Chawnes : Rohard de Chauna witnesses Walter de Clifford's grant to Dore Abbey (Mon. Angl.), and "Magistro Waltero de Calna, the foundation charter of Leiston Abbey (Suckling's Suffolk). Ralf de Chaun, or de Chan, held Chanon's or Chaneux's manor in Norfolk in 1200, and it continued in the name till the end of the century.—Blomfield. William Chaun, of Lincolnshire, occurs in the Hundred Rolls, temp. Edward I. "William de Caune demorants a Elmedon" (Embleton) is enumerated among the knights of the Bishopric of Durham, who were at the battle of Lewes in 1264; but I can find no further account either of him or his descendants in the county. There was apparently a third William de Caune living at the same date in Wiltshire (where Richard de Calna had held of Earl Patric in 1165 (Lib. Niger), as well as a Richard de Caune in Oxfordshire: (Rotul. Hundred.), and it is just possible these three Williams were one and the same. A namesake of earlier date had been seated in Hampshire. In 1215, William Briwer was commanded to let Adam de Gurdon have the land within his bailiwick that William de Kaune had held."—Woodward's Hampshire. In the adjoining county, "Richard Chaune, in 1332, conveyed to Sir John de Held all the lands and premises in the parishes of Broadwater and Fairing, which had descended to him from his grandfather, Thomas de Offington."—Dallaway's Sussex. Again, I find Thomas de Caune "one of the special commissioners in the Hundred of Harlow and Half-Hundred of Waltham in Essex, for the purpose of watching and protecting the highways, dispersing seditious meetings, and arresting offenders." This was in 1321; and in the following year he was summoned for military service against the Scots.—Palgrave's Parliamentary Writs. It is, however, only in Kent that I have met with any connected account of the family. George le Chaun held Bidborough t. Ed. I.; and it continued in the name till the reign of Ed. IV., when it passed to the Palmers—but how we are not informed. Thomas Chaune was Prior of Tunbridge in 1346. "There was," writes Hasted, "an estate in the parish of Scale, called Melcomb, now unknown; which, in the time of Ed. III., was the property of Sir Thomas Cawne, who lies buried in Ightham Church, his figure lying at full length on his tomb; on his breast are his arms, a lion rampant Ermine a la queue fourchee." He married Lora, only daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Moraunt, of Moraunt's Court (son of a Sir William Moraunt, who was Sheriff of Kent 12 and 13 Ed. III.), but had no issue; and Moraunt's Court passed to Lora's children by her second husband, James de Peckham.

So far Hasted; but, more than sixty years after, his History was published (in 1800), the will of Sir Thomas Cawne was accidentally discovered in the Surrenden charter room, and the fact brought to light that he left two sons, Robert and Thomas. The elder was six, the latter but three years old, when the will was made; and on them he entails all his lands in the parishes of Scale, Ightham, and Shipborne (Melcomb is not specified), and his manor called La Mote; giving their wardship to his wife, Lora, "if she keep herself sole and chaste, without a husband married to her." He also leaves a sum of money for a new window in Ightham Church, "near the altar of St. Mary;" which window remains over his monument on the north side of the chancel.

His manor-house is thus shown to have been the Mote, a fact hitherto unknown to Kentish topographers; and from the date assigned to the earliest part of that very curious old house, he was most probably its builder. "It is one of the most entire specimens remaining of the ancient moated manors. Like its brethren of romance, the Ightham Mote-house lies sleeping in the midst of thick woods, which you may re-people at will with such marvels as Sir Tristran or Sir Perceval were wont to encounter in similar situations. The broad, clear mote is fed from a neighbouring rivulet, which, it has been conjectured, formed here a small island or eyte, whereon the building was originally erected, and which thus gave name to the whole parish—Ightham, Eyteham, the 'hamlet of the eyte.'"—Handbook for Kent. For many years after this it was the seat of the Hautes.

Of the Hampshire De Caunes, I have found some traces in Hutchin's Dorset. Baldwin de Kaune, in 1271, granted to Herbert de Kaune the manors of Bromleigh in Dorset, Esse in Somerset, and some land at Drayton in Hants, held of Hugh de Braybrook, all of which were to revert to him if Herbert had no heirs. Herbert, however, left three children at his death in 1295; a son of his own name, then five years old, who died a few years afterwards, and two daughters, Margery and Joan, who became his co-heirs. Baldwin, meanwhile had, it would appear, deserted his colours, and was "within the allegiance of the King of France." Yet he was still claiming one of the manors. "In 1303, by an order of Court, Baldwin de Caune, an alien, and the King's enemy, was informed that he might prosecute his suit against the King, or elsewhere, for the manor of Esse-Herberd, county Somerset, which had been seized into the King's hands."

In Hertfordshire, Robert de Calne held six and a half knights' fees of the barony of Robert de Valognes in 1165.—Liber Niger.

-- Cleveland