Derby began as a Roman fort. The Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD. Around 50 AD they built a fort west of the river Derwent on the site of Belper Road. Then, about 80 AD, they built a new fort on the east bank of the river. The Romans called the fort Derventio and the name Derby is derived from the Danish words deor by meaning deer settlement. There may have been a Saxon village on the site of Derby after the Saxons left. However the Danes founded the town of Derby about 873 AD after they invaded England. They created a fortified settlement at Derby, fortified from the north between two rivers.To the east the river Derwent protected it. However in 917 the native Saxons captured Derby and it became part of the kingdom of England.
In 1154 Derby was given a charter (a document granting the townspeople certain rights). In 1204 a new charter gave the people of Derby the right to rule themselves. They were allowed to elect 2 bailiffs who ran the town. The merchants of Derby were also allowed to form a merchant's guild. St James Priory (a small monastery) was founded in Derby in 1140.
One of those Normans to come to Bradshaw Hall, Derbyshire through Saxon plunder after Hastings was Nigel de Stafford who got thirteen manors in the county and about thirty-one in other counties. The second holding of demesne by a lord was the second Peverell at Eyam manor which was once called Caschin. On the field of Hastings were two brothers, Robert and Nigel de Stafford, who both adopted the name of Stafford came in for one hundred and thirty-one manors each of Saxon England, though Nigel's share was augumented by thirteen Derbyshire lordships. Among these Derby lordships were Drakelow and Gresley. By Peverell, the Morteynes held in soccage for many decades around the third Peverell for his lordship gifted by King John. On the flight of the third Peverell in 1157, the Manor of Eyam temporarily reverted to the Crown, when the Duke of Montaigne (afterwards King John) gave certain lands in Eyam, Foolow, and Bretton (so say the compilers), together with the Manors of Calver and Rowland, to Richard Stafford, on condition that his descendants kept a lamp burning constantly, before the altar of St. Helen, in Eyam Church.
The manor of Rugby was treated as being worth a half of a knights fee. It was part of the Earl of Warwick's lands from before 1086 to around 1500. In 1086 the manor was held from the Earl by Edwulf and his family remained Lords of the Manor until about 1310. The line included the two Henry de Rokeby's who probably developed the market. The first Henry also split the manor up by leaving 200 acres of the fields to Pipewell Abbey and this land remained separate until 1720. When the granddaughter of the second Henry de Rokeby married the tenancy of the manor was passed to the Gobaud family as part of the dowry. They obtained the right of frankpledge in 1327 before selling the tenancy to the Earl of Stafford in 1349. The manor was passed between various members of the Earl of Stafford's family. In 1421 it was given to a nephew, the son of the Duke of Buckingham. The Buckingham branch of the Staffords got into trouble with the law and forfeited their lands to the crown around 1500. They lost all contact with the manor of Rugby when the third duke was executed in 1521. The crown then granted the manor to Sir Gilbert Talboys and by 1556 it had passed by marriage settlement to Ambrose Dudley, later Earl of Warwick. However in 1560 he sold the rights to the Wyrley family
The ancient family of Gresley are undoubtedly descendants of Nigel baron did the Staffords of Eyam spring from him or Robert. Fulk Fitzwarin for a whole yeare continued coasting England. The adventures of Fulk in the Northern Seas led him to clear a nest of pirates on an island and rescues the daughter of the lord of Orkney. Fulk began to sail towards Scotland; at last there came from the west a favoring wind, which drove them three days from Scotland when king John knew he was residing with Philip of France. Fulk had also taken leave of prince Lewys and all his companions. In the county of Bullen (Boulogne), Fulk arrived in the vill of Eustace when Prince Lewys made peace with king John. The known hostility of Philip to King John, and at the time at which it may be supposed to have occurred, there was a temporary but insincere peace between the two monarchs, which ended after the murder of Arthur of Britany, in 1202. Fulk landed on Orkney island with his four brothers and was taken to a cavern where one lost inhabitant said of her maiden name Aunflorreis of Orkney, lord dwelling in a castle of his in Orkney- castle Bagot, one the sea, beside a forest. They with four knights and others entered a boat in the sea and went to solace and sevens sons of the old woman within their company in a ship from an unstewarded viking village. The arrived at Bagot, the isle, near a port, that day.
The grandson and namesake of Robert de Stafford died without issue, when his sister, Milicent, wife of Hervey Bagot, became his heiress, and her children retained her name. The son of Milicent and Bagot, Hervey de Stafford married Petronilla de Ferrars located at Eyam. Next, Robert b. 1217 in Egginton, Derby married Alice Corbett b. 1219 in Caus, Shropshire or Pays de Caux, Normandy. Alice's aunt Margaret Rhys (Rice) Corbet married in 1192 Prince Gwennwynnwn Owain of Powys b. 1151. Alice's cousin Gruffyd married Hawise le Strange and their daughter Margaret married Fulk V Fitzwarin b. abt 1251. Fulk V and Margaret live between Shrops and Herts while their children Hawise and Fulk VI lived between Norfolk and Herts.
