For Toesni or Todeni, from Toesny, in the commune of Gaillon, arrondissement of Louviers, Normandy. Six of this name are on the Dives Roll; Raoul, Robert, Juhel, Ibert, Berenger, and Guillaume; but Juhel is inserted by mistake, for he was named De Toteneis, or Totness, from his Devonshire barony (see Maine). Raoul or Ralph de Toeni - called by Wace De Conches (from his barony of Conches, near Evreux, where his father Roger had founded an abbey), was the Hereditary Standard Bearer of Normandy, and, as such, offered the honour of bearing the consecrated banner at the battle of Hastings. “The Duke called a serving man, and ordered him to bring forth the gonfanon which the Pope had sent him; and he who bore it, having unfolded it, the Duke took it, reared it, and called to Raol de Conches: ‘Bear my gonfanon,’ said he, ‘for I would not but do you right; by right and by ancestry your line are standard bearers of Normandy, and very good knights have they all been.’ ‘Many thanks to you,’ said Raol, ‘for acknowledging our right; but, by my faith, the gonfanon shall not this day be borne by me. To-day I claim quittance of the service, for I would serve you in other guise. I will go with you into the battle, and will fight the English as long as life shall last, and know my hand will be worth any twenty of such men.’” - Wace.

The De Toenis were “royal, descended from an uncle of Rollo;" and one of the greatest houses in Normandy. Ralph de Toeni was among Duke William’s chief barons, and “through the malicious suggestion of some who bore a grudge towards him”had been at one time expelled from the Duchy, but by “the inter­cession of Friends” reinstated in his estates and office of standard-bearer. He appears as a great landowner in Domesday, and though his principal estates were in Norfolk, chose Flamstead in Hertfordshire as his chief residence. His mother was a sister of William FitzOsbern, Earl of Hereford, and on the failure of that family he received some share of their estates, with the castle of Clifford, which FitzOsbern had “newly built upon a piece of waste ground.” He died in 1102, and was buried with his ancestors in his Norman Abbey of Conches. All his descendants made great alliances. His son Ralph married a daughter of Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland; Roger, his grandson, a daughter of the Earl of Hainault; and another Roger, his great-grandson, Constance de Bellomont, whose grandmother had been a daughter of Henry I., with whom he obtained some lands in Devonshire, originally granted by that King, and a gift from King John of the Norfolk manor still called Saham-Tony. Ralph, their son, was in arms with the rebellious barons, but was subsequently appointed one of the Barons Marcher of the Welsh frontier by Henry III., and died in the Holy Land, having been “signed with the cross” in 1239. The monks of St. Albans recount how his dead brother was brought back to life to induce him to build a monastery in the West of England. “Roger (a valiant and expert Soldier) lying on his Death Bed near Reading, his brother Ralph desired to have some Conference with him, and being then distant some thirty miles, rode with all speed, to come to his life: But when he got thither, finding him speechless and, void of sense, with great lamentation he cryed out, ‘My dear Brother, I conjure thee in the name of God, that thou speak to me:’ adding that he would never eat again, unless he might have some discourse with him. And that there­upon the dead man sharply rebuked him for thus disquieting his spirit, by those importunate clamors; telling him, that he then beheld with his eyes the torments of evil men, and the joys of the Blessed; and likewise the great punishment whereunto he himself (miserable wretch) was destined. And going on in their discourse, Ralph replied, ‘Shalt not thou then be saved?’ ‘Yes,’ quoth Roger, ‘for I have done one good work, though but a little one; that is to say, a small gift to the honour of the Blessed Virgin; for which, through God’s mercy, I trust for redemption.’ ‘But,’ quoth Ralph, ‘may not these punishments whereunto thou art designed be mitigated by good Works, Masses, and Alms Deeds?’ ‘Yes,’ quoth Roger: ‘Why then,’ quoth Ralph, ‘I do faithfully promise thee, that for the health of our Souls, and the Souls of our Ancestors, I will found a Religious House, for good Men to inhabite; who for the health of our Souls, shall always pray to God.’”This may probably be taken as a fair sample of the means then employed for extending the possessions of the Church.

Third in descent from the crusader was Robert, the last of the line, who for his good service in the wars of Scotland and Gascony was summoned to parliament as Baron Toni in 1299. He is the knight of the Swan spoken of at Caerlaverock: - “Blanche cote et blanches alettes Escu blanche et baniere blanche Avoit o la vermaylle manche Robert de Tony ki bien signe Ke il est du chevalier a cigne.”

