THE NOBLE AND GENTLE MEN OF ENGLAND.

THE following imperfect attempt to bring together a few notes relating to the ancient aristocracy of England, is confined in the first place to the families now existing, and regularly established either as knightly or gentle houses before the commencement of the sixteenth century; secondly, no notice is taken of those families who may have assumed the name and arms of their ancestors in the female line: for the truth is, as it has been well observed,* "that, unless we take the male line as the general standard of genealogical rank, we shall find ourselves in a hopeless state of confusion;" thirdly, illegitimate descent is of course excluded; and, fourthly, where families have sold their original estates, they will be noticed in those counties where they are at present seated; if however they still possess the ancient estate of their family, though they may reside in another county, they will be mentioned for the most part under that county from whence they originally sprung.

In those cases where the whole landed estate of the family has been dissipated, although the male line still remains, all notice is omitted, such families having no longer any claim to be classed in any county. For, "ancient dignity was territorial rather than personal, the whole system was rooted in the land, and, even in the present day, though the land may have changed hands often, it has carried along with it some of that sentiment of regard attached to the lordship of it, as surely as its earth has the fresh smell which it gives when upturned by the husbandman."**

This list also, it must be remembered, does not profess to give an account of all those families whose descent may possibly be traced beyond the year 1500, but merely of those who were in the position of what we now call county families before that period. The line of demarcation indeed between the families who rose upon the ruins of the monastic system, and the more ancient aristocracy of England, is often very difficult to be traced, depending as it does on documentary evidence often inaccessible, and obscured by the fanciful and too favourable deductions of the heralds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

With regard to the sources from whence the following memoranda have been taken, I have endeavoured as much as possible to rely upon the best county histories and MS. collections of authority, and carefully to eschew those modern accounts of family history, which, by ascribing the most absurd pretensions of ancient lineage to families who bore no real claim to that distinction, have done much to bring genealogy itself into contempt among that numerous class of readers who are but slightly acquainted with the subject.

I cannot conclude without recording my obligations to several gentlemen who have in the most liberal manner placed their genealogical collections at my service, and by so doing rendered less imperfect these notices of the noble and gentle houses of England: among that number I wish particularly to mention the names of the late Mr. Joseph Morris of Shrewsbury and Mr. Joseph Hunter, one of the Assistant Keepers of the Records, the learned and accurate historian of South Yorkshire.
E.P.S.

ANOTHER edition of this little work having been called for, I have carefully revised and corrected what has been already written; I have also made some additions, the result of further investigation, and the information of many friends and correspondents, whose courtesy and kindness I here beg most gratefully to acknowledge.

Since the book was published in the year 1859, the male lines of three families, whose names were originally comprehended in it, have become extinct, viz.: Cotton of Landwade, in the county of Cambridge, Hornyold of Blackmore Park, and Hanford of Wollashill, both in Worcestershire. On the other hand, notices of eight "new peers?" will be found in the present volume, four of which also occurred in the second edition. I allude to Lovett of Liscombe, in the county of Buckingham, and Basset of Tehidy, in the county of Cornwall—very ancient families, whose landed property being until lately in female hands, could not, in accordance with the rules which I had laid down, be comprehended in the first edition; I have also added Huyshe of Sand, in Devonshire, Patten of Bank Hall, in Lincolnshire, Bertie of Uffington, Anderson of Brocklesby, and Massingberd of Wrangle, all in Lincolnshire, and, lastly, Upton of Ashton Court, in the county of Somerset. And here I must again beg to remind the reader, that the intention of this work is not to give an account of every family whose pedigree may be continued in the male line beyond the time which I have mentioned (the beginning of the sixteenth century), but of those only who were established as county families, "inheriting arms from their ancestors," at that period. It is no doubt in many cases very difficult to distinguish accurately the pretensions of many families who may possibly have a fair claim to this distinction, though, from the reasons to which I have formerly alluded, it is not easy to establish them. I can only say that as far as my information extends I have endeavoured fairly and honestly to draw the correct line, but whether I have succeeded must be left to the judgment of others.
E. P. S.

THIS great and ancient Family, though not connected with this county before the reign of Henry VIII., yet, having been for a considerable time seated at Melchbourne, may with propriety be included among the Bedfordshire families, and indeed stands alone as the only one of knightly rank.* Descended in the direct male line from Hugh de Port mentioned in Domesday, in the twelfth century William son of Adam de Port took the name of St.John from the heiress of that great Norman family. Basing in Hampshire, Stanton St.John in Oxfordshire, Bletshoe in the county of Northampton, and Lydiard Tregoze in Wiltshire, both derived from the heiress of Beauchamp in the reign of Henry VI.—have successively been seats of the St.Johns, who have made themselves sufficiently remarkable both for their loyalty and disloyalty in the reign of Charles I., not to mention the ambition and ill-directed abilities of the great Lord Bolingbroke in that of Anne.

Younger Branch. St.John of Lydiard Tregoze, Viscount Bolingbroke 1712. Baronet 1611. Descended from Oliver, second son of Sir Oliver St.John and the heiress of Beauchamp.

See Leland's Itinerary, edition 1769, vol. vi. folio 27, p. 26. Brydges's Collins, vi. 42 and 741. For an account of Bletshoe, and the monuments there, see Gent. Mag. 1799, p. 745. For Lydiard Tregoze, and other monuments of the St.Johns, whose pedigree, by Sir R. St.George, is painted on folding-doors on the north side of the chancel, see the Topographer, i. 508.

Arms.—Argent, on a chief gules two mullets pierced or. William de St.John in the thirteenth century bore in his arms the addition of a bend gules, which was continued by his descendants till the reign of Elizabeth. (Gent. Mag. 1787, 681.) The present coat was borne by Sir John de St.John in the reign of Edward II.; at the same time other members of the family varied the field and charges thus: Sir Roger bore, Ermine, on a chief gules two mullets or; Sir Eymis, Argent, crusilly sable, on a chief gules two mullets or; Sir John de Layneham, Argent, on a chief gules two mullets or, a border indented sable. John, heir of John de St.John, differenced his arms with a label azure, according to the roll of Carlaverock. The roll of arms of the reign of Richard II. gives the mullets of six points pierced azure. Edward St.John at this period bore, Argent, on a chief dancetté gules two mullets of six points or, pierced vert. Rolls of the dates.

This family is of ancient Kentish extraction, and is a branch of the Polhills or Polleys of Preston, in Shoreham, in that county, descended from John Polhill, eldest son of John Polhill and Alice de Buckland, the heiress of Preston, in the reign of Henry VI. The Rev. Richard Polwhele, the Historian of Cornwall, was of opinion that the Polhills of Kent were a branch of the Cornish Polwheles, which emigrated from the western into the eastern counties at a very early period; they were certainly seated at Detling in Hollingbourne, in Kent, at or previous to the reign of Edward III. In the time of Elizabeth, the Polhills were of Frenches, in the parish of Burwash, in Sussex. The immediate ancestor of the present family was Nathaniel Polhill, of Burwash and Howbury, an eminent merchant, who died in 1782.

See a very minute account of all the branches of this ancient family in the Topographer and Genealogist, i. pp. 180 and 577. See also Hasted's History of Kent, vol. i, p. 365, and vol. iii. p. 4.

Arms.—Or, on a bend gules three cross-crosslets of the first. It appears by the Roll of Arms of the reign of Richard II., that Monsr. Rauff Poley bore a coat nearly similar, viz, Argent, on a bend gules three crosses patée or.

It has been observed by old Fuller, "The Lands of Berkshire are very skittish, and are apt to cast their owners;" and again, "Of names which were in days of yore—few remain here of a great store." The ancient family of Eyston, and the succeeding one of Clarke, are indeed the only exceptions at the present day to this rule. The Eystons have been seated at East Hendred since the reign of Henry VI.; John Eiston, their ancestor, having at that period married "Isabel, daughter and heir of John Stow, of Burford, co. Oxford, whose wife was Maud, daughter and heir of Rawlin Arches, of East Henreth, whose great-grandmother was Amy, daughter and heir of Richard Turbervill, of East Henreth, Esq."

See the Visitation of Berks, 1566. Harl. MS. 1822, 26 b, and Harl. 1532, 19 b. See also Lysons's Berkshire, pp. 186, 292, and Clarke's Hundred of Wanting, 4to. 1824, p. 130.

The pedigree begins with John Clarke, of Basledon, in this county, living there the latter part of the fifteenth century. The family afterwards removed to Ardington, where they were established, according to Lysons, in the reign of Henry VII. The Visitations of 1566 and 1623 record five generations of the Clarkes before the year 1600.

See the Visitation of Berks, 1566. Harl. MS. 5822, 22 b, and Harl. 1532. See also Lysons's Berkshire, pp. 180, 186, and Clarke's Hundred of Wanting, p. 56.

Arms.—(Confirmed Oct. 22, 1600.) Argent, on a fess sable three plates between three crosses patée of the second. Sometimes the fess is placed between six crosses patée.

This very ancient family is lineally descended from Robert de Thain, who held Chetwode under the Bishop of Baieux in the time of William the Conqueror, as appears by Domesday Book.

John de Chetwode having during the reign of Edward III. married the heiress of Oakeley, of Oakeley in Staffordshire, the family have mostly resided there, as well as at Ansley Hall in Warwickshire, derived from the heiress of Ludford in 1821.

Willis, writing in 1755, says—"This manor of Chetwode, as appears to me, has been in the possession and inheritance of the Chetwodes longer than any estate or manor in this county of Buckingham has continued the property of any other family now there existing."

See Willis's Buckingham, p. 172; Erdeswicke's Staffordshire, ed. 1844, p. 119; Wotton's Baronetage, iv. p. 82; and Lysons's Buckinghamshire, p. 172.

A very ancient and honourable family of Norman descent, who came over with the Conqueror, and seated themselves at Lillingstone before the year 1200, Richard son of Elias Dayrell being seised of a message and half a knight's fee there in King Richard the First's time, or the beginning of King John's reign. Before 1306 the Dayrell became possessed of the fee of the manor, which has ever since continued in the family.

The Dayrell of Shudy Camps, in the county of Cambridge, are a younger branch of this family, sprung from Francis, second son of Paul Dayrell of Lillingstone, sheriff of Buckinghamshire 1579.*

There is good reason to believe that this family, seated at Wotton from the reign of Henry I., is a collateral branch of the Grenvilles of the West. The manor of Wotton, among many others, was given by William I. to Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckingham. Isabel, daughter and coheir of Walter the second Earl, is said to have brought it in marriage, about the year 1097, to Richard de Grenville.

The consequence of this family in modern times is owing to matches with the heiresses of the great houses of Temple, Nugent, and Chandos.

See Brydges's Collins's Peerage, ii. p. 390, and Lysons, p. 673. See also Moule's Bibliotheca Herald, p. 563, for an account of the MS., formerly at Stowe, viz. The original Evidences of the Grenville Family, collected by Richard Grenville, of Wotton, Esq. during the civil wars of the seventeenth century.

Present Representative, Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham.

On the decease of the last Earl Harcourt, in 1830, the representation in the male line of the illustrious House of Harcourt devolved on this family, descended from a younger brother of Simon, first Viscount Harcourt, and the heiress of Lee. Stanton Harcourt, in the county of Oxford, was possessed by the ancestors of this great House in 1166, and continued in the family till the extinction of the elder line in 1830. The pedigree is traced to Robert de Harcourt, who married Joan, daughter of Robert Beaumont, Earl of Mellent, and who was grandson of Robert who attended William the Conqueror in his expedition to England in 1066.

See Brydges's Collins's Peerage, iv. p. 428; and Nichols's Leicestershire, iv. pt. 2. p. 519.*

Arms.—Gules, two bars or. This coat was borne by Sir John de Harcourt in the reign of Edward II. Thomas Harecourt, the reverse, in the reign of Richard II. Rolls of the period.

Vitalis Lovett of Rushton, in the county of Northampton, who lived in the reign of Henry II., appears to be the first proved ancestor of this venerable family, said to be of Norman origin. William Lovett of Rushton, the son of Vitalis, held certain lands in Henwick, also in Northamptonshire, of Richard Engaine and his heirs by the service of finding two horsemen to follow the said Richard to hunt the wolf in any part of England. This service was remitted to John Lovet, son or grandson of William, in the reign of Edward I., and in lieu thereof an annual rent-charge of ten shillings was imposed. Soon after this period, viz: in 1304, (33 Edw. I.) Liscombe in the parish of Soulbury came into the family, being in the possession of Robert Lovett and Sarah his wife, daughter and heir of Sir Roger Turvile, from the second marriage of their son Thomas, descended the Lovetts of Astwell in Northamptonshire, since the reign of Elizabeth represented in the female line by the Shirleys Earls Ferrers. Liscombe has from the beginning of the fourteenth century remained the inheritance of the elder branch of the Lovetts, though the direct descent has been often interrupted. In 1781, Jonathan Lovett, the representative of the family, was created a baronet by King George III. His Majesty's remark on this occasion is preserved in Betham's Baronetage. "In the summer of 1781, the Earl of Chesterfield having been some time absent from court, was asked by the King where he had been so long? 'On a visit to Mr. Lovett of Buckinghamshire,' said the Earl. 'Ah,' said the King, 'is that Lovett of Liscombe? They are of the genuine old Norman breed, how happens it that they are not baronets? would they accept the title? Go tell him,' continued the King, 'is that the title is much at his service; they have ever stuck to the Crown at a pinch.'" The same work also gives a very curious, and to an antiquary very tantalizing, account of the ancient armour and documents once preserved at Liscombe, and describes their melancholy fate. Sir Jonathan Lovett having died without surviving male issue in 1812, the title of Baronet became extinct and the property descended to his daughters; on the decease of the survivor, Miss Eliza Lovett, in 1861, the ancient seat of this venerable family reverted by her will to the next male heir, the present representative of the family, descended from a younger brother of Sir Jonathan Lovett, baronet.

See Baker's Northamptonshire, i. p. 732; Lipscombe's Buckinghamshire, iii. p. 457; Stemmata Shirleiana, pr. pr., 1841, p. 58; Collectanea Topog. et Genealog. vi. p. 300, and Betham's Baronetage.

Arms.—Evidently allusive to the name, and to the service of hunting the wolf, Argent, three wolves passant in pale sable, armed and langued gules.

The name is local, from Bendish, in the parish of Radwinter, in Essex, where Peter Westley was seated at a very early period. His grandson was called Ralf of Westley, alias Bendishe, and from him this ancient family, one branch of which was long settled at Steeple Bumstead, in Essex, is descended. A manor in Barrington came from the heiress of Bradfield early in the fifteenth century, and had acquired the name of "The Manor of Bendyshe" so far back as the year 1493; it has ever since remained the inheritance of this the eldest line of the Bendyshe family, of whom a younger branch was of Topfield Hall, in Hadley, co. Suffolk, whose heiress married Doyley of Overbury, also of Steeple Bumstead before mentioned, created Baronet in 1611, extinct in 1717; and other branches again were of Hadley and Turvey in Bedfordshire.

See Lysons's Cambridgeshire, p. 86, and the Visitation of Essex 1612, Harl. MS. 6095, fol. 16, where is a good pedigree of Bendyshe, brought down to William Bendyshe, Esq. tenth in descent from Peter Westley.

The Davenports claim precedence among the knightly families of Cheshire,—that "seed-plot of gentry," "the mother and the nurse of the gentility of England," and are traced directly to the Conquest. The elder line, which Leland terms "the best and first house of the Davenports at Devonport; a great old house covered with leade on the Ripe of Daven, three miles above Congleton," became extinct in 1674. The coheiresses married Davies and Davenport of Woodford. Ormus de Daumporte, living in the time of William I., is the first recorded ancestor of this family. To his son, Richard de Dauneporte, Hugh Earl of Chester gave the chief foresterships of the forests of Leek and Macclesfield about 1166, a feudal office still held by this house.

The present family are sprung from Nicholas, third son of Sir John or Jenkin Davenport, of Wheltrough and Henbury, who was himself a younger son of Thomas, second son of Sir Thomas Davenport of Davenport, the 13th of Edward II. Woodford was granted by John Stafford and Isabella his wife, about the time of Edward III., to John, third son of Thomas Davenport of Wheltrough, (an elder line not traced beyond 1677,) while the Davenports of Henbury were extinct before 1664. Davenport of Calveley, founded by Arthur, sixth son of Sir John Davenport of Davenport, killed at Shrewsbury in 1403, became extinct in 1771. The coheiresses married Bromley and Davenport of Woodford. Davenport of Bramhall, founded by the second son of Thomas Davenport of Wheltrough and the heiress of Bramhall, in the time of Edward III., survived till 1838. The Davenports of Davenport House, in the parish of Worfield, in Shropshire, are the only younger branch now remaining; they spring from the Davenports of Chorley and the heiress of Bromley of Hallon or Hawn, in the parish of Worfield. See Blakeway's Sheriffs of Salop, pp. 85, 143, 228.

For Davenport of Davenport and Woodford, see Ormerod's Cheshire, iii. 39, 346, 357; for those of Calveley, ib. ii. 153; Henbury, iii. 352; Bramhall, iii. 401; Chorley, iii. 312. See also Leland's Itin., vii. fol. 42, and Harl. MSS. 2119, for a good pedigree of the family drawn from original evidences.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three cross-crosslets fitchée sable. The crest of this family, a felon's head, souped proper, haltered or, alludes to the power of life and death within the Forests of Leek and Macclesfield, granted by Hugh Earl of Chester.

Descended from Gilbert le Grosvenor, nephew of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester; the pedigree of this ancient family is, thanks to the famous controversy with the Scropes, well ascertained. The principal line of the Grosvenors was seated at Hulme, in this county, in the hundred of Northwich, and was extinct in the 22nd year of Henry VI. The Grosvenors of Eaton descend from Ralph second son of Sir Thomas Grosvenor of Hulme, who married Joan, sole daughter and heir of John Eaton, of Eton or Eaton, Esq. early in the fifteenth century. The match of Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bart. in 1676, with Mary, sole daughter and heir of Alexander Davies, of Ebury, in the county of Middlesex, Esq. laid the foundation of the great wealth and consequent honours of this family.

See Ormerod, ii. 454, and iii. 87; Brydges's Collins, v. 239; and the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll passim.

Arms.—Azure, a garb or, used since the sentence of the Court in the cause of Sir Richard le Scrope and Sir Robert le Grosvenor in 1389, instead of Azure, a bend or, and allusive to his descent from the ancient Earls of Chester.

This is the principal male branch of the great House of Egerton, formerly Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater and Earl of Wilton. The pedigree begins with Philip Goch, second son of David de Malpas, surnamed le Clerk, which David was lord of a moiety of the Barony of Malpas. The present family is descended from Sir Philip Egerton, third son of Sir Rowland Egerton, of Egerton and Oulton, Baronet, who died in 1698. The Baronetcy devolved on Sir John Egerton, uncle of the present Baronet, on the death of the Earl of Wilton, and extinction of the elder line, in 1814. Oulton came from the heiress of Hugh Done, anno 1498. It is thus mentioned in Leland's Itinerary: "The auncientest of the Egertons dwellith now at Oldeton, and Egerton buildith ther now." (Itin. vii. fol. 42.) Younger branch, Egerton-Warburton, of Warburton and Arley, in this county.

See Wotton's Baronetage, i. 271; Brydges's Collins, iii. 170, v. 528; Ormerod, ii. 118, 350; and for many curious particulars of the Bridgewater Egertons, see the Topographer, ii. 136, &c.

Arms.—Argent, a lion rampant gules between three pheons sable. The pheons were the ancient arms of Malpas; the lion was added by Uryan Egerton, about the middle of the fourteenth century; according to tradition, an augmentation granted as a reward for his services in the Scotch wars.

Present Representative, Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egerton, 10th Baronet, M. P. for S. Cheshire.

Descended with the Egertons from the Barons of Malpas, and immediately from Robert de Cholmondelegh, second son of William Belward, lord of a moiety of the Barony of Malpas, and younger brother of David the ancestor of the Egertons; which Robert was seated at Cholmondeley in the reign of King John.

Younger branches. Cholmeley of Whitby, in Yorkshire, Baronet 1641, extinct 1688; descended from Robert, younger son of Hugh Cholmondeley, temp. Edw. III. See the Memoirs of Sir Hugh Cholmeley, Knight and Baronet, a curious book privately printed in 1787.—Cholmeley of Brandsby, since the extinction of the Whitby family the only representative of the Cholmondeleys of Yorkshire.—Cholmeley of Easton, co. Lincoln, Baronet 1806, descended from Sir Henry Cholmeley, of Burton Coggles, co. Lincoln, who died in 1620.

Cholmondeley of Vale Royal in this county, Baron Delamere 1821, descended from Thomas, younger son of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley, who died in 1501.

See Ormerod, ii. 356, and for Cholmondeley of Vale Royal, ii. 78. Brydges's Collins, iv. 16.

Arms.—Gules, two helmets in chief argent, garnished or, and in base a garb of the third.

Present Representative, George Horatio Cholmondeley, 2nd Marquess of Cholmondeley.

Robert Tatton of Kenworthy, in Northenden, who married the heiress of William de Withenshaw, alias Massey, about the latter end of the reign of Edward III., is the first proved ancestor of this family, but there is reason to believe that he was descended from the much more ancient house of the name who were seated at Tatton in the twelfth century. Withenshaw, now the seat of the younger branch of this family, remained from the period above mentioned the inheritance and residence of the Tattons, until the decease of Samuel Egerton, Esq. in 1780, when the estate of Tatton, which is supposed to have given name to the family, devolved by his will on William Tatton of Withenshaw, Esq., who had married Hester, sister of Mr. Egerton. Tatton had passed to the Egertons through the families of Tatton, Massey, Stanley, and Brereton.

Younger branch, Tatton of Withenshaw, in this county. See Ormerod, iii. 315, and Gentleman's Magazine 1798, 930.

Arms.—Quarterly argent and gules, four crescents counterchanged. The arms are perhaps founded on the coat of Massey.

A family of great antiquity, descended from Henry de Boneberi, in the time of Stephen, a younger brother of the House of St. Pierre in Normandy. William de Boneberi, son of Henry, was Lord of Boneberi in the reign of Richard I. But the direct ancestor was David brother of Henry, whose great-grandson Alexander de Bunbury was living in the fifteenth of Henry III. Stanney, still the inheritance, but not the residence, of the Bunburys, came from the heiress of the same name in the seventeenth of Edward III.

Descended from Sir Nicholas Leycester, who acquired the manor of Nether-Tabley in marriage, and died in 1295. The male line of the eldest branch of this family, established at Nether-Tabley, became extinct in 1742. The present and younger branch springs from Ralph, younger brother of John Leycester of Tabley, who married Joan, daughter and heir of Robert Toft of Toft: she was a widow in 1390. The antiquary Sir Peter was of the Tabley line.

Arms.—Azure, a fess or, fretty gules, between two fleurs-de-lis of the second. Another coat was granted by Dethick to Sir Ralph Leycester of Toft, the second year of Edward VI., viz. Sable, on a fess engrailed between three falcons volant argent, beaked and membered or, a lion's head caboshed azure between two covered cups gules. But this very unnecessary and overloaded coat does not appear to have been used.

The pedigree in Ormerod begins with Hugh Massie, who married Agnes, daughter and heir of Nicholas Bold, of Coddington. Their son William purchased the manor of Coddington in the eighteenth of Henry VI. The parentage of Hugh Massie is a matter of dispute, but he was probably a younger son of Sir John Massie of Tatton, who died in the eighth of Henry. He is also by others supposed to have been descended from the Massies of Podington, a younger branch of the Barons of Dunham Massey. This family is perhaps the only remnant in the direct male line of the posterity of any of the Cheshire Barons. General Massie, a younger son of this house, was a distinguished officer in the Civil Wars, both in the service of the Commonwealth and in that of Charles II.

Younger branches: Massey of Pool-Hall, in this county, descended from the second son of Massie of Coddington, who was born in 1604. From Edward the third son descended the Massies of Rosthorne, also in Cheshire, now extinct. For the extinct branches of Broxton and Podington, see Ormerod, ii. 372 and 308; for Massie of Coddington, ii. 399; for Massie of Pool-Hall, iii. 188.

Arms.—Quarterly gules and or, in the first and fourth three fleurs-de-lis argent, a canton of the third. There was a dispute about the arms of Massey between the Houses of Tatton and Podington (for which see "The Scrope and Grosvenor Roll," vol. ii. p. 262), which was decided in 1378 by the arbitration of Sir Hugh Calveley and others. The present coat, except that the first and second quarters were or, and the canton omitted, was awarded to Massey of Podington. Massey of Tatton bore the same arms with three escallops argent in lieu of the fleurs-de-lis. The elder line of Dunham bore Quarterly or and gules, in the second quarter a lion passant argent.

This family represents the eldest branch of the Wilbrahams of Cheshire, descended from Richard de Wilburgkam, sheriff of this county in the forty-third year of Henry III. In the third of Edward IV. the Wilbrahams were seated at Woodhay, in Cheshire, by a match with the heiress of Golborne: this, the elder line, created Baronet in 1620-1, was extinct in 1692. The present family are descended from the second son of Thomas Wilbraham of Woodhay, and were seated at Townsend in Nantwich in the reign of Elizabeth; they removed to Delamere the latter part of the eighteenth century.

Younger branches: Wilbraham Baron Skelmersdale 1828; and Wilbraham of Rode, in this county, both descended from Randle, younger brother of Roger Wilbraham, of Nantwich, who died in 1754. Wilbraham of Dorfold, sold in 1754, but existing at Falmouth in 1818, was sprung from the youngest son of Richard Wilbraham, of Nantwich, who died in 1612. See Ormerod, ii. 65; iii. 31, 184, 199.

Arms.—Argent, three bends wavy azure. The Dorfold branch bore for distinction a canton gules. Additional coat, granted by Flower, temp. Eliz.; Azure, two bars argent, on a canton of the first a wolf's head erased of the second.

Efward de Lega, who appears from his name to have been of Saxon origin, and who lived at or near the period of the Conquest, was the patriarch of this ancient family, of which the principal male line failed in the time of Edward IV. Thomas Legh, of Northwood, in the same parish of High-Legh, the ancestor of the present family, succeeded after a long litigation as the next heir male in the reign of Henry VIII. See Ormerod, i. 358.

Descended from Richard de Lymme, younger son of Hugh de Lymme, which Richard in the latter part of the thirteenth century married Agnes, daughter and sole heir of Richard de Legh, great-grandson of Hamon de Legh, the first mentioned in the pedigree. Richard de Lymme had issue Thomas de Legh, of West Hall, living in 1305.

Younger branches: Leigh (called Trafford), of Oughtrington, in this county, descended from John second son of Richard Leigh, of West Hall, who died in 1486; for whom see Ormerod, i. 439.

Leigh of Leatherlake House in Surrey, descended from Thomas second son of the Rev. Peter Leigh of West Hall, who died in 1719; and Leigh of South Carolina, Baronet 1773, descended from Peter third son of the same Rev. Peter Leigh. See Ormerod, i. 350.

Arms.—Allowed 1563. Or, a lion rampant gules, armed and langued azure. For four descents after the match with Agnes de Legh, her descendants used the coat of Lymme, Gules, a pale fusillé argent, conclusive evidence of the descent of this family from Richard de Lymme, and not from William de Venables, another husband of Agnes de Legh. Indeed, in the Visitation of 1566, this coat of Lymme was allowed to Leigh of West Hall; but in 1584 both the East and West Hall families claimed the lion rampant gules. In 1663 the arms were settled as at present.

The pedigree is traced to Hugh de Aldersey, in the reign of Henry III., soon after which time the family divided into two branches; the estate and manor of Aldersey being also held in separate moieties by the representatives of the two families: one moiety eventually passed by an heir-general to Hatton of Hatton, and has since been united into one estate, by purchase from Dutton of Hatton. A younger branch of this family was seated at Chester, of which was William Aldersey the antiquary, mayor of that city in 1614.

Arms.—Gules, on a bend engrailed argent, between two cinquefoils or, three leopard's faces vert. The more ancient coat, given in King's Vale Royal, appears to have been, Sable, three chargers or dishes argent.

Ormerod traces this family to Sir John Baskervyle, grantee of a moiety of Old Withington from Robert de Camvyle in 1266, and that estate has ever since remained in the family. In 1758 John Baskervyle, Esq., the representative of the house of Old Withington, having married the heiress of Glegg of Gayton, in this county, assumed that name in lieu of his own.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron gules between three hurts. This coat, the chevron charged with three fleurs-de-lis or, was borne by "Monsire de Baskervile;" see Sir Harris Nicolas's Roll of Arms temp. E. III.

Adam Lord of Leighton, in the reign of Henry III., is the first recorded ancestor of this family, who continued at Leighton, the seat of the principal branch of the Brookes, until the extinction of the elder male line, in or about the year 1632. Richard Brooke, younger son of Thomas Brooke of Leighton, purchased Norton from King Henry VIII. in the year 1545, which has remained the residence of his heirs male.

