feudatories under them to aid them in this service.

The princely prelate of Durham had his barons and knights, who held estates
of him on feudal tenure, and were bound to serve him in peace and war. They
sat occasionally in his councils, gave martial splendor to his court, and
were obliged to have horse and weapon ready for service, for they lived in
a belligerent neighborhood, disturbed occasionally by civil war, and often
by Scottish foray. When the banner of St. Cuthbert, the royal standard of
the province, was displayed, no armed feudatory of the bishop could refuse
to take the field. [Footnote: Robert de Graystanes, Ang. Sac., p. 746.]

Some of these prelates, in token of the warlike duties of their diocese,
engraved on their seals a knight on horseback armed at all points,
brandishing in one hand a sword, and holding forth in the other the arms of
the see. [Footnote: Camden, Brit. iv., 349.]

Among the knights who held estates in the palatinate on these warlike
conditions, was WILLIAM DE HERTBURN, the progenitor of the Washingtons.
His Norman name of William would seem to point out his national descent;
and the family long continued to have Norman names of baptism. The surname
of De Hertburn was taken from a village on the palatinate which he held of
the bishop in knight's fee; probably the same now called Hartburn on the
banks of the Tees. It had become a custom among the Norman families of rank
about the time of the Conquest, to take surnames from their castles or
estates; it was not until some time afterwards that surnames became
generally assumed by the people. [Footnote: Lower on Surnames, vol. i., p.
43. Fuller says, that the custom of surnames was brought from France in
Edward the Confessor's time, about fifty years before the Conquest; but did
not become universally settled until some hundred years afterwards. At
first they did not descend hereditarily on the family.--_Fuller, Church