“According to the popular romance of the Knight of the Swan,” says Sir Harris Nicholas, “the Counts of Boulogne were lineally descended from that fabulous personage, There is no more picturesque mediaeval romance than the story of Helias the Knight of the Swan. “When Otho, Emperor of Germany, held court at Neumagen, to decide between Clarissa, Duchess of Bouillon, and the Count of Frankfort, who claimed her duchy, it was settled that their right should be established by single combat. The Count was to appear in person in the lists, whilst the Duchess was to provide some doughty warrior who would do battle for her.” But the poor lady, “as all abashed,” looked round in vain for a champion; no one present would meddle in her quarrel; “whereupon she committed her to God, praying Him humbly to succour her.” The council broke up, and lords and ladies were scattered along the banks of the Meuse, when lo! a stately swan with a silver chain round its neck came sailing down the river, drawing a small skiff in which lay a knight in resplendent armour, resting on an argent shield blazoned with a double cross of gold. He leaped ashore, offered his sword to the forlorn princess, carried her colours in the lists, and triumphantly overthrew her adversary. She rewarded him with the hand of her fair daughter; and thus Helias became Duke of Bouillon, and in due time the father of a little girl, who received at the font the name of Ydain, married Eustace Count of Boulogne, and was the mother of Godfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem, and of his brothers Baldwin and Eustace. Before his marriage, Helias had solemnly warned his bride that if she ever enquired who he was, he would have to leave her for ever. “One night the wife forgot the injunction of her husband, and began to ask him his name and kindred. Then he rebuked her sorrowfully, and leaving his bed, bade her farewell. Instantly the swan reappeared on the river, drawing the little shallop after it, and uttering loud cries to call its brother. So Helias stepped into the boat, and the swan swam with it from the sight of the sorrowing lady.” - Curious Myths of the Middle Ages. and genealogists of former ages have pretended to trace the pedigrees of the Beauchamps, Bohuns, and Staffords to the same source, whence they say they derive their respective crests. It would therefore not be difficult to deduce the descent of Robert de Toeni from the Counts of Boulogne, and the accurate knowledge of genealogy that the poet has displayed in his account of Lord Clifford’s pedigree, justifies the idea that he referred to Toeni’s pedigree; an opinion further supported by the fact of the shield, on his seal affixed to the Baron’s letter to the Pope, 1301, being surrounded by lions and swans alter­nately.” He died s. p. in 1310, and his only sister Alice inherited. She was then a young widow of twenty-six, having been married to Thomas de Leybourne, son of William Lord Leybourne, the doughty Kentish knight who would know nothing of 'if 'or 'but': - “Guillemes de Leybourne ausi, Vaillans horns, sanz mes et sans si.”

Her daughter Juliana was the famous heiress known as the “Infanta of Kent.” Alice had two other husbands; Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (Noir Chien d'Arden), and William la Zouche of Ashby. The name of this great house survives in different counties; it was given to Zell-Tony in Devonshire, Stratford Tony and Newton Tony in Wiltshire.