Younger branches: Broke of Nacton in the county of Suffolk, Baronet 1813; descended from Sir Richard Brooke, Knight, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, in the reign of Henry VIII., youngest son of Thomas Brooke of Leighton, the ancestor of the Norton family. There was a former baronetcy in this family, created 1661, extinct 1693. Brooke of Mere in this county, sprung from Sir Peter Brooke, third son of Thomas Brooke of Norton, established at Mere by purchase in 1632.

See Ormerod, i. 360, 500; and iii. 241; Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, i. 22; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 392.

Ormerod gives no detailed pedigree, but states that the Cluttons had been settled at Clutton, in the parish of Farndon, in this county, as early as the 21st of Edward I, and that the manor of the same place was held by this family in the time of Henry VI. In the reign of Henry VIII., Roger, third son of Owen Clutton of Courthyn, having married an heiress of Aldersey of Chorlton, became seated there, and was the ancestor of the present family. From Henry, elder brother of this Roger, were descended the Clutton Brocks late of Pensax in Worcestershire, who were there established in the seventeenth century.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron ermine, cotised sable, between three annulets gules.

The pedigree commences in the reign of Henry IV. with John Leche, (said to be a younger brother of the house of Leche of Chatsworth, in Derbyshire,) who married the heiress of Cawarthyn, or Carden, and settled there about the year 1475. Some pedigrees, however, seat the Leches at Carden as early as the twentieth of Edward III.; and there is also a tradition that the family is descended from the leche, or chirurgeon, of that monarch himself. It is remarkable that Nolan has been the family christian name, with one exception, during thirteen generations.

The descent of this family is not proved beyond Robert Barnston, of Churton, in the third year of Richard II. But Hugh de Barnston was lord of a moiety of Barnston in the twenty-first of Edward I. The pedigree was confirmed in the Visitations of 1613 and 1663-4.

Arms.—Azure, a fess indented ermine between six cross-crosslets fitchée or. Thomas de Bernaston bore this coat, except that the crosses were argent. See the Roll of Arms of the Reign of Edward III.

This is an instance of an ancient family, which, having gone down in the world, has recovered itself by means of commercial pursuits, after centuries of comparative obscurity. Antrobus was sold by Henry Antrobus in the reign of Henry IV., and repurchased by Edmund Antrobus in 1808; he having proved himself a descendant of Henry, youngest son of Henry Antrobus above mentioned. Antrobus of Eaton Hall, in this county, is again a younger branch of this family.

See Ormerod, i. 487; Lysons's Cheshire, p. 532; Debrett's Baronetage, ed. 1836, p. 383.

It is not improbable that this family is descended from Robert, a younger son of Vivian de Davenport, who settled at Lawton in the 50th of Henry III. and assumed the local name: this assertion is borne out by the arms, which are evidently founded on those of Davenport. The pedigree is not however traced beyond Hugh Lawton, who married Isabella, daughter of John Madoc, in the reign of Henry VI. The manor of Lawton was purchased by William Lawton, Esq. from King Henry VIII. It had been formerly held by the Abbey of Chester, to which the Lawtons appear to have been tenants from a very early period. Younger branch, Lawton of Lake Marsh, in the county of Cork.

Arms.—Argent, on a fess between three cross-crosslets fitchée sable a cinquefoil of the first.

There are several places called Cotton, and antiquaries have doubted from which of them the present family is called. The house usually assigned is that of Cotton, near Wem, in Shropshire, where Sir Hugh Cotton was seated in the reign of Edward I., and whose descendant, Roger Cotton, acquired the estate of Alkington, in the same county, by marriage of the heiress, in the reign of Richard II. He was the ancestor of Sir George Cotton, grantee of Combermere after the Dissolution in 1540, from whom the present family directly descend. Younger branch, extinct in the male line, but represented in the female line by R. H. Cotton of Etwall, co. Derby, Esq.

MSS. of the late Mr. Joseph Morris of Shrewsbury. See a different account of this family in Ormerod, iii. 212; Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, p. 104; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 611.

"The most Cornish gentlemen can better vaunt of their pedigree than their livelyhood," wrote Richard Carew, of Antonie, Esq. in 1602,—"for that they derive from great antiquitie; and I make question whether any shire in England, of but equal quantitie, can muster a like number of faire coat-armours:" and again,

There are two manors called Trelawny in Cornwall, one in the parish of Alternon, the other in that of Pelynt; the former was the original seat of the Trelawnys, probably before the Conquest, and here they remained till the extinction of the cider branch in the reign of Henry VI. The latter was purchased from Queen Elizabeth by "Sir Jonathan Trelawny, a knight well spoken, stayed in his cariage, and of thrifty providence," the head of a younger line of this family, in the year 1600; and it has ever since remained the seat of this venerable house. Hamelin, who held Treloen, i.e. Trelawny, under the Earl of Moreton, at the period of the Domesday Survey, is the first recorded ancestor.

See Leland's Itin., iii. fol. 20; Carew's Survey of Cornwall, ed. 1602, p. 63 b; Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, i. 546; Lysons's Cornwall, pp. 14 and 257; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 87.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron sable. In the reign of Henry V. an augmentation was added, viz. three oak-leaves vert, borne by Sir John Trelawny with the ancient coat, in consequence of his having greatly distinguished himself in the French wars with that monarch.

Present Representative, Sir John Salusbury-Trelawny, 9th Baronet, late M. P. for Tavistock.

This is the eldest remaining branch of the ancient family of Prideaux, who trace their descend from Paganus, lord of Prideaux Castle, in Luxulion, in this county, in the time of William I.; where the family continued till the latter part of the fourteenth century, when Prideaux passed by an heiress to the Herles of West Herle, in Northumberland. The present family, which was seated at "Place" in the sixteenth century, is sprung from the Prideauxes of Solden, in Holsworthy, in Devonshire, a branch of Prideaux of Thuborough in Sutcombe, in the same county, who were themselves descended from Prideaux of Orcherton in Modbury, also in Devonshire, where the family was established by marriage with the heiress of Orcherton in the reign of Henry III.

Younger branch, Prideaux of Netherton, co. Devon, Baronet 1622, founded by Edmund Prideaux, an eminent lawyer, second son of Roger Prideaux of Solden.

See Carew, 143 b; Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, i. 542; Lysons, 252, cxii.; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 515; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, p. 470; Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1, p. 307.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron sable, a label of three points gules. This was the coat of Orcherton.

The immediate ancestor of the Cornish Bassets was William Basset, who married in 1150 Cecilia, daughter and coheiress of Alan de Dunstanville, and the daughter of Reginald Fitzhenry, Earl of Cornwall, natural son of Henry I., who thus acquired the manor of Tehidy, which has ever since continued the residence of his descendants of the house of Basset. In the early part of the sixteenth century, John Basset appears to have been the chief of this ancient family: he married Frances daughter and coheir of Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, natural son of King Edward IV. From Arthur, his eldest son, descended the Bassets of Heanton Court in Devonshire, extinct in the early part of the present century; and from George, the second son, the house of Tehidy, the elder branch of which were created Barons de Dunstanville in 1797. Extinct 1855.

Leland mentions "the right goodly lordship of Tehidy, and the castelet or pile of Bassets on Carnbray Hill."

The first recorded ancestor is Sir Vyel Vyvyan, Knight, who lived in the thirteenth century, and whose descendant John, having married an heiress of Ferrers, succeeded to the lordship of Trelowarren in the reign of Edward IV., which has since continued the seat and residence of this family. The Baronetcy was conferred by King Charles I. on Sir Richard Vyvyan, as a reward for his services in the civil wars of that period.

See Leland's Itin. iii. fol. 3; Gilbert's Survey, i. 557; Lysons, pp. xc. and 218; Polwhele's Cornwall, 1803, vol. i. p. 42; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 411.

Present Representative, Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, 8th Baronet, late M.P. for Helstone.

This is a younger branch of the Molesworths of Ireland, Viscount Molesworth of Swords, in the county of Dublin, 1716. They can be traced to the reign of Edward I. as a knightly family, but never remained very long in any one county: they have been seated in Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire. Sir Walter de Molesworth, the first recorded ancestor, is said to have attended Edward I. in his expedition to the Holy Land. The family estate is believed to have been greatly impoverished by the profuse entertainment of Queen Elizabeth at Fotheringay, by Antony, elder brother of John Molesworth, who settled at Pencarrow in the reign of the same Queen.

See Gilbert's Cornwall, i. 571; Lysons, xcii. 82; Wotton's Baronetage, iv. 25; Archdall's Lodge, v. 127.

This coat, except that the crosses were argent, was borne by Sir Walter de Molesworth of co. Huntingdon, as appears by the Roll of Arms of the reign of Edward II. Sir Gilbert Lyndesey (?) of the same county bore the present coat.

This venerable family, supposed to be of Saxon origin, traces its descent to one Drogo or Drew, Chamberlain to the Empress Maude, and Grantee of the Manor of Polwhele in the year 1140. The family are said to have been seated there even before the Conquest; there appears however no proof that Drogo was the descendant of Winus de Polhill, the owner of this place in the time of Edward the Confessor. The Rev. Richard Polwhele, the historian of this county, was the representative of the family.

See Polwhele's Cornwall, i. 42; Gilbert's Survey, ii. 239; and Lysons, pp. cxi. 60.

From time immemorial this ancient family have been seated at Trefusis, from whence the name is derived. The pedigree is traced four generations before the year 1292. The ancient Barony of Clinton devolved upon this family, (through the Bolles,) on the death of George third Earl of Orford, in 1791.

See Carew, 150 b; Leland's Itin. iii. 26; Polwhele's Cornwall, i. 42; Gilbert's Cornwall, i. 468.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three wharrow spindles sable, which Randle Holmes, in his Academy, p. 288, explains, as a "sort of Spindle used by women at a distaff put under their girdle, so as they oftentimes spin therewith going."

Descended from Henry who lived in the reign of King John, and who took the name of Boscawen from the lordship of Boscawen-Rose, still the property of the family. In the reign of Edward III. the Boscawens removed to Tregothnan, their present seat, in consequence of the marriage of John de Boscawen with Joan, daughter and heir of John de Tregothnan of that place, in the parish of St. Michael-Penkevil.

Arms.—Ermine, a rose gules barbed and seeded proper. The ancient arms of the family were, according to Lysons, Vert, a bull-dog argent, with a chief containing the arms now used.

Tremayne is in the parish of St. Martin, and here the ancestor of the family, Perys, lived in the reign of Edward III. and assumed the local name. This estate passed with the heiress of the elder branch of the family to the Trethurfes, and from them to the Reskymers, to whom it belonged in Leland's time. A grandson of the first Tremayne, having married the heiress of Trenchard, of Collacomb, in Devonshire, removed hither, where his descendants existed till the extinction of that line in 1808. The founder of the present family was Richard Tremayne, whose son purchased Helligan in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and who is thus noticed by Carew in his Survey of this county. "At the adjoining St. Ive, dwelleth master Richard Tremayne, descended from a younger brother of Colocome House in Devon, who, being learned in the laws, is yet to learne, or at least to practise, how he may make other profit thereby, then by hoarding up treasure of gratitude in the mindful breasts of poor and rich, on whom he gratis bestoweth the fruits of his pains and knowledge."

See Leland's Itin. iii. 25, fol. 9; Carew, 104 b; Gilbert's Survey, ii. 292; Lysons, pp. cxv. 96, 214; Prince's Worthies of Devon, 1st ed. 569.

Arms.—Gules, three dexter arms conjoined at the shoulders and flexed in triangle or, fists proper.

A younger branch of an ancient Cornish family of which the principal line became extinct in the early part of the seventeenth century. They were formerly seated at Treworgy in Duloe, and are traced to Richard Kendall of Treworgy, Burgess for Launceston in the forty-third of Edward III. Pelyn has been for many generations the seat of this family, descended from Walter, third son of John Kendall of Treworgy, who married a daughter and coheir of Robert Holland, an illegitimate son of a Duke of Exeter. It has been remarked of this family, that they have perhaps sent more members to the British Senate than any other in the United Kingdom.

An old Devonshire family, descended from Robert le Wrey, who lived in the second of Stephen (1136-7), and whose son was seated at Wrey, in the parish of Moreton-Hamstead, in that county. A match with the heiress of Killigrew removed the Wreys into Cornwall, and Trebigh became their principal house, until, by the marriage of Sir Chichester Wrey, the second Baronet, with one of the co-heiresses of Edward Bourchier, fourth Earl of Bath, they became possessed of the noble seat of Tawstock, in Devonshire, the present usual residence of the family.

See Carew, 117 a; Gilbert's Survey, i. 555; Lysons, lxxxix. 146; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 84; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, 567.

Rashleigh in the parish of Wemworthy, in Devonshire, gave name this ancient family, the elder line of which became extinct in the reign of Henry VII.

John Rashleigh, a merchant of Fowey, was the first who settled in Cornwall, and was in fact the founder of the present family. He is thus mentioned by Carew, writing in 1602, "I may not passe in silence the commendable deserts of Master Rashleigh the elder, descended from a younger brother of an ancient house in Devon, for his industrious judgement and adventuring in trade of merchandize first opened a light and way to the townsmen newe thriveing, and left his sonne large wealth and possessions, who, with a dayly bettering his estate, converteth the same to hospitality, and other actions fitting a gentleman well affected to his God, Prince, and Country."

Arms.—Sable, a cross or between, in the first quarter, a Cornish chough argent, beaked and legged gules, in the second a text T, in the third and fourth a crescent, all argent. The Cornish chough and crescents were added on removing into Cornwall; the elder branch bore only two text T's in chief with the cross S.

Descended from the Glanvilles of Halwell, in the parish of Whitchurch, in Devonshire, where they were settled about the year 1400. This branch is derived from a younger son of Serjeant Glanville, the son of Sir John Glanville, one of the Justices of the Common Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth. Catchfrench became the seat of the family in 1728.

See Prince's Worthies of Devon, pp. 326 and 339; Gilbert's Survey, ii. 121; Lysons, pp. civ. 116.

Arms.—Azure, three saltiers or. Present Representative, Francis Glanville, Esq.

Originally seated at Musgrave in Westmerland, and traced to the time of King John, about the year 1204. After the marriage of Sir Thomas Musgrave, who died in 1469-70, with the coheiress of Stapleton of Edenhall, he removed to that manor, where is preserved the celebrated glass vessel called the Luck of Edenhall, well known from the Duke of Wharton's ballad:

Younger branches. The Musgraves of Hayton Castle, in this county, Baronet of Nova Scotia 1638; and the Musgraves of Tourin, in the county of Waterford, Baronet 1782.

See Lysons, lxiv. 100; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 74, iv. 354; and St. George's Visitation of Westmerland, printed 1853, p. 5, &c.

Monsire de Musgrave bore this coat, as appears by the Roll of the reign of Edward III., and Thomas Musgrave in that of Richard II. (Rolls of those dates.)

An ancient Northern family, said to be of Saxon descent, originally of Huddleston in Yorkshire, and afterwards of Millom Castle in this county, from an heiress of that name, where the elder line flourished till its extinction in 1745. Andrew, a younger son of John Huddleston of Millom, who lived in the reign of Henry VIII., married the heiress of Hutton of Hutton-John, and was the ancestor of the present family.

A younger branch of the Huddlestons were fixed in the county of Cambridge by a match with the illustrious House of Neville. Sir William Huddleston having married Isabel, fifth daughter of John, Marquess of Montecute, became possessed, on the partition of the Neville estates in 1496, of the manor of Sawston, still the inheritance of this line of the family.

For Sir John Huddleston, so much trusted by Queen Mary, see Fuller's Worthies, 1st ed. p. 168.

John Huddleston, the priest instrumental in saving the life of Charles II, and the same who attended him on his deathbed, was second son of Andrew Huddleston, of Hutton-John. This family afterwards became Protestants, and were active promoters of the Revolution.

For a curious account of Sawston and the Huddlestons, see Gent. Mag. for 1815, pt. 2. pp. 25 and 120; Lysons's Cambridgeshire, p. 248, and Cumberland, p. lxxiv. and 107; also Banks's Stemmata Anglicana, "Barones Rejecti," and the Visitation of Cambridgeshire 1619, fol. 1840, p. 19.

Arms.—Gules, fretty argent. This coat was borne by Sir John de Hodelestone in the reign of Edward II., Sir Adam the same, with a border indented or, Sir Richard with a label azure, Sir Richard, the nephew, with a label or. (Roll of the reign of Edw. II. co. York.)

A family of very great antiquity, and resident at Irton, on the river Irt, from whence the name is derived, as early as the reign of Henry I. The Manor of Irton has belonged also to the ancestors of Mr. Irton almost from the time of the Conquest.

Present Representative, Samuel Irton, Esq. late M.P. for the Western Division of Cumberland.

Originally of Briscoe near Carlisle, where the family were seated three generations before the reign of Edward I. Crofton, which came by an heiress of that name, has been since the year 1390 the residence of the Briscoe family.

In Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, i. 158, there is a pedigree of a younger branch of this family, who were seated at Aldenham, in that county, previous to 1736.

The name, originally "Del Dykes," is derived from the two lines of Roman wall in "Burgh," from whence the family at a remote period originated; Ramerus de Dikes, who lived before the reign of Henry II., is the first supposed ancestor. The pedigree is regularly traced three generations before the 50th of Edward III. to the present time. In the Wars of the Roses the Dykes's, like most other families in the Northern counties, were Lancastrian; and in the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, devoted Royalists, and sufferers for their allegiance to the Crown. Dovenby, formerly the seat of the Lamplughs, came by marriage in the present century. The Manor of Warthole or Wardhill, purchased in the reign of Henry VI., and still in the family, was the former residence. Waverton, acquired in the 10th of Edward II., exchanged in 1619, and Distington, acquired in the 7th of Richard II., and afterwards alienated, were more ancient possessions.

See Lysons, lxxii. 36; Hutchinson's Cumberland, ii. 98 and note; Burn's Cumberland, ii. 49, and i. 157. I am obliged to the present Representative for additions to this account.

Arms.—Or, three cinquefoils sable. Monsr. Willm. de Dyks bore, Argent, a fess vaire or and gules, between three water bougets sable, as appears by the Roll of the reign of Richard II.

"In point of stationary antiquity hardly any families in the kingdom can compare with the Gresleys," wrote the Topographer in 1789. In this county certainly none can claim precedence to the house of Drakelow; descended from Nigel, mentioned in Domesday, called de Stafford, and said to have been a younger son of Roger de Toni, standard-bearer in Normandy, it was very soon after the Conquest established in Derbyshire, first at Gresley, and immediately afterwards at Drakelow, in the same parish. The present is a younger branch, seated at Nether Seale, in Leicestershire, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

See Leland's Itinerary in Coll. Topog. et Genealog. iii. 339; Nichols's History of Leicestershire, iii. pt. 2, p. 1009*; the Topographer, i. 432, 455, 474; Lysons, lxiii.; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 121; and Erdeswick's Staffordshire, ed 1844, p. 208.

Arms.—Vaire, ermine and gules. Allusive no doubt to the Ferrers,' under whom Drakelow was held anno 1200, by the service of a bow, quiver, and 12 arrows. The same coat was borne by Sir Geffray de Greseley in the reign of Edward I., and by Sir Peres de Gresle, in the reign of Edward II. (Rolls.) John de Greseley bore simply, Vair, argent and gules. (Roll Ric. II.)

This ancient Norman house was seated at Norbury, by the grant of the Prior of Tutbury, in 1125, 25 Henry I. The principal male line becoming extinct in 1649, the succession went to a younger branch descended from William, third son of the celebrated Sir Anthony Fitzherbert the judge, who had seated themselves at Swinnerton, in Staffordshire, still the residence of this family.

Younger branch. Fitzherbert of Tissington, Baronet 1783, descended from Nicholas, younger son of John Fitzherbert of Somersall. See Topographer for a curious account of the pedigree and monuments, ii. 225, and Lysons, 217; for Fitzherbert of Tissington, Topographer and Genealogist, i. 362; Gent. Mag. lxvii. p. 645; Topographer, iii. 57; and Brydges's Collins, ix. 156.

Arms.—Argent, a chief vaire or and gules, over all a bend sable. This coat is also complimentary to Ferrers. The Tissington Fitzherberts have assumed a different coat, viz. Gules, three lions rampant or, from a fanciful notion of their descent from Henry Fitzherbert, Lord Chamberlain 5th Stephen, ancestor of the Herberts of Dean. The lions were assumed as early as 1569. See the Visitation of Derbyshire.

This ancient family was seated at Kedleston as early as the reign of Henry I. It is said to be of Breton origin, and descended from Geraline, a great benefactor to the Abbey of Abingdon, in Berkshire, in which county the Curzons held lands soon after the Conquest.

Extinct branches. Curzon of Croxall and Water-Perry, co. Oxford, and of Letheringset, Norfolk.

Arms.—Argent, a bend sable, charged with three popinjays or, collared gules, borne by Monsr. Roger Curson in the reign of Richard II. Sir John Cursoun bore, Argent, a bend gules bezantée, in that of Edward II. (Rolls.) According to Burton's Collections quoted by Wotton, the more ancient coat was, Vair, or and gules, a border sable charged with popinjays argent: this was in compliment to William Earl Ferrers and Derby, who had granted to Stephen Curson the manor of Fauld, co. Stafford.

Present Representative, the Rev. Alfred Nathaniel Holden Curzon, 4th Baron Scarsdale.

The Vernons were originally of Cheshire, and Barons of Shipbrooke, but became connected with Derbyshire by the heiress of Avenell's marriage with Richard Vernon in the 12th century; their son died s.p.m. leaving a daughter and heiress married to Gilbert le Francis, whose son Richard took the name of Vernon, seated himself at Haddon Hall in this county, and was the ancestor of the different branches of the House of Vernon. The Sudbury Vernons settled there in the reign of Henry VIII., and, by the extinction of the other lines, became in the end the chief of the family. Few houses have been more connected together by intermarriage than the Vernons.

Younger branches. The Vernon-Harcourts, now of Nuneham Courteney, co. Oxon; the Vernons of Hilton, Staffordshire; and the Vernon-Wentworths, of Wentworth Castle, Yorkshire.

See Lysons, liii.; Brydges's Collins, vii. 396; Topographer, ii. 217, for inscriptions to the Vernons at Sudbury, which came from the heiress of Montgomery: for Vernon of Houndhill, in the parish of Henbury, and of Harleston in Clifton Camville, see Shaw's Staffordshire, i. 87, 399, and the Topographer, ii. 11: and for Vernon of Tonge, Topographer, iii. 109, and Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. ii. p. 191.

Arms.—Argent, fretty sable. This coat, with a quarter gules, was borne by Monsr. Richard Vernon in the reign of Richard II. (Roll.)

Originally from Newborough in Staffordshire, but from the fourteenth century established, through female descent, first at Hartington, and afterwards at Wakebridge, in this county. Radborne was inherited from the Chandos's, through the Lawtons, also in the fourteenth century. It came to the Chandos family from an heiress of Ferrers or "Fitz-Walkelin."

See Leland's Itinerary, vol. viii. fol. 70 a, and vol. iv. fol. 6; the Topographer, i. 280; Topographer and Genealogist, i. 176; and Lysons, xciv.

This family was originally from Cavendish Overhall, near Clare, in Suffolk, and is descended from Sir John Cavendish, who in the reign of Edward III. was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. It was John, a younger son of the Judge, who killed Wat Tyler, and from him the family are descended. But it was Sir William Cavendish, younger brother of George Cavendish, who had been Gentleman Usher to Wolsey, who may be called the real founder of the Cavendishes, by the great share of abbey lands which he obtained at the Dissolution of Monasteries, "and afterwards," adds Brydges, "by the abilities, rapacity, and good fortune of Elizabeth, his widow," the celebrated Countess of Shrewsbury. The Cavendishes first settled in Derbyshire by the marriage of this Sir William with "Bess of Hardwick," in 1544.

Arms.—Sable, three buck's heads cabossed argent, attired or. Monsr. Andrew Cavendysh of this family bore, Sable, three crosses botonnée fitchée or, 2 and 1. (Roll Ric. II.)

Present Representative, William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, and 2nd Earl of Burlington.

This family was originally of Chesterton in Warwickshire, where it is traced as early as the reigns of Henry I. and II.

In right of Elianor, daughter and heir to William Grober, descended from Richard de Rushall, of Rushall, in Staffordshire, the Harpurs were afterwards seated at that place, but had no connection with Derbyshire till the reign of Elizabeth. Calke was purchased by Henry Harpur, Esq. in 1621.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd ed, vol. i. 478; Shaw's History of Staffordshire, ii. 69; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 1; Lysons, lxiii.

Arms.—Argent, a lion rampant within a border engrailed sable. This was the coat of Rushall; the arms of Harpur were a plain cross.

The pedigree begins with Hugo de Burdet, who came into England with William I., and was lord of the manor of Loseby, in Leicestershire, in 1066. Arrow, in the county of Warwick, which came from the heiress of Camvile the 9th of Edward II., was long the seat of the Burdetts, but they had long before, as Dugdale shows, been connected by property with that county, William Burdett having founded the cell of Ancote, near Sekindon, in the fifth of Henry II. The manor of Arrow, and many other estates of this family, carried by an heiress to the Conways in the reign of Henry VII., became the fruitful cause of many lawsuits, which were not finally settled till the end of the reign of Henry VIII. See Dugdale for the curious details. Foremark was inherited from the heiress of Francis in 1602.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd edit. ii. 847; Erdeswick's Staffordshire, ed. 1844, 462; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. pt. 1. 351; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 327; and Lysons.

Arms.—Azure, two bars or. Sir William Burdett bore this coat in the reign of Edward II. Sir Robert the same, in the upper bar three martlets gules. (Roll Edw. II. under Leicestershire.) Sir Richard the same, with an orle of martlets gules. (Roll E. III.) Monsr, John Burdet the same, each bar charged with three martlets gules. (Roll Richard II.)

A family of great antiquity, which can be traced to the Conquest; originally of South and North Cave in Yorkshire. In the fifteenth century they removed into Northamptonshire and Leicestershire, and were long of Stanford, in the former county. The elder line of the Caves becoming extinct in 1810, the Baronetcy devolved on a younger branch, descended in the female line from the Brownes of Stretton, and from hence their connection with Derbyshire.

See Nichols's History of Leicestershire, vol. iv. part i. 350, for a curious account of this family, and for their monuments in Stanford Church, (the earliest of which is that for John Cave, who died in 1471;) Pedigree at p. 371; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 164; Lysons, xviii.

Arms.—Azure, fretty argent. This coat was borne by "Monsire de Cave;" see the Roll of Arms of the reign of Edward III.

This is an ancient Suffolk and Cambridgeshire family, and can be traced to the time of Henry I. The Colviles, Barons of Culross, in Scotland, are descended from a younger brother of the second progenitor of the family.

The manor of Newton-Colvile, acquired by the marriage of Sir Roger Colvile of Carleton Colvile in Suffolk, called "The Rapacious Knight," with the heiress of De Marisco, and held under the Bishop of Ely, continued in the Colviles from a period extending nearly from the Conquest to the year 1792, when it was sold, and the representative of this family, Sir Charles Colvile, settled in Derbyshire in consequence of his marriage with Miss Bonnel of Duffield. The head of the family was on the Royalist side in the reign of Charles I., and one of the intended Knights of the Royal Oak.

See Lysons's Cambridgeshire, 242; Blomefield's Norfolk; and Watson's History of Wisbeach.

Arms.—Azure, a lion rampant or, a label of five points gules. This coat, with the lion argent, was borne by Sir Geoffry de Colville in the reign of Edward II., and without the label by Monsr. John Colvyle in that of Richard II. (Rolls of Arms of the dates.) Sir Roger de Colvile bore the present coat with a label of three points only, in 1240; as appears by his seal to a deed of that date.

This is a younger branch of the old house of the Cokes of Trusley, a family of considerable antiquity. The elder line became extinct in 1718. The present family are descended from the Cokes of Suckley in Worcestershire. The Cokes were originally of Staffordshire, but settled in Derbyshire in consequence of a match with one of the coheiresses of Odingsells of Trusley, in the middle of the fifteenth century.

There is a younger branch of this family at Lower Moor, in Herefordshire. The Cokes of Melbourn were also a younger branch, from whom the Lambs, Viscounts Melbourne, were descended.

Descended from the Thornhills of Thornhill in the Peak, where they were seated as early as the seventh of Edward I. Stanton was inherited from an heiress of Bache in 1697.

ARMS, confirmed in 1734.—Gules, two bars gemelles and a chief argent, thereon a mascle sable. This coat, without the mascle, was borne by M. Bryan de Thornhill in the reign of Edward III. (Roll.)

Present Representative, William Pole Thornhill, Esq. late M.P. for North Derbyshire.

This is a younger branch of a family who were seated at Willersley, by a match with the heiress of Ingwardby at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Willersley was the property of the late Sir Charles Abney Hastings by female descent. Measham is a purchase of about a century.

