786.

Yet this fable must have been invented before the reign of Edward III.
The profuse devotion of the three first generations to Ford Abbey was followed by oppression on one side and ingratitude on the other; and in the sixth generation, the monks ceased to register the births, actions, and deaths of their patrons.] [Footnote 81: In his Britannia, in the list of the earls of Devonshire.
His expression, e regio sanguine ortos, credunt, betrays, however, some doubt or suspicion.] [Footnote 82: In his Baronage, P.i.p.

634, he refers to his own Monasticon.

Should he not have corrected the register of Ford Abbey, and annihilated the phantom Florus, by the unquestionable evidence of the French historians ?] [Footnote 83: Besides the third and most valuable book of Cleaveland's History, I have consulted Dugdale, the father of our genealogical science, (Baronage, P.i.p.

634--643.)] [Footnote 84: This great family, de Ripuariis, de Redvers, de Rivers, ended, in Edward the Fifth's time, in Isabella de Fortibus, a famous and potent dowager, who long survived her brother and husband, (Dugdale, Baronage, P i.p.