   the Era  of  the  so  called  Enlightenment,   to  a  distorted   Democracy   stressing   Freedom   rather   than   Duty   and  Justice.   Notice  in   fact   how   the  USA  have  not   got  the    statue  of  Justice (   which   has   a  higher  and  more inclusive    status  than   Liberty  )  but  that  of  Liberty    on   both   New   York’s   Harbour   and  at  the  top   of  the  Capitol.    A  serious   error  of   moral   evaluation   with   dire   consequences   to-day  as    Liberty   has    allowed  the   rise   to   power,   infiltrations   and  take-overs  of   wealthy  Mafiosi  and  the  general   decadence  and  corruption of  the  West!
The  strength  of   character  of   the  old  nobility  in  England  was   amply 
demonstrated    by   characters   such   as    Sir  Geffrey  de  Magnaville   who   fought   King  Stephen,   Sir  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville,   who   together   with   Sir  Roger  de  Quency   opposed   King  John,  Robert  Ferrers   the    fourth  Earl  of  Derby,  who    fought    King   Henry  II   for    16  years,    William   Ferrers   the    sixth  Earl  of  Derby   who  diplomatically  opposed   during  his  long  life   Kings,    from   John   to  Henry  III,    Simon  de  Montfort  and   Robert  Ferrers   the    eigth  and  last  Earl  of  Derby    wo   fought    King  Henry  III   and   Edward  I   with  tragic   results.
To-day ( 2009) the danger is the Judiciary System gets infiltrated by Mafiosi elements as it has happened in Italy and elsewhere, and there is then no other power to reform the whole judiciary structure.   Civil  War   becomes  the  only solution,  like  was  the  case    in  Franco’s  Spain  in   1938,   but  a  Civil   War-leader   does   not  happen   everyday,   especially  in  the  yellow-bellied,   brainwashed   societies   the  West  is   breeding   to-day   with   modern   advertising.   Republics, in a worse situation than Monarchies, show   everywhere  the weackness of an abused Democratic System of Governmment.   By  default,  a stalemate  is  reached   in   which   corruption   rules   and  nothing  is   done.
Again, the Common Law is only as good as the people of a Nation are. With the present abuses of Democracy, and the corruption of the Mafiosi leaders and of the Middle Classes, the Law suffers from being biased in favour of the moneyed individuals and is too expensive for the average citizen. Even when the scenario were to be uncorrupted, what may appear to be acceptable and normal to-day may not have been so in Henry’s times, when justice depended much on the activities of some good powerful Nobles or Institutions who had the power to oppose a corrupt Monarchy. The Military Monastic Order of the Templars was such a Power in the Europe of the Middle Ages. An example of this to-day would be the United Nations. However, in this there is too much collusion against the West by Islam, India and China with Third World Nations. What the world needs to-day, is a strong, Christian, healthy European Union, with a strong balance of checks, between a Parliament, a Senate and a Monarchich Assembly or something similar, and of course, a strong, flexible, open-ended Constitution to protect the endurance of the system and to prevent infiltrations and its being taken over by foreign elements, factors, forces and powers.
The members of the Monarchich Assembly would,        like the Royal Monarchs of Islam ( i.e., Saudi Arabia ) only marry members from within its own ranks or from families recognised as being the descendents of old European Noble Houses, not for racial motivations, but in order to avoid the infiltration from incompatible foreign cultural elements aiming at unreciprocated take-overs. Try and find out how many barriers there   would  be to infiltrate the Saudi Arabian Monarchy.
In any case, the fact remains that, in spite of all evidence that Henry improved the administration of the law, he was an absolute Monarch that did not hesitate to use evil ways to attain his aims, as the case of the murder of Saint Thomas a’Becket shows and his exhorbitant ruinous, ruthless taxation that alienated all the people subjected to his rule in the Angevin Empire.  As   stated  already,   I   am  not   an  enemy  of   the  Church  of  Rome,   which   is  an  institution   worth  saving,   except   that   I   believe  Constantinianism   is  now  redundant   and  obsoleted, as it has  been  infiltrated    the  world  over   by  criminal   forces,   and  is  supported  by  Mafiosi  bent   on   controlling   the  Roman  Church   which  must  get  rid  of  them,   since  they  represent,   in  spite   of  their   chamaleontic    camouflages,  adaptations   and  charitable/humane   impersonations,   in  Europe   and  in  the  West  in  general,   traditional,   political,  foreign,   destructive  inplants  and  infiltrations,    inimical   to  the  West.     Let  us  never   forget  that  the  beginnings  of  the  Mafia  in  Sicily  and  Calabria   were  Saracenic  (  islamic)   fifth   columns   left  behind   by  the  Moslems  withdrawing    from  these  areas   when  the   Germans  and  the  Normans  defeated  them.   