Aubrey de Vere, “who came in with the Conqueror,” was grandfather to Aubrey, first Earl of Oxford, and held, as we have already seen, a tract of land called in Domesday, Chenesitun. {28} His eldest son, Geoffry having been cured of a sickness by the Abbot of Abingdon, while grateful for the skill and kindness shewn him, persuaded his father to bestow the church of Kensington on that Monastery. The grant was made, and confirmed by the next heir, Geoffry having died during his father’s lifetime. This footing having been obtained, a subsequent Abbot claimed the privileges of a manor for the lands given to that church. This claim, which appears to have been set up previous to the issue of a quo-warranto, seemed to the Earl then in possession, rather more than his ancestors, in their liberality had given. He appears to have opposed the claim: and it was ordered that the matter should be investigated. From some cause or other, however, the suit did not proceed, and the _Abbot’s_ Kensington became a manor like its progenitor, the _Earl’s_ Kensington; and so the Reformation found a goodly quantity of land firmly grasped in the dead hands of the Abingdon monks. This good thing, however, had not been kept wholly to themselves. They had allowed their brothers at Westminster to have a finger in the pie. And that portion of this manor which was set aside for charitable purposes, was intrusted to the charitable care, of St. Peter. This portion of the Abbot’s manor was valued, in the year 1371, at five marks; while the other portion, “the church and vicarage,” was valued at thirty-six marks. {29} In the patent roll which contains the grant of Henry the eighth to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster—Pat. 34. Henry 8. P. 5. M. 32. (6)—“of the site of the late monastery of Westminster, with all its ancient privileges, free customs, &c., &c.,” we find, at the foot of the same membrane, this continuation of the grant “all those messuages, lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, feedings, rents, reversions, services, and other our hereditaments whatsoever known by the name or names of Seynt Mary Landes, lying and being in Westbourne, in the parish of Paddington, in our said county of Middlesex, and now or late in the tenure or occupation of John Genie, or his assigns, to the said late monastery of St. Peter, Westminster, lately belonging and appertaining, and being parcel of the possessions of the said late monastery.” I have not been able to discover the exact extent of these lands at the time of the reformation; or the amount of their growth during the last three centuries; but I have many reasons for believing that these “Seynt Mary lands lying and being in Westbourne in the parish of Paddington,” were the self-same lands given by St. Mary of Abingdon to St. Peter of Westminster for charitable purposes. That, in fact, this land was the poor allotment of the manor of Abbot’s Kensington.