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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2012
Ormerod, in his History of Cheshire, mentions Grosvenor, Davenport, and Brereton as “three grantees who can be proved by ancient deeds to have existed at or near the Conquest, though unnoticed in Domesday.” Of these the family least favoured by fortune in later times (the peerage and the baronetage in the Brereton family having both become extinct, and the heirship in lands and manors in all the principal English lines having descended to females), was, during the earliest centuries after the Conquest, among the most distinguished in the palatinate, and, by its fortunate and splendid marriages, became entitled to prefer for its issue the highest claims, even to ducal and regal descent. This state of the case, and a natural desire to uphold ancient valour and renown against the mere caprices of fortune, renders what can be collected of personal anecdote, local tradition, or the biography of the members of such a family (and not the mere bead-roll of its pedigree which is printed in local histories), a suitable subject of archæological inquiry, often suggestive of useful topics, and sometimes replete with interesting matter.
page 55 note a Harl.MS. 1925. Brereton,—“temp. Hugonis, cognom. Lupi, com. Palat. Cestr. post Conquest. primi, ex dono magni regis Gulielmi Com.”
page 57 note a “With those whose merits entitled them to the possession of lands,” says a delightful writer of the romantic school, who speaks in the very spirit of chivalry, and may be fairly cited as a veritable ancient, “surnames were generally taken from the soil. This mode of taking titles from the soil placed the possessor of an ancient territorial name in some sort beyond the reach of fortune. This soil might, by any of the thousand vicissitudes of human affairs, be transferred to other hands; be owned by stranger blood;—but now there was something of which accident could not deprive him: the territorial name remained; linked indissolubly and for ever with all the ancient ennobling associations. Few, indeed, are the feudal territorial names that have survived the ordeal of the eight centuries since the Conquest;—the destroying Crusaders; the exterminating wars of the Roses; the jealous axe of the Plantagenets and the Tudors; but those few are the natural nobility of the land.”—Warburton, Footsteps of the Normans, vol. ii. p 182.
page 57 note b Hence it appears that the noble family of Egerton originally sprung from David de Malpas, lord of a moiety of the barony of Malpas. Elena, sister and coheiress of David de Egerton, having married Sir William Brereton of Brereton in 1368, the elder line of the Egertons were afterwards represented by the Breretons of Brereton Hall, and, as was then added, of Malpas Castle. Much of the Brereton property eventually reverted to the Egertons, partly by devise. See post, Shocklack and Malpas Hall Breretons, and Breretons of Tatton. The Golbornes of Golborne David and of Overton, were descendants of the same David de Malpas. The four martlets, the arms of the Golbornes of Overton, vary little from those of the Birds; of which family they married a coheiress, with whom they had considerable estates.—Inq. p. m. 10 Eliz. “Edward Golborne held a capital messuage in Overton from Sir William Brereton by military service, with lands in Wich Milbank, Aston, Overton, Garden, Edge, and five other parishes.” An extant letter of the first Lord Brereton, dated 26th January, 1624, lays claim to descent from Randulph 6th Earl of Chester, through Dan David de Malpas, son of William Belward, and Tanghurst, sister of the said Randulph, and refers to the quarterings in his coat of arms.—Harl. MSS. British Museum.
page 58 note a And there is no lack of materials. Thus in Ireland it was enacted, in 1465, in the earliest parliament of the Pale, that “every Irishman dwelling in the counties of Kildare, Meath, Louth, and Dublin, should go like unto an Englishman; should shave his beard above the mouth; be within one year sworn the liegeman of the King, and take to him an English surname of one town, as Chester; or colour, as white, black, brown: or art or science, as smith or carpenter; or oifice, as cook or butler; and that he and his issue should thenceforth use this name under pain of forfeiture.”
page 58 note b Properly thus:— 
page 59 note a 
page 60 note a 
page 61 note a See Collins's Peerage; title, Cholmondeley.