There might  have  been  a  feigned   conversion   to  Christianity,   but  this  has  been  only   skin  deep.  My   ancestors   went  to  Sicily  to civilise  the  land   but   no  one  ever  succeeded.    My  Branch  left  Sicily  in   1800,  except   for   a  few  of  us  who  became   hopelessly  and  inextricably   mixed   with  the   local  riff-raff.   Even   Ferreri,  Ferrari,  Ferrero,   etc.,  to-day  in   Australia   and  America   have  lost  the  traditions   and   knowlege  of  our   noble  past  as  “ gensferreria/ferraria ”.      King   Henry II’s   feud  against  Saint Thomas may appear to have been justified by unrealistic priviledges safeguarded by the then too powerful and wealthy Constantinian Church, however  balanced  by  the  power  of  the  Templars   until   1300,  bordering on  injustice, protecting criminal prelates among the Clergy, however,   let us also  recognise  the  fact  that the Clergy is subjected to by far greater temptations and forces of evil than the average person and should perhaps  be judged by their own  peers,   however  this  cojncession   should  not  have  meant    negligence  and   an   abuse  of   justice.    Henry’s aim was to decrease the Church’s power seeking the increase of Royal Power. This was shown in the reign of King Henry VIII when the humiliation of Rome was to serve his lust and attempts at siring a male issue from a succession of marriages, a vane one, owing to the fact that his reproductive system had been damaged by STDs ( syphilis ) acquired in his dissolute youth. The fact that his wife and his sons opposed him most of the time does also not go in his favour. His times were those in which the Nobility was asking for unfettered balancing judicial checks, both against the encroachment of the Church and of the King. Magna Charta and the Provisions of Oxford and Westminster were to be achieved only in the times of King Edward I
( 1272-1307 ), after the rebellion of Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester to which Sir Robert Ferrers participated (1241-1279 ).
A new Religious movement  had  actually  risen  in  Italy,  that of  the Franciscans, clamoring for justice and the protection of the poor, and was replacing the persecuted Order of Templars. Simon de Montfort was a Third Order ( lay) Franciscan. These were the times when the whole of Christendom was debating the issue of Church and religious poverty.
The struggle for Magna Charta backed by the Order of Templars, had begun in the times of Sir Robert Ferrers ( died 1173 ), Lord Tutburie, the third Earl of Derby, who rebelled against King Henry I, in a rebellion that lasted for 16 years, in support of Queen Eleanor and her sons aiming at curbing Henry’s obsessions with further imperial expansion that was causing increasing property in the Angevin Empire.    How   could   a   Knight,  a  Baron or  an  Earl   find  the  surplus   capital   required   to   stimulate  the   economy  of  his  estates   and  the  welfare  of  his   subjects  as  well   to  finance  the  costs  of   an  unending   War    for  Empire,   with  the   new   nobility   of   arm-chairs   nobles,   the  itinerant   Royal  judges   and  their   pen-pushers   breathing   down  their  necks   and   lusting    for  a  share   of  their   wealth?  
The sixth Earl of Derby,   Sir William Ferrers( died 1247 ), perhaps the most brilliant among the eight  in  relation  to   the    difficulties   in   which   he   was  forced   to   ac   by   his   times,  also opposed absolute monarchich power, in support of Magna Charta, however using diplomacy rather than violence and brute force.    He   lived   though    at  the  times   when  the  Order  of  Templars   to   which  he   participated    was  still  being  alert,   effective,  feared   and   respected   by   the  Monarchs  and  the   Church.   Even  so,   all  this opposition  by  the  Barons   to  the   centralisation   of   all  powers  in  the  Monarchy,    had to be prolonged until the times when Simon de Montfort ( 1251-1266 ) was forced into a rebellion, against his wishes for peace and justice and his loyalty to the Crown, that almost wiped out the Plantagenets. The proof of what I am saying is in the fact that he fought his last Battles ( Lewis and Evesham ) while holding King Henry III a prisoner in his camp, instead of having had him executed  as  he  should   have.
See “ Simon de Montfort and His Cause ”, by Rev. W. H. Hutton, London, 1888, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a little work that shows the honesty and good will of Simon the Earl of Leicester. On the other hand, L. F. Salzman’s
“ Edward I ”, although confirming the prolongation of the struggle for judiciary balances in the times of this King, fails to do justice to the cause of Sir Robert Ferrers whom he dismisses without any research of his motives and of his aims, not even mentioning de Montfort and the fact that Robert had joined the latter’s rebellion, being made a scapegoat, while de Clare and others had been pardoned.