The first Ralph that came out of Normandy had a younger brother named Robert, Baron of Stafford, whom the author of the ‘Norman People’ believes to be the same Robert de Todeni who built Belvoir Castle (vol. i., p. 177). But though they may have been namesakes, they were distinctly different persons. According to Domesday, Robert held in all one hundred and thirty-one manors in different counties; and Dugdale supposes that he took his name from the then newly-built castle of Stafford, of which the Conqueror appointed him the first castellan. He lived till the time of Henry I., and founded an Augustinian priory at Stone in Staffordshire (on the spot where one Enysan de Walton had murdered two nuns and a priest), which became the burial-place of the family. By his wife, Avice de Clare, he was the father of Nicholas, Viscount of Stafford­shire, with whose grandson Robert the male line terminated. A sister named Millicent carried the barony, with a great inheritance, to her husband Hervey Bagot (“a Gentleman of an antient Family in those parts”; vol. i., p. 194), who thereupon bore the title of Lord Stafford. But he had to pay so heavy a fine to Cœur de Lion for permission to marry this heiress, and obtain livery of her lands, that he was forced to sell Drayton - one of her manors - to the canons of St. Thomas. Their son, who bore the name of his mother, founded one of the loftiest of our English houses, which rose to the highest point of splendour only to fall to the other extreme of reverse. Third in descent from him was Edmund Stafford, summoned to parliament in 1299, who followed Edward T. into Scotland, and distinguished himself in his service. He had two sons: Ralph, and Richard, ancestor of the Staffords of Clifton. Ralph, a renowned captain in the wars of Edward III., defended Aguillon triumphantly against the whole power of the French, commanded in the van at Cressy, and was appointed, first Seneschal, and then Lieutenant-General of Aquitaine. He was one of the Founder Knights of the Garter, Earl of Stafford by creation in 1351, and Earl of Gloucester and Baron Audley in right of his wife Margaret de Audley, daughter and heir of Hugh, Earl of Gloucester, who had married one of the co-heirs of Gilbert de Clare. The next Earl followed in his father’s footsteps, for he was fighting in France in the train of the Black Prince when a stripling of only seventeen, and died in 1386 at Rhodes, on his way home from the Holy Land, leaving four surviving sons: Thomas, William, and Edmund, successively third, fourth, and fifth Earls, and Sir Hugh, who married Lord Bourchier’s heiress, and was summoned to parliament as Baron Bourchier, but died s. p. Earl Edmund, who fell in the battle of Stafford, had married Lady Anne Plantaganet (the daughter of Thomas Earl of Woodstock by Alianore, one of the great Bohun heiresses), who had been already “in her tender years”the wife of his brother Thomas; and in honour of this illustrious alliance their only son Humphrey was created Duke of Buckingham in 1444, with precedence next to the blood royal. But this rank was disputed by Henry de Beauchamp, the new Duke of Warwick, and it was found that nothing less than an Act of Parliament, granting each precedence on alternate years, could adjust their rival claims. Humphrey, in his turn, “receiv’d deep scars in France and Normandy,” and died fighting for the Red Rose at Northampton in 1460. His eldest son had been slain five years previously at St. Albans; and thus, three loyal generations, one after the other, faithfully laid down their lives for the House of Lancaster. The second son, Sir Henry, married Henry VII.’s mother, Margaret Countess of Richmond, the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, “allied, by blood or affinity, to thirty kings and queens”: and John, the youngest, was created Earl of Wiltshire, but the line failed in his son.

Humphrey’s grandson, Henry, second Duke,, was married to Katherine Widville, the sister-in-law of Edward IV.; yet, on his death, took part against Edward V. (his own nephew), and offered his services privately to the Duke of Gloucester, promising “to wait upon him with 1,000 good Fellows, if need were.” He was one of the emissaries sent to the poor Queen, then in sanctuary at Westminster, who succeeded “by fair pretences and promises in gaining her young sons out of her hands;” he connived at their murder; and bore Richard III.’s train at his coronation, with the white staff of Lord High Steward of England. The guerdon of his crime was dealt out to him with no niggardly hand. He was appointed Chief Justice of North and South Wales, and Lord High Constable, with a grant of the lands of Humphrey de Bohun, as cousin and heir of blood, and such great riches that “he then made his boast, that he had as many Liveries of Stafford Knotts, as Richard Nevill the late great Earle of Warwick had of Ragged Staves.” Yet his allegiance to the new King proved of brief duration. Some doubt whether he actually got possession of the coveted Bohun estates; others conjecture he had “trouble of conscience,” or perceived that Richard’s regard for him was waxing cold: at all events, from some cause or other, he retired in dudgeon to his Welsh castle of Brecknock, and plotted fresh treasons. In concert with the Marquess of Dorset, the Courtenays, and others, he took up arms for the heir male of Lancaster: but “from extraordinary floods”(long remembered by the name of “Buckingham’s Water”) he could not pass the Severn; his Welshmen dispersed “for want of money and victual,” and the rising ended in disaster. The Courtenays fled into Brittany, and the Duke himself was forced to seek shelter in the house of a servant “whom he had tenderly brought up, and above all men trusted.” This fellow delivered him up to the King, and he was beheaded in the market place at Salisbury, “without Arraignment or Judgment”in 1483. The betrayer did not, however, receive the promised reward of ₤1,000; for the King refused to give him anything, declaring “that he who would be untrue to so good a Master, would be false to all other.”