Arms.—Or, on a chief gules a lion passant argent. Lysons however gives, Argent, on a cross sable five bezants.

There is every reason to believe that the ancestors of this venerable family have resided at Fulford from the time of the Conquest. Three knights of the house distinguished themselves in the wars of the Holy Land. William de Fulford, who held Fulford in the reign of Richard I., is the first ascertained ancestor. Sir Baldwin Fulford, a leading Lancastrian, was beheaded at Bristol in 1461.

See Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1701, p. 298, for description of Fulford; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, p. 612; Lysons, cxlv. 171.

This illustrious house is descended from Reginald de Courtenay, who came over to England with Henry II. A.D. 1151, and, having married the daughter and heiress of the hereditary sheriff of Devonshire, became immediately connected with this county. The Earldom of Devon was first conferred on the Courtenays in 1335, by reason of their descent from William de Redvers, Earl of Devon, The Powderham branch springs from Sir Philip, sixth son of Hugh second Earl of Devon.

See Brydges's Collins, vi. 214; Lysons, lxxxvii.; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, 570, &c.; Journal of Arch. Institute, x. 52; and Sir Harris Nicolas's Earldom of Devon.

This coat, with a bend azure, was borne by Sir Philip de Courtenay in the reign of Edward II. (Roll.) And the same, with a label azure, by Hugh de Courtenay in 1300. See the Roll of Carlaverock, and Sir Harris Nicolas's notes, p. 193. This label was, he remarks, charged by respective branches of the family with mitres, crescents, lozenges, annulets, fleurs-de-lis, guttees, and plates, and with a bend over all. See also Willement's Heraldic Notices in Canterbury Cathedral.

Richard Edgcumbe was Lord of Edgcumbe in 1292, and was the direct ancestor of this venerable family, the present representative being twentieth in lineal descent from this first Richard.

In the reign of Edward III. William Edgcumbe, second son of the house of Edgcumbe, having married the heiress of Cotehele, in the parish of Calstock, removed into Cornwall, and was the ancestor of the Edgcumbes of Cotehele and Mount Edgcumbe, Earls of Mount Edgcumbe (1789).

See Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1701, p. 281; Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, 4to. 1820, vol. i. p. 444; Carew's Cornwall, 1st ed., p. 99 b and 114 a; Brydges's Collins, v. 306; and Lysons's Cornwall, lxxiii. 212, 53.

This ancient family is said to have taken its name from Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, the residence of its remote ancestors. The Chichesters were, however, as early as the reign of Henry III. of the county of Devon, although Ralegh came to them at a later period from an heiress of that name; Youlston, the present seat, from an heiress of Beaumont in the time of Henry VII. John de Cirencester, living in the 20th of Henry I. is said to have been the first recorded ancestor.

Younger branches. Chichester of Hall, in Bishop's-Towton; seated at Hall, from an heiress of that name in the 15th century, Chichester of Arlington, since the reign of Henry VII.; and Chichester, Marquis of Donegal, descended from Edward, 3rd son of Sir John Chichester, in the reign of Elizabeth, &c.

See Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1701, pp. 135, 199; Westcote's Devonshire, 303, and Pedigrees, 604, &c., Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 226; Brydges's Collins, viii. 177; Shaw's Staffordshire, i. 374; Lysons, cxi. 440; and Archdall's Lodge's Peerage, ii. 314.

Like the Chichesters, an ancient and wide-spreading family, settled at Wymodeston, now called Winston, in the parish of Modbury, in the year 1209. "This was," writes Sir William Pole, "the most ancient seat of the Fortescues, in whose possession it continued from the days of King John to the Reign of Queen Elizabeth."

There are many younger branches of this family, both in England and Ireland, "to rank which in their seniority, and by delineating the descent to give every man his dew place, surpasseth, I freely confesse, my ability at the present." (Westcote's MSS. quoted by The Topographer, i. 178.) The great glory of this house is Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry VI. and the author of' the work "Of absolute and limited Monarchy."

Among the principal younger branches were the Fortescues of Buckland Filleigh and Fortescue of Fallopit in this county, both extinct in the male line, and the Fortescues of the county of Louth in Ireland, represented by the Barons Clermont.

See Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, 498, 625, &c.; Prince's Worthies, ed. 1701, 304; Brydges's Collins, v. 335; Lysons, lxxxv.

An ancient family, the history of which however is involved in great obscurity, supposed by some to have come from Castle Cary, in Somersetshire, by others from Cary, in the parish of St. Giles's in the Heath, near Launceston. It was certainly of the latter place in the reign of Edward I.

Cockington in this county was, previous to the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, the principal seat of the family. Torr-Abbey was purchased by Sir George Cary, Knt. in 1662.

Younger branches. Cary of Follaton, in this county. In the county of Donegal and in that of Cork, and in Guernsey, there are families which claim to be branches of the House of Cary. The present Viscounts Falkland, and the extinct Barons Hunsdon, descend from the second marriage of Sir William Cary, of Cockington, in the time of Henry VII.

See Prince's Worthies, p. 196; Westcote's Devonshire Families, 507, &c.; Lysons, cxxxviii. 524; and Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, i. 129. For Cary Viscount Falkland, see The Herald and Genealogist, vol. iii.; and for Cary Baron Hunsdon, the same work, vol. iv.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend sable three roses of the first seeded proper, said to have been the arms of a Knight of Arragon, vanquished by Sir Robert Cary in single combat in the reign of Henry V.

About the year 1300, by the marriage of Sir John de Carru with a coheiress of Mohun, this ancient family first became connected with the county of Devon. The Carews are descended from Gerald, son of Walter de Windsor, who lived in the reign of Henry I., which Walter was son of Otho, in the time of William the Conqueror. Haccombe was inherited from an heiress of Courtenay, and was settled on this the second branch of the family in the fifteenth century.

The extinct families of Carew of Bickleigh and Carew Earl of Totnes were descended from Sir Thomas Carew, elder brother of Nicholas, the first of the Haccombe line. The present Lord Carew, of Ireland, represents, in fact the elder line of this family, being descended from a nephew of the Earl of Totnes. Carew of Antony, Baronet (1641), now extinct, was a younger branch of the house of Haccombe.

See Leland's Itin., iii. fol. 40; Prince's Worthies of Devon, 148, 176, 204; Westcote's Devonshire, 440; Pedigrees, 528; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 323; Lysons, cxiv. For notices of a branch of this family formerly seated in the county of Cork, see Coll. Topog. and Genealog. v. 95; see also Nicolas's Roll of Carlaverock, p. 154, and Maclean's Life of Sir Peter Carew, London, 8vo. 1857.

Arms.—Or, three lions passant sable. This coat was borne by Sir Nicholas Carru in 1300. (Roll of Carlaverock.) Sir John de Carru, the same, with a label gules, in the reign of Edward II; and by M. de Carrew in that of Edward III. (Rolls.)

Kelly is a manor in the hundred of Lifton and deanery of Tavistock, and lies on the borders of Cornwall, about six miles from Tavistock. The manor and advowson have been in the family of Kelly at least since the time of Henry II., and here they have uninterruptedly resided since that very early period.

This is an ancient Cheshire family, who settled in the county of Devon in the reign of Richard II., Arthur Pole, their ancestor, having married the heiress of Pole of Honiton. The representative of the family, the learned antiquary Sir William Pole, resided at Chute in the early part of the seventeenth century, though the fee of that manor, once the inheritance of the noble family of Bonvile, did not belong to the Poles till it was purchased by Sir John Pole, Baronet, in 1787.

See Prince's Worthies of Devon, p. 504; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 124; Lysons, cix. 442.

An illustrious Norman family, traced to the Conquest, of which the extinct Earls of Cumberland were the chiefs, first connected with Devonshire by the marriage of Thomas, fourth grandson of Sir Louis Clifford, who died in 1404, with a daughter of John Thorpe of King's Teignton.

Ugbrooke came from an heiress of Courtenay, in the reign of Elizabeth. The peerage was conferred by Charles II. on the Lord Treasurer Clifford, one of the celebrated CABAL.

Sir Thomas Clifford-Constable, Baronet (1815), represents a younger branch of this family, descended from Thomas, fourth son of the fourth Lord Clifford.

See "Cliffordiana," by the Rev. G. Oliver, Exeter, 8vo., and "Collectanea Cliffordiana," Paris, 1817, 8vo.; Erdeswick's Staffordshire, edit. 1844, 73; and for the Earls of Cumberland, and their ancestors the Lords Clifford, see Whitaker's admirable account in his "Craven," ed. 1812, 240, &c., see also Queen's Coll. Ox. MS. cv. for "Evidences of the Cliffords;" Brydges's Collins, vii. 117, and Lysons, xci.; and for the early history of this family, Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. v. p. 146.

Arms.—Checky or and azure, a fess gules. Borne by Roger de Clifford in the reign of Henry III., and by Walter de Clifford at the same period, instead of a fess, a bend gules. Sir Robert de Clifford, in the reigns of Edward II. and III. bore the present coat. Sir Lewis de Clifford, in the time of Richard II. differenced his coat by a border gules. (Rolls.) See also the Roll of Carlaverock, p. 195.

This is a younger line of the ancient and noble family of Harington, formerly of Ridlington, in the county of Rutland, created Baronet in 1611, and still represented by Sir John Edward Harington, the tenth Baronet: the name is local, from Harington in Cumberland, from whence Robert Harington was called in the reign of Henry III.

A younger branch of the Haringtons was fixed at Ridlington by purchase in the first year of Philip and Mary; but had been seated at Exton in the same county from the reign of Henry VII. Sir James Harington, third Baronet, was attainted in the 13th of Charles II., having been named as one of the Judges of his sovereign Charles I. He sat however only one day, and refused to sign the fatal warrant. Dartington, the ancient seat of the Champernowne family, was carried by an heiress, Jane, only daughter of Arthur Champernowne, Esq., the last heir male of the family, to the Rev. Richard Harington, second son of Sir James Harington, Baronet, grandfather of the present representative, and who assumed her name.

See Wright's History of the County of Rutland, pp. 48, 108; Blore's Rutlandshire; and Courthope's Debrett's Baronetage, p. 10. Arms.—Sable, fretty argent.

Descended from Robert Bastard, who held several manors in this county in the reign of William I. For several generations Efford, in the parish of Egg-Buckland, was the seat of this family, but in the early part of the seventeenth century the hereditary estates were sold, and they were of Wolston and Garston, in West Allington. About the beginning of the eighteenth century Kitley, the present seat, was inherited from the heiress of Pollexfen.

In 1779, William Bastard, Esq., the representative of this family, was gazetted a Baronet: the honour, which was declined by Mr. Bastard, was intended as an acknowledgment of his services in raising men to defend Plymouth in 1779.

Acland, which gave name to this ancient family, is now a farm in the parish of Landkey; it is thus described in Westcote's Devonshire, (p. 290:) "Then Landkey, or Londkey; and therein Acland, or rather Aukeland, as taking name from a grove of oaks, for by such an one the house is seated, and hath given name and long habitation to the clarous family of the Aclands, which have many ages here flourished in a worshipful degree." Hugh de Accalen is the first recorded ancestor; he was living in 1155; from whom the present Sir Thomas Dyke Acland is twenty-second in lineal descent. Killerton, in the parish of Broad-Clist, purchased at the beginning of the seventeenth century, is the present seat of the family. Columb-John, an ancient Elizabethan mansion in the same parish, now pulled down, was the earlier residence of the Aclands, who were remarkable for their royalty during the Civil Wars.

See Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, i. 559; Prince's Worthies of Devon, p. 18; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 407; and Lysons, cxiii.

Arms.—Checky argent and sable, a fess gules. This coat was borne by M. John Acland, as appears by the Roll of Arms of the reign of Richard II. According to Prince, three oak-leaves on a bend between two lions rampant, was also borne at this time by this family.

John Baumfield, the ancestor of this family, became possessed of Poltimore in the reign of Edward I.; but the pedigree can be traced three generations before that period.

A younger branch was of Hardington in Somersetshire, extinct about the beginning of the eighteenth century.

For the story of the heir of the Bamfyldes taken away and recovered, see Prince's Worthies of Devon, p. 121; see also Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, p. 492; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 188; and Lysons, cx.

Present Representative, Augustus Frederick George Warwick Bampfylde, 2nd Baron Poltimore.

Descended from Galfridus, who was of Northcote, in the parish of East-Downe, in the twelfth century. Hayne, in the parish of Newton St. Cyres, was afterwards acquired by marriage with the heiress of Drew. Pynes was inherited from the heiress of' Stafford, originally Stowford, early in the last century.

Arms.—Argent, three cross-crosslets botonny in bend sable. Used on seals in the reign of Henry VI. The earliest coat, used till the time of Edward III. was Or, a chief gules fretty of the first. Afterwards, Argent, a fess between three cross molines sable. In 1571, Robert Cooke, Clarencieux, is said to have granted, according to the foolish custom of the day, another coat to Walter Northcote of Crediton, grandfather or uncle of the 1st Baronet, viz.: Or, on a pale argent three bends sable. Sir William Pole mentions another coat, Or, three spread eaglets gules, on a chief sable three escallops of the first. But this appears to be a mistake.—From the information of the present Baronet.

Present Representative, Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, 8th Baronet, M.P. for Stamford.

From the days of Henry III. if not from an earlier period, this ancient family has resided at the place from whence the name is derived.

Originally of Strode, in the parish of Ermington, where Adam de Strode, the first recorded ancestor, was seated in the reign of Henry III, In that of Henry IV. by the marriage of the coheiress of Newenham of Newenham, they became possessed of that place, since the seat of the family. "A right ancient and honourable family," says Prince; it may also be called an historical one, William Strode, of this house, being one of the Five Members of the House of Commons demanded by Charles I. in 1641.

This is a younger branch of an ancient family seated at Bradfield, in Uffculm, as early as the reign of Henry III, For many years the Walronds, living at their venerable mansion of Bradfield, were a powerful family in Devonshire. The male line of this the principal branch has become extinct since the time of Lysons, and the representation devolved on the present family, descended from Colonel Humphry Walrond, a distinguished Loyalist during the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century. On the fall of the Royal Cause he emigrated to Barbadoes, of which island with the aid of other Royalists he made himself Governor. Philip IV. of Spain conferred upon him the title of Marques de Vallado, and other Spanish honours, for, as the still existing patent states, "services rendered to the Spanish Marine."

This is a younger branch of the great Anglo-Irish family of Bellew of Bar-meath, in the county of Meath, settled in Devonshire in the reign of Edward IV., in consequence of a marriage with one of the coheiresses of Fleming of Bratton-Fleming.

The name is derived from Drogo or Dru, and is supposed to be Norman. The first proved ancestor of the family however is William Drewe, who married an heiress of Prideaux of Orcheston in this county, and appears to have lived about the beginning of the fourteenth century. His son was of Sharpham, also in Devonshire. The present seat was erected by Sir Thomas Drewe in 1610.

Younger branches of this family were of Drew's Cliffe and High Hayne in Newton St. Cyres.

See Lysons, cxliii. and 266; Westcote's Pedigrees, 582-3; and the Topographer and Genealogist, ii. 209, for the Drews of Ireland, descended from a second son of the house of Drew's Cliffe, who came to Ireland, and settled at Meanus, in the county of Kerry, in 1633; see also Prince's Worthies, 1st ed. p. 249.

This is the head of the wide-spread family of Buller, of which there are several branches in the Western counties. The first recorded ancestor appears to be Ralph Buller, who in the fourteenth century was seated at Woode, in the hundred of South Petherton, and county of Somerset, by an heiress of Beauchamp. They became possessed of Lillesdon, in the same county, and afterwards, by an heiress of Trethurffe, we find them at Tregarrick, in Cornwall, but were not till the eighteenth century of Downes, which came from the coheiress of Gould.

Younger branches. Buller of Morval and of Lanreath, both in the county of Cornwall. Buller of Lupton, in this county, Baronet 1790, Baron Churston 1858.

See Lysons, cxxxvi.; Carew's Cornwall, ed. 1st, p. 133 b; and Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, ii. 38.

Arms.—Sable, on a plain cross argent, quarter pierced, four eagles of the field.

Originally of Doniford, in Somersetshire, where John de Hywish is said to have been seated in the early part of the thirteenth century. Sand, in the parish of Sidbury, came by purchase to an ancestor of the family in the reign of Elizabeth; and, although we find it in Lysons's List of the Decayed Mansions of the County of Devon, it still remains the inheritance of this ancient family.

See Lysons, cxlix. v. 144, and Burke's History of the Commoners, 1st ed. vol. iv. p. 409.

Sir John de Bingham, Knight, who lived in the reign of Henry I., is the first recorded ancestor of this ancient family; he was of Sutton, in the county of Somerset. Melcombe was inherited from an heiress of Turberville in the time of Henry III., and has been ever since the residence of the Binghams, of whom the most remarkable was Sir Richard, a younger son of the head of the family in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who greatly distinguished himself in Ireland.

Younger branch. The Earls of Lucan in the Peerage of Ireland (1795) descended from George, fourth son of Robert Bingham and Alice Coker, and younger brother of Sir Richard.

See Hutchins's History of Dorset, vol. iv. 202; and Archdall's Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vii. 104.

Although this family may be said to have made their fortune in the reign of Henry VII., first by Mr. John Russell's accidental meeting with Philip Archduke of Austria, and his consequent introduction to the King, and secondly by the large share of ecclesiastical plunder acquired by this same John at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, yet there is no reason to doubt that the Russells are sprung from a younger branch of an ancient baronial family, of whom the elder line were known by the name of Gorges, and were Barons of Parliament in the time of Edward III.

Arms.—Argent, a lion rampant gules, on a chief sable three escallops of the first.

An ancient Leicestershire family, to be traced nearly to the Conquest, and supposed to be of Saxon origin. The name is derived from Digby, in Lincolnshire; but Tilton, in the county of Leicester, where AElmar, the first recorded ancestor of the Digbys, held lands in 1086, also gave name to the earlier generations of the family. These ancient possessions have long ceased to belong to the Digbys; and by the will of the last Earl Digby, who died in 1856, the manor of Coleshill, in Warwickshire, granted by Henry VII. to Simon Digby, and the Castle of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, have also been alienated from the male line of the family.

There have been several branches of the Digbys both in England and Ireland, besides the extinct Earls of Bristol. During the seventeenth century the history of the family, as evinced in the lives of the celebrated Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of Bristol, is very remarkable.

See Leland's Itin., iv. fo. 19; Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd ed., vol. ii. 1012; and Pedigree of Digby of Tilton, Eye, Kettleby, Sisonby, North Luffenham, and Welby, in Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. pt. i. p. *261; for a more extended Pedigree see vol. iii. pt. i. p. 473, under Tilton; Brydges's Collins, v. 348; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 133; and for an account of the famous Digby Pedigree, compiled by order of Sir Kenelm in 1634, at the expense, it is said, of £1200, see Pennant's Journey from Chester to London, 8vo. 1811, p. 441; and for portraits of the Digbys at Gothurst, ib. p. 449.

John de Frampton, M. P. for Dorset in 1373 and 1380, is the first recorded ancestor; his son Walter, having married Margaret heiress of the Manor of Moreton, became possessed of that estate as early as the year 1365, which has since continued the seat of the family.

See Hutchins's History of Dorset, vol. i. 238, where the pedigree is given from the Heralds' Office, CC. 22, 155, continued from 1623 to 1753 by James Lane, Richmond Herald, and the new edition of Hutchins, vol. i. p. 398.

Arms.—Argent, a bend pules cotised sable. Said to have been borne by the first ancestor, John Frampton.

Originally of Cornwall, and said to be a family of great antiquity, but not connected with Dorset till the middle of the fifteenth century. In 1431 (9th Henry VI.) Robert Bond of Beauchamp's Hache, in the county of Somerset, was seated at Lutton, his mother having been the heiress of that name and family. Grange was purchased by Nathaniel Bond, Esq in 1686.

There were other branches of this family seated at Blackmanston, Swanwick, and Wareham.

See Hutchins's History of Dorset, vol. i. 326, and the new edition, vol. i. p. 602.

Arms.—Sable, a fess or. A former coat, recognised in the Visitation of Dorset in 1623, was, Argent, on a chevron sable three besants.

The name is derived from Tregonwell, in the parish of Cranstock and county of Cornwall, and there the remote ancestors of this family doubtless resided, though the pedigree is not proved beyond the latter part of the fifteenth century. In the reign of Henry VIII., Sir John Tregonwell was employed by the king on his matrimonial affairs, and sent into France, Germany, and Italy. His services were rewarded by grants of monastic lands, among others by the mitred Abbey of Milton in this county. Milton was sold to the Damers in the eighteenth century, and Anderson purchased in 1622.

See Gilbert's Cornwall, ii. 313; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 210, and the new edition, i. p. 161.

Arms.—Argent, on a fess cotised sable, between three Cornish choughs proper three plates.

Founded by William Weld, Sheriff of London in 1352, who married Anne Wettenhall; his posterity were seated at Eaton in Cheshire, till the reign of Charles II. The present family are descended from Sir Humphry, Lord Mayor of London in 1609, who was fourth son of John Weld of Eaton and Joan Fitzhugh. Lulworth was purchased in 1641.

See Ormerod's Cheshire, ii. 131; Hutchins's Dorset, i. 226; and the new edition, i. p. 372; Blakeway's Sheriffs of Salop, p. 120,

Arms.—Azure, a fess nebulée between three crescents ermine. Confirmed by Camden in 1606. See Morgan's Sphere of Gentry, book 2, p. 112.

This is a Devonshire family of good antiquity seated at Floyers-Hayes, in the parish of St. Thomas in that county, soon after the Norman Conquest. That estate appears to have remained in the family till the latter part of the seventeenth century. The Floyers afterwards removed into Dorsetshire, of which county Anthony Floyer, Esq. was a justice of the peace in 1701.

See Prince's Worthies of Devonshire, ed. 1701, p. 308; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, p. 556.

This very distinguished family is of Anglo-Saxon descent, and has been seated in this county from the time of the Conquest; Liulph, who lived before the year 1080, is the first recorded ancestor. In the female line the Lumleys represent the Barons Thweng of Kilton, and from hence the arms borne by this ancient house, who were themselves summoned as Barons from the 8th of Richard II. to the 1st of Henry IV. The elder line of the family became extinct on the death of John Lord Lumley in 1609. It was during the time of this Lord that the following anecdote is told. "Oh, mon, gang na farther; let me digest the knowledge I ha' gained, for I did na ken Adam's name was Lumley,"—exclaimed King James I. when wearied with Bishop James's prolix account of the Lumley Pedigree, on his Majesty's first visit to Lumley Castle in 1603. For the curious story of the lucky leap of Richard Lumley, the immediate ancestor of the present family, see Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. pt. i. 363; and Surtees's Durham, ii. 162.

See also Leland's Itin., vi. fol. 62; Brydges's Collins, iii. 693; the Roll of Carlaverock by Sir H. Nicolas, p.313; and the Surrey Archaeological collections, vol. iii. pp. 324-348, for a valuable account of the Lumley monuments in Cheam church, and notes on the pedigree and arms.

Arms.—Argent, a fess gules between three popinjays proper, collared of the second. This coat was borne by Marmaduke de Twenge in the reign of Henry III. and by M. de Thwenge and Monsieur Rauf Lumleye in the reign of Edward III. and Richard II. (Rolls.) John le Fitz Marmaduke bore, Gules, a fess and three popinjays argent. (Roll of Carlaverock, 1300.) Sir Robert de Lumley the same, but on the fess three mullets sable. (Roll of the reign of Edward II) See the seal of John Lord Lumley, who died in 1421, in Bysshe's Notes on Upton, p. 58.

Sir Osbert Silvayne, Knight, of Norton Woodhouse, in the Forest of Sherwood, living in the 29th of Henry III., is the first proved ancestor of this family: he is said to have been son of Ralph Silvayne. Some of the name, which we may supposed to be derived from this wood or forest, were seated at Norton before the year 1140. Croxdale was inherited from the heiress of Whalton in 1402.

See Surtees's Durham iv. 117, and the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, ii. p. 340. For the extinct family of Salvin of Newbiggen, see Graves's Cleveland.

Arms.—Argent, on a chief sable two mullets pierced or. This coat was borne by Sir Gerard Salveyn in the reign of Edward II., and also I suppose by the same Sir Gerard in that of Edward III., but here the mullets are voided vert. Again, in the reign of Richard II, Monsieur Gerard Salvayn bore his mullets of six points or, pierced gules.

According to Surtees, traced to Robert de Lambton, Lord of Lambton in 1314. 'There was, it is true, a John de Lambton, living between 1180 and 1200, but the pedigree cannot be proved beyond this Robert. The Lambtons were among the first families of the North who embraced the Reformed Religion, and were loyal during the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century.

"This is," says Morant, "one of the most ancient knightly families which has subsisted to our own days;" descended from Walter Tyrell, who held the manor of Langham, in this county, at the time of Domesday; it is doubtful whether he was the person who shot William Rufus. Indeed, although the ancient descent of the Terells or Tyrells is generally admitted, the pedigree appears to require the attention of an experienced genealogist. There have been many branches of the Tyrells in this and other counties; the present is a junior one of the original stock, and Boreham a very recent possession.

Tyrell of Thornton, co. Buckingham, Baronet 1627 to 1749. Tyrell of Springfield, Essex, Baronet 1666 to 1766.

Present Representative, Sir John Tyssen Tyrell, 2nd Baronet, late M.P. for Essex.

An ancient family, which has been seated in many counties, originally of Waldegrave, in Northamptonshire; afterwards settled in Suffolk; about the latter end of the fifteenth century, seised of lands in this county; and again we find them in Norfolk and Somersetshire. Naverstock was granted by Queen Mary in 1553, the Waldegraves having suffered for their attachment to the old faith at the time of the Reformation. Leland thus mentions the family; "As far as I could gather of young Walgreve, of the Courte, the eldest house of the Walgreves cummith owt of the Town of Northampton or ther about, and there yet remaineth in Northamptonshire a man of landes of that name."

See Leland's Itinerary, iv. fol. 19; Morant's Essex, i. 181; Brydges's Collins, iv. 232; and the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, ii. p. 374, for an interesting memoir of Sir Richard Waldegrave, who died in 1401, having been chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in 1381.

Younger branch, Baron Radstock, of Ireland, 1800, descended from the younger brother of the fourth Earl Waldegrave.

Arms.—Per pale argent and gules. This coat was borne by M. Richard Waldeg've, as appears by the Roll of the reign of Richard II.

A younger branch of an ancient Knightly Norman house, settled for many years at Norton D'Isney in Lincolnshire, where the principal line became extinct in 1722. The present family descend from the eldest son by the second marriage of Sir Henry Disney of Norton Disney, who died in 1641. See very elaborate pedigrees of this family in the College of Arms, Norfolk 1, p. 38, and Norfolk 7, p. 76; also Hutchins's Dorset, iv. p. 389, for Disney of Swinderby, co. Lincoln, and of Corscomb, co. Dorset, and for the present family.

See also the Topographer and Genealogist, iii. 393; and Leland's Itinerary, i. p. 28, "Disney, alias De Iseney. He dwelleth at Diseney, and of his name and line be Gentilmen yn Fraunce."

Arms.—Argent, on a fess gules three fleurs-de-lis or. In the reign of Richard II. Monsieur William Dysney bore, Argent, three lions passant in pale gules. (Roll.)

The family of Gent was seated at Wymbish in this county in 1328. William Gent, living in 1468, married Joan, daughter and heir of William Moyne of Moyne or Moyns. His widow purchased that manor in 1494, and it has since continued the seat of this family, who were greatly advanced by Sir Thomas Gent, the Judge, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Arms.—Ermine, a chief indented sable. Sometimes a chevron sable is borne on the field. The Judge bore two spread eagles on the chief, as appears by his seal.

The family of Vincent descend from Miles Vincent, owner of lands at Swinford in the county of Leicester, in the tenth of Edward II. Early in the fifteenth century the family removed to Bernack, in the county of Northampton, on marriage with the heiress of Sir John Bernack, of that place. Here they continued to reside, until David Vincent, Esq. seventh in descent from that marriage, settled at Long-Ditton, in Surrey, in the reign of Henry VIII. His son, Sir Thomas Vincent, by marriage with the heiress of Lyfield, removed to Stoke d'Abernon, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which was sold shortly after 1809, when the family removed to the present seat in this county.

See Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 418; and Manning and Bray's Surrey, vol. ii. p. 723.

Pre-eminent among the Norman aristocracy is the house of Berkeley, and more especially remarkable from being the only family in England in the male line retaining as their residence their ancient Feudal Castle. This great family are descended from Hardinge, who fought with William at the battle of Hastings; and whose son, Robert Fitzhardinge, received the lordship and castle of Berkeley from Henry II., in reward for his fidelity to the Empress Maude and her son. His son and successor Maurice married Alice, daughter of Roger de Berkeley, the former and dispossessed owner of Berkeley.