I quote from page 45-:


Early in 1273, there had been a rising, anarchical and aimless, in the north; Robert de Ferrers, the restless Earl of Derby, had seized Chartley Castle in Staffordshire and had had to be brought to order by a force under Edmund of Lancaster [ to whom later on went all confiscated Ferrers resources ] and the Earl of Lincoln.
Unquote.


Dugdale,   an   extremely  skilled,  intelligent,  antiquarian,   lawyer   and  heraldist,  of  the  newly  created  petty   noblity,   nevertheless  still  a  yellow-bellied   pen-pusher,  unfit  to   be   called  an  Historian,   in his “Antiquities of Warwickshire ” also comments as one who blindly and servilely believes that every opposition to the Government ( the Monarchy ) isalways wrong. He was a King Herald of Arms, a very gifted man, but he belonged to the nobility of the pen, of lawyers, people who fought sitting in armchairs.
As  a  contrast,  there is not one Battle of the English Middle Ages in which the Ferrers and   their  Peers,  did not participate, including the famous, mythical ones of Agincourt, Crecy and Poitiers when the English fought the French outnumbered-: 1 Englishman against 10 Frenchmen.


 Chartley was a Castle/Barony  in  Staffordshire,  located   in  the  Hundred of  Pirehill,    some three  miles  south-west  of  Loxley  ( famous   for   Robin  Hood’s  birthplace ),  in  the  Hundred  of   Totmonslow.   According  to   Erdeswicke,     Chartley  had been part of  the  ancient   patrimony   of   the  Earls  of  Chester,   acquired  by  these  directly  from  the  Crown   soon  after  the  redaction  of  Domesday  Book.    It  had  been  acquired by Sir William Ferrers
( died 1247), the sixth Earl of Derby in the days of  his marriage to Agness, the third daughter of Hugh de Kevelioc, the fifth Earl of Chester, sister and co-heiress of Ranulph de Blondeville, the sixth Earl of Chester, Duke of Brittany...............etc.,   who   died   without  issue.   
The  Arms Vairee or et gules    that had been inherited by the marriage of the third Earl of Derby  ( died 1173 ) to Margaret, the daughter of William Peverell, the Baron of Nottingham,    became  associated   with  Chartley in  the   new   Barony in  Fee   begun  after  the  loss  of   the  Earldom  of  Derby  in   1266.   Since de Chartley was a Ferrers’ possession sourced by their matriarchal lines, it had  not  been  subjected to confiscation by the Crown and as a matter of fact it allowed John the son  of  Robert  Ferrers,  the last Earl of Derby, the disgraced rebel, the foundation for a request of a Chartered Barony of de Chartley to be approved together with a pardon, by both the Crown and Parliament,   the date  of  obtainment of    which  is    a  matter of   controversy  as  discussed  in  Vol.I  of   “Baronies  In  Fee ”,   A  Concentrated  Account  of  all   these  so  called  Baronies   compiled   from   BARONIA  ANGLICA  CONCENTRATA   by  Sir  T. C. Banks  Bart.  N.S.,  RIPON.
It is most likely that Robert Ferrers was fighting to retrieve an ancient maternal inheritance to which the Ferrers’ Coat of Arms,   Vairee’  or  et   gules   were linked, something every noble in England would have respected and assented to, rather than seizing a new possession as the sycophant and ignoramus L. F. Salzman reports.     It is important to realise that the Ferrers had already lost the use of their ancient, original Coat of Arms, the   one born   by  the   first  Earl  of  Derby,   born  in  ca. 1083,    prior to the  Chartley-one,   which   they   had
inherited  from  the  Peverells.   The  ancient  Arms  had   in  fat  been  placed  in  abeyance,   following  the   rebellion   by   Robert  the   fourth Earl  of  Derby,  when  King  Henry  II   had  punished   him   with  the  loss  of  Tutbury  Castle  at the  border  between   Staffordshire  and  Derbyshire,   to   which  these  Arms  had  been  linked.    Arms  that  are  linked  to  an  Honour  or  a  Title   are  placed  in  abeyance   when  the  Honour  or  Title  is  lost.    Salszman    should   have  known   this   when   making  judgmental   comments   about   Robert  Ferrers  the  eigth  Earl,   in   his   dismissive,   condescending,  superior   ways.
Please  remember  that  the  first  Robert’s  crime   had  been   to  support    Queen Eleanor  and  her  sons  as  the  loyal  response   to  the  Norman  line,   his   right   and   duty  toward  the  memory of   his  liege  Lord   William  the  Conqueror. Henry   II,    had  he  been   a  noble   character   should  have    understood  and   appreciated  that   loyalty   to  one’s  ancient    vows  and   oaths  of  fealty.   Was that   the  Royal  Justice  inspired   to  the  newly    created   Itinerant   Royal   Judges,  so praised   and  sung   by  that   nitwit,  Anderson,  of  BBC-fame?
It is   obvious   to  anyone   considering  the   enormous  power  and  resources   held  by   the  Ferrers  as  the  Earls   of  Derby,  that   they   could  not  remain  neutral   in  the  struggles   between  the   Barons  and   the  Monarchy.
It  is   also  obvious  to  one   who  keeps  on  reading the  History  of  this  House  with an  open  mind,  seeking   the  path  of  Justice   in   history,  that  the  Ferrers,   whose  Line  eventually  failed  in  the   male  issue   and  who   were   to  be  taken  over   by  the  Devereux,   when  Walter  Devereux (   1461-1485 )   became   the   7th  Baron   Ferrers  of  Chartley   through  his  marriage   to  Anne  Ferrers   born   1438,   the  only   daughter   of   William  Ferrers   of  Chartley
(1412-1450 ),   still   kept   seeking   justice   rather  than  self-aggrandisement
when,   in  the  person  of  Sir   Robert  Devereux-Ferrers  (1591-1646 ),   Knight,   12th  Baron  Ferrers  of  Chartley,   Earl  of  Essex,  Viscount   Hereford,  Baron   Bourchier,    financed,  organised,  trained  and  led    Cromwell’s  Roundheads  in  the  days  of  the  protestant   “ Puritans ”   fighting   against  the   idea  of  the  Rule  by  Divine  Right   of  the  Stewart   Monarchs.
However    even  before  these  times,   the  Devereux-Ferrers    showed   their     loyalty   to  the  Crown,   when   this  required   a   legitimate  and  just   action,  in   spite  of  the    persecutions  and  injustices   the   Crown   had  inflicted  onto   their  House,    thus   showing   thei   purity  and  nobility  of  their   character   and   action,   when   Sir  Walter  Devereux-Ferrers,   Knight,  the   7th  Baron    Ferrers   of  Chartley,   died  on   22bd   August  1485   with  three  of  his   sons  at  the   tragic    battle  of  Bosworth,  in  support  of  the  Plantagenet  King 
Richard  III.      Another   famous  member  of  this  House,   sir   Robert  Devereux-Ferrers  ( 1568-1601 ),  Knight,     the   11th  Baron  Ferrers  of Chartley,     Earl  of  Essex,  Viscount  Hereford,   Baron  Bourchier,   who  had  become  a  favourite  of   Queen  Elisabeth  I,   was   condemned  to  death  on  trumped   up   charges,   beheaded   and  atteinted  in  1600-1  by a  corrupt   Parliament,   filled   with the   afore   mentioned   pen-pushers,  Lawyers  and  servile   Judjes.
His   son,   Sir   Robert  Devereux-Ferrers   Knight,   was  eventually   restored  in  blood   and  honours  in   1604  since   Queen  Elisabeth   died  in   1603.    