Buckingham left three sons: 1. Edward, third Duke; 2. Henry, who married Lady Wiltshire, the widow of his cousin Edward Stafford, the second and last Earl, and was himself created Earl of Wiltshire, but died s. p. in 1523, and 3. Humphrey, who died young. Edward, the heir, was restored by Henry VII. to his Dukedom and other honours, and appointed Lord High Constable of England. Henry VIII., two years after his accession, granted him license to empark 2,000 acres at Thornbury in Gloucestershire, where he commenced building a magnificent castle: and for some time he was in high favour at Court. Yet he, too, was to end his life on the scaffold. He had, from some trivial cause, a bitter quarrel with Cardinal Wolsey: - it is said that at a great Court ceremonial, when the Duke was holding a bason to the King, no sooner had His Majesty washed than Wolsey dipped his own hands into the water, and Buckingham, stung at the indignity, “flung the contents of the ewer into the churchman’s shoes.” Wolsey swore to be revenged; a retainer named Knevet was found to swear that the Duke had conspired against his sovereign; and he was tried and condemned as a traitor. On receiving sentence, he said to the Lord High Steward, “My Lord of Norfolk, you have said as a traitor should be said to; but I was never any. I nothing malign you, for what you have done to me; but the eternal God forgive you my death. I shall never sue to the King for life, though he,be a gracious prince; and more grace may come from him than I desire; and so I desire you and all my fellows to pray for me.” He was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1521. “A butcher’s dog hath killed the noblest buck in England,” said Charles V., on hearing of his fate.

With him the princely House of Stafford fell to rise no more. His only son, stripped alike of lands and dignities, received back a small fraction of its splendid possessions, with “a seat and voice in parliament as a baron:”and this title was borne by several generations. Edward, fourth Lord Stafford, “basely married to his mother's chambermaid,” was succeeded by his grandson Henry, with whom the direct line terminated in 1637; and the claim of the last remaining heir, Roger, was rejected by the House of Lords on account of his poverty. This unfortunate man, the great-grandson of the last Duke, was then sixty-five, and had sunk into so abject a condition that he felt ashamed of bearing his own name, and long passed as Fludd, or Floyde, having, it is supposed, assumed the patronymic of one of his uncle’s servants, who had reared and sheltered him in early life. He was compelled to surrender his barony to Charles I., and died unmarried in 1640; leaving an only sister, Jane, who in spite of her Plantagenet blood married a joiner,and had a son gaining a poor livelihood as a cobbler in 1637 at Newport in Shropshire. No downfall could well have been more complete. “The most zealous advocate for equality must surely here be highly gratified, when he is told that the great-granddaughter of Margaret, daughter and heir of George Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV., was the wife of a common joiner, and her son, the mender of old shoes!'" - Banks. All the kindred families of this name had then been extinct for a long time. The Staffords of Clifton were barons by writ in 1371, and ended early in the following century. Another line (traced from Sir John Stafford, of Bromshull, co. Stafford) acquired Hooke in Dorsetshire during the reign of Henry IV. by the marriage of Sir Humphrey “with the silver hand”“Probably so called from his generosity, or from an artificial hand, plated with silver, which supplied the want of his natural hand, lost by some accident.” - Banks. to the widow of Sir John Maltravers. One of their descendants was created Baron Stafford of Suthwyk in 1464; and after the execution and attainder of Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon, in 1469, received his forfeited Earldom; but was himself beheaded at Bridgewater a few months afterwards. His two only daughters died unmarried.

One remaining branch of the royal Toenis still flourishes in the male line. Nigel de Toeni or De Stafford, a younger brother of the standard bearer’s, held Drakelow, Gresley, and some other manors in Derbyshire and Staffordshire at the date of Domesday; the former “by the service of rendering a bow without a string; a quiver of Tutesbit (?) twelve fleched and one unfeathered arrow,” sometimes called a buzon. Castle-Gresley took its name from his castle; and Church-Gresley marks the site of an Augustinian priory founded by his son William in the time of Henry I. Roger, the next heir, first bore the name of Gresley, that has been carried down to our own time by a long and honourable line of descent. His successors continued at Drakelow, and since the time of the first Edward have at various periods served as knights of the shire and High Sheriffs of their native county. Sir Geoffrey, in 1330, claimed the right of having a gallows at Drakelow and Gresley; Sir Nicholas, during the same reign, married a great heiress, Thomasin de Wasteneys; Sir William served Henry VIII. in his French wars, and dying issueless, was succeeded by his brother George, who was installed a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Anne Boleyn. Two others, Sir William and Sir Thomas, one Sheriff of Stafford, the other of Derby, were knighted by Queen Elizabeth; and the next in succession, George, received a baronetcy in 1611. “He was an active officer in the Parliamentary service during the Civil War, and was Lieut.-Colonel to Sir William Gell.” - Lysons. In the beginning of the present century Sir Roger Gresley alienated much of the property; and, having no children, parcelled out the remainder in such a manner that, by annual sales, it should last him his life; but he died a comparatively young man, and Drakelow, “the only estate remaining in the county that has continued in the same family from the time of Domesday,” is now held by his representative, Sir Robert Gresley.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, Tona. Tonnay; a local name