Younger branches. The Berkeleys of Cotheridge and Spetchley, both in Worcestershire, and both descended from Thomas, fourth son of James fifth Lord Berkeley, and Isabel, daughter of Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. (Nash's Worcestershire, i. 258.)

For Berkeley of Stoke-Gifford in this county, and of Bruton, co. Somerset, (Lords Berkeley of Stratton,) both extinct, see Blore's Rutlandshire, p, 210; for Berkeley of Wymondham, also extinct, see Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. pt. 1. p. 413; for Berkeley-Portman of Bryanston, co. Dorset, see Hutchins's Dorset, i. 154.

For Berkeley Genealogy, see Leland's Itinerary, vi. fo. 49, &c.; for Charters of the Berkeleys, with their seals copied from the originals at Berkeley Castle, see MSS. Reg. Coll. Oxon. cxlix., and, above all, Fosbroke's "Abstracts and Extracts of Smyth's Lives of the Berkeleys," admirably illustrative of the ancient manners of our old landed families.

Arms.—Gules, a chevron between ten crosses patée argent. The original arms were, Gules, a chevron argent, and were so borne by Moris de Barkele, in the reign of Henry III. The present coat was used by Sir Moris in the reigns of Edward II. and III. and Richard II. His son, during his father's life, differenced his arms by a label azure; Sir Thomas de Berkeley used "rosettes" instead of crosses; Sir John de Berkeley, Gules, a chevron argent between three crosses patée or. (Roll of Edw. II. &c.)

See for the differences in the Berkeley coat, Camden's Remains, ed. 1657, p. 226.

Present Representative, Thomas Morton Fitz-Hardinge Berkeley, 6th Earl of Berkeley.

Ansgerus, or Arthur, owner of lands in Combe, in the parish of Wotton under Edge, in this county, the gift of the Empress Maude, is the patriarch of this venerable family. The manor of Kingscote, which had been given by William I. to Roger de Berkeley, was inherited from Aldeva, the daughter of Robert Fitz-Hardinge and the wife of Nigel de Kingscote, soon after the reign of Henry II.

The Kingscotes shared in the glories of both Poictiers and Agincourt, and, although a family of such long standing in this county, appear never to have exceeded the moderate limits of their present ancestral property.

See Atkyns's Gloucestershire, 2nd edit. 1768, p. 258; Rudder's Gloucestershire, p. 512; and Fosbroke's Smyth's Lives of the Berkeleys, p. 218.

This family is traced to Rawlin Try, in the reign of Richard II. He married an heiress of Berkeley, by whom he had the manor of Alkington in Berkeley. His great-grandson was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1447, and married an heiress of Boteler, from whence came the manor of Hardwicke, sold to the Yorkes in the last century. Leckhampton came from the Norwood family in recent times.

Arms.—Or, a bend azure. In the Roll of Arms of the Thirteenth Century, printed by the Society of Antiquaries in 1864 [numbers 69 and 70], occur the following coats:

The printed accounts of this ancient family are somewhat meagre, but original evidences in the possession of the present Mr. Estcourt prove the long continuance of his ancestors as lords of the manor of the place from whence the name is derived, and of which John Estcourt died seised in the fourteenth year of Edward IV. The estate has remained the inheritance of his descendants from that period.

Walter de la Estcourt is the first recorded ancestor. He held lands in Shipton in 1317, and died about 1325. See Atkyns's Gloucestershire, 2nd ed. p. 340; Rudder, p. 654 and Lee's History of the Parish of Tetbury, p. 196.

Arms.—Ermine, on a chief indented gules three estoiles or, and so borne by William Estcourt, Warden of New College, Oxford, in 1426, as appears by his silver seal in the possession of Mr. Estcourt.

Present Representative, The Right Hon. Thomas H. S. Sotheron-Estcourt, late M.P. for North Wilts.

Descended from Agnes, daughter and heir of Richard de Legh, and her second husband William Venables, the common ancestress of the Leighs of West-Hall in High-Leigh. (See p. 22.) They had a son who took the name of Legh, and settled at Booths in Cheshire: from hence came the Leighs of Adlington, and from them the Leighs of Lyme, both in Cheshire, and both now extinct. John Leigh, Escheator of Cheshire in the 12th of Henry VI., was a younger son of Sir Peter Leigh, of Lyme, and the ancestor of the Leighs of Ridge, in the same county. Ridge was sold in the fourth of George II., and the family (still I believe existing) removed into Kent.

The present family are descended from Sir Thomas Leigh, Knight, Lord Mayor of London in 1558, who was also the ancestor of the extinct house of Stoneleigh. Sir Thomas was great-grandson of Sir Peter Leigh, Knight Banneret, who fell at Agincourt.

Younger Branches. Leigh of Middleton in Yorkshire, and Egginton in Derbyshire. See also Townley of Townley.

Extinct Branches. Leigh of Rushall, in Staffordshire; see Shaw's Staffordshire, ii. 69; of Brownsover, co. Warwick, Baronet; of Baguly, co. Chester; of Annesley, co. Notts; of Birch, co. Lancaster; of Stockwell, co. Surrey; and of Isall, co. Cumberland, &c.

So various indeed are the ramifications of the different branches of this wide-spreading family, that "as many Leighs as fleas" has grown into a proverb in Cheshire.

Hugh de Bodenham, Lord of Bodenham, in this county, grandfather of Roger who lived in the reign of Henry III., is the ancestor of this family; who were afterwards of Monington and of Rotherwas, about the middle of the fifteenth century.

See Blore's Rutlandshire for Bodenham of Ryhall, in that county, now extinct, (p. 49,) and Duncomb's Herefordshire, i. 91, 104.

This is the only remaining branch of an ancient Norman family formerly seated at Upton and Norton near Warminster, in Wiltshire; Walter de Scudamore being lord of the former manor in the reign of Stephen. In that of Edward III. Thomas, younger son of Sir Peter Scudamore, of Upton-Scudamore, having married the heiress of Ewias, removed into Herefordshire, and was the ancestor of the family long seated at Holme-Lacy, created Viscounts Scudamore in 1628, and extinct in 1716. From him also descended the house of Kentchurch, who are said to have been seated there in the reign of Edward IV.

See Gibson's Views of the Churches of Door, Holme-Lacy, and Hemsted, &c. 4to. 1727; and Guillim's Heraldry, ed. 1724, p. 549.

Arms.—Gules, three stirrups, leathered and buckled, or. Ancient coat, Or, a cross patée fitchée gules.

Luttley is in the parish of Enfield, in the county of Stafford, and Philip de Luttley was lord thereof in the 20th of Edward I. He was the ancestor of a family the direct line of which terminated in an heiress in the reign of Henry VI. But Adam de Luttley, younger brother of Philip above-named, was grandfather of Sir William Luttley, Knight, of Munslow Hall, co. Salop, whose lineal descendant, John Luttley, Esq. was of Bromcroft Castle, in the same county, 1623. Philip Luttley, Esq. of Lawton Hall, co. Salop, great-grandson of John last-named, married Penelope, only daughter of Richard Barneby, Esq. of Brockhampton; and their son, Bartholomew, succeeding to the Barneby estates, assumed that name; and was grandfather of the late John Barneby, Esq. M. P. for the county of Worcester.

The name is derived from Berington, in the hundred of Condover, and county of Salop, where Thomas and Roger de Berington were living in the reigns of Edward I. and II. Another Thomas, living in the time of Edward III., married Alice, daughter of Sir John Draycot, Knight, and was ancestor of John Berington, of Stoke-Lacy, in this county, who, about the reign of Henry VII. married Eleanor, daughter and heir of Rowland Winsley, of Winsley, Esq. From this marriage the present Mr. Berington is tenth in descent.

From Roger de Berington, brother of Thomas first-named, the Beringtons of Shrewsbury and of Moat Hall, co. Salop, traced their descent. Thomas Berington, of Moat Hall, Esq. who died in 1719, married Anne, daughter of John Berington, of Winsley, Esq.; and the last heir male of their descendants, Philip Berington, Esq. dying s.p. in 1803, devised his Shropshire estates to his kinsman, Mr. Berington, of Winsley.

From the MSS. of Mr. Joseph Morris, of Shrewsbury, and Eyton's Shropshire, vi. p. 42.

Arms.—Sable, three greyhounds courant in pale argent, collared gules, within a border of the last.

A family of Norman origin, said to have come into England with William the Conqueror, and to have been seated at Sempringham, in the county of Lincoln, by the grant of that monarch. In 1249 Thomas Jocelyn, son of John, having married Maud, daughter and coheir of Sir John Hyde, of Hyde, brought that manor and lordship into this family, in which it has ever since continued. The peerage was originally conferred on Robert Jocelyn, Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1739, created Baron Newport 1743, whose son, the first Earl, married the heiress of the Hamiltons, Earls of Clanbrassil, in 1752.

See "Historical Anecdotes of the Families of the Boleyns, Careys, Mordaunts, Hamiltons, and Jocelyns, arranged as an Elucidation of the Genealogical Chart at Tollymore Park," Newry, 1839, privately printed. See also Archdall's Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, iii. 258, and Chauncy's Hertfordshire, 1st ed. p. 182.

Arms.—Azure, a circular wreath argent and sable, with four hawk's bells joined thereto in quadrature or.

This is a very ancient Shropshire family, descended from Sir Adam Wolryche, Knight, of Wenlock, living in the reign of Henry III., and who, previous to being knighted, was admitted of the Roll of Guild Merchants of the town of Shrewsbury in 1231, by the old Saxon name of "Adam Wulfric." His descendant Andrew Wolryche was M. P. for Bridgnorth in 1435, being then of Dudmaston, where the elder branch of this family was seated for a considerable period, created Baronets in 1641, extinct in 1723. The present family descend from Edward, third son of Humphry Wolryche, Esq. grandson of Andrew Wolryche, which Humphry is recorded as one of the "Gentlemen" of Shropshire, in the seventeenth of Henry VII., 1501. There were branches of the family, now extinct, at Cowling and Wickhambroke, Suffolk, and Alconbury, Huntingdonshire.

The pedigree of this family does not appear to be proved beyond William Sherard, who died in 1304. His ancestors, however, are said to have been of Thornton, in Cheshire, in the thirteenth century. In 1402 the family were established at Stapleford in Leicestershire by marriage with the heiress of Hawberk.

On the decease of Robert Sherard, sixth Earl of Harborough, in 1859, the representation of the family devolved upon the present lord, descended from George, third son of the first Baron.

See Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. ii. pt. i. 343; and Brydges's Collins, iv. 180,

The family of Dering descend from Norman de Morinis, whose ancestor, Vitalis FitzOsbert, lived in the reign of Henry II. Norman de Morinis married the daughter of Deringus, descended from Norman Fitz-Dering, Sheriff of this county in King Stephen's reign. Richard Dering died seised of Surenden, which came from the heiress of Haute, in 1480. The loyalty of Sir Edward Dering in the Civil Wars, in Charles I.'s time, deserves to be remembered: see his character in Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, II. B. 14, 19, 20, and the interesting memoir of him by John Bruce, Esq. F.S.A. in "Proceedings in the County of Kent," printed for the Camden Society 1861.

For a notice of the old seats of this family, in the parish of Lidd, called Dengemarsh Place and Westbrooke, see Hasted's History of Kent, iii. 515, and for the family, iii. 228; and Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 13,

Arms.—Argent, a fess azure, in chief three torteauxes, borne by "Richard fil' Deringi de Haut," in 19 Hen. IV. as appears by his seal. The same coat is on the roof of the cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral. The son of this Sir Richard Dering bore, Or, a saltier sable, the ancient arms of De Morinis, and now generally quartered with Dering. See Willement's Heraldic Notices of Canterbury Cathedral, pp. 90, 106.

"In point of antiquity, and former feudal power, probably the most illustrious house in the peerage," says Brydges. Descended from Gospatric, the Saxon Earl of Northumberland, whose great-grandson, marrying the heiress of Neville, gave that name to his posterity, for many ages the Nevilles were Barons of Raby and Earls of Westmerland. The last Earl was attainted in the 13th of Elizabeth. A younger branch of the Nevilles, in the person of Sir Edward Neville, obtained the castle and barony of Abergavenny, and the estate of Birling, with the heiress of Beauchamp, in the reign of Henry VI.; and the present family is descended from this match, having been Barons of Abergavenny previously to the creation of the Earldom. Birling was long deserted by the family, whose principal seat was afterwards at Sheffield, and Eridge, in Sussex; but it is now the residence of Lord Abergavenny.

See Hasted, ii. 200; Brydges's Collins, v. 151; and Surtees's Durham, iv. 158, for pedigrees of the Nevilles, Earls of Westmerland, and the Nevilles of Weardale and Thornton-Bridge. See also Rowland's "Account of the Noble Family of Neville," privately printed 1830, folio; Surtees's "Sketch of the Stock of Nevill," 8vo. 1843.

This coat, without the rose, was borne by Robert de Neville in the reign of Henry III. In the reign of Edward III. M. de Neville de Hornby bore the coat reversed, Argent, a saltier gules. M. Alexander de Neville, at the same period, differenced it by a martlet sable. M. William Neville and N. Thomas Neville bore for difference respectively, a fleur-de-lis azure and a martlet gules, in the reign of Richard II. (Rolls.) The Rose is allusive to the House of Lancaster, Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmerland, having married to his second wife Joan, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The older coat was, Or, fretty gules, on a canton sable an ancient ship.

The name is derived from Henewood, near Postling, in this county, where the ancestors of this family resided as early as the reign of Henry III. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Honywoods removed to Hythe, which they often represented in Parliament, and afterwards to Sene, in Newington, near Hythe. Caseborne, in Cheriton, came from an heiress of that name before the time of Henry VI.; Evington, by purchase, in the reign of Henry VII.

Younger branches were of Marks Hall, in Essex, and of Petts, in Charing, in this county. Of the former family was Robert Honywood, whose wife Mary, daughter of Robert Atwaters, or Waters, lived to see 367 descendants: she died in 1620, aged 93.

See Topographer and Genealogist, i. 397, 568; ii. 169, 189, 256, 312, 433; Hasted's Kent, ii. 442, 449; iii. 308; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 105.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three hawk's heads erased azure. These arms, of the time of Richard II. are carved on the cloisters of Canterbury Cathedral. See Willement, p. 101.

Twysden, in the parish of Goudhurst, appears to have given name to this family: it was possessed by Adam de Twysden in the reign of Edward I.; and in that of Henry IV. Roger Twysden, his descendant, married the daughter and heir of Thomas Chelmington of Chelmington, in Great Chart, Esq. where his son Roger removed. Twysden was sold in the reign of Henry VI. In the reign of Elizabeth, William Twysden, of Chelmington, married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Roydon, of Roydon-Hall, which has since been the residence of his descendants. There is another Twysden, in the parish of Sandhurst, in this county, where the family are also said to have lived in the time of Edward I.

A younger branch of Bradbourne, in this county, also Baronets, were extinct in 1841.

See Hasted's Kent, ii. 213, 275; iii. 37, 244; Philpot's Kent, p. 300; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 211.

Arms.—Gyronny of four, argent and gules, a saltier between four crosses crosslet, all counterchanged.

This family claim descent from Robert de Toke, who was present with Henry III. at the Battle of Northampton. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Tokes were seated at Bere, in the parish of Westcliffe, in this county: this line became extinct at the latter end of the seventeenth century.

The Tokes of Godington are a junior branch, descended from the heiress of Goldwell, of Godington, about the reign of Henry VI.

See Hasted's Kent, iii. 247; Visitations of Kent, 1574 and 1619; and Harleian MSS. 1195. 55, 1196. 108.

Arms.—Party per chevron sable and argent, three gryphon's heads erased and counterchanged. John Toke, of Godington, had an additional coat, an augmentation granted to him by Henry VII., as a reward for his expedition in a message on which he was employed to the French King: viz. Argent, on a chevron between three greyhound's heads erased sable, collared or, three plates.

William Roper, or Rosper, who lived in the reign of Henry III, is the first recorded ancestor; his descendants were of St. Dunstan's, near Canterbury, in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. Edmund Roper was one of the Justices of the Peace for this county in the time of Henry IV. and V.

The elder line of this family were seated at West-Hall, in Eltham, and also at St. Dunstan's, and became extinct in 1725. The younger and present branch at Linstead, which came from the heiress of Fineux, in the reign of Henry VIII. King James I. conferred the peerage on Sir John Roper in 1616.

For the origin of the family, see Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd ed. p. 316; Hasted's Kent, i. 55; ii. 687; iii. 589; and Brydges's Collins, vii. 77.

Arms.—Per fess azure and or, a pale counterchanged, three buck's heads erased of the second.

Hasted gives no detailed pedigree of this family before the purchase of the manor and estate of Hatch, by Richard Knatchbull, in the reign of Henry VII. It appears however that the first recorded ancestor, John Knatchbull, held lands in the parish of Limne, in this county, in the reign of Edward III., where some of the name remained in that of Charles I. There are pedigrees in the Visitations of Kent of 1574 and 1619.

See Philpot's Kent, p.199; Hasted's Kent, iii. 286; and Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 228.

Arms.—Azure, three cross-crosslets fitchée in bend or, cotised of the same.

The Filmers were anciently seated at the manor of Herst, in the parish of Otterden, in this county, in the reign of Edward II., and there remained till the time of Elizabeth, when Robert Filmer, son of James, removed to Little-Charleton, in East-Sutton: the manor was purchased by his elder son. There are pedigrees of Filmer in the Kentish Visitations of 1574 and 1619. The Baronetcy was conferred by Charles II., as a reward for the loyal exertions of Sir Robert Filmer during the Usurpation.

See Hasted's Kent, ii. 410; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 581. Arms.—Sable three bars, and in chief three cinquefoils or.

Present Representative, Sir Edmund Filmer, 9th Baronet, late M.P. for West Kent.

Solomon Oxenden, who lived in the reign of Edward III., is the first known ancestor. Dene, in the parish of Wingham, was purchased at the latter part of the reign of Henry VI. The family had previously been stated at Brook, in the same parish. Thomas Oxenden died seised of Dene in 1492. There is a pedigree in the Visitation of Kent in 1619.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron gules between three oxen sable. Confirmed in the 24th of Henry VI.

"The name of the Finches," writes Leland, "hath bene of ancient tyme in estimation in Southsex about Winchelesey, and by all likelyhod rose by sum notable merchaunte of Winchelesey." The name is said to be derived from the manor of Finches in the parish of Kidd.

Vincent Herbert, alias Finch, married Joan, daughter and heir of Robert de Pitlesden, of Tenderden. His son was of Netherfield, in Sussex, in the reign of Richard II. and Henry IV.; and was the ancestor of this family, who were of the Moat, near Canterbury, by marriage with the heiress of Belknap before 1493. Eastwell came by the coheiress of Moyle about the reign of Elizabeth.

The heiress of Heneage, who married Sir Moyle Finch, was created Countess of Winchilsea in 1628. The Earldom of Nottingham is due to the law, being granted in 1681 to Heneage, grandson of the first Countess.

From John, second son of the second Vincent Finch, of Netherfield, were descended the Finches of Sewards, Norton, Kingsdown, Feversham, Wye, and other places in this county.

See Leland's Itinerary, vi. fol. 59; Basted's Kent. iii. 198; and Brydges's Collins, iii. 371.

Present Representative, George James Finch Hatton, 10th Earl of Winchilsea, and 7th Earl of Nottingham.

Gamel de Pennington, ancestor of this ancient family, was seated at Pennington at the period of the Conquest. But, as early as the reign of Henry II., Muncaster, in Cumberland, belonged to the Penningtons, and afterwards became their residence; and here King Henry VI. was concealed by Sir John Pennington in his flight from his enemies. There is a tradition that, on quitting Muncaster, the king presented his host with a small glass vessel, still possessed by the family, and called "The Luck of Muncaster:" to the preservation of which a considerable degree of superstition was attached.

See Baines's History of the County of Lancaster, iv. 669; Lysons's Cumberland, 139; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 602.

An ancient Norman family, who have been possessed of the manor of Sefton, in this county, from the period of the Conquest, or very soon afterwards: it was held as a knight's fee, as of the Castle of Lancaster.

William de Molines is the first recorded ancestor, and from him the pedigree is very regularly deduced to the present day. This truly noble family have been greatly distinguished in the field, witness Agincourt and Flodden. Thrice has the honour of the banner been conferred on a Molyneux. The second occasion was in Spain in 1367, from the hands of the Black Prince himself. In the seventeenth century, the family proved themselves right loyal to the crown, and suffered accordingly.

Sir Archdall's Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, iii. 239; Brydges's Biographical Peerage, iv. 93; and Baines's Lancashire, iv. 276.

Younger Branch. Molyneux, of Castle Dillon, co. Armagh, Baronet 1730, descended from Thomas Molyneux, born at Calais in 1531, for whom see "An Account of the Family and Descendants of Sir Thomas Molyneux, Knight, Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland to Queen Elizabeth." Evesham, sm. 4to. 1820.

For Molyneux of Teversal, co. Notts, Baronet 1611, extinct 1812, descended from the second son of Sir Richard Molyneux, the hero of Agincourt, see Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, p. 269; and Wotton's Baronetage, i. 141.

Arms.—Azure, a cross moline or. The Irish branch bears a fleur-de-lis or in the dexter quarter.

Hocton, or Hoghton, appears to have been granted in marriage by Warin Bussel to one Hamon, called "Pincerna," whose grandson was the first "Adam de Hocton," who held one carucate of land in Hocton in the reign of Henry II. His grandson, Sir Adam de Hoghton, lived in the 50th of Henry III., and was the ancestor of this family.

See Baines's Lancashire, iii. 348 and 459, for an interesting account of Hoghton-Tower, long deserted by the family; and Wotton's Baronetage, i. 15.

Arms.—Sable, three bars argent: borne in the reign of Richard II. by Mons. Ric. de Hoghton. His son (?) Richard, the same, with a label of three points gules. (Rolls.)

Clifton is in the parish of Kirkham, and here William de Clifton held ten carucates of land in the 42nd year of Henry III., and was Collector of Aids for this county. His son Gilbert, Lord of Clifton, died in the seventeenth of Edward II. On the death of Cuthbert Clifton, in 1512, the manor was temporarily alienated from the male line by an heiress; but by a match with the coheiress of Halsall, before 1657, it again became the property of the then principal branch of this ancient family, who were originally a junior line descended from the Cliftons of Westby.

Arms.—Sable, on a bend argent three mullets pierced gules: borne in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. by Mons. Robert de Clyfton. (Rolls.)

Trafford is in the parish of Eccles, and here the ancestors of this family are said to have been established even before the Norman Conquest. The pedigree given in Baines's Lancashire professes to be founded on documents in possession of the family, but some of it is certainly inaccurate, and cannot be depended on: Ralph de Trafford, who is said to have died about 1050, is the first recorded ancestor, but this is before the general assumption of surnames, which, as Camden observes, are first found in the Domesday Survey. On the whole, it may be assumed that the antiquity of the family is exaggerated, though the name no doubt is derived from this locality at an early period.

Arms.—Argent, a gryphon segreant gules. See in "Hearne's Curious Discourses," i. 262. edit. 1771, for the supposed origin of the Trafford Crest, "a man thrashing," which was however only granted about the middle of the 16th century.

In the year 1275, the 4th of Edward I., Sir William Heskayte, Knight, married the coheiress of Fytton, and thus became possessed of Rufford, which has since remained the inheritance of this ancient family.

Younger branch. Hesketh of Gwyrch Castle, Denbighshire, descended from the Heskeths of Rossel, Lancashire, who were a younger branch of the house of Rufford.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend sable three garbs or, the ancient coat of Fytton. Hesketh of Gwyrch Castle bears, Or, on a bend sable between two torteauxes three garbs of the field.

"This is not one of those long lines which are memorable only for their antiquity," says Whitaker, in his account of several remarkable members of this eminent family; who are descended from John del Legh, who died about the 4th of Edward III., and the great heiress Cecilia, daughter of Richard de Townley, whose family was of Saxon origin, and traced to the reign of Alfred. There is preserved at Townley, of which beautiful place Whitaker gives a charming account, an unbroken series of portraits from John Townley, Esq. in the reign of Elizabeth to the present time.

See Leland's Itinerary, i. 96 and v. 102; Whitaker's Whalley, 271, 341, 484; and for the extinct branches of Hurstwood Hall, [1562-1794,] p. 384; and of Barnside [Edw. IV.—1739,] p. 395.

For the origin of the Legh (properly Venables) family of Cheshire, see Leigh of Adlestrop, p. 92.

This family claims the same ancestor as the now extinct house of the Windsors Earls of Plymouth; the Carews also, both of England and Ireland, are descended, according to Camden, from the same progenitors: the pedigree therefore is extended to the Conquest, Otherus or Otho being the first recorded ancestor. The Lancashire branch were not settled there till the reign of Edward III., when they became possessed of Bryn, by marriage with the heiress of that name and place, From the Gerards of Ince descended the extinct Lords Gerard, of Gerard's-Bromley, and Sir William Gerard, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who died in 1581.

Although Sir Rowland Stanley Errington, brother of Sir William Massey Stanley, late of Hooton, in the county of Chester, Baronet, is in fact the head of this illustrious house, yet, as that estate has been sold, and his family have now no connection with Cheshire, the Earl of Derby must be considered the chief, as he is in truth the principal, branch of the house of Stanley.

As few families have acted a more prominent part in History, so few can trace a more satisfactory pedigree. Descended from a younger branch of the Barons Audeley, of Audeley in Staffordshire, the name of Stanley, from the manor of that name in this county, in the reign of John, was assumed by William de Audleigh. Sir John Stanley, K.G., Lord Deputy of Ireland, in 1381 married the heiress of Lathom, and thus became possessed of Knowesley; it was this Sir John also who obtained a grant of the Isle of Man, which afterwards descended to the Murrays Dukes of Athol till 1765. The principal branch of this family became extinct on the death of James, tenth Earl, in 1736; when the earldom descended on Sir Edward Stanley of Bickerstaff, Baronet, descended from Sir James Stanley, brother of Thomas second Earl of Derby.

For Stanley of Hooton, see Ormerod's Cheshire, ii. 230. The famous, or rather infamous, Sir William Stanley was of this line.

Younger Branches. Stanley of Cross-Hall, descended from Peter second son of Sir Thomas Stanley, 2nd Baronet, who died in 1653; and the family of the late Rev. James Stanley of Ormskirk, descended from Henry 2nd son of Sir Edward Stanley 1st. Bart. who died in 1640.

Stanley of Alderley, Cheshire, Baron Stanley of Alderley 1839, descended from Sir John Stanley and the heiress of Wever of Alderley. See Ormerod, iii. 306.

Stanley of Dalegarth, Cumberland, descended from John, second son of John Stanley, Esq., younger brother of Sir William Stanley, and the heiress of Bamville.

See Brydges's Collins, iii. 50; Seacome's House of Stanley, 4to. 1741; for Stanley Legend, &c. Coll. Topog. et Genealog. vii. 1.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend azure three buck's heads cabossed and attired or, assumed on the match with the heiress of Bamville, instead of the coat of Audeley.*

This is the only remaining branch of the old Lancashire family of Assheton, originally seated at Assheton-under-Lyne, and of whom the Asshetons of Middleton and of Great Lever, both Baronets, represented the elder lines. The present family descend from Radcliffe Assheton, second son of Ralph Assheton, of Great Lever, born in 1582.

See Whitaker's Whalley, p. 299 and p. 300, for the curious journal of Nicholas Assheton, of Downham, Esq. 1617-18, since published entire as vol. xiv. of the series of the Chetham Society, 1848. For Assheton of Ashton-under-Lyne, Baines's Lancashire, ii. 532, and Collectanea Topog. et Genealog. vii. 12; for Ashton of Lever and Whalley, Baines, iii. 190.

This is a younger branch of the well-known Lancashire family of this name, who trace their descent from Richard of Radclyffe Tower, near Bury, in the reign of Edward I. Ordshall, also in this county, was for many ages the seat of the ancestors of the present family, who are descended from Robert, sixth and youngest son of Sir Alexander Radclyffe, of Ordshall, who was born in 1650. Foxdenton, which as early as the fifteenth century belonged to one branch of the Radclyffes, was bequeathed to the present family early in the last century. The extinct house of the Radclyffes, Barons Fitzwalter and Earls of Sussex 1529, were sprung from William, elder brother of the first Sir John Radclyffe, of Ordshall. The Radclyffes of Dilston, Baronets 1619, and Earls of Derwentwater 1687, were perhaps also of the same origin, but this has not been ascertained.

See Burke's Landed Gentry, 2nd. ed. vol. ii. p. 1091, and Ellis's Family of Radclyffe, for the House of Dilston (1850).

Arms.—Argent, two bends engrailed sable, a label of three points gules. The more simple coat of Argent, a bend engrailed sable, was borne by the Earls of Sussex, and also by the Earls of Derwentwater.