To conclude, let me make a short list of grievances the Ferrers have had  against the English Monarchs which point to the possibility they were continuously being provoked by their   jealousy  about their successes, good-will, their power for good they never abused, using it only when some cause in the name of Justice required it of them,   in accordance to conscience,  duty   and wealth   as  the Earls  of Derby-:


(1)  King Henry II (1154-1189 ) conveniently  overlooked the fact that Robert the fourth Earl had cavalierly supported  his wife  Eleanor, who  was  of  Norman  descent,  like  the  Ferrers  who  owed   loyalty  to  the  memory of   the  Conqueror,   against  Henry’s   abuses.    Henry   should also have punished his   wife  and  sons who  had  also  rebelled,   but did not.   The walls of Tutburie Castle were reduced in height  and  the Ferrers lost the use of their ancestral Arms,  which  had   become  associated   with the  Honour  of  Tutbury,   i.e.,    Argent,   six   horseshoes   sable   nailed  or,  arrayed   3, 2, 1.   Duffield Castle was reduced to  its  foundations   and  remained   so  untill   to-day.    


(2) Agatha, Robert’s daughter was seduced by King John, abused as a mistress and Joane, John’s illegitimate daughter sent into exhile, married off to LLewelin the Prince of Wales who had fought against Robert and Eleanor,    had captured Robert’s brother, Walchelinus,   the  Baron of Eggington, Joanne's uncle, and had hung him.


