Family Lessons 160: Rivals and Marriage

In the year 1357, my 21x great-uncle, Gilbert de Haydock, sued my 20x great-grandparents, Simon and Eleanor de Walton, for damages, on account of some disputed land worth £20 which had been enfeoffed (exchanged for services under complicated feudal arrangements). The County Pipe Rolls are sparing in detail, and medieval landholders were frequently resorting to the courts to safeguard or expand their estates. Although they were apparently unrelated, future marriage vows would unite their families to produce a string of children from whom I descend.

Better than marriage for ending squabbles and disputes is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Trusting in His shed blood and changed by grace, enemies become friends: Arab and Jew, Ulster unionist and Irish nationalist, Iranian and Iraqi, Chinese and Formosan, Russian and Pole. Combining into a renewed, global family of God, the troubles of this fading world are outshone by the promises, unity and glories of the next.

And he shall deem heathen men, and he shall reprove many peoples; and they shall weld together their swords into shares, and their spears into sickles, either scythes; folk shall no more raise sword against folk, and they shall no more be exercised, either haunted, to battle. Isaiah 2:4, Wycliffe's Bible

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