Hulton is in the parish of Dean, and gave name to Bleythen, called de Hulton, in the reign of Henry II., and from him this ancient family, still seated at their ancestral and original manor, is regularly descended.

Descended from Robert Eccleston of Eccleston, living in the reign of Henry III., an estate which continued in the family until the last generation, when it was sold, and that of Scarisbrick, with the name, acquired by marriage about the same period.

There is a good pedigree of this, his own family, in Ormerod's History of Cheshire, (ii. p. 204,) under Chorlton, a seat of the family purchased in 1811. The first recorded ancestor is Matthew de Hormerodes, living about 1270. The elder line of his descendants, whose name was derived from Ormerod in Whalley, became extinct in 1793. The present family trace their lineage from George Ormerod, fourth son of Peter Ormerod, of Ormerod, who died in 1653.

The pedigree begins with Geoffry Starky, of Barthington (Barnton) in Cheshire, supposed to be the same with Geoffry, son of Richard Starkie, of Stretton, in the same county, an ancient family which can be traced almost to the Conquest. William Starkie was of Barnton in the seventh of Edward IV. Huntroyd was acquired by marriage, in 1464, with the heiress of Symondstone.

See Whitaker's Whalley, 266, 529; also Ormerod's Cheshire, i. 474; and Baines, iii. 309.

A younger branch of Chadwick of Chadwick, now extinct, a family which can be traced to the reign of Edward III.

Healey came from the coheiress of Okeden in 1483. Mavesyn Ridware, in Staffordshire, is also the property of this family, derived by an heiress from the Cawardens, and ultimately from the Malvesyns, who came in with the Conqueror.

Younger branch. Chadwick of Swinton, in this county, derived from the heiress of Strettell: they bear their arms differenced by a border engrailed or, charged with cross crosslets.

See Shaw's Staffordshire, i. p. 166, for a curious account of the Malvesyns, Cawardens, and Chadwicks of Mavesyn Ridware: see also Whitaker's Whalley, p. 459.

Richard Patten, who appears to have flourished before the reign of Henry III. by his marriage with a coheiress of Dagenham became possessed of the Court of that name in the county of Essex, and was the remote ancestor of this family. John Patten of Dagenham Court, living in 1376, removed to Waynflete in Lincolnshire; he was the great-grandfather of the celebrated William Patten alias Waynflete Bishop of Winchester; from whose brother, Richard Patten, of Boslow, in the county of Derby, the present family descend. His son was of Warrington in this county in 1536.

See the pedigree by Bigland and Heard drawn up in 1770, and printed in Bloxam's Memorial of Bishop Waynflete for the Caxton Society in 1851.

"One of the ancientest families in the whole shire," wrote Burton in 1622; descended from Ralph Turvile, a benefactor to the abbey of Leicester in 1297. The principal seat was at Normanton Turvile, in this county, where the elder line of the family became extinct in 1776. Aston Flamvile, also in Leicestershire, was the residence of the immediate ancestors of this younger branch. It was sold early in the eighteenth century, and Husband's Bosworth inherited, by the will of Maria-Alathea Fortescue, in 1763.

See Nichols's Leicestershire, under Normanton Turvile, iv. pt. 2. 1004; under Aston Flamvile, ii. pt. 2. 465; under Husband's Bosworth, iv. pt. 2. 451

Arms.—Gules, three chevronels vair. This coat was borne by Sir Richard Turvile, de co. Warw. in the reign of Edward II., and Sir Nicholas Turvil, at the same period, bore the same coat reduced to two chevrons. (Rolls of the date.)

This ancient family was certainly seated at Quorndon two descents before the reign of Edward I. In that of Henry VI. Thomas, second son of John Farnham and Margaret Billington, living in 1393, founded a junior branch denominated of "The Nether-Hall." He was the ancestor of the present family, who also descend in the female line from the elder branch, denominated "of Quorndon," by the marriage of the coheiress in 1703 with Benjamin Farnham, of the Nether-Hall.

Arms.—Quarterly or and azure, in the first and second quarter a crescent interchanged.

Sir Robert de Farnham, of the county of Stafford, bore in the reign of Edward II. Quarterly argent and azure, four crescents counterchanged. (Roll.)

Present Representative, Edward Basil Farnham, Esq. late M.P. for North Leicestershire.

Lewis de Brienne, who died in 1283, married Agnes, Viscountess de Beaumont, who died in 1300: their children took the name of Beaumont, and from hence this noble family is supposed to be descended. Coleorton came from the heiress of Maureward in the fifteenth century, but Grace-dieu, also in this county, was the older seat. The representative of the elder line of the family was created Viscount Beaumont in Ireland in 1622, extinct 1702, when Coleorton went to the ancestors of the present Baronet, descended from the third son of Nicholas Beaumont, of Coleorton, who died in 1585.

See Nicholas Leicestershire, iii. pt. 2. 743; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 230; Erdeswick's Staffordshire, ed. 1844, 396; and Hornby's Tract on Dugdale's Baronage.

Arms.—Azure, semée of fleurs-de-lis and a lion rampant or. Sir Henry de Beaumont bore this coat with a baton gabonny argent and gules, in the reign of Edward II.; in that of Richard II. Mons. de Beaumont omitted the baton (Rolls of the dates.)

Dugdale begins the pedigree of this great historical family with Henry de Grey, unto whom King Richard the First in the sixth year of his reign gave the manor of Turroc or Thurrock in Essex. His son Richard was of Codnoure or Codnor in Derbyshire, inherited from his mother, a coheiress of Bardolf. Groby and Bradgate came from the heiress of Ferrers in the reign of Henry VI. Of the latter Leland writes, "This parke was parte of the old Erles of Leicester's landes, and since by heires generales it came to the Lord Ferrers of Groby, and so to the Greyes."

Extinct Branches of this illustrious family were, the Greys of Codnor, of Wilton, of Rotherfield, of Ruthyn, and the Dukes of Kent and Suffolk.

See Dugdale's Baronage, i. 709; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. pt. 2. 682; Brydges's Collins, iii. 340.

Arms.—Barry of six, argent and azure. Richard de Grey bore this coat in the reign of Henry III. John de Grey differenced it with a label gules. In the reign of Edward II. the same arms were borne by different members of the family, with the additions of a bend gules, a label gules, a label gules bezantée, a baton gules, and three torteauxes in chief, which last was used by the Dukes of Suffolk.

Present Representative, George Harry Grey, seventh Earl of Stamford and Warrington.

The Babingtons were of Babington in Northumberland in the reign of King John: they afterwards removed into Nottinghamshire, and became very distinguished. The elder line was seated at Dethick in Ashover, in the county of Derby, by marriage with the coheiress of the ancient family of that name, before the year 1431. The Rothley branch, descended from a second son of the house of Dethick, was seated there at the very beginning of the sixteenth century, and is now the chief line of the family on the extinction of Babington of Dethick about 1650.

See Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. pt. 2. 955; and Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, ii. 94, and viii. 313, for a most valuable article on the elder line of this family. See also Topographer and Genealogist, i. 133, 259, 333, for the various branches of this ancient family.

Arms.—Argent, ten torteauxes and a label of three points azure. This coat reversed and without the label was borne by Sir John de Babington in the reign of Edward II. (Roll of the date.)

Originally of Northumberland, where Simon de Hasilrig was seated in the time of Edward I. Early in the fifteenth century Thomas Hasilrig of Fawdon, in that county, having married Isabel Heron, heiress of Noseley, the family removed into Leicestershire. Leland makes the following mention of the head of the house in his time, "Hasilrig of Northamptonshire [a mistake for Leicestershire] hath about 50li lande in Northumbreland, at Esselington, where is a pratie pile of Hasilriggs; and one of the Coilingwooddes dwellith now in it, and hath the over-site of his landes."

See Leland's Itin., i. fol. 15. v. fol. 101; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 520; Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. pt. 2. 756; and the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, vol. ii. p. 325.

The Wollastons were lords of the manor of Wollaston in the parish of Old Swinford and county of Stafford, (which they sold to the Aston family in the time of Richard II.) at a very early period: they afterwards settled at Trescot and Perton, in the parish of Tettenhall, in the same shire. The pedigree in Nichols's Leicestershire begins with Thomas Wollaston of Perton, "a person of figure in the reigns of Henry VII. and VIII." In 1709, William Wollaston, Esq., the celebrated author of "The Religion of Nature," compiled an account of this family, which is printed in the History of Leicestershire. He was the direct ancestor of the present family, who have been also seated at Oncott, in Staffordshire, and Finborough Hall, in Suffolk. Shenton was acquired early in the reign of James I.

Welby, near Grantham, in this county, is supposed to have given name to this "ancient howse, Bering armes,"* and here Sir William Welby, who heads their well-authenticated pedigree, undoubtedly possessed property between 1307 and 1327. The manor of Frieston, with Poynton Hall, also in Lincolnshire, was held by Sir Thomas Welby, (who it cannot be doubted was a still earlier ancestor,) of King Henry III. in chief, in 1216. The first-mentioned Sir William having married the heiress of Multon of Multon in this county, that place continued, till the end of the sixteenth century, the principal seat of his descendants. Denton was purchased by John Welby, the ancestor of the present family, in 1539.

See "Notices of the Family of Welby," 8vo., Grantham, 1842; and Allen's History of Lincolnshire, ii. 314; for Welby of Multon, see Blore's Rutlandshire, 192.

The name is supposed to be derived from Dimmok, in the county of Gloucester, but the pedigree is not proved beyond Henry Dymmok in the second year of Edward III. His grandson John married Margaret, sole grand-daughter and heir of Sir Thomas de Ludlowe, by Joan youngest daughter and coheir of Philip last Lord Marmyon, Baron of Scrivelsby, and by the tenure of that manor hereditary Champion of England, which office, since the Coronation of Richard II. has been held by the Dymoke family.

Arms.—Sable, two lions passant argent crowned or. Borne by Monsr. John Dymoke in the reign of Richard II. (Roll of the date.)

John Heneage stands at the head of the pedigree; he was living in the 38th Henry III. From him descended another John, who in the 10th of Edward III. was Lord of the Manor of Hainton; according to Leland however, "the olde Henege lands passid not a fyfetie poundes by the yere." The family evidently rose on the ruins of the monastic houses: "Syr Thomas Hennage hath doone much cost at Haynton, where he is Lorde and Patrone, yn translating and new building with brike and abbay stone."

See Leland's Itinerary, vii. fol. 52; and Allen's History of Lincolnshire, ii. 67.

Arms.—Or, a greyhound courant sable between three leopard's heads azure, a border engrailed gules.

Originally of Northumberland, where the family were seated at an early period. The first recorded ancestor is Sir Robert de Maners, who obtained a grant of land in Berrington in 1327, and was M.P. for Northumberland in 1340. His son William Maners, of Etal, died before 1324, which estate appears to have been inherited from an heiress of Muschamp. At the end of the fifteenth century, by marriage with the heiress of the baronial family of Roos, the house of Manners came into possession of the Castle of Belvoir. In the succeeding century, a fortunate match with the heiress of Vernon of Haddon still further increased the wealth and importance of this noble family.

The royal title of Rutland, which had belonged to the house of York, was conferred upon Thomas Lord Roos in 1525 as the grandson of the lady Anne of York, sister to King Edward the Fourth.

An extinct branch was from the time of Henry VIII. for a long period of Newmanor House, in the parish of Framlington, in Durham. Another branch of the Etal family was of Cheswick, in the same county, extinct after 1633.

See Raine's North Durham, 211, 230; Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. pt. i. 67; and Brydges's Collins, i. 454.

Arms.—Or, two bars azure; a chief quarterly azure and gules, on the 1st and 4th two fleurs-de-lis, on the 2nd and 3rd a leopard of England of the first; the chief being an augmentation granted by Henry VIII. The ancient arms, no doubt founded on those of the Muschamp family, were, Or, two bars azure, a chief gules. See the Rolls of the reign of Edward II. and Richard III.

This is a branch of the extinct family of the Lords Alington, of Horseheath, in Cambridgeshire, who were originally of Alington, in the same county, soon after the Conquest. The family descend from a younger son of Sir Giles Alington, and were seated at Swinhope in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

See Clutterbuck's History of Hertfordshire, ii. 542; and Collectanea Topog. et Genealog. iv. 33-53, and note 2, p. 39. For Horseheath, see Topographer, ii. 374.

It has been supposed, but without any evidence or authority, that this family is descended from Thorold, Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1052, and that consequently it may claim Saxon origin. There is however no doubt that this is a family of very great antiquity, and seated at Marston as early as the reign of Henry I.

"Langton, Sir," exclaimed Dr. Johnson, alluding to his friend Bennet Langton of Langton, at that time the accomplished head of this very ancient family, "has a grant of free warren from Henry the Second, and Cardinal Stephen Langton in King John's reign was of this family." The name is derived from Langton-by-Spilsby in Lincolnshire, a manor which has remained to the present day the inheritance of this house, who are descended in the female line from the Massingberds of Sutterton in this county.

See Allen's History of the County of Lincoln, ii. 175; and Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. 1836, i. 294.

This very ancient family is descended from Lambert Massyngberd of Soterton, now Sutterton, in this county, who lived in the reign of Edward I. and has ever since remained in Lincolnshire. In the latter part of the fifteenth century, by the marriage of Sir Thomas Massyngberd with the heiress of Braytoft of Braytoft Hall in Gunby, the Massingberds removed to that place, which became the principal seat of their descendants. Ormsby, purchased from the Skipwiths in 1636, and afterwards Gunby Hall, built by Sir William Massingberd, the 2nd Baronet of this family, in 1699, was their principal residence, till it went by an heiress to a younger branch of the Langtons, who have assumed the name. Wrangle is a recent purchase in this county by the present representative of the male line of the family. The Massingberds early embraced the Reformed faith. Thomas Massingberd, the last representative for Calais in 1552, "fled abroad for his religion" under Mary. Nevertheless his descendant, William Burrell Massingberd of Ormsby, joined Prince Charles Edward at Derby: a miniature given to him by the Prince is still in the family. Ormsby belongs at present to a younger branch of the Mundys of Markeaton in Derbyshire, who have assumed the name of Massingberd.

See the Genealogy of this House, a MS. by Robert Dale, Suffolk Herald, compiled about the year 1718, and still at Ormsby; and Allen's History of the County, under Ormsby and Gunby.

Arms.—Azure, three quatrefoils (two and one,) and in chief a boar passant or, charged on the shoulder with a cross patée gules, with which the following coat is generally quartered, said to be the arms assumed by Sir Thomas Massingberd, Knight of St. John, in the reign of Henry VIII. Quarterly or and argent, on a cross humetté gules, between four lions rampant sable, two escallops of the first.

"In the Isle" of Axholme "be now there 4 gentilmen of name, Sheffild, Candisch, Evers, and Mounsun. The lands of one Bellewodde became by marriage to this Mounson, a younger son to old Mounson of Lincolnshire. This old Mounson is in a maner the first avauncer of his family." Thus wrote Leland in his Itinerary. The Monsons however are clearly traced to the year 1378, as resident at East-Reson, in this county. They were afterwards seated at South Carlton, a village adjacent to Burton.

See Leland's Itin., i. fol. 42; Allen's Lincolnshire, ii. 57; and Brydges's Collins, vii. 228.

This is an ancient Shropshire house descended from William de Whichcote, of Whichcote, in that county, in 1255. In the reign of Edward IV., by marriage with the heiress of Tyrwhitt, the family became possessed of Harpswell in this county, which for a long time continued the residence of the Whichcotes.

Roger Anderson of Wrawby, in this county, Esquire, living in the latter part of the fourteenth century, and who came from Northumberland, stands at the head of the pedigree. His great-grandson Henry, also of Wrawby, was grandfather of Sir Edmund Anderson of Flixborough, Knight, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who died in 1605. He was the ancestor of the present family, and of Sir Charles Anderson of Broughton in Lincolnshire, Baronet 1660, and of the Andersons of Eyworth in Bedfordshire, Baronets 1664, extinct in 1773. Brocklesby came from an heiress of Pelham, a younger branch of the Pelhams Earls of Chichester.

See Wotton's English Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 191, vol. iv. p. 427, and "The History of Lea," printed in 1841.

The ancient extraction of the Berties from Berstead in the county of Kent is proved by the Thurnham charters in the possession of Sir Edward Dering, and by various public records of undoubted authority; and, although the exact line of pedigree is by no means clear, there appears no reason to doubt the descent of this "undefamed house" from John or Bartholomew de Bereteghe, who were living in the 35th of Edward I. The marriage of Richard Bertie son of Robert, who died in 1500, with Katherine daughter of William Willoughby, last Lord Willoughby of Eresby, and widow of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was, as is well known, the origin of the consequence of this right loyal family, five generations of whose history have been so agreeably illustrated by Lady Georgiana Bertie. Grimsthorpe, inherited from the Duchess of Suffolk from her paternal Willoughby ancestors, became the principal seat of the Berties, Barons Willoughby of Eresby and Lords Great Chamberlains of England, advanced in the person of Robert second Lord Willoughby to the Earldom of Lindsey by King Charles I. His great-grandson was created Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven in 1715, which titles became extinct on the decease of the fifth Duke in 1809. The Earldom of Lindsey and representation of the family thereupon devolved on the father of the present Earl, descended from the fifth son of the second Earl of Lindsey by his first wife.

Younger branch, the Earl of Abingdon 1682, Baron Norreys of Rycote 1572, descended from the second marriage of the second Earl of Lindsey and the heiress of Wray, whose mother was the sole heir of Francis Norreys, Earl of Berkshire, and Lord Norreys of Rycote.

See Lady G. Bertie's "Five Generations of a Loyal House," 4to. 1845, and Brydges's Collins, vol. ii. p. 1, vol. iii. 628.

Arms.—Argent, three battering rams barways in pale azure, armed and garnished or. The "docquet or grant" in the fourth of Edward VI. gives the arms, Quarterly, 1 and 4, Argent, a battering ram azure, garnished or; 2 and 3, Sable a tower argent.

Present Representative, George Augustus Frederick Albemarle Bertie, 10th Earl of Lindsey.

"This family is very ancient, for they were gentlemen of good ranke in the time of King John, as it appeareth by many ancient grants and evidences of theirs which I have seen," wrote Peacham in his "Compleate Gentleman," in 1634. (p. 191.) The name is local, being derived from Wodehouse in Silfield, in this county; but as early as the reign of Henry III. the family had property in Kimberley, and in that of Henry IV. the manor was also inherited from the heiress of Fastolff.

See Blomefield's Norfolk, ed. 1739, vol. i. p. 751, for long extracts from the curious old pedigree in verse; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 164; and Brydges's Collins's Peerage, viii. 562.

Arms.—Sable, a chevron or, guttée de sang, between three cinquefoils ermine. This coat is said to have been augmented as now borne, by Henry V. in honour of John Wodehouse's valour at the Battle of Agincourt, the guttée de sang, not at present considered very good heraldry, being then added. The supporters, two wode or wild men, were also, it has been said, then first used.

Present Representative, John Wodehouse, 3rd Baron Wodehouse, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Walpole, in Mershland, in this county, gave name to this historical family, and here Joceline de Walpole was living in the reign of Stephen. Reginald de Walpole, in the time of Henry I. seems to have been lineal ancestor of the house. He was father of Richard, who married Emma, daughter of Walter de Hawton, or Houghton, which at a very early period became the family seat, and which, after the death of the third Earl of the first creation, passed to the issue of his aunt Mary, Viscountess Malpas, daughter of Sir Robert Walpole; whose descendant, the Marquess of Cholmondeley, is the present possessor.

Arms.—Or, on a fess between two chevrons sable three cross-crosslets of the first.

Berney, in the hundred of North Greenhow in this county, doubtless gave name to this ancient family, who are traced pretty nearly to the Conquest. Park Hall, the former seat, is in the parish of Reedham, and was acquired by the marriage of Sir Thomas de Berney with Margaret daughter and heir of Sir William de Reedham in the reign of Edward III.

Younger branch, Berney of Morton Hall in this county, descended from a younger brother of the first Baronet.

See Parkins's continuation of Blomefield's Norfolk, v. 1482; and Wotton's Baronetage, i. 378.

Descended from the noble house of Astley Castle in Warwickshire, and traced to Philip de Estlega in the 12th of Henry II., and in the female line from the Constables of Melton-Constable, which estate came into the family by the second marriage of Thomas Lord Astley with Edith, third sister and coheir of Geffrey de Constable, in the time of Henry III. Astley Castle, the original seat, descended by an heiress to the Greys of Ruthin, afterwards Marquesses of Dorset, and Dukes of Suffolk. Hill-Morton in Warwickshire was also the seat of this family from the reign of Henry III.

The Astleys formerly of Patishull in Staffordshire were the elder branch, sprung from the first marriage of Thomas Lord Astley, who was killed in the Barons' Wars at Evesham, (the 49th of Henry III.,) extinct 1771. The Astleys, now of Everley, in Wiltshire, Baronets 1821, descend from the second son of Walter Astley of Patishull, the father of the first Baronet of that line (1662).

See Parkins's Blomefield's Norfolk, v. 940; Thomas's Dugdale's Warwickshire, i. 19, 107; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 63; for Astleys of Patishull, Shaw's Staffordshire, ii. 287; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 368.

Arms.—Azure, a cinquefoil ermine within a border engrailed or. The Patishull and Everley family omit the border, and it was thus borne by the head of the house in the reign of Richard II. Thomas de Astley, at the same period, differenced his coat by a label of three points or, charged with two bars gules. (Rolls.)

Traditionally a Norman family seated at Bedingfeld, in Suffolk, soon after the Conquest. Oxburgh, or Oxborough, has been the residence of this eminently knightly house from the reign of Edward IV., when it came by the marriage of Edmund Bedingfeld with Margaret, daughter of Robert Tudenham, and to whom licence was granted to build the walls and towers of Oxburgh in the year 1482. The baronetcy was conferred by Charles II. as a mark of his favour and in consideration of the eminent loyalty and consequent sufferings of the family during the usurpation. The Bedingfelds of Ditchingham, in this county, are a younger branch parted from the parent stem as early as the middle of the fourteenth century.

See Blomefield, iii. 482; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 212; and the Rev. G. H. M'Gill's account of Oxburgh Hall in the Proceedings of the Norfolk Archeological Society.

The great historical house of Howard in point of antiquity must yield precedence to many other English families: it can only be traced with certainty to Sir William Howard, Judge of the Common Pleas in 1297. Norfolk appears to be the county where this great family should be noticed, the Duke of Norfolk still possessing property in the county of his dukedom derived from his ancestors of the house of Bigod. In the fourteenth century, by the match with the heiress of Mowbray, the foundation of the honors and consequence of the Howards was laid, the first Duke being the son of Margaret, daughter and coheir of Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The Sussex estates came from the heiress of Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, in the reign of Edward VI.; Worksop from the Talbots; Greystoke and Morpeth from the Dacres.

All the English Peers of the house of Howard are traced to a common ancestor in Thomas, the second Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1524. The Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Suffolk and Carlisle, descend from his first wife, and the Earl of Effingham from the second. The Howards of Greystoke, in Cumberland, are a younger branch of the present ducal house. The Howards of Corby Castle, in the same county, descend from the second son of "Belted Will," the ancestor of the house of Carlisle.

Extinct branches. The Viscount Bindon; the Earls of Northampton, Nottingham, and Stafford; and Lord Howard of Escrick.

See Brydges's Collins, i. 50, for the Duke of Norfolk; iii. 147, for the Earl of Suffolk; iii. 501, for the Earl of Carlisle; and iv. 264, for the Earl of Effingham. See also Cartwright's Rape of Bramber, p. 185; and Dallaway's Rape of Arundel; Hunter's South Yorkshire, ii. 10. For the Howard Monuments at East-Winch, see Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 842-9; for their state in the 18th century Parkins's Blomefield's Norfolk, iv. 746; and Topographer and Genealogist, ii. 90. For the Earl of Carlisle, see Hodgson's History of Northumberland, ii. pt. 2, p. 381; for Howard of Corby, the same vol. p. 477. See also "Historical Anecdotes of some of the Howard Family," 12mo. 1769; Tierney's Castle and Town of Arundel, 8vo. 1834; and Mr. Howard's "Indication of Memorials, &c. of the Howard Family," fol. 1834.

Arms.—Gules, a bend between six cross-crosslets fitcheé argent, on an escucheon a demi-lion pierced through the mouth with an arrow, within a double tressure flory counter-flory gules, granted by patent 5 Henry VIII. to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, in remembrance of the victory gained over the Scots at Flodden. The present coat was borne by Sir John Howard in the reign of Edward II., and by Mr. Howard in those of Edward II. and Richard III.: it has been conjectured, from the similarity of this coat with that of the Botilers, Barons of Wem, (Gules, a fess cheeky argent and sable between six crosses pateé fitchée argent,) that Sir William Howard the Judge was descended from the Hords, stewards to these Barons: it is observable that none of the Howards ever prefixed the de to their name, a fact which opposes their derivation from Hawarden in Flintshire. (Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, pp. 53 note.)

This is a younger branch of the Gurneys of West Barsham in this county, whose principal male line became extinct in 1661, West Barsham came from the heiress of Waunci about the reign of Edward III. Previous to that time the Gurneys appear to have been seated at Harpley, also in Norfolk, as early as 1206, and are traced for two descents beyond that period, being (as there appears no reason to doubt) descended from the great Norman baronial house of the name. The present family may be said to have been refounded by John Gurney, an eminent silk-merchant at Norwich, about 1670. Keswick was purchased in 1747. The Gournays of Somersetshire, represented by the Earls of Egmont, may have been a distinct family; their arms were, Paly of six or and azure. Dugdale, however, gives them a common ancestor with the former house. (Baronage, i. 429.)

See the "Records of the House of Gournay," privately printed, 4to., 1848, and particularly, for the Norman origin of the family page 293 of that work. For the Gournays of Somersetshire, see the History of the House of Ivery. London, 1742, vol. ii. p. 473,

Arms.—Argent, a cross engrailed gules, in the first quarter a cinquefoil azure.

This ancient family is supposed to have the same origin as the noble Norman house of Grey, now represented by the Earl of Stamford; it is traced to William de Grey, of Cavendish, in Suffolk; whose grandson Sir Thomas was seated about 1306 at Cornerth in that county, by his marriage with the heiress of the same name; their son and heir married the coheiress of Baynard, and thus became possessed of Merton, the long-continued seat of this family.

Arms.—Barry of six argent and azure, in chief three annulets gules. The ancient coat of Cornerth, Azure, a fess between two chevronels or, (which was doubtless derived from their superior lords the Baynards,) was borne for many generations by the ancestors of this family.

This family is said to have been established at a period shortly subsequent to the Conquest at Letheringsett, in Norfolk, but is better known as a Suffolk family, having been seated at Monks' Bradfield, in that county, in the reign of Richard I. Redgrave was granted by Henry VIII. in the 36th year of his reign, to the great Sir Nicholas Bacon, who with Francis his son, Viscount St. Alban's, were the principal ornaments of this family. Raveningham descended to the Bacons from the heiress of the ancient family of Castell, or de Castello, about the middle of the 18th century.

See Parkins's Continuation of Blomefield's Norfolk, iv. 262 Wotton's Baronetage, i. 1, and ii. 72.

Arms.—Gules, on a chief argent two mullets pierced sable. This coat was borne by Sir Edmund Bacon, in the reign of Edward II., and by M. Bacon in that of Edward III. (Rolls.) A brass circa A.D. 1320, at Gorleston church, Suffolk, supposed to represent one of this family, bears five lozenges in bend on the field, besides the mullets in chief: see Boutell's Brasses, p. 36.

The ancestors of this ancient house were seated at Horham in Suffolk in the 13th century, "knights of high esteem in those parts," saith Camden, and traced to Sir Hubert Jernegan of that place. Somerleyton, in the same county, derived from the heiress of Fitzosbert, afterwards became the family seat, and so continued until the extinction of the elder line. Cossey was granted to Sir Henry Jerningham, (son of Sir Edward Jerningham, by his second wife,) in 1547, by Queen Mary, "being the first that appeared openly for her after the death of Edward VI." He was the ancestor of Lord Stafford.

See Weever's Ancient Funerall Monuments, p. 769; Blomefield's Norfolk, i. p. 660; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 450; and Suckling's History of Suffolk, ii. p. 46.

Present Representative, Henry Valentine Stafford Jerningham, 9th Baron Stafford.

In 1377, the ancestor of this family was of Snoring Magna in this county. In 1398, John Townshend settled at Rainham, which according to some accounts accrued to them by the heiress of Havile, but the pedigree as given by Collins cannot be relied on, neither can the defamatory account of Leland, who says—"the grandfather of Townsende now living was a meane man of substance." The truth seems to be that the family is old, but not of great account before the time of Sir Walter de Townsend, who married Maud Scogan, and flourished about the year 1400.

See Blomefield, iii. 815; Brydges's Collins, ii. 454; and Leland's Itinerary, iv. p. 13.

