That was apparent as Robert Turold related the history of his long and patient investigation; of scents which had led nowhere; of threads which had broken in his hand; of fruitless burrowings into the graves of past generations.

These disappointments had lengthened the search, but they had never, baffled the searcher nor broken his faith.
The story began in the fourteenth century, when the second Edward had summoned his trusty retainer Robert Turrald from his quiet home in leafy Buckinghamshire to sit in Parliament as a baron, and by that act of kingly grace ennobled him and his heirs forever.

Successive holders of the title were summoned to Parliament in their turn until the reign of the seventh Henry, when one succeeded whose wife brought him three daughters, but no sons.

At his death the title went into abeyance among this plurality of girls.

In peerage law they were his coheirs, and the inheritance could not descend because not one of them had an exclusive right to it.