some explanations that were
considered indispensable for the dignity of the crown of France. As late
as the year 1451, the Lord of Tancarville appears as one of the generals
of the French forces, which, under the command of the Count of
Longueville, finally succeeded in expelling the English from Normandy.
From that time forward, Masseville makes no mention of the family.
Respecting the castle, he is altogether silent, except upon the occasion
of its capture by the French in 1435, and its surrender to them again in
1449.

It may have been observed in the preceding brief enumeration of a few
principal facts connected with the family of Tancarville, that the Lords
of that house have, on more than one occasion, been designated as
Counts: the author of the _Description de la Haute Normandie_, however,
expressly states that this property was not raised into an earldom till
the reign of King John of France, who ennobled it with that dignity in
1351; at which time it was composed of all the fiefs, castellanies,
baronies, and other lands of every description, in the duchy of
Normandy, occupied by John de Melun, and Jane Crepin his wife. From the
house of Melun, this same earldom passed into that of Harcourt, by the
union of Jane of Melun with William of Harcourt--their daughter, who
inherited the property, afterwards carried it in dower to John, Count of
Dunois and of Longueville. In the year 1505, when Louis XII. added to
the earls of Longueville the higher honor of the dukedom, Tancarville
was comprised among the dependencies of the new dignity; and when,
shortly afterwards, the duchy of Longueville escheated to the crown, the
earldom of Tancarville, remaining united to Longueville, shared the same
fate. Mary of Orleans, duchess of Nemours and Estouteville, having become
possessed of Tancarville, sold it in September, 1706, to Anthony Crozat,
the king's secretary; and, at the same time, the monarch conferred all
the rights and privileges attached to the domain, upon Louis de la Tour
d'Auvergne, Count of Evreux. Twelve years subsequently, the king, by his
letters patent, separated Tancarville from Longueville, and ordered that
the Lords of Tancarville should thenceforth be summoned to the
parliament at Rouen.

The title of Earl of Tankerville is at the present day to be found in
the English peerage. It is borne by a descendant of Charles Bennet,
second Lord of Ossulston, upon whom it was conferred by George I. in
1714, after