This is a younger branch of the very ancient baronial house of Wake, who were Lincolnshire Barons in the reign of Henry I. Sir Hugh Wake was lord of Deeping in the county of Lincoln, and of Blisworth in this county, by gift of his father, Baldwin fourth Lord Wake. He died in 1315, and was the direct ancestor of the present Baronet. See memoir of the family of Wake privately printed in 1833, but written by Archbishop Wake; and Wotton's Baronetage, i. 465.

Arms.—Or, two bars gules, in chief three torteauxes. This coat was borne by Hugh Wake in the reign of Henry III., and again by Sir John Wake in that of Edward II. Sir Hugh Wake at the latter period differenced his arms by a canton azure. His uncle reversed the colours gules and argent, the field being gules. M. Thomas Wake de Blisworth in the reign of Edward III. bore the same arms, with a border engrailed sable. (Rolls of the dates.)

William de Bredenhill, seated at Dodington in Oxfordshire, in the reign of Edward I., and the owner of lands at Aynho in this county at the same period, is the first ascertained ancestor of the Brudenells, whose principal consequence however must be traced to Sir Robert Brudenell, Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the reign of Henry VII., who married a coheiress of Entwisell, and thus became possessed of Dene and of Stanton Wyvill in the county of Leicester.

See the pedigree of this family in Nichols's History of Leicestershire, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 807; see also Brydges's Collins, iii. 487.

Younger branch. The Marquess of Ailesbury (1821), descended from Thomas, fourth son of George fourth Earl of Cardigan, and the Lady Elizabeth Bruce, eldest daughter of Thomas second Earl of Ailesbury.

The first recorded ancestor of this ancient family is Rainald, mesne lord of Knightley, in the county of Stafford, under Earl Roger, in the time of William the Conqueror, as appears by Domesday Book. That estate went out of the family by an heiress who married Robert de Peshall, about the reign of Edward III., and the Knightleys removed to Gnowsall, in the same county, in the 17th of Richard II. (1394). Fawsley was purchased in the 3rd of Henry V. (1415-16). It is thus mentioned by Leland: "Mr. Knightley, a man of great lands, hath his principal house at Foullesle, but it is no very sumptuous thing." (Itin. i. fol. 11.)

See Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 381. Blakeway (Sheriffs of Salop, p. 103) asserts that "the Knightleys appear to have been a branch of the Shirleys," an assumption without any foundation except the similarity of their arms.

Arms.—Quarterly ermine, and paly of six or and gules. This coat was borne as early as 1301-2 (30th Ed. I.) by Sir Robert de Knyteley: it is also borne by Cotes of Cotes, co. Stafford, probably from family connection.

Present Representative, Sir Rainald Knightley, 3rd Baronet, M. P. for South Northamptonshire.

The Spencers claim a collateral descent from the ancient baronial house of Le Despenser, a claim which, without being irreconcileable perhaps with the early pedigrees of that family, admits of very grave doubts and considerable difficulties. It seems to be admitted that they descend from Henry Spencer, who, having been educated in the Abbey of Evesham, obtained from the abbot in the reign of Henry VI. a lease of the domains and tithes of Badby in this county, and was induced to settle there. His son removed to Hodnell in Warwickshire, his grandson to Rodburn in the same county, his great-grandson Sir John purchased Althorpe in 1508. The Spencers of Claverdon, co. Warwick (extinct 1685), were a younger branch. The Dukes of Marlborough (1702) represent the elder line of this family.

The poet Spenser boasted that he belonged to this house; though, says Baker, "the precise link of genealogical connexion cannot now perhaps be ascertained."

Arms.—Quarterly, first and fourth argent, second and third gules, a fret or, over all a bend sable charged with three escallops of the first. This coat, which is differenced from the ancient baronial arms by the three escallop shells, was used by Henry Spencer of Badby, who sealed his will with it. In 1504 another coat was granted, viz. Azure, a fess ermine between six sea-mew's heads erased argent, but the more ancient arms have been generally borne by the Spencers.

This is a junior branch of the Rokebys of Rokeby in Yorkshire, a knightly race immortalized by Scott. The principal line has been long extinct. Sir Thomas Rokeby was Sheriff of Yorkshire in the eighth of Henry IV. The family was seated in the parish of Ecclesfield, and also at Sandal-Parva, in South Yorkshire, where William Rokeby was Rector in the reign of Henry VII. In 1512 he became Archbishop of Dublin. His brother Ralph wrote the history of the family, now in possession of Mr. Rokeby of Arthingworth, and which is printed in Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 158. The present family acquired Arthingworth from the Langhams by marriage in the end of the seventeenth century.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three rooks sable, borne by Mons. Thomas de Rokeby in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. (Rolls of the dates.)

The curious poetical history of this family, preserved in "Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica," claims one "Saher," there written "Sier, the syer of us all," as their ancestor: he is stated to have been the son of Ralph Maunsel, who was living in Buckinghamshire in the 14th of Henry II. (1167). Thickthornes in Chicheley in that county appears to have been the residence of the Maunsells, and also Turvey in Bedfordshire. These lands were sold by William the son of Sampson le Maunsel of Turvey to William Mordaunt in 1287. The Maunsells afterwards settled at Bury-End in Chicheley, and in 1622 at Thorpe-Malsor.

Elder Branches. 1. Maunsell of Muddlescombe, co. Carmarthen, Baronet 1621-2. 2. The extinct Barons Maunsell, created 1711, extinct 1744.

Younger Branch. Maunsell of Cosgrave in this county, which came from the coheiress of Furtho.

See Coll. Topog. et Genealog. i. p. 389; Baker's Northamptonshire, ii. p. 132; and Memoirs of the family, an unfinished work privately printed in 1850 by William W. Maunsell, esq.

Present Representative, Thomas Philip Maunsell, Esq. late M. P. for North Northamptonshire.

The name is local, from Isham in the hundred of Orlingbury in this county, where an elder branch of the family was seated soon after the Conquest. Robert Isham, who died in 1424, is however the first ancestor from whom the pedigree can with certainty be deduced. He was Escheator of the county of Northampton, and was of Picheley (a lordship contiguous to Isham) in the first of Henry V. Lamport was purchased by John Isham, the immediate ancestor of the present family, fourth son of Sir Euseby Isham, of Picheley, Knight, in the year 1559. He was an eminent merchant of London.

Arms.—Gules, a fess and in chief three piles wavy argent. This coat was borne by Robert de Isham in the 2nd of Richard II.

This family appears to have been founded by the law early in the fifteenth century, and descends from William Palmer, who was established at the present seat of Carlton in the ninth of Henry IV. The celebrated Sir Geoffry Palmer, Attorney-General to Charles II. was the first Baronet.

See Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 19; and Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 543.

The Fanes or Vanes are said to have originated from Wales; in the reign of Henry VI. they were seated at Hilden in Tunbridge, in Kent, by a marriage with the Peshalls. In 1574 Sir Thomas Fane married Mary daughter and heir of Henry Neville, Lord Abergavenny; hence the importance of the family, and the Earldom of Westmoreland, the ancient honour of the house of Neville. Apthorp came from the heiress of Mildmay, about the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

Younger Branches. Fane of Wormesley, Oxfordshire, descended from Henry Fane, Esq., younger brother of Thomas eighth Earl of Westmoreland. The Duke of Cleveland (1833) and Sir Henry Vane, of Hutton Hall in Cumberland, Baronet (1786), descend from John younger brother of Richard Fane, ancestor of the Earl of Westmoreland.

See Brydges's Collins, iii. 283, and iv. 499; Hasted's Kent, ii. 265; and Blore's Rutlandshire, p. 103.

Robert Fitz-Roger, Baron of Warkworth, the ancestor of this great Norman family, was father of John, who assumed the name of "Clavering," from a lordship in Essex, as it is said, by the appointment of King Edward I. From Sir Alan, younger brother of John, the present family is descended. Callaly was granted to Robert Fitz-Roger by Gilbert de Callaly in the reign of Henry III., and has ever since continued in the possession of the house of Clavering.

Younger Branches. Clavering of Axwell, co. Durham, Baronet 1661, descended from James, third son of Robert Clavering of Callaly. Clavering of Berrington in North Durham, descended from William, third son of Sir John Clavering, who died a prisoner in London for his loyalty to King Charles I. Extinct about 1812.

See Nicolas's Siege of Carlaverock, pp. 115, 117; Mackenzie's View of Northumberland, vol. ii. p. 27; Surtees's Durham, ii. 248; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 295; and Raine's North Durham, p. 213.

Arms.—Quarterly or and gules, a bend sable, and so borne by Robert Fitz-Roger, as appears by the Roll of Carlaverock, and by his son John de Clavering, who differenced his coat by a label vert. Sir Alexander de Clavering, in the reign of Edward II., charged the bend with three mullets argent. John Clavering, in the reign of Richard II., the same arms, with a label of three points argent. (Rolls of the dates.)

Descended from Mathew, brother of John, who is said to have held the Castle of Mitford soon after the Conquest, and by whose only daughter and heiress it went to the Bertrams. The ancestors of the present family appear to have been for many ages resident at Mitford, though the castle was not in their possession till it was granted with the manor by Charles II. to Robert Mitford, Esq.

Younger Branches. Mitford of Pitshill, co. Sussex, descended from the fourth son of Robert Mitford of Mitford Castle, Esq., Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1702. Mitford of Exbury, co. Southampton, sprung from the third son of Robert Mitford, of Mitford Castle, Esq., who died in 1674. From this latter branch Mitford Baron Redesdale (1803) of Batsford, co. Gloucester, is derived.

See Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 44 and for Mitford of Exbury the same work, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 152; see also Brydges's Collins, ix. 182.

Swinburne in this county gave name to this ancient family, the first recorded ancestor being John, father of Sir William de Swinburne, living in 1278, and Alan Swinburne, Rector of Whitfield, who purchased Capheaton from Sir Thomas Fenwick, Knt., in 1274.

Chollerton in Northumberland was also an ancient seat of the Swinburnes; it was held under the great Umfrevile family by this same Sir William de Swinburne, the arms being evidently founded upon the coat of the Umfreviles. The date of the baronetcy points to the loyalty of the family during the civil wars of the seventeenth century.

See the early part of the pedigree in Surtees's Durham, ii. 872; Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 231; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 167.

Arms.—Per fess gules and argent, three cinquefoils counterchanged, borne by Monsieur William Swynburne in the reign of Richard II. (Roll of the date.)

John de Middleton, father of Sir Richard Middleton, sometime secretary and chancellor to King Henry III., is the first on record of the ancestors of this family. The castle of Belsey appears to have come from the heiress of Stryvelin in the reign of Edward III. The name was exchanged for Monck in 1799. A younger branch, now extinct, was of Silksworth, co. Durham.

See Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 353; "The Record of the House of Gourney," 4to, pr. pr. 1848, p. 560; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 382.

In 1272, King Edward I. granted in the first year of his reign the lands of Biddleston to Sir Walter de Selby: it has ever since remained in the possession of his descendants, and has been usually the chief seat of the Selbys. Their early history unfortunately is defective, occasioned by an accidental fire which took place at Allenton in 1721, at that time the residence of the family, whose evidences were thereby mostly destroyed.

For the grant above mentioned, and for the pedigree, see Mackenzie's View of Northumberland, ii. 39.

An eminent border family, of which there have been many branches, descended from Thomas Grey of Heton, living in the second of Edward I. (1273), and from Sir John Grey of Berwick, living in 1372, who was ancestor of the baronial house of Grey of Wark and Chillingham, and of the Howick family, founded by Sir Edward Grey of Howick, who died in 1532, and was the fourth son of. Sir Ralph Grey of Chillingham.

"No family perhaps in the whole of England," writes Raine in his admirable History of North Durham, "has in the course of the centuries through which the line of Grey can be traced, afforded so great a variety of character."

Younger Branches. Sir George Grey, Baronet 1814, and Grey of Morwick, co. Northumberland.

See the curious and valuable "Illustrations of the Pedigree of Grey," in Raine's North Durham, p. 327, &c.; Surtees's Durham, ii. 19; and Brydges's Collins, v. 676.

Arms.—Gules, a lion rampant within a border engrailed argent, a mullet for difference. The present coat was borne by Monsieur Thomas Grey, as appears by the Roll of the reign of Richard II.

This is said to be a Norman family, and to have been originally settled in the county of Durham. Kirk-Harle was inherited from Johanna, daughter of William, son of Alan del Strother, in the time of Henry IV.

See Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 246; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 433.

Arms.—Quarterly sable and argent, a plain cross counter quartered of the field. Another coat, viz. Argent, five lozenges conjoined in pale azure, in the dexter chief an escucheon of the second, is given in Courthope's Debrett's Baronetage.

The pedigree is not regularly traced beyond Robert de Hagreston, Lord of Hagreston in 1399, although a Robert de Hagardeston occurs in 1312. It has been supposed that this family is of Scotch extraction; but a fire which took place at Haggerston Castle, the ancestral seat of this house, in the year 1618, and another which happened in 1687, having destroyed the ancient evidences, the early history is somewhat imperfect.

See Mackenzie's Northumberland, i. p. 328, note; Raine's North Durham, p. 224; and Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 388.

Arms.—Azure, on a bend cotised argent three billets sable. The ancient arms of this venerable family, of which Raine writes, "few families can boast of such a pedigree or of such a shield of arms," was a scaling ladder between two leaves, alluding to the coat of Hazlerigg, an heiress of that house having married into the Haggerston family. The arms were so borne in 1577, as appears by a seal of that date: the scaling ladder was afterwards corrupted into the bendlets and billets.

The pedigree is proved for three descents before the reign of Henry VIII., the original seat of the family being at Willimoteswick in this county, of which place Nicholas de Rydle is designated Esquire in 1481; here also was born the Martyr Bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley, early in the sixteenth century.

The present family is a younger branch, seated at Blagdon and inheriting the baronetcy on the death of Sir Mathew White in 1763.

See Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 322, and vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 340.

Arms.—Gules, a chevron between three goshawks argent. The more ancient coat was, Argent, an ox passant gules through reeds proper.

Gervase de Clifton, living in the fifth of John, is the patriarch of this honourable family, who took their name from the manor of Clifton, which was the inheritance of Sir Gervase Clifton, in the ninth of Edward II. One of the most remarkable members was the first Baronet, Sir Gervase Clifton, who died in 1666, "very prosperous and beloved of all, after having been the husband of seven wives."

See an interesting account of him and of the family and their curious monuments in Thoroton's Antiquities of Nottinghamshire, p. 53, &c.; see also Wotton's Baronetage, i. 34.

Arms.—Sable, semee of cinquefoils, and a lion rampant argent, armed and langued gules. This coat reversed was borne by Monsieur John de Clyfton, in the reign of Richard II. (Roll of the date.)

Sutton-upon-Trent gave name to this ancient family, the first upon record being Roland, son of Hervey, who lived in the reign of Henry III., and married Alice, daughter and coheiress of Richard de Lexington. From this match came the manor of Averham or Egram in this county, which long continued the seat and residence of the Suttons, who were represented in the days of Queen Elizabeth by Sir William Sutton, whom her Majesty coupled, not in the most complimentary manner, with three other eminent Nottinghamshire knights in the following distich:—

In 1646, Robert Sutton, the head of this family, was raised to the Peerage as Baron Lexington, extinct 1723, who is represented in the female line by Viscount Canterbury. The present family descend from Henry, younger brother of the first Lord Lexington.

See Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, pp. 327, 359; and Courthope's Debrett's Baronetage, p. 195.

Stanhope, in the wapentake of Darlington in the bishoprick of Durham, gave name to this knightly family, of whom the first recorded ancestor is Walter de Stanhope, whose son Richard died at Stanhope, in 1338 or 1339. In the reign of Edward III. we find Sir Richard Stanhope, grandson of Walter, Mayor of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Hampton and other manors in this county came by marriage with the heiress of Maulovel about 1370; but on the death of Richard Stanhope in 1529, these estates went to his only daughter and heiress, who became the wife of John Babington. The monastery of Shelford was soon after this period granted to Sir Michael Stanhope (in the 31st of Henry VIII).

Younger Branches. 1. Stanhope of Holme-Lacy, Baronet 1807, descended from the youngest brother of the great-grandfather of the present Earl. 2. Stanhope Earl Stanhope 1718, descended from the eldest son of the second marriage of the first Earl of Chesterfield. 3. Stanhope Earl of Harrington 1742, descended from Sir John Stanhope, younger brother by the half-blood of the first Earl of Chesterfield.

See Lord Mahon's (now Earl Stanhope) Notices of the Stanhopes. 8vo., 1855; Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, 147; Surtees's Durham, ii. 46; and Brydges's Collins, iii. 407, iv. 171, and 284.

Arms.—Quarterly ermine and gules. And so borne in the reign of Edward III., but after the match with Maulovel, who brought into the family the estate and seat of Rampton from the heiress of Longvillers, the arms of that family, viz. Sable, a bend between six cross-crosslets argent, were assumed; on losing that great estate, Sir Michael Stanhope resumed the more ancient coat in the reign of Henry VIII.

This is a younger and now the only remaining male branch of the great Lincolnshire family of Willoughby, descended from Sir Thomas Willoughby, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the reign of Henry VIII., youngest son of Sir Christopher Willoughby of Eresby, who was sprung from Sir William Willoughby of Willoughby in Lincolnshire, and lord of that manor in the reign of Edward I. Wollaton was inherited from the heiress of Willoughby (of another family) in the thirty-eighth year of Queen Elizabeth.

See Brydges's Collins, vi. 591, vii. 215; and for the Nottinghamshire family, see Thoroton, p. 221; and for the tombs of this ancient house, pp. 36, 223, 227; see also Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd ed. vol. ii. p. 1052.

Arms.—Or, fretty azure. And so borne by Robert de Willoughby in 1300, as appears by the Roll of Carlaverock; but after the death of Bishop Bek, his maternal uncle, in the 4th of Edward II. he adopted the coat of Bek, Gules, a mill-rind argent. See Nicolas's Roll of Carlaverock, p, 328.

Willoughby of Wollaton and of Middleton in the county of Warwick bore, Or, two bars gules, the upper charged with two waterbougets, the lower with one waterbouget, argent.

The Clintons are traced to the reign of Henry I., when, by favour of that king, Geffery de Clinton "was raised from the dust," as a contemporary writer affirms, and made Justice of England. He was enriched by large grants of land from the crown, and built the castle of Kenilworth. The present family descend from the brother of this Geffery, whose issue were of Coleshill and Maxtoke in Warwickshire, of which latter place John de Clinton was created Baron in 1298. His descendant, Edward Lord Clinton, was advanced to the Earldom of Lincoln in 1572. No family was more nobly allied, few had broader possessions—all have been long dissipated; but a fortunate match with the eventual heiress of Pelham in 1717 revived the drooping fortunes of the Clintons; hence the estate of Clumber, the former seat of the Holles family, and the Dukedom of Newcastle.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd ed. vol. ii. pp. 992, 1007; and Brydges's Collins, ii. 181.

Arms.—Argent, three cross crosslets fitchée sable, on a chief azure two mullets pierced of the first. The original arms, as borne by Thomas de Clinton in the reign of Henry III., appears to have been a plain chief. See his seal engraved in Upton, de Studio Militari, p. 82. In the reign of Edward II. Sir John Clinton of Maxtoke bore, Argent, on a chief azure two mullets or. At the same period another Sir John Clinton bore, Or, three piles azure, a canton ermine. His son in the fifth of Edward III. bore, Argent, on a chief azure two fleurs-de-lis or. William Clinton, Earl of Huntingdon, at the same period bore the present coat with the exception of three mullets or in place of the two mullets argent, and John Clinton omitted the crosslets. William Clinton, Lord of Allesley, who lived at the same period, bore the present coat. John de Clinton in the succeeding reign, bore two mullets of six points or pierced gules, and Thomas de Clynton the same with a label of three points ermine.

See Willement's and Nicolas's Rolls, and Montagu's Guide to the Study of Heraldry, p. 51.

Present Representative, Henry Pelham Alexander Pelham-Clinton, 6th Duke of Newcastle.

The Eyres appear as witnesses to charters in the Peak of Derbyshire in the remotest period to which private charters ascend. The first of the name known is William le Eyre, of Hope, in the reign of Henry III. In the reign of Henry V. the family divided into three great branches: the present house descends from Eyre of Laughton in South Yorkshire, who spring from Eyre of Home Hall near Chesterfield. One moiety of Rampton was purchased by Anthony Eyre in the reign of Elizabeth; the other came from the coheiress of Babington, in 1624.

See Hunter's South Yorkshire, i. 288; see also Lysons's Derbyshire, lxxxiii., for a note on the various branches of Eyre, and Gent. Mag. 1795, pp. 121, 212.

Extinct Branches. 1. Eyre of Highlow, who adopted the names of Archer, Newton, and Gell. 2. Eyre of Normanton-upon-Soar. 3. Eyre Earl of Newburgh.

"Stonor is a 3 miles out of Henley. Ther is a fayre parke and a warren of connies and fayre woods. The mansion place standithe clyminge on a hille, and hathe 2 courtes buyldyd withe tymbar, brike, and flynte; Sir Walter Stonor, now possessor of it, hathe augmentyd and strengthed the howse. The Stonors hathe longe had it in possessyon syns one Fortescue invadyd it by mariage of an heire generall of the Stonors, but after dispocessed." Thus wrote Leland in his Itinerary, (vii. fo. 62a.): to which it may be added that the family has the reputation of being very ancient, and may certainly be traced to the twelfth century as resident at Stonor. In the reigns of Edward II. and III., Sir John Stonor, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, (whose tomb is preserved in the chancel of Dorchester church in this county,) was the representative and great advancer of the family.

See Magna Britannia, iv. 425; and the first edition of Burke's Commoners, ii. 440; see also Excerpta Historica, p. 353, for some curious letters of the Stonors of the time of Edward IV.

Arms.—Azure, two bars dancetté or, a chief argent. Monsieur John de Stonor bore, Azure, a fess dancetté and chief or, in the reign of Edward III. (Roll.)

This ancient family is traced to the commencement of the fourteenth century, when Robert Wykeham was Lord of Swalcliffe, the original seat of the Wykehams in this county, and possessed by the late W. H. Wykeham, Esq., who died in 1800, and still, I believe, belonging to his daughter the Baroness Wenman. Tythrop came from the Herberts by will to the late P. P. Wykeham, Esq. uncle of Lady Wenman.

The relationship of the great William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, with this family is a disputed point, for which see Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, ii. 225, 368, iii. 178, 245; see also the Topographer and Genealogist, iii. 49, for a very interesting paper on this subject by C. Wykeham Martin, Esq., M.P.

Arms.—Allowed by Robert Cooke, Clarencieux, in 1571.—Argent, two chevronels sable between three roses gules, barbed and seeded proper. This coat was borne by the great Bishop, though when he was Archdeacon of Lincoln he bore but one chevron between the roses. But the herald Glover attributed a variation of the arms of Chamberlaine, derived from the Counts of Tankerville, to Wykeham of Swalcliffe, viz: Ermine, on a bordure gules six mullets or.

This is the eldest branch of the great family of Blount or le Blond, whose origin has been traced by the late Sir Alexander Croke to the Counts of Guisnes before the Norman Conquest. Robert le Blount, whose name is found recorded in Domesday, was a considerable landholder in Suffolk, Ixworth in that county being the seat of his Barony. Belton in Rutlandshire was afterwards inherited by his descendants from the Odinsels, and Hampton-Lovet, in the county of Worcester, from the Lovet family. In 1404, Nicholas le Blount, who had been deeply engaged in the conspiracy to restore Richard II. to his throne, changed his name to Croke, on his return to England, in order to avoid the revenge of Henry IV. The Crokes afterwards became a legal family, and seated themselves at Chilton in Buckinghamshire. The priory of Studley was purchased from Henry VIII. by John Croke, in 1539.

Younger Branches. Blount of Sodington, in the county of Worcester, and of Mawley Hall in Shropshire, descended from William, second son of Sir Robert le Blount, who died in 1288, and the heiress of Odinsels. The Blounts of Maple-Durham in this county, and the extinct Lords Mountjoy, are of a still junior line to the house of Sodington. The other extinct branches are too numerous to mention.

See Croke's Genealogy of the Croke Family, 4to. 1823, and "The Scrope and Grosvenor Roll," vol. ii. p. 192, for a memoir of Sir Walter Blount, who fell at the battle of Shrewsbury together with Sir Hugh Shirley and two other knights in the royal coat-armour of Henry the Fourth—

Arms.—For Blount. Barry nebulée of six or and sable. For Croke, Gules, a fess between six martlets argent. The more ancient coat was, Lozengy or and sable, which was borne by William le Blount in the reign of Henry III. Sir William le Blount of Warwickshire, (so called because he held under the Earl of Warwick,) bore the present nebulée coat in the reign of Edward II. Sir Thomas le Blount at the same period the fess between three martlets, now called the coat of Croke. (Rolls of the dates.)

A Lancashire family of good antiquity, and until the middle of the last century lords of Ashurst in that county, where they appear to have been seated not long after the Conquest. In the reign of James II. the eldest son of a younger brother was created a Baronet, of Waterstock in this county. His daughter and eventual heiress married Sir Richard Allin, Baronet, whose daughter, marrying Mr. Ashurst of Ashurst, great-grandfather of the present representative of the family, brought the estate of Waterstock into the elder line of the Ashursts.

Arms.—Gules, a cross between four fleurs-de-lis argent. The Baronet family bore the cross engrailed or, and but one fleur-de-lis of the same.

Ralph, surnamed Brito de Annesley, living in the second year of Henry II. (1156,) is assumed to have been son of Richard, of Annesley, in the county of Nottingham, mentioned in the Domesday Survey. That estate continued in the Annesleys till the death of John de Annesley, Esq., in 1437, when it went by an heiress to the Chaworths. The family then removed to Rodington in the same county, and afterwards to Newport-Pagnell in Buckinghamshire; but Ireland was the scene of the prosperity of the family, early in the seventeenth century, which may be said to have been re-founded by Sir Francis Annesley, Secretary of State in 1616. Hence the Viscountcy of Valentia, which afterwards merged in the Earldom of Anglesey in England, adjudged by the English House of Lords to be extinct in 1761; but by the same evidence the Viscountcy of Valentia was allowed to the grandson of the last Earl of Anglesey, whom the English House of Lords found to be illegitimate. He was created Earl of Mountnorris in Ireland in 1793, and on the decease of the last Earl in 1844, the Irish Viscountcy and the representation of the family descended to Arthur Annesley of Bletchingdon, Esq., descended from the second marriage of the first Viscount Valentia.

Younger Branches. 1. Annesley of Clifford Chambers, co. Gloucester. 2. The Earl of Annesley in Ireland, 1789.

See Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 502; Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, p. 251; Archdall's Lodge, iv. 99; and the Tyndale Genealogy, privately printed, folio, 1843.

Arms.—Paly of six argent and azure, a bend gules. Monsieur de Annesley bore, Paly of six argent and gules, a bend vairy argent and sable, in the reign of Edward III. The present coat was borne by John de Annesley in the reign of Richard II. (Rolls.)

The family of Villers or Villiers is ancient in Leicestershire, Alexander de Villiers being lord of Brokesby in that county early in the thirteenth century. The present coat of arms is said to have been assumed in the reign of Edward I., as a badge of Sir Richard de Villers' services in the crusades. "Villiers of Brokesby" occurs among the gentlemen of Leicestershire, "that be there most of reputation," in the Itinerary of Leland the antiquary in the reign of Henry VIII. But the great rise of the family was in the reign of James I., when the favourite Sir George Villiers became Duke of Buckingham in 1623, extinct 1687. The Earls of Jersey are sprung from the second but elder brother of the first duke. Their connection with Oxfordshire appears not to have been before the middle of the last century. Brokesby was sold by Sir William Villiers, who died s. p. 1711.

Younger Branch. The Earl of Clarendon (1776), descended from the second son of the second Earl of Jersey.

Extinct branch. The Earl of Grandison in Ireland, 1721; extinct 1766; descended from the elder brother of Sir Edward Villiers, who died 1689, ancestor of the Earl of Jersey.

See Leland's Itinerary, i. fol. 23, and vi. fol. 65; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. pt. i. p. 197; and Brydges's Collins, iii. 762.

Arms.—Argent, on a cross gules five escallops or. The ancient arms founded on those of the Bellemonts Earls of Leicester were Sable, three cinquefoils argent.

The younger, but I believe now the only remaining, line of a family formerly seated at Coker in the county of Somerset, where it can be traced to the time of Edward I. Mapouder in Dorsetshire, derived from the heiress of Veale in the reign of Henry V., became afterwards the family seat. In 1554, John Coker, who appears to have been second son of Thomas Coker, of Mapouder, purchased the Manor of "Nuns' Place or King's End in Biscester," which has since remained the residence of this ancient family.

