(Vol. viii., p. 270.)
Mr. H. T. Griffith asks where may any pedigree of the _Osborne_ family,
previous to Edward Osborne, the ancestor of the Dukes of Leeds, be seen. In
reply, I am in possession of large collections relating to the Norman
Osbornes, from whom I have reasons to believe him to have been descended.
Those Osbornes can be proved to have been settled in certain of the midland
counties of England from the time of the attainder and downfall of the son
of William Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford and premier peer, down to a
comparatively late period. A branch of them was possessed of the manor of
Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire; and their pedigree, beginning in 1461, may be
seen in Whalley's _Northamptonshire_: but this is necessarily very
imperfect, on account of the author's want of access to documents which
have subsequently been opened to the public.
I may here notice that an inexcusable error has been committed and repeated
in several of the collections of records published by the Parliamentary
Commission, who have, in numerous instances, and without any warrant,
interpreted _Osb._ of the MSS. as "Osbert." Thus they have deprived
_Fitzosborne_, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1102), of some of his manors, and
within his own diocese, and conferred them on _Osbert the Bishop_, although
there never was a bishop of that name in England. I took the liberty of
pointing out this error to one of the chief editors concerned in these
works; but as he has taken no notice of my observations, I must infer that
he thinks it most prudent to excite no farther inquiry.
The _Osborns_, now so numerous in London, appear to have come from the
Danish stem from which the Norman branch was originally derived. Their
number, which has increased even beyond the ordinary ratio of the
population, may perhaps be dated from the wife of one of them who (temp.
Jac. I.) had twenty-four sons, and was interred in old St. Paul's.
I shall be very happy to afford any assistance in my power to the gentleman
who has occasioned these remarks.