heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

306 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
and Alexander de Hilton, 1332-5, had such summons, according to
Dugdale, it was never repeated to any of their descendants, but given
either by the general courtesy of the country, from the long and immemorial
existence of the family in a "gentle" state, long before the creation of
barons either by writ or summons, or else with reference to the rank which
the
Hiltons undoubtedly held as barons of the Bishopric (like the Vernons,
Fitz-Hughs, Masseys, and others, barons of the Palatine Earl of Chester,
which Hugh Lupus had power from the Conqueror to constitute and
create*), sitting with a sort of provincial peerage in the great council of
their Ecclesiastical Palatine, and possessing some degree of controlling or
consulting power.
There is
ample evidence of such a Chamber of Peers in
many episcopal charters, &c. The name of Hilton always stands first in
every episcopal commission. In 1669 Mr. Arden complains to Miles
Stapleton of the unseemly pride of Dean Carleton and his .
daughters,
inasmuch as the Dean had seated himself above the Baron at Quarter
Sessions, and the young ladies had crowded themselves into a pew in the
Cathedral before Baron Hilton's daughters.
The antiquity of the family was deemed so great that it was reputed
by popular tradition to have sprung from a northern rover, who wooed
and won a fair young Saxon dame, with all her lands and towns, under the
disguise of one of Odo's ravens. The playful fancy of Mr. Surtees has
elaborated this into a metrical romance, which I have not space to quote
entire, in which he describes how Harold the son of Eric fell beneath the
withering spell of the witches, and was sentenced to wander as a raven,
" Till lady, unlike thing I trow,
Print three kisses on his brow."
Edith is the daughter of a knight slain in the crusade,
" And she is left an orphan child,
In her gloomy hall of the woodland wild."
In " her saddest mood " she climbs the bartizan stair, and from the summit
of the tower, watches
"
A raven on the wing.
Circling round in airy ring ;
Hovering about in doleful flight,
Where will the carrier of Odin alight
?
That seems to be her willow-wand.
For he trusted the soft and maiden grace,
And tries to smooth his raven note,
And sleeks his glossy raven coat,
To court the maiden's hand;
And now, caressing and caressed,
The raven is
lodged in Edith's breast."
* Ormerod's History of Cheshire.