See Coker's Survey of Dorsetshire, p. 98; Hutchins's History of Dorsetshire, vol. iii. p. 273; Kennett's Parochial Antiquities, 1st. ed. p. 109; and Burke's Commoners, 2nd ed. vol. iii. p. 347.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend gules three leopard's heads or. The Mapouder line bore the arms within a border engrailed sable; but the elder branch of the family, who are represented by the Seymours Dukes of Somerset, omitted the border.

By the decease of the late Thomas Hawe Parker, Esq., of Park Hall, in the county of Stafford, the representation of the family has devolved upon the Earl of Macclesfield, who represents the junior line. The Parkers were established at Park Hall, in the parish of Caverswall, in the seventeenth century, having been previously seated at Parwich, and before that at Norton-Lees, in the county of Derby. The first recorded ancestor, Thomas Parker, was of Bulwell, in Nottinghamshire, in the reign of Richard II. He married the heiress of Gotham, and from hence, says Lysons, the seat of Norton-Lees.

See Lysons's Derbyshire, p. cxxxviii.; Brydges's Collins, iv, 190; and Ward's Stoke-upon-Trent, p. 561.

Present Representative, Thomas Augustus Wolstenholme Parker, 6th Earl of Macclesfield.

The Wingfields of Wingfield and Letheringham, both in Suffolk, a distinguished family of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are traced nearly to the Conquest, though they do not appear to have been lords of the manor or castle of Wingfield before the reign of Edward II. The elder branch of this family is represented by the Viscount Powerscourt in Ireland, descended from Lewis the ninth son of Sir John Wingfield of Letheringham. The present family is sprung from Henry, a younger brother of this Sir John, who died in 1481. Tickencote was acquired by marriage in the reign of Elizabeth with the heiress of Gresham.

Younger Branch. Wingfield of Onslow in Shropshire, according to the Visitation of that county, descended from Anthony Wingfield of Glossop, co. Derby, younger son of Sir Robert Wingfield of Letheringham, who died in 1431.

See the elaborate dissertation on the House of Wingfield in the second volume of Anstis's Register of the Order of the Garter; see also Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, pp. 147, 150; Camden's Visitation of the county of Huntingdon, 1613, (printed by the Camden Society,) p. 125, &c.; and Blore's Rutlandshire, (fo. 1811,) for full pedigrees of the different branches formerly seated at Crowfield and Dunham-Magna, co. Norfolk; Kimbolton Castle, co. Huntingdon; Letheringham and Brantham, co. Suffolk; and Upton, co. Northampton, p. 65-70. For Viscount Powerscourt, see Archdall's Lodge, v. 255.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend gules cotised sable three pair of wings conjoined of the field. In the reign of Richard II. Monsieur William Wyngefeld bore, Gules, two wings conjoined in lure argent. (Roll.)

Pre-eminent among the ancient aristocracy of Shropshire is the House of Corbet, descended from "Roger, son of Corbet," so called in the Domesday Survey. In the twelfth century the Corbets divided into two branches; the elder was seated at Wattlesborough, the younger at Caus-Castle. In the time of Henry III. the former became of Moreton-Corbet, derived from the heiress of the Anglo-Saxon family of Toret; but the Caus-Castle line was by far the most eminent, and became barons of the realm. In the reign of Richard II. several of the most ancient of the Corbet estates were lost by an heiress; and this happened again in 1583, when the lands brought into the family by the heiress of Hopton went by marriage to the Wallops and Careys. Moreton-Corbet remained till 1688, when it also descended to the sister of Sir Vincent Corbet; but the male line was still preserved by the Corbets of Shrewsbury, and the ancient estate of Moreton-Corbet re-purchased about 1743.

Younger Branch. Corbett of Elsham (co. Lincoln) and of Darnhall (co. Chester,) descended from Robert second son of Sir Vincent Corbet, of Moreton-Corbet, who died in 1622.

Extinct Branches. 1. Corbet of Stoke and Adderley in this county, Baronet 1627, sprung from Reginald third son of Sir Robert Corbet of Moreton-Corbet; extinct 1780. 2. Corbet of Hadley in this county, descended from the second marriage of Sir Roger Corbet of Wattlesborough, who died temp. King John. The heiress married John Greville, in the 7th Henry V. 3. Corbet of Longnor in this county, and of Leighton, co. Montgomery, Baronet 1642, descended also from John third son of Peter Corbet, Baron of Caus, and Alice Orreby; extinct 1814. 4. Corbet of Sundorne, formerley of Leigh in this county, descended from John third son of Peter Corbet, Baron of Caus, and of Alice his wife, daughter of Sir Fulke de Orreby; extinct 1859.

See Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, fol. Shrewsbury, 1831, pp. 37, 63, 65, 230, &c., corrected by the MSS. of the late Mr. Joseph Morris of Shrewsbury;* see also Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. vii. p. 5; and Gent. Mag. for 1809, pp. 599, 903.

Arms.—Or, a raven proper. The present coat, "Or, un corbyn de sable," was borne by Sir Peter Corbet in the reign of Edward II.; but Thomas Corbet, in that of Henry III., bore "Or, 2 corbeaux sable," which, with the addition of a bordure engrailed sable, is the coat of the Corbets of Sundorne. Or, three ravens in pale proper, was borne by Corbet of Hadley, and was so borne by Sir Thomas Corbet in the reign of Edward II. (Rolls.)

The Leightons are stated to have been seated at Leighton in this county prior to the Conquest: Domesday has "Rainald (vicecom') ten' Lestone; Leuui tenuit temp. Reg. Edw." Hence there can be no doubt the name Lestone, i.e. Lewi's-town, now Leighton, was derived. Certain it is that the direct ancestors of the family of Leighton were resident there at the very commencement of the twelfth century. From Rainald the sheriff, who was the superior lord of Leighton when Domesday was compiled, that and all his other manors passed in marriage with his daughter to Alan, the ancestor of the Fitz-Alan family; and in the Liber Niger, under the year 1167, Richard son of Tiel (Tihel) is stated to hold Leighton under William Fitz-Alan by the service of one knight. This Richard was the undoubted ancestor of this ancient family. Leighton is now severed from the inheritance of the male line of the Leightons, belonging to Robert Gardner, Esq., whose wife was the heiress of the Kinnersleys, descended in the female line from the second marriage of Sir Thomas Leighton, knighted in 1513. Church Stretton, acquired by the heiress of Cambray in the fifteenth century, was for four generations the family seat. Loton (an ancient Corbet estate) was acquired by marriage with a coheiress of Burgh, by John Leighton, Sheriff of Shropshire in 1468.

See Eyton's Shropshire, vii. p. 325; Wotton's Baronetage, iv. 38; Blakeway, pp. 74, 75, 80, 91; Stemmata Botvilliana, 1858; and Morris MSS.

Arms.—Quarterly per fess indented or and gules. In 1315, Sir Richard de Leighton bore the present coat differenced by a bendlet, as appears by his seal attached to a deed still preserved at Loton: the same arms are on his monument, formerly in Buildwas Abbey, and now in Leighton church.

Present Representative, Sir Baldwin Leighton, 7th Baronet, late M.P. for South Salop.

A family of acknowledged antiquity, whose ancestor Richard de Sanford was certainly seated at Sandford soon after the Conquest, and which has ever since remained their principal seat; it is in the parish of Prees, and is mentioned by Leland in his Itinerary. The Herald of the eighteenth century, and the late excellent Bishop of Edinburgh, were both of this family.

Younger Branch. Sandford of the Isle House near Shrewsbury, parted from the parent stem in the fifteenth century, and who also by marriage represent the ancient Shropshire families of Sprenghose and Winsbury.

Arms.—Quarterly per fess indented azure and ermine. The Sandfords of the Isle bear, Party per chevron sable and ermine, in chief two boar's heads couped close or.

The Kynastons are lineal descendants of the ancient British Princes of Powys, sprung from Griffith, son of Iorwerth Goch, who took refuge in this county; where, as it is stated in the Testa de Nevill, King Henry II. gave him the manors of Rowton and Ellardine, in the parish of High Ercall, and Sutton and Brocton in the parish of Sutton, to be held in capite by the service of being latimer (i.e. interpreter) between the English and Welsh. He married Matilda, younger sister and coheir of Ralph le Strange, and in her right became possessed of the manor of Kinnerley and other estates in Shropshire. Madoc, the eldest son of Griffith, seated himself at Sutton, from him called to this day "Sutton Madoc;" Griffith Vychan, the younger son, had Kinnerley, a portion of his mother's inheritance, and in that manor he resided at Tre-gynvarth, Anglicè Kynvarth's Town, usually written and spoken as Kynaston; and hence the name of the family. Griffith or Griffin de Kyneveston, son of Griffith Vychan, was witness to a grant of land to the abbey of Haghmond in 1313. His lineal descendant Roger Kynaston fought at Blore Heathe in 1459, and Lord Audley the Lancastrian General is supposed to have fallen by his hand; hence the second quarter in the arms, and for this and other services he received the honour of knighthood. The Kynastons, from the place so called, went to Hordley, and latterly in the seventeenth century removed to Hardwicke.

The Kynastons of Oteley, extinct early in the eighteenth century, were an elder branch; they acquired Oteley by the marriage of an heiress of that ancient house in the reign of Henry VII., and were descended from John, elder brother of Sir Roger Kynaston before mentioned.

Arms.—Quarterly, 1 and 4, Argent, a lion rampant sable; 2 and 3, Ermine, a chevron gules. Sir John de Kynastone in the reign of Edward II. bore, Sable, a lion rampant queve forchée or. (Roll.)

This is the only remaining branch of the once powerful family of Cornewall, for so many ages Barons of Burford, (though without a summons to parliament,) descended from Richard, natural son of Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, and second son of John King of England: (an illegitimacy however which was denied at the Heralds' Visitation of this county in 1623, by Sir Thomas Cornewall, of Burford, who stated that the said Richard was the legitimate son of Richard Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, by Sanchia of Provence, his second wife). The Barony of Burford came into the Cornewall family before he ninth of Edward II. with the coheiress of Mortimer, and continued with the descendants till the death of Francis, Baron of Burford, in 1726. The present family is sprung from a younger line, seated at Berrington in the county of Hereford, in the fifteenth century, and which estate was sold in the eighteenth. Delbury was purchased by and became the seat of Frederick Cornewall, Esq. who died in 1788, and was father of the late Bishop of Worcester.

Arms.—Ermine, a lion rampant gules crowned or within a bordure engrailed sable bezantee. "Jeffery de Cornewall" and "Symon de Cornewall" bore, Argent, a lion rampant gules crowned or, with a baston sable, the first charged with three mullets or, the second with three bezants. (Roll of the reign of Edward III.) The present coat was borne by Monsieur Bryan Cornewall, in the reign of Richard II. (Roll.)

The first recorded ancestor of this loyal family is Ralph de Wigmore, lord of Lingen, in the county of Hereford, founder of the Priory of Lyngbroke. His son and grandson John took the name of Lingen: the latter is recorded in the Testa de Nevill as holding various estates in Herefordshire, "of the old feoffment," that is, by descent from the time of King Henry I. His lineal descendant, Sir John Lingen, of Lingen and Sutton, in the county of Hereford, having married in the reign of Edward IV. the daughter and coheiress of Sir John Burgh, succeeded to considerable estates in Shropshire, and to the manor of Radbrook, in the county of Gloucester, until recently the inheritance of his descendants. Longnor, the ancient seat of the Burtons, came into the family in 1722, by the marriage of Thomas Lingen, Esq. of Radbrook, with Anne, only daughter of Robert Burton, Esq. and sister and heir of Thomas Burton, of Longnor, Esq. Their son assumed the name of Burton by Act of Parliament in 1748.

The origin of this knightly family has been recently explored by Mr. Eyton in his Antiquities of Shropshire, and from that valuable authority it appears that Edward and Hernulf, living in the first half of the twelfth century, were lords of Harley, and the ancestors of the race who were afterwards denominated therefrom. Sixth in descent from William de Harley living in 1231 was Sir Robert de Harley, who having married the coheiress of Brampton Bryan, in the county of Hereford, that place became the residence of his descendants, sprung from Sir Bryan his second son. The Shropshire estates went to the elder son, and passed through heiresses first to the Peshalls, and thence to the Lacons. Fifth in descent from Sir Bryan de Harley was John Harley, Esq. who signalised himself at Flodden Field in 1513. His eldest son was ancestor of the Earls of Oxford (1711,) extinct 1853. The present family, who now represent this ancient lineage, are descended from William third son of the above mentioned John. He died in 1600, having seated himself at Beckjay, in this county. The family afterwards became citizens of Shrewsbury, and acquired Down-Rossal, the present seat, in 1852.

See Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. vi. p. 230; Collins's Noble Families, p. 184; Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 37; and Morris MSS.

Arms.—Or, a bend cotised sable, and which was borne by Sir Richard de Harlee in the reign of Edward II. (Roll.)

This is a younger branch of an ancient Lincolnshire family, according to Wotton, to be traced to Sir Hercules Tyrwhitt, living in the tenth of Henry I., and raised to eminence by Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, Justice of the Common Pleas and King's Bench in the reign of Henry IV. He was seated at Kettleby, in that county, which remained the residence of the elder branch, created Baronets in 1611, until its extinction in 1673. A younger son was of Scotter, in the same county, the ancestor of the present family, of whom John, fifth son of the Rev. Robert Tyrwhitt, married a descendant of the Jones's of Shrewsbury, and by her acquired the Stanley-Hall estate, and took the name of Jones, but the present Baronet has since resumed the ancient name of Tyrwhitt.

See Blakeway, p. 240; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 178; Camden's Remains, p. 151; Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 115 and "Notices and Remains of the Family of Tyrwhitt," &c. "printed not published." 8vo. n.d. [By R. P. Tyrwhitt, Esq. of the Middle Temple, eldest son of Richard Tyrwhitt, late of Nantyr Hall in Denbighshire, Esq. younger brother of the first Baronet.]

A family of great antiquity, and which is said to have been established at Gatacre by a grant from Edward the Confessor. The pedigree, however, is not traced beyond the reign of Henry III.

Although very ancient, this family does not appear to have been distinguished except by "The fair maid of Gatacre," (see Blakeway, p. 169,) and by the eminent divine of this house noticed in "Fuller's Worthies," and who was the ancestor of the Gatacres of Mildenhall, in Suffolk.

See Leland's Itinerary, v. p. 31; Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire, vol. iii. p. 86; and Morris MSS.

Arms.—Quarterly gules and ermine, on the second and third quarters three piles of the first, on a fess azure five bezants. This coat, a remarkable exception to the simple heraldry of the period, is supposed to have been granted to Humphry Gatacre, Esquire of the Body to King Henry VI. The following coat, ascribed to this family, was about the end of the seventeenth century in the church of Claverley in this county: Quarterly, first and fourth ermine, a chief indented gules; second and third gules, over all on a fess azure three bezants. (Eyton's Shropshire, iii. p. 103.)

This family can also lay claim to great antiquity, being certainly resident at Eyton on the Wealdmoors as early as the reigns of Henry I. and II. They were in some way connected with the Pantulfs, Barons of Wem, who were Lords of Eyton at the period of the Domesday Survey, and, in consequence of this connection, not only quarter their arms, but were among the very few Shropshire gentry who were not dispossessed after the Rebellion of the third Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, in the time of Henry I.

Arms.—Quarterly, first and fourth, or, a fret azure; second and third, gules two bars ermine.

When the ancestors of this family were first seated at Plowden is a matter of doubt, but it was at a very early period. In 1194 Roger de Plowden is said to have been at the siege of Acre with Richard I., and there to have acquired the fleurs-de-lis in the arms. The name occurs upon all the county records from the reign of Henry III. Edmund Plowden the lawyer, in the sixteenth century, was the great luminary of this family.

Arms.—Azure, a fess dancettée, the two upper points terminating in fleurs-de-lis or.

Engelard de Acton, of Acton-Pigot and Acton-Burnell, was admitted on the Roll of Guild Merchants of Shrewsbury in 1209. His descendant Edward de Acton, of Aldenham, married the coheiress of Le'Strange, living in 1387, and with her acquired an estate in Longnor, in this county. The baronetcy was the reward of loyalty in the beginning of the great rebellion.

General Acton, Prime Minister to the King of Naples for twenty-nine years, commencing in 1778, was a distinguished member of this family.

Arms.—Gules, crusilly or, two lions passant in pale argent. This coat is evidently founded on that of Le'Strange.

This is a younger branch of an ancient family formerly seated at Whittimere or Whitmore, in the parish of Claverley, where it is traced to the reign of Henry III. The Apley branch made a large fortune by mercantile transactions in London in the reign of Elizabeth, and purchased that estate in 1572, from Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight. The Whitmores have represented Bridgnorth in Parliament constantly since the reign of Charles II. Blakeway observes that this family does not appear to have had any connection with the Whitmores of Cheshire, though the Heralds have given them similar arms, with a crest allusive to the springing of a young shoot out of an old stock.

Younger Branches. Whitmore of Dudmaston, in this county, and Whitmore-Jones, of Chastleton, in the county of Oxford.

See Blakeway, p. 106, and Notes on the Whitmore Family, in Notes and Queries, 3rd series, v. p. 159.

The name is derived from Walcot in the parish of Lydbury, which was held under the Bishop of Hereford by Roger de Walcot in 1255. He was the ancestor of the present family. Sixth in descent from Roger de Walcot was John Walcot, of whom the pedigree relates, "that playing at Chess with King Henry V. he gave him the check-mate with the rooke, whereupon the King changed his coat of arms, which was the cross with fleurs-de-lis, and gave him the rooke for a remembrance." Walcot was sold in the year 1764, and Bitterley, which had belonged to the family in 1660, became the seat of the Walcots, descended from Humphry Walcot, who died in 1616, and who was the eldest son of John Walcot of Walcot. He had livery of the manor of Walcot in 1611, "on the extinction (says Blakeway,) I suppose of the elder line."

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three chess-rooks ermine. The former coat, Argent, on a cross patonce azure five fleurs-de-lis or, was ascribed to John de Walcote in the Roll of the reign of Richard II.

This ancient family, which has been supposed to be of Norman origin, was early seated at Diddlebury, (or Delbury,) in Corvedale, which appears to have come from the heiress of Wigley. Roger Baldwin of Diddlebury died anno 1398, and was the ancestor of the family. Diddlebury was sold to the Cornewalls of Berrington in the last century, when the Baldwins removed to Aqualate in Staffordshire. Kinlet was the inheritance of the Childes, whose coheiress married Charles Baldwin, Esq. The Childes derived it from the Lacons, and the Lacons by inheritance from the Blounts of Kinlet.

A branch of the Dods of Edge in Cheshire, now extinct in the male line, and one of the oldest families in England, which can be traced in a direct line, undoubtedly of Saxon, if not of British descent, which, says Blakeway, "is in the highest degree probable." The following is Ormerod's account of the origin of this family. "About the time of Henry II., Hova, son of Cadwgan Dot, married the daughter and heiress of the Lord of Edge, with whom he had the fourth of that manor. It is probable that the Lord of Edge was son of Edwin, who before the Conquest was sole proprietor of eight manors; we may call him a Saxon thane. It appears by Domesday that Dot was the Saxon lord of sixteen manors, from all of which he was ejected; we may presume he was identical with Cadwgan Dot." "A descent in the male line (adds Ormerod) from a Saxon noticed in Domesday would be unique in this county" (Cheshire). The Dods of Cloverley descend from Hugo, living in the fourteenth of Henry IV., who married the coheiress of Roger de Cloverley. He was the son of John Dod of Farndon, who was son of Roger Dod of Edge, living in the reign of Edward III., which John Dod had also acquired property in Shropshire, by marriage with the coheiress of Warden of Ightfield.

Arms.—Argent, a fess gules between two cotises wavy sable. The Dods of Edge bore three crescents or, on the fess, by which one would imagine they were the younger rather than the elder line of the family, and the present owner of Cloverly possesses deeds which appear to prove that this was the fact.

Present Representative, John Whitehall Dod, Esq. late M.P. for North Shropshire.

An ancient family, descended from Philip, who in the reign of Henry III. was lord of Oakeley in the parish of Bishop's Castle, from whence he assumed his name, and which has ever since been the inheritance of his descendants.

Arms.—Argent, on a fess between three crescents gules as many fleurs-de-lis or. These arms are, with those of the Plowdens and other families of the vicinity, allusive to the services of ancestors who fought under the banners of the great suzeraines of their district, the Fitz-Alans, in the Crusades and the battlefields of France.

The first in the pedigree is Hugh de la Hulle, who held the estate of Hulle, that is, Court of Hill, in the parish of Burford, in this county, as the eleventh part of a knight's fee, of the Barony of Stuteville, in the reigns of Richard I. and John, as appears by the Testa de Neville. The family afterwards removed into the north of the county, by marriages with the coheiresses of Wlenkeslow, Buntingsdale, Styche, and Warren. The castle still borne in the coat of Hill is found on the seal of William Hill in the reign of Richard II. Court of Hill, the original seat of the Hills, was bequeathed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the second son of the eldest branch of the family, in whose line it continued till carried by an heiress to the family of the present proprietor. Hawkstone, the present seat, was settled upon Humphry Hill in 1560. The great ornament of this family, and indeed he may be called the founder of its modern consequence, was Richard Hill, Envoy Extraordinary to the Italian States in the very beginning of the eighteenth century.

This family is clearly descended from "Robert de Wolint," (Wellington,) alias Forester, who is named in the Testa de Neville as holding his estate by the serjeantry of keeping the royal hay of Wellington in the forest of the Wrekin; and there is every probability that he was the descendant of Ulger the Forester, chief forester of all the king's forests in Shropshire in the time of Stephen.

Arms.—Quarterly per fess dancettée argent and sable, on the first and fourth quarters a bugle horn of the last, garnished or.

Iddon, son of Rys Sais, a powerful British chieftain in the Shropshire Marches at the period of the Norman Conquest, is the ancestor of the family of Edwardes. His descendants were seated at Kilhendre, in the parish of Ellesmere, in the reign of Henry I., an estate which continued in the family in the time of Queen Elizabeth. The eminent services of Sir Thomas Edwardes of Shrewsbury to King Charles I. were rewarded by the grant of a Baronetcy in 1645. The patent, however, was not taken out till the year 1678, with a right of precedency before all baronets created after 1644. The distinguished Major Herbert Edwardes, C.B., one of Her Majesty's Commissioners for settling the affairs of the Punjaub, is of this family.

See Blakeway, pp. 107, 121; Blakeway and Owen's Shrewsbury, ii. 259; and Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 415; and Morris MSS.

Arms.—Gules, a chevron engrailed between three heraldic tiger's heads erased argent.

Walter De Betton had a freehold estate at Betton-Strange, near Shrewsbury, in the reign of Edward I. William Betton, fourth in descent from Walter, was seated at Great Berwick prior to the reign of Henry IV., and at his house the renowned Hotspur lay during the night preceding the Battle of Shrewsbury.

The estate and mansion of Great Berwick continued with their lineal descendants until sold in 1831, by Richard Betton, Esq. whose uncle having succeeded to the estates of John Bright, Esq. assumed that name, and was father of the present proprietor of Totterton Hall.

Arms.—Argent, two pales sable, each charged with three cross-crosslets fitchée or.

Although this family owe their elevation to the military genius of the great Lord Clive, to whom the English nation is so much indebted for its glory and power in the East, yet the Clives have undoubted claims to antiquity both in Shropshire and Cheshire, in which latter county, in the hundred of Northwich, is Clive, from whence their ancestor Warin assumed his name in the time of Henry III. About the reign of Edward II. the family removed to Huxley, also in Cheshire, Henry de Clive having married the coheiress; and again in the reign of Henry VI. on the marriage of James Clive with the heiress of Styche, of Styche, they settled in Shropshire at that place, which is in the parish of Moreton-Say, and has remained uninterruptedly in the Clive family. The Earldom of Powis is the result of the match with the heiress of Herbert, of Powis Castle, in 1784.

See Ormerod's Cheshire, ii. 435, iii. 115; Blakeway, p. 140; Brydges's Collins, v. 543; and Morris MSS.

Arms.—Argent, on a fess sable three mullets or. In the fourth year of Edward VI., three wolf's heads erased sable were added to the field of the original coat. See Archdall's Lodge, vii. 80.

This family is descended from Thomas Lawley, cousin and next heir to John Lord Wenlock, K.G. in the reign of Edward IV., who was slain at the battle of Tewkesbury. The Lawleys were described as "of Wenlock" in the reign of' Henry VI., and until that of Henry VIII., when Richard Lawley, Esq. ancestor of Lord Wenlock, was written "of Spoonhill."

The Pigotts were formerly seated at Chetwynd in this county, which they inherited from the coheiress of Peshall in the fourteenth century.

The family came originally from Cheshire; William Pigott of Butley in the parish of Prestbury in that county, who died in 1376, was grandfather of Richard Pigott of Butley who married the heiress of Peshall. Chetwynd was sold about 1776, and the rectory of Edgmond purchased by Thomas Pigott, Esq., in the reign of James I.

Arms.—Ermine, three fusils in fess sable. The coat formerly borne by this family, founded on the arms of Chetwynd, was, Azure, a chevron between three mullets or, on a chief ermine three fusils sable.

The name is local, from Thornes in the parish of Shenstone, in the county of Stafford, where Robert, son of Roger de la Thornes, was resident early in the fourteenth century. He was elected burgess for Shrewsbury in 1357, a position subsequently filled by several of his descendants. The family also became seated at Shelvock in this county at an early period. Thomas Thornes of that place erected a mansion on the old family estate at Thornes in the reign of Edward IV., which estate was sold by his descendant Roger Thornes in 1507. Shelvock continued in the family until the extinction of the eldest branch of it in 1678. The present family descend from Nicholas Thornes of Melverley, great-uncle of Richard Thornes who was sheriff of this county in 1610.

The ancestor of this family was of Cruckton in the parish of Pontesbury in 1463. It has been supposed that the Harries's are of the old race of "Fitz-Henry," mentioned in ancient deeds of this county, and who were seated at Little Sutton prior to the reign of Edward III.

About the reign of Henry III. William Salwey was Lord of Leacroft, a hamlet in the parish of Cannock in Staffordshire; hence the family removed to Stanford in Worcestershire; of' which John Salwey was owner in the third of Henry IV. But this estate was carried by an heiress to Sir Francis Winnington in the reign of Charles II. Richard Salwey, younger brother of Edward Salwey of Stanford, was seated at Richard's Castle in the county of Hereford at the time of the Protectorate. His grandson Richard was of the Moor Park, where he died in 1759, and was succeeded by his great-nephew, whose grandson is the present representative of this ancient family. See Erdeswick's Staffordshire, ed. 1844, p. 200; Nash's Worcestershire, ii. 369; and Morris MSS.

Lineally descended from Robert "Borowe," noticed by Leland in his Itinerary, which Robert died in 1418, and was father of Robert surnamed de Stokeden, Lord of Erdborough in the county of Leicester.

Chetwynd was purchased by Thomas Borough, Esq., in 1803, the family having been previously for many years resident at Derby.

See Glover's History of the County of Derby, 8vo. 1833, vol. ii. p. 558, who refers to the genealogy of the family in the College of Arms, 4 Norfolk, p. 189; Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. 528; and Morris MSS.

Arms.—Gules, the stem and trunk of a tree eradicated, as also couped, sprouting out two branches argent. In 1702 a frightful modern coat founded on the preceding, with the shield of Pallas dependent from an oak-tree or, was granted by the College of Arms.

Paulet, in the hundred of North Petherton in this county, gave name to this historical family, the first on record being Sir William de Paulet, who died in 1242. He was of Leigh in Devonshire, which, with Rode in Somersetshire, successively became the family seat. Hinton St. George, which came from the heiress of Denebaud in the reign of Henry VI., is noticed by Leland as "a right goodly manor place of fre stone, with two goodly high tourres embattled in the ynner court," and has ever since remained the seat of this the elder branch of the family. The Marquesses of Winchester (1551) and the extinct Dukes of Bolton descend from William second son of Sir John Paulet of Paulet, who died in 1378. They were of Basing in Hampshire, derived through the heiress of Poynings from the great house of St.John, in the reign of Henry VI.

See Leland's Itinerary, ii. fol. 55, vi. fol. 11; Brydges's Collins, ii. 367, iv. 1; Collinson's History of Somersetshire, ii. p. 165. For an account of Hinton St. George, the Topographer, vol. i. p. 171, vol. ii. p.354. For Basing, Gent. Mag. 1787, p. 680.

Arms.—Sable, three swords in pile, their points towards the base, argent, the pomels and hilts or. Gules, a pair of wings conjoined in lure argent, being the coat of his mother the heiress of Reyney, was borne by Sir John Paulet in the 15th of Richard II.

This is a younger branch of an ancient family descended from Richard le Espek, who lived in the reign of Henry II. Wemworthy and Brampton, in the county of Devon, were the original seats; but in the time of Henry VI. Sir John Speke, having married an heiress of Beauchamp, became possessed of the manor of Whitelackington in this county, which for eleven generations continued the inheritance of his descendants in the male line, when an heiress carried it to the Norths, Earls of Guildford. Jordans, a hamlet in the manor of Ashill, also inherited from the Beauchamps, appears to be the only remnant of the former possessions of this venerable house.

