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The
Grace coat of arms is
thought to be of ancient
origin. The long
accepted view, put forth
in Sheffield Grace's Memoirs
of the Family of Grace
(1823) was that
Raymond Le Gras
(Cambro-Norman commander
during the Norman
invasion of Ireland) was
the primogenitor of the
Irish family of Le Gras
(anglicised into Grace).
This theory has long
since been dispelled
(Langrishe, 1900 and
1902; Flanagan, 2004) as
it has been acknowledged
that he had no known
legitimate heirs.
Richard Langrishe, in
his articles The
Origin of the Grace
Family of Courtstown,
County Kilkenny,
traces the origins of
the Grace family back
1100 years to the
representatives of the
House of Blois, of the
Loir-et-Cher department
in central France.
Odo, Count of Champagne
(ca. 1040-1096) was
Count of Troyes and of
Meaux from 1047 to 1066,
then Count of Aumale
(otherwise known as Earl
of Albemarle, in right
of his wife) from 1069
to 1096. Odo was the son
of Stephen II of Troyes
and Meaux, and Adele. In
1060, Odo married
Adelaide of Normandy,
sister of William the
Conqueror and in 1066
Odo accompanied his
brother-in-law in the
Norman conquest of
England. His uncle
(grandfather of Stephen,
King of England) then
seized Odo's counties in
the Champagne region.
Some time after the
invasion King William
granted Odo the manor of
Sodbury (Gloucester) for
his good services, and
he was also rewarded
with the territory of
Holderness in Yorkshire.
By Adelaide, Odo had one
son Stephen, Count of
Aumale and Lord of
Holderness (died 1127).
It is around this time
that the origins of the
name Grace appear.
Stephen's eldest son,
William, was sometimes
referred to as Crassus
and his second son, also
named Stephen, was
called Le Gros. William
Crassus, Earl of
Albemarle, had no male
heir and so the Earldom
passed to his daughter,
and eventually to the de
Fortibus family. It is
thus through Stephen Le
Gras that the family of
Grace descends.
In
1283 William Le Gras
formally exchanged the
family's lands in
Sodbury for Tullaroan,
and other lands in
Ireland, with the Welond
family. His son, Edmund
Le Gras, security for
John Fitz Thomas of
Desmond, 1296; summoned
to Parliament in 1302,
is the first generation
to be styled Baron of
Courtstown and Lord of
Grace's County.
The origins of the coat
of arms of the Barons of
Courtstown, Gules, a
lion rampant per fess
Argent and Or, are
unknown. However
Langrishe (1900, p.322)
suggests that having
been cut off altogether
from their succession to
the Earldom of
Albemarle, they may have
considered it
unacceptable to use the
coat attributed to the
Earls. Furthermore, the
fact that the Grace
family arms are similar
to those borne by the
Marshals, Earls of
Pembroke, could be
attributed to the fact
that it was common for
the knightly tenants and
followers of a great
house to adopt arms
modelled on those of
their over-lord. Thus it
is suggested that they
retained the original
tincture of the field of
the Earls of Albemarle,
Gules, and that it was
most probable that they
chose a rampant lion
(differenced) in
allusion to their
association with the
Earls of Pembroke.
Michael Russell Ian
Grace lives in
Wellington, New Zealand.
His direct paternal
family derives from Sir
Oliver Grace (b.1505),
the second son of John
Gras (b.1475), Baron of
Courtstown. Morgan
Stanislaus Grace
(1837-1903), CMG, MLC,
established the New
Zealand branch of the
family, arriving in
Auckland on the Nugget
on 21 June 1860 as a
staff assistant surgeon
with the British Army.
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