page 63 note a Arms, Argent, two bars sable: Crest, A bear's head proper, muzzled or, issuing out of a ducal coronet. Supporters, Dexter a bear proper, sinister a wolf argent, collar azure. Motto, Opitulante Deo. Family tradition has preserved an interesting fact, (for any historical record or book-notice of which the search has hitherto been unavailing,) viz. that the origin of the muzzle upon the bear in the Brereton arms was as follows: Once upon a time, in a battle of uncertain date, the Brereton of the day, a stalwart knight, was guilty of an excess of ardour, and pushed an advantage too far, in the Prince Rupert style. The King, who witnessed the brave fault, and thought it called for a mild rebuke, exclaimed—” I shall put a muzzle upon that bear,” and directed it to be notified to the Heralds' College.
page 64 note a Dr. Plott, F.R.S. in a magnificent project of journeying through England for the advantage of learning, (in the style of the modern archæological progresses, but at the public expense,) proposed, inter alia, to inquire into “strange accidents that attend corporations or families;” as “the bodies of trees that are seen to swim in a lake near Brereton in Cheshire, a certain warning to the heir of that honourable family to prepare for the next world.” Camden relates it as “well attested to him that, before any head of this family dies, there are seen in the lake bodies of trees swimming several days together.” Fuller says, in his Worthies, that this preternatural appearance “is reported by credible, and believed by discreet, persons:”— Quœre tamen. To return to the most sage Plott; that Fellow of the Royal Society says, “Secondly, the savans are to inquire about the bird with a white breast that haunts the family of Oxenham, near Exeter; and, thirdly, to examine and test the story, that the Deans of Rochester, ever since the foundation, by turns have died Deans and Bishops.”—See D'Tsraeli's Second Series of the Curiosities of Literature,” vol. ii. p. 27.
page 66 note a Ex relatione Mr. Weld, Sec. and Historian Roy. Soc.
page 66 note b Branches of this family spread into Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, and extended themselves into Yorkshire, and some of their descendants are now resident in Bedford.
page 66 note c 
page 68 note a Cheshire was famous for its archers, the effective men in ancient battles. “In dangerous times King Richard II.” says Fuller, “sent for 2,000 Cheshire men, all archers, to attend him.” The rather presumptuous local proverb is, “Cheshire,—chief of men.”
page 70 note a Collins's Peerage; title, Upper Ossory.
page 72 note a Ex relatione Sir W. Betham, Ulster King at Arms.
page 74 note a Vide Harl. MS. 1040.—“7th son, William, married Eliz. dau. of Earl of Worcester.”
Harl. MS. 1070.—“William Brereton, decapitatus, H. VIII.”
So Pedigree.—“Willielmus Brereton, cubicularius, Hen. VIII. &c.”
“Brereton, William, Groom, &c. Hen. VIII. 1536.”—Wood. Athen. Oxon.
page 75 note a The same arms are borne by the family of Isemburgh in Germany.—See Gwillim Abridged, 145.
page 81 note a “The Countess Clere. In truth the Lady Bessy was, by indubitable right, the moment her brothers were dead, the heiress of the mighty earldom of Clere, as the representative of her ancestress, wife of Lionel, second son of Edward III.” Hall strongly confirms Brereton's statements, without knowing anything of him. In every page some curious coincidence with forgotten fact is to be found in Brereton's work. Humphrey Brereton embarked for Britany at Liverpool, a port then little known, but where the shipping was at the command of the house of Stanley.
page 82 note a Brereton declares that he found the Earl of Richmond at Begraves monastery. His residence there, is a fact not known to history, but it is full of probability, as there were two convents connected with that of. Begraves, on the Earl of Richmond's own estate in Yorkshire. The letter to Gilbert Talbot, “fair and free,” and the characteristic reception of it, have all the peculiar features of the age; and “the closer Brereton is sifted, the more truthful does he appear.”—Miss Strickland, vol. iv. p. 12.