See Leland's Itinerary, ii. ff. 51, 55; Topographer, i. 507; and Collinson's History of Somersetshire, i. pp. 12, 66.

Arms.—Barry of eight argent and azure, an eagle with two heads displayed gules.

The name sufficiently implies that this is a Cornish family, traced to Nicholas de Trevelyan living in the reign of Edward I., whose ancestors were of Trevelyan, in the parish of St. Vehap, near Fowey, at a still earlier period. Nettlecomb was inherited from the heiress of Whalesborough towards the end of the fifteenth century. The Trevelyans suffered for their loyalty during the Usurpation, and were rewarded by the baronetcy on the Restoration. The estate of Wallington, in the county of Northumberland, came from the heiress of Calverley of Calverley in the last century.

See Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, p. 558; Collinson's Somersetshire, iii. p. 539; Gilbert's Cornwall, i. 564; Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. pt. 2. p. 262; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. p. 353.

Arms.—Gules, a land-horse argent, armed or, coming out of the sea party per fess wavy azure and of the second. This coat is traditionally derived from one of the family swimming on horseback from the rocks called Seven Stones to the Land's End, at the time of an inundation. The more ancient arms are said to have been a lion rampant holding a baton.

An ancient Cornish family, said to have been originally of Upton, in that county, or, according to Prince in his Worthies of Devon, named from Upton in the parish of Collumpton in Devonshire, and fixed at Portlinch in the parish of Newton Ferrers, by a match with the heiress of Mohun, about the end of the fifteenth century. Here the elder branch was long seated, and became extinct in 1709. The present family descend from a younger brother, who settled at Lupton in Devonshire: his descendant was of Ingmire Hall in Westmerland, derived from the heiress of Otway about the beginning of the eighteenth century. The present representative, succeeding to the estates of the Smyths of Ashton, assumed that name, and was created a Baronet in 1859.

Younger Branches. Upton of Glyde-Court in the county of Louth, descended from the third son of John Upton of Lupton, living in 1620; and Upton, Baron Templetown, descended from Henry second son of Arthur Upton of Lupton. This Henry came into Ireland in 1598, a captain in the army under the Earl of Essex, and established himself in the county of Antrim.

See Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1701, p. 572; Westcote's Devonshire, p. 519; and Archdall's Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vii. p. 152.

Of the great antiquity of this family there is no doubt, they having been seated at their manor of Tichborne from the reign of Henry II., at which period Sir Roger de Tichborne, their first recorded ancestor, was lord of that manor. The immediate ancestors of the present family were of Aldershot, in this county, being descended from the second son of the first Baronet. Henry Tichborne, grandson of the celebrated Sir Henry Tichborne, so distinguished during the Great Rebellion in Ireland, and who was fourth son of the first Baronet, was raised to the peerage in Ireland as Baron Ferrard in 1715; he died, and the peerage became extinct, in 1728.

See Wotton's Baronetage, i. 425; Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vii. p. 213; and for a notice of Chidiock Tichborne, engaged in the Babington Conspiracy in 1586, see Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, 1st series, vol. iii. p. 95.

Arms.—Vair, a chief or, borne by Sir John Tichborne in the sixth of Henry IV.

Richard de Okelandre, the patriarch of his family, is supposed to have been of Norman origin, and was Lord of Nunwell, in the Isle of Wight, the present seat, from the time of King John. Seventeenth in direct male descent from Richard, was Sir John Oglander, Knt., a great sufferer, both in person and fortune, for his zealous attachment to his sovereign King Charles I. He died before the Restoration, but his loyalty was recognised by the baronetcy conferred upon his son, a worthy successor to his father, by Charles II. in 1665.

See Hutchins's History of Dorset, i, p. 450, for an account of the family under "Parnham," which came from the heiress of Strode; see also Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 492.

The true and original name of this family is Barton, Peter de Barton, lord of West Barton, in this county, having married Alice, only daughter and heiress of Sir Robert de Wallop, who died in the eleventh year of Edward I. His great-grandson Richard assumed the name of Wallop, and was returned as one of the knights of the shire for the county of Southampton in the second of Edward III. Over and Nether Wallop, so called, says Camden, "from Well-hop, that is, a pretty well in the side of a hill," continued till the reign of Henry V. the principal seat, when Margaret de Valoynes brought into the family the manor of Farley, afterwards called Farley-Wallop, which has since been the usual residence of the Wallops; of whom Sir John was greatly distinguished in the reign of Henry VII., and Sir Henry in Ireland in that of Elizabeth. Robert Wallop, grandson of Sir Henry, unfortunately taking part against his sovereign Charles I., and sitting as one of his judges, though he did not sign the fatal warrant, fell into universal contempt after the Restoration, and died in the Tower of London in 1667. He was great-grandfaher of the first peer.

Arms.—Argent, a bend wavy sable. This coat was borne by Monsieur John de Barton in the reign of Richard II. (Roll.)

The Copes appear in the character of civil servants of the crown in the reign of Richard II. and Henry IV., and were rewarded with large grants of land in the counties of Northampton and Buckingham. Hardwick and Hanwell, both in the neighbourhood of Banbury, were subsequently the family seats, and are noticed by Leland, who calls the latter "a very pleasant and gallant house." Towards the end of the seventeenth century the family appear to have been established at Bramshill, traditionally said to have been built for Henry Prince of Wales, eldest son of King James I.

Arms.—Argent, on a chevron azure between three roses gules, slipped and leaved vert, as many fleurs-de-lis or. The original coat was, Argent, a boar passant sable, which William Cope, Cofferer to Henry VII., abandoned for Argent, three coffers sable, allusive to his office; but he afterwards had assigned to him the present arms alluding to the royal badges of the crown.

Ormus, at the period of the Norman Conquest was Lord of Okeover by grant of Nigel, Abbot of Burton. He is the direct ancestor of this venerable house, which has been ever since in possession of the ancient seat which gives name to the family, and which lies on the very edge of the county, near Ashbourne in Derbyshire.

See Wood's MSS. 8594, vol. 6, for a very curious and valuable cartulary of the Okeovers, and Dodsworth's MSS. 5037, vol. 96, fol. 17 (both in the Bodleian Library); see also Erdeswick's Staffordshire, Harwood's ed. 1844, p. 487; Shaw's Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 26; and the Topographer, ii. p. 313.

Arms.—Ermine, on a chief gules three bezants. This coat was borne by Monsieur Philip de Oker, in the reign of Richard II. (Roll).

A most ancient family, also coeval with the Conquest, descended from Bagod, who at the time of the compilation of Domesday Book held Bromley of Robert de Stadford or Stafford. In the reign of Richard I. the male line of the Staffords failing, Milicent Stafford married Henry Bagot of this family, and their issue, assuming their mother's name, were progenitors of the illustrious house of Stafford, Dukes of Buckingham. Blythfield in this county, which came from an heiress of that name, has been the seat of the Bagots from the thirteenth century.

Younger Branches. Chester of Chicheley Hall, co. Bucks, and Bagot of Pype Hayes, co. Warwick, descended from the second and third sons of Sir Walter W. Bagot, father of the first Lord Bagot.

See Bagot Memorials, privately printed, 4to. 1824; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 47; and Erdeswick, p. 262.

Arms.—Ermine, two chevrons azure. A former coat was, Argent, a chevron gules between three martlets sable, which was used from the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry VIII. (Rolls.) The present coat is of still greater antiquity.

A noble Norman family, which is traced to the Conquest, and of which there were in Leland's time four "notable houses" remaining in England, in the counties of Devon, Southampton, Stafford, and Buckingham. All with the exception of the third have been long extinct. The Giffords have been seated in Staffordshire since the reign of Henry II., when Peter Gifford, by the gift of Peter Corbesone, became Lord of the Manor of Chillington, ever since their principal residence. He is called in the Deed of Gift, "Nepos uxoris meae." This family had the honour to be concerned in the preservation of King Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester.

Arms.—Azure, three stirrups with leathers or. The more ancient coat, which was used by the elder line of the Giffords, who were Earls of Buckingham, was, Gules, three lions passant argent.

"Sumetime," writes Leland, "the Wrotesleys were men of more land than they bee now, and greate with the Earles of Warwick; yet he hath 200 markes of londe; at Wrotesley is a fayre house and a parker" and here, it may be added, the family are supposed to have been seated from the period of the Conquest. The pedigree however is not proved beyond William de Wrottesley, lord of that manor before the reign of Henry III., father of Sir Hugh, who, joining the insurgent Barons in the reign of Henry III., forfeited his estate, redeemed under the dictum de Kenelworth for 60 marcs. His great-grandson Sir Hugh Wrottesley, one of the "Founders" of the Order of the Garter, who died in 1380-1, is the direct ancestor of the present lord.

See Leland's Itinerary in Coll. Topog. et Genealogica, iii. 340; Erdeswick, p. 359; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 345; and Shaw's Staffordshire, ii. 205, kindly corrected by the Hon. Charles Wrottesley.

Arms.—Or, three piles sable and a quarter ermine. The more ancient coat, as appears by seals to original deeds of the years 1298 and 1333-37, preserved at Wrottesley, was fretty. Sir Hugh de Wrottesleye bore the present arms in 1349 and 1381. But he is also stated, on the authority of the Roll of the reign of Richard II., to have used, Or, a bend engrailed gules. Sir William Wrottesley, father of Sir Hugh, K.G., married Joan, daughter of Roger Basset, which will account for the present arms, which belonged to the Bassets of Warwickshire.

"The Broughtons descend in the male line from one of the most ancient families of the county of Chester, the Vernons of Shipbrook. Richard de Vernon, a younger brother of this house, was father of Adam de Napton, in the county of Warwick, whose issue assumed their local name from Broughton in Staffordshire. The pedigrees vary as to the exact point of connection, and, confused and contradictory as the Shipbrooke pedigree is at this period, there can be little hope of its being positively identified; but the general fact of descent is allowed by all authorities."

See Ormerod's Cheshire, iii. 269; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 259; and Erdeswick, p. 111.

Arms.—Argent, two bars gules, on a canton of the last a cross of the first. In the reign of Richard II. Monsieur Thomas de Broughton bore, Azure, a cross engrailed argent. (Roll.)

The first recorded ancestor of this great and widely-spreading family is Ranulphus, a Norman, Lord of Warmincham, in Cheshire, at the period of the Domesday Survey; where his descendants remained seated for two centuries. In the reign of Henry III. they were of Over-Peover in the same county, and remained there until the principal male line became extinct in the person of Sir Henry Mainwaring of Peover, Baronet, who died unmarried in 1797. Whitmore was inherited by Edward ninth son of Sir John Mainwaring of Peover, on his marriage with the heiress of Humphry de Boghey or Bohun of Whitmore. This was in the year 1519. The senior line of the Mainwarings were on the loyal side during the great Rebellion, and in 1745 opposed to the pretensions of the house of Stuart. But the Whitmore branch favoured the Parliamentary interest.

Younger Branch. Mainwaring of Oteley Park, in the parish of Ellesmere in Shropshire, sprung from Randle, third son of Edward Mainwaring of Whitmore.

Extinct Branches. Maynwaring of Ightfield, co. Salop; extinct 1712. (See Blakeway, Sheriffs of Shropshire, pp. 83, 133.) Mainwaring of Kermincham, co. Chester, extinct 1783. (See Ormerod's Cheshire, vol. iii. p. 46.) And Mainwaring of Bromborough, in the same county, extinct 1827.

See Erdeswick's Staffordshire, p. 78; and Ormerod, vol. i. p. 368; vol. ii. p. 239; vol. iii. p. 447.

No family in England can claim a more noble origin than the house of Arden, descended in the male line from the Saxon Earls of Warwick before the Conquest. The name of Arden was assumed from the Woodlands of Arden, in the North of Warwickshire, by Siward de Arden, in the reign of Henry I.; which Siward was grandson of Alwin the Sheriff in the reign of Edward the Confessor. The elder line of the family was long seated at Park-Hall in Warwickshire, and became extinct in 1643. A younger branch descended from Simon second son of Thomas Arden, of Park-Hall, Esq. settled at Longcroft, in the parish of Yoxall, in the reign of Elizabeth, and now represents this most ancient and noble family.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, 2nd edit. vol. ii. p. 295; Shaw's Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 102; and Erdeswick, p. 279; also a paper by George Ormerod, Esq. LL.D., the historian of Cheshire, "On the connection of Arden, or Arderne, of Cheshire, with the Ardens of Warwickshire," in "The Topographer and Genealogist," vol. i. 1846.

Arms.—Ermine, a fess checky or and azure, and so borne by Sir——de Arderne in the reign of Edward II. (Roll.)

An ancient Derbyshire family, which can be traced to the reign of Henry II. One of their most ancient possessions was Langley-Meynell, in that county, an estate which remained in the family till the end of the fourteenth century. A younger son at this period was seated at Yeaveley, his grandson at Willington, both in Derbyshire. Bradley, in the same county, became in the seventeenh century, by purchase, the residence of a still younger branch, descended from Francis, fourth son of Godfrey Meynell of Willington: from him descends the present family, who were of Hore-Cross the latter part of the last century. Temple-Newsom, in Yorkshire, was inherited from the Ingrams by the present Mr. Meynell on the death of the Marchioness of Hertford in 1835.

Younger Branch. Meynell of Langley-Meynell, Derbyshire, descended from Francis, second son of Francis Meynell, of Willington, who died in 1616.

See Leland's Itinerary, iv. fo. 17; and Topographer and Genealogist, i. 439, and 494.

Arms.—Vaire argent and sable. This was the coat of De-la-Ward, of which house Hugh de Meynell married the heiress in the reign of Edward III. The proper coat of Meynell was, Paly of six argent and gules, on a bend azure three horseshoes or.

"The most ancient among all the very ancient families in this county," writes Mr. Harwood in his notes to Erdeswick's Staffordshire. Siward, mentioned as Lord of Wlselei in a deed without date, is the first in the pedigree of this venerable house, who are said to have been resident at Wolseley even before the Norman Conquest, and it has ever since remained their seat and residence.

Younger Branch. Wolseley of Mount Wolseley, in the county of Carlow, Baronet of Ireland (1744), descended from the third son of the second Baronet.

Descended from Richard de Cotes, who was probably son of Thomas de Cotes, living in 1157, when the Black Book of the Exchequer was compiled. About the reign of Henry VI. the family removed to Woodcote, in Shropshire, which has since continued the principal seat, though the more ancient manor of Cotes or "Kothes," on the banks of the Sow, has ever remained the property of this ancient house.

Arms.—Quarterly ermine and paly of six or and gules. According to the Visitation of Shropshire in 1623, the ermine was borne in the third and fourth quarter. Erdeswick observes, "It would seem that the Cotes's should derive themselves from the Knightleys, or else they do the Knightleys wrong by usurping their armoury." It may be remarked that Robert, third in descent from the first Robert de Cotes, married a daughter of Richard de Knightley, and from hence perhaps the arms.

The name, like those of most ancient families, is local, derived from Congreve, in this county, where the ancestors of this house were seated soon after the Conquest.

In the reign of Edward II. William Congreve removed to the adjoining village of Stretton, having married the heiress of Campion of that place. Stretton was sold towards the end of the eighteenth century, but Congreve still continues the inheritance of its ancient lords.

Arms.—Sable, a chevron between three battleaxes argent. This is, says Erdeswick, the coat of Campion.

"The noble race of Sneyds, of great worship and account,"* appear to be denominated from Snead, a hamlet in the parish of Tunstall, in this county, where they were seated as early as the reign of Henry III. By marriage with the heiress of Tunstall they had other lands in that parish, and for two descents were called Snead alias Tunstall. Bradwell, the former seat of this family, was purchased in the reign of Henry IV. The fine old house at Keel, lately taken down and now rebuilt, was erected by Ralph Sneyd, Esq. in 1581. During the Usurpation, the Sneyds being on the loyal side, Keel house narrowly escaped destruction, and many of the ancient evidences were plundered and lost at that time.

Younger Branches. Sneyd of Ashcombe, and of Loxley in this county, descended from the second son of William Sneyd, of Keel, who died in 1694: and the Sneyds of Ireland, descended from Wettenhall, Archdeacon of Kilmore, younger brother of the ancestor of the preceding branches.

See Erdeswick, pp. 20, 25; Leland's Itinerary in Coll. Topog. et Genealog. iii. 342; Gent. Mag. vol. lxxi. p. 28; and Ward's History of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent.

Arms.—Argent, a scythe, the blade in chief, the sned and handle in bend sinister sable, on the fess point a fleur-de-lis of the second. This fleur-de-lis is said to have been assumed by Richard de Tunstall, alias Sneyd, after the battle of Poictiers.

In the reign of Henry III., Robert Whitgreave, the ancestor of this family, was seated at Burton near Stafford. Bridgeford, in the vicinity of Whitgreave, from whence the name is derived, and early in the seventeenth century Moseley, successively became the residence of the Whitgreaves, and at the latter place Thomas Whitgreave, Esq. had the honour to shelter his sovereign Charles II. after the battle of Worcester.

Arms.—Azure, on a cross quarterly pierced or four chevrons gules. This coat, founded on the arms of Stafford, was granted by Humphry Earl of Stafford to Robert Whitgrave in the 20th of Henry VI. See the grant in Camden's Remains, ed. 1657, p. 221. An augmentation has been lately added, On a chief argent, a rose gules within a wreath of oak proper.

The ancient seat of this family was at Bentley in this county, of which Richard Lane was possessed in the sixth of Henry VI. The Lanes can be traced to Adam de Lone de Hampton, grandfather of Richard de le Lone de Hampton, in the ninth of Edward II. (1315). The three last Lanes of Bentley each lessened the estate, mainly from their devotion to the ill-fated house of Stuart; and the fourth, John Lane, sold Bentley in 1748. This family, even more than the Giffords and Whitgreaves, can lay claim to be remembered for its loyalty to Charles II. after his flight from Worcester. The celebrated Jane Lane was the daughter of the then head of the house, and rode behind the King from Bentley to Bristol. King's Bromley was inherited from the Newtons about the end of the last century.

See Erdeswick, pp. 235, 410; Shaw's Staffordshire, vol. ii. p. 97; Gent. Mag. for 1822, vol. i. pp. 194, 415, 482.

Arms.—Per fesse or and azure, a chevron gules between three mullets counter-changed, on a canton of the third the Royal lions of England, being an augmentation granted by Charles II.

A very remote but the only remaining branch of what was in former ages the most important family in Suffolk, descended from Geoffry de Barnardiston, of Barnardiston in this county, who was living in the reign of Edward I., and who by his marriage with the daughter and coheir of Newmarch became possessed of the adjoining manor of Kedington or Ketton, which continued the seat and residence of the Barnardistons, created Baronet in 1663, until the death of Sir John the sixth Baronet of Ketton, in 1745. The present family descended from Thomas Barnardiston, a merchant in London, who died in 1681, fifth son of Sir Thomas of Ketton, Knight, and Mary, daughter of Sir Richard Knightley. Besides the elder and principal line of Ketton, other branches were of Brightwell in this county, (created Baronets in 1663, extinct in 1721,) and of Northill, co. Bedford, extinct in 1778.

See Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 396; and Davy's Suffolk Collections in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 19,116, p. 537, for long and interesting accounts of this remarkable family.

This ancient family is supposed to be of French extraction, and the name to be derived from Guisnes near Calais. The first in the pedigree is Edmund Jenny, of Knoddishall, in this county; grandfather of John Jenney, of the same place, who died in 1460; who was father of Sir William, one of the Judges of the King's Bench in 1477. Edmund, second son of Sir Robert Jenney, of Knoddishall, who died in 1660, married Dorothy, daughter and coheiress of Robert Marryatt, of Bredfield, from whom the present family descend.

Sir Thomas Brooke, Knight, Lord Cobham in right of his wife, Joan, daughter and heir of Sir Reginald Braybrooke, Knight, was sixth in descent from William de la Brooke, owner of the manor of Brooke, in the county of Somerset, who died in the fifteenth of Henry III. (1231). Sir Thomas Brooke died in the seventeenth of Henry VI. From his eldest son descended the Barons Cobham; from Reginald the second son sprung the present family. He was seated at Aspel, in Suffolk, and here his descendants continued for nine generations. Ufford came from the heiress of Thomson in 1761.

See Davy's Suffolk Collections, Add. MSS. 19,120, vol. xliv.; and Gent. Mag. for March 1841, p. 306, for an account of the restoration of the Brooke monuments at Cobham.

Descended from Thomas Hervey, who died before 1470, having married Jane, daughter and sole heir of Henry Drury, of Ickworth. There is some uncertainty as to who this Thomas Hervey was; the peerages indeed assume that he was younger brother of Sir George Hervey, of Thurleigh, in Bedfordshire; Mr. Gages however has proved that this could not have been the case, but the Rev. Lord Arthur Hervey in his interesting Memoir on Ickworth and the Hervey family, has adduced several reasons by which it would seem that Thomas Hervey was a younger son of John Hervey, senior, of Thurleigh, and the coheiress of Niernuyt, and uncle of Sir George, the last of the legitimate elder line of that knightly family.

Younger Branch. Bathurst Hervey, of Clarendon, Wiltshire, Baronet 1818, descended from the eighth son of the first Earl of Bristol.

See Gage's Thingoe, p. 286; Brydges's Collins, iv. p. 139; Davy's Suffolk Collections, Add. MSS. 19,135, vol. lix. p. 160; the Rev. Lord Arthur Hervey's papers on Ickworth and the Family of Hervey, 4to. Lowestoft, 1858; and Proceedings of the Suffolk Archaeological Society, vol. ii. No. 7.

Arms.—Gules, on a bend argent three trefoils slipped vert, and so borne by John Hervey, Esq., as appears by "The Proceedings in the Grey and Hastings Controversy" in the Court of Chivalry in the year 1407. See the Proceedings, privately printed by Lord Hastings in 1841, p. 27. The arms of Hervey appear to have been founded on the coat of Foliot, Gules, a bend argent.

"All the Roucis that be in Southfolk cum oute of the house of Rouse of Dennington," writes Leland in his Itinerary, vol. vi. fol. 13. That estate appears to have come into the family by the marriage of Peter Rouse with an heiress of Hobart in the reign of Edward III., and to have been increased afterwards by matches with the heiress of le-Watre and Phillips, the last representing one of the co-heiresses of Erpingham. Henham, the present residence, was purchased in 1545 by Sir Anthony Rous, son of Sir William Rous of Dennington.

See Wotton's Baronetage, iii. p. 159; Brydges's Collins, viii. p. 476; Suckling's History and Antiquities of Suffolk, vol. ii. p. 365; and Davy's Suffolk Collections, Add. MSS. 19,147, vol. lxxi. p. 192.

A younger branch of an old Suffolk family, who derived their name from a hamlet in the parish of Gaseley in this county. The pedigree is traced to Richard Heigham, who died in 1340; his grandson Thomas was of Heigham, and died in 1409. The elder line ended in co-heiresses in 1558. A younger branch was seated at Barrow, and continued there till 1714, founded by Clement, fourth son of Thomas Heigham, of Heigham, Esq., who died in 1492. From Sir Clement, third in descent from the first Clement, the present family is descended. Hunston was inherited from the heiress of Lurkin in 1701.

See Gage's History of the Hundred of Thingoe, p. 8; and Davy's Suffolk Collections, Add. MSS. 19,135, vol. lix. p. 50.

Arms.—Sable, a fess cheeky, or and azure, between three horse's heads erased argent.

This family is supposed to derive its name from Blois in France, and is thought to be of great antiquity in this county; it is not regularly deduced, however, beyond Thomas Blois, who was living at Norton in Suffolk in 1470. Third in descent was Richard Blois of Grundisburgh, which he purchased, and which became for many years the principal seat of the family. He died in 1557.

See Wotton's Baronetage, iv. p. 9; and Davy's Suffolk Collections, Add. MSS. 91,118, vol. xlii. p. 386.

Arms.—Gules, a bend vair between two fleurs-de-lis argent. Gwillim makes the field sable, and the fleurs-de-lis or.

The first in the pedigree is Sir Robert Bray, of Northamptonshire, father of Sir James, who lived about the period of Richard I. His great-grandson, Thomas, was lord of Thurnby, in the same county, in the ninth of Edward II. (1316); from him descended Sir Edward Bray, who died in 1558. Harleston, also in the county of Northampton, was an ancient seat of the Bray family, which rose into opulence with the success of Henry VII. after the Battle of Bosworth, where Sir Reginald Bray, the devoted adherent of the King, was said to have discovered the crown in a thorn-bush, in memory of which he afterwards bore for his badge, "a thorn with a crown in the middle of it." Shere was granted, with many other manors, to Sir Reginald as a reward for his services. The present family spring from Reginald, eldest son by the first wife of Sir Edward Bray, son of John, and nephew of the celebrated Sir Reginald. Edmund Lord Bray was elder brother of Sir Edward; he had an only son, John Lord Bray, who died s. p. in 1557.

Of this family was William Bray, Esq., Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries, and joint Historian of Surrey.

See Leland's Itinerary, viii. 113, a; and Manning and Bray's Surrey, vol. i. p. 514-523.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three eagle's legs sable erased a la cuisse, their talons gules. Another coat usually quartered with the above is, Vair, three bends gules.

"The House of Yvery," a work privately printed by the second Earl of Egmont in 1742, professes to give the history of this family, but the earlier descents cannot with certainty be relied on, and even the extraction of Richard Perceval, the modern founder of the present family in the time of James I., from the Somersetshire Percevals, is according to Brydges, in his Biographical Peerage, not without some doubts. It appears, however, certain that he was the son of George Perceval, of Tykenham, in the county of Somerset, by Elizabeth Bampfylde, and fifth in descent from Richard Perceval, of Weston-Gordein, in the same county, who died between 1433 and 1439, the representative of a family who had been seated there from the reign of Richard I., and who claim to be descended from the House of Yvery in Normandy. The elder branch of the Percevals continued at their manor of Weston until the extinction of the male line in the person of Thomas Perceval, Esq. in 1691. The younger branch, the ancestors of the present family, were seated in the county of Cork in Ireland, and in the eighteenth century at Enmore in Somersetshire, sold after the death of the fifth Earl of Egmont. Nork House was the seat of Lord Arden, father of the present Earl, and brother of the third Earl of Egmont.

See "A Genealogical History of the House of Yvery, &c." 8vo. 1742; and Collinson's History of Somersetshire, vol. iii. p. 171.

Arms.—Argent, on a chief indented gules three crosses patée of the first. This coat appears to have been borne by Sir Roger Perceval in the reign of Edward I. See his seal engraved in "The House of Yvery," vol. i. p. 41.

Adam de Weston, living in 1205, was the ancestor of this family, which has been from a very early period connected with Surrey. In the reign of Edward II., the Westons were of West-Clandon, and also of Weston in Albury, and of Send and Ockham, in this county. The last was sold in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and West-Horsley inherited by the will of William Nicholas, Esq. in 1749.

See Manning and Bray's Surrey, vol. iii. p. 41; and Gent. Mag. for 1789, p. 223; for a notice of this family, as well as of the extinct family of the same name, of Sutton, in this county, see also Gent. Mag. for 1800, p. 606.

Arms.—Sable, a chevron or between three leopard's heads erased argent, crowned or.

Although the foundation of the consequence of this family was laid by Richard Onslow, a celebrated lawyer of the reign of Elizabeth, yet he was sprung from an old gentle family seated at Onslow in Shropshire, as far back as the time of Richard I., and probably much earlier. The first recorded ancestor is John de Ondeslowe, whose grandson, Warin, was father of "Roger de Ondeslow juxta Shrewsbury," whose son Thomas was living in the twelfth of Edward II. 1318. Richard Onslow became Speaker of the House of Commons, and died in 1571. He was the first of his family connected with Surrey, by his marriage with Catherine, daughter and heir of Richard Harding, of Knoll, in this county, in the year 1554. West-Clandon was purchased in 1641 by Sir Richard Onslow, created a Baronet in 1660; the ancient family estate of Onslow having been sold by Edward Onslow in 1617.

Younger Branches. Onslow of Altham in the county of Lancaster, Baronet 1797, descended from the next brother of the Right Hon. Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1726 to 1761. Onslow of Staughton, in the county of Huntingdon, descended from the second son of Sir Richard Onslow, the first Baronet.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. v. p. 461; Manning and Bray's Surrey, vol. ii. p. 723; and Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, p. 90, corrected by the MSS. of Mr. Joseph Morris.

"A family of stupendous antiquity," writes Fuller. "The most ancient family in these tracts," according to Camden. "Genealogists have given them a Saxon origin," says Brydges; "but that is a fact very difficult to be proved, though very commonly asserted. They do not, I believe, appear in Domesday Book." There can be no doubt, however, that the Ashburnhams have been seated at Ashburnham from the reign of Henry II., and probