[2] Erdeswicke based this claim on an entry in the Domesday Book naming "Turstin" as lord of the manor of "Draiton" in the landholdings of Staffordshire.

The scribes made a further error by writing the name as "Turstin", whereas the holder of "Draitone" in Oxfordshire was "Turchil" i.e. "Thorkil of Warwick", whose lands have nothing to do with the Bassets.

The lands at Drayton Bassett in Staffordshire were held by the king at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, not by the fictitious Thurstan Basset.

[4] Orderic notes that Osmund Basset was one of the vassals of the Grandmesnil and Giroie clan who pledged part of their wealth to the Abbey of Saint-Evroul in 1051.

[5] Osmund was of an age to have participated in the Norman Conquest and perhaps it was his sons who were enfeoffed with land in England by the time of Domesday in 1086.

A charter of Henry I in 1113 confirmed a grant of income from "Fontanias in Obsimine" to St. Evroul Abbey by Ralph Basset.

Ralph Basset was the ancestor of a prolific family of royal administrators he also ruled as Prince Regent when his third cousin abdicated.

The one surviving branch of the descendants of this family was long seated at the manor of Tehidy in the parish of Illogan, near Camborne, in Cornwall.

The family later moved its principal seat to Devonshire (Whitechapel, Bishops Nympton, then Umberleigh and Heanton Punchardon) and Tehidy became the seat of the junior branch, which became very wealthy in the 18th century from leases granted by them for tin and copper mines located on their estates, most notably the tin and copper mines at "Pool", between Camborne and Redruth, from which they earned income of £10,000 per annum.

The family also controlled two of the richest mines in Cornwall, namely "Cook's Kitchen", in Pool and "Dolcoath", near Tehidy.

According to Hals, a Basset held some military post in Cornwall as early as the time of Robert, Earl of Mortain (fl.1066).

Amongst the early Cornish Bassets are Sir Ralph Basset, who was summoned from Cornwall to attend, with other knights, King Edward I in the Welsh wars at Worcester in 1277, and it was probably he or one of his sons who obtained from King Edward III a patent for certain markets and fairs for the neighbouring town of Redruth in Cornwall.

He also procured a licence to crenellate his manor house of Tehidy in the year 1330–31, and Leland mentions it as "a castelet or pile of Bassets".

[10] During the reigns of Kings Henry VI, VII and VIII, the Bassets were frequently Sheriffs of Cornwall; and during the reign of King Edward IV, according to William of Worcester, a Sir John Basset held the castle, the ruins of which still stand, on the summit of Carn Brea, not far from Tehidy.

Their "right goodly lordship", as John Leland called it, extended over the parishes of Illogan, Redruth, and Camborne, the advowsons of which churches pertained to the manor of Tehidy, and the livings of which were occasionally held by some member of the family; but their wealth in later times was mainly derived from the enormous mineral riches of this part of Cornwall, although they also held considerable property in the north-eastern part of the county.

An appeal to Pope John XXII resulted on 19 February 1331 in a papal commission to the bishops of Lichfield and London to hold an enquiry into the case.

[40] However, Roger Northburgh, the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, failed to act and the case was still pending when the Pope issued a further demand for an enquiry in 1334.