In writing a Preface to the Fourth Edition of the History of Tideswell, I feel some diffidence, because the book has already been so well received; the First, Second, and Third Editions being out of print in so short a time after their publication, that no further introduction would seem necessary; and besides this, the subject of which I am asked to treat; viz. “some notices of the connection of the Foljambe family with Tideswell in early times”, may seem a somewhat egotistical one to come from the pen of one of their descendants, though I think one may be pardoned for feeling some pride in being connected with that John Foljambe who had so much to do with the rebuilding of this beautiful Church, and whose simple Epitaph on the brass in the Chancel records that “multa bona fecit circa fabricationem hujus ecclesiæ”. As he died in 1358, the rebuilding of the Church must have been in progress at that time. The Foljambe family had been connected with Tideswell and Wormhill, which was then in the Parish of Tideswell, from very early times; and held various posts in the Royal Forest of the Peak, or “de Campana” as it was called. William Foljambe was one of the Foresters of Fee of the Forest of Peak, and was descended from the Forester enfeoffed by William Peverel. He died in 1172. We next find Thomas Foljambe of Tideswell, in 1208, and 1214, when he was a Knight. He had apparently three sons whose names appear as witnesses to various Charters between the years 1224 and 1244, of

whom John and Roger were of Tideswell, and Thomas of Little Hucklow. Sir Thomas Foljambe, son of the above mentioned John Foljambe, was of Tideswell and Wormhill, and was living in the reign of Henry III, and in the early part of that of Edward I. He was seized of a Knight's Fee in the Wapentake of Osgoldcross in Yorkshire in 1253-4, and was Bailiff de Campana (i.e. of the King's Honour and Forest of the Peak) in 1272, and had the Manor of Tideswell from Richard Daniel, 1282.^[1] He died at an advanced age on the Saturday next after the Feast of St. Hilary in 1282-3.

One of his brothers, Henry Foljambe, was Bailiff of Tideswell in 1288.

Sir Thomas Foljambe was succeeded by his eldest son, another Sir Thomas Foljambe of Tideswell, who was Knight of the Shire for the County of Derby in 1297, and died in the following year, leaving his son and successor, yet another Sir Thomas Foljambe, of Tideswell, who represented the County in Parliament in 1302, and again in 1304-5, 1309, 1311, 1312, 1313 and 1314. In 1301 he was one of those summoned to do Military Service against the Scots, and to muster at Berwick-upon-Tweed on the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. He died in 1323, and was succeeded by Sir Thomas his son, who married the heiress of the family of Darley, of Darley-in-the-Dale, and so acquired considerable Estates in that neighbourhood, which passed to his younger son Sir Godfrey, who was Seneschal to John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, and Constable of the Peak, and represented Derbyshire in Parliament in 1338, and again in 1340, 1363, 1364, 1369, 1370, and 1371.

Sir Thomas' eldest son, John, was the one already alluded to as having done so much for the rebuilding of the Church. He entailed the family estates in 1350, and a second entail was made in 1372, whereby, on the extinction of the male descendants of the elder line, the estates in Tideswell, Wormhill, &c., passed to the younger branch of the family. John Foljambe had, inter alios, a younger brother, Thomas, who had two sons, John, and Thomas of Elton, who appear to have died childless.- Of his own sons, Thomas, the elder, died without issue, and the builder of the Church was succeeded by his younger son, Roger, who was of Tideswell, 1383, and 1392. His son and heir, James, died in his lifetime, leaving a son Edward Foljambe, who was of Tideswell, Wormhill, and Elton, &c., in 1416. He fought at Agincourt, and was knighted, and, dying about 1446-7, left two sons, Roger who succeeded him (and died in 1448 leaving three daughters and coheirs), and Thomas who died shortly before his brother without issue. Thereupon by the entail made nearly 100 years previously, the estates at Tideswell, Wormhill, &c., came to Thomas, son and heir of Thomas younger son of Sir Godfrey above mentioned, who thus became heir male and representative of the family.

Sir Godfrey Foljambe's eldest son, of the same name, dying in his lifetime, leaving an only child, a third Sir Godfrey, who left an only daughter Alice who married Sir Robert Plumpton, Knt.; the first Sir Godfrey's younger son, Thomas, became the male representative of this line. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Loudham of Loudham, Co. Notts., by Isabel, daughter and heir of Sir Robert Breton, or de Brito, of Walton in the parish of Chesterfield. Her brother, Sir John Loudham, dying without issue, she inherited considerable estates in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

Thomas, son and heir of this Thomas Foljambe and