From Fulk VI descended Elizabeth Chidocke and she married Walter Fitzwalter in 1429 in Henham, Essex. Fitzwalter before the conquest was de Clare or de Brienne of Eu, descended from Richard I the Fearless to who is ducal great grandfather of William the Conqueror throughout differing eleventh and twelfth century titles. Walter Fitzwalter's great grandmother Eleanor de Bohun/Plantagenet married twice was born at Knaresborough Castle in 1304 and died in Ireland and she married Thomas Dagoworth. Thomas' mother Alice Fitzwarin was once granddaughter to the third Fulk. Eleanor also married James the first Butler, earl of Ormond / Ireland. Walter Fitzwalter in 1429 married Elizabeth Chidiocke and their daughter Elizabeth Fitzwalter 1425-1452 married John V Dinham 1434-1501; John was born in Ashton, Oxons. Johns relation with Elisabeth Willougby extended from the Ferrers of Stafford and Devon from which the Cardinans lived in Derby.
The Drakelow house or of the second son, the Eyam Staffords descend. And fifth in descent of the ducal house from Petronilla is Mary and John de Stafford. One of the Staffords married Petronilla de Ferrars, and the gift may have arisen from such union, as the De Ferrars came in for the spoil of the Peverells. Petronilla's grandmother Agnes Mortain was born in about 1040, the daughter of Robert Mortain and Maude de Montgomery. Maud's grandfather Roger was born in 980 in St. German, Normandy, reisded by Sheviocke, Cardinan, and Arundel. Children of Maud and Robert Mortain; William de Burgo, Agnes, and Emma.
About 1307 Eyam has since passed by heiresses to the Nevilles and Talbots. The first 'Halifax' Talbot who was Lord of Eyam from his being defeated by Joan of Arc at Patay, in 1429 - he was taken prisoner and kept in a French prison for four years - from his capture of Bordeaux at the age of eighty; and from his attempt to relieve Chastillon, it faltered between having two dukedoms, the manor passed to Pembroke.
The Staffords undoubtedly held Tideswell in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and were located at Eyam from the reign of Richard I. to that of Elizabeth, a period which exactly corresponds with the tenure of Haddon by the Vernons, and of Bubnell by the Bassetts. The family of John of Shrewsbury Talbot and Catherine Stafford before 1500 descended to William Talbot and Katherine Dunham. Katherine was several generations from her grandparents Humphrey Stafford and Anne Neville married at Dunham whose children cousin Dinham, Talbot, and Stafford.
Daughter of William Talbot and Katherine Dunham, Jean married William Drake about 1530s.
For thirteen generations de Stafford were dwelling at Eyam in all of those days, and yet all we know of them is that they secured a market to Tideswell, that they preferred (like scions of the aristocracy of recent years) to take their wives from the families of the Foljambes and Eyres; and that when Humphrey Stafford died (about 1580), he had accumulated property to the extent of a million, which was divided among his four daughters. The two sons of Humphrey had been cut off in their youth during the perpetual Roman oligarchy which fact reminds that the name of Humphrey was ominous to his race. Anne Stafford married Francis Bradshaw, of Eccles Pike, and succeeded to Eyam. In all the branches of his house we can only trace four other holders. Eyam from Tideswell, on a slight upland to our left there is a wing or gable of the edifice from which the Stafford Bradshaws fled so precipitously when the Plague made its appearance in 1665.
Over the windows of a barn before are labelled heads, with knees; the middle knees forming crenels, and just above the upper crenel is the crest of the Bradshaws, a stag at gaze, under a vine tree, fructed proper. From the adjoining land it is possible to trace the outline of even the previous structure of the Staffords. Her sister Gertude apparently left fragments of an advowson on the condition between them. The brass was in Longstone Church denominated a few memories before the Puritains' arrival. Anne Stafford with Francis Bradshaw- the Derbyshire Bradshaws had adopted the Presbyterian faith, while the Staffords.
Bradshaw Hall -The various members of John Bradshaw were holding the Halls of Barcroft, Marple, and Wybersley, in Cheshire; Haigh, Halton, Pennington, D'Arcey Lever, Haslington, and Worsley, in Lancashire; Eyam, Windley, Holbrook, Barton, and Abney Manor House, in Derbyshire; Kington, Magna, and Marnhall, in Dorset; besides others in the counties of Warwick, Gloucester, and Kent. The Bradshaws of Chapel-en-le-Frith were lawyers and politicians. When Henry VIII. ordered those imfamous trials of mockery on Catherine Howard and the Earl of Surrey, Henry Bradshaw was Counsel for the Crown. When Edward VI. tried poor Seymour the persecution was entrusted to Bradshaw, Attorney-General. When Northumberland had persuaded the same King to make over the Crown to Lady Jane Grey, Bradshaw signed his name as Chief Baron to the nefarious document as a witness. After Sergeant John Bradshaw, some century later, condemned Charles I. to the block, no branch of this family (and really it is singular) appears to have perpetuated his race and prospered.
Of the twenty branches of the house of Bradshaw, which were flourishing in the seventeenth century, there should be no direct male issue of any of them, and certainly very curious that in the veins of the regicide ran the blood of a Champeyne, Foucher, Foljambe, Eyre, the very essence of loyalty.