(3) Robert the eigth and last Earl of Derby had not participated in the Battle of Evesham ( some say he was forced to do  so  by Simon, against his will) that saw the defeat of Simon de Montfort, withdrawing from the cause of Simon after the Battle of Lewis ( 1263) together with de Clare who was of  higher status than he was. Yet  he was severely punished while de Clare and others were pardoned. His  daughter Elisabeth  was married off to the Welsh Prince as  a way  to exhile.
A short account of the debacle is supplied in “ A Survey of Staffordshire ” by Sampson Erdeswicke................together with “ The History and Antiquities of that County ”, by Reverend Thomas Hardwood, B.D.F.S.A, see pages 398-400.
The Latin petition sent by Robert to King Henry III is therein given. A short history of the strategically important Castle of Tutburie is also given therein.


(4) It is probable that had the Order of the Templars survived the French and Papal collusion, Sir Robert Ferrers would have retained the Earldom of Derby since there would not have been rebellions against the power-usurping and taxation-grasping Monarchy. However, even after their impoverishment and the reduction of the Ferrers' Power in Staffordshire where the bulk of their Manors had been
( 114 out of 210 ), they were suspected of hoarding Templar resources.
King Henry VIII,  in  his  policy  against  Rome,  confiscated    Church-property  which  he  distributed   among  his   new   nobility  of  pen-pushers,  itinerant  judges,  and  sycophants.He  ordered   Abbeys   destroyed   and   their   foundations   dug-up,  sent    clergymen,  nuns,   monks   and  religious   persons  loyal   to   Rome   to  starve  in  the   streets  and  the   countryside.
This  was  the  fate   of  Merevale  Abbey,  that  had  been   founded  as  a   Cistercian   Abbey/Monastery  by  Robert  Ferrers,   the  second  Earl  of  Derby
( 1101-1163 ),   who   donated   the   extensive   Forests  of  Arden   to  this  
foundation.    It  was   dug-up   to   below   its   foundations  in  search   for  treasure  and  is  now   Merevale  Farm  sporting  on  the   rebuilt  Gate  House   the  Arms  of  the    Dugdales,    the  sycophantic   pen-pushers.
I  was  able  to  locate  it  because   I  had    made  a   copy  of   an  old  Road  Map   in  Australia    from  a  Map  in  the  Coburg’s  Library.    Present  Maps   do  not   bother    to   show   it  any  longer.   Yet   there  is  there   the  original   Gate-  Church  of   Our  Lady  of  Merevale,    now  inside  the   rebuilt   Gate-  House,   and   it   contains   four   Ferrers-tombs/effigies,   spanning    from   1198  to  1450.
It is   clear  the    National  Trust   should   be   actively  involved  but  is  not.
It   appears  as  if,   in  spite  of  the  pride,   love and  care  of  the   Anglican  lady   Minister,    these   are     condemned   to  slow   decay  and   disappearance   for  lack   of    maintenance.
The  most   ancient  of  these  structures  is  the   Knight-effigy  of  Sir  William  Ferrers,   Lord  Ferrers,   Lord  Tutbury,   the    fifth Earl  of  Derby,   who  died  in   ca.   1197,    a   crusading  Knight,   in  the  siege of  Acre  in  Palestine,   during  the   Third  Crusade,  led  by   King  Richard I,   the  Lion-Heart. 
His   effigy   is  coeval   with   and  made   by   the  same artist   who   made  the one  in  the  Church  of   the  Templars,   at  Temple   Court  in  London  near  the  Thames  River,    for  Sir  Geoffrey  de  Mandeville   the  second  Earl of  Essex,  one  of  the  leaders  with  Sir R oger  de  Quincy  ( died  1264 ) in  the  struggle   for  Magna  Charta  and  the  Provisions of  Oxford  and  Westminster.
Sir   Geoffrey  de  Mandeville   had  also  participated   in  the   third  Crusade   with   Sir  William  Ferrers   but  had   survived   and   returned   to  England.
Incidentally,   the  Ferrers’s  effigy   has  been   wrongly  identified  in  the  past   by  so  called   experts,  as  belonging   to  Sir  William  Ferrers  (1200-1254),
the  seventh  Earl  of  Derby,  and  I  have   been  able   to  rectify  the error,   after  my   visit  to  Merevale  Church  in   2004,    upon  my  return  to  Australia   when     becoming   by  chance   confronted   with    Sir  Geoffrey’s   effigy   from a  drawing   by    Stothard  the  Scottish  Archaeological  Draughtsman,    who    wrongly    assigned  it   to  Sir   Geffrey  de  Magnaville    an   anscestor  of   de  Mandeville   living  in   tempore   King  Stephen.


I   hope  my  efforts   shall  be  graciously   recognised.   






 








 

  

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