in all its Branches, London, 1869; 2nd edition London, 1880. He produced a Supplement in 1885 containing new information following his discovery of two 13th-century Fortescue charters in Eton College library. In the preface to the first edition he wrote of himself: "It has been his desire, by tracing the various branches of the family to a common ancestor, who lived at the time when the history of Anglo-Norman England may be said to begin, to present it as an ideal whole, taking part through one or more of its members, and to a greater or less extent, in the events of almost every period of the history of our country; not, indeed, with any such prominence as to entitle it to a place among the powerful families of the land, but sufficiently to stamp it as a fair example of a knightly and noble House of England". In the preface to the second edition he wrote: "A last reading over of the beginning of the volume induces me to remind the reader that the so-called early history of this family, like that of many others, is really not history at all, not being founded on documentary evidence, but tradition — deserving of credit so far only as it is not contradicted by probability or historic fact. The "Domesday Book" does not record, in any recognizable form, an ancestor of the Fortescues among the persons who received grants of land from William the Conqueror. The residence, therefore, at Wimstone, immediately after the Conquest, of Adam Fortescue, either as a tenant-in-chief or as an under-tenant, must not be unreservedly accepted. If the Fortescues were there at all at that early time, it was probably in some other capacity than that which either of those tenures would imply". References External links 1815 births 1887 deaths 19th-century Irish historians Thomas Peers of Ireland created by Queen Victoria Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford Fortescue, Thomas Fortescue, Thomas UK MPs who were granted peerages Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria High Sheriffs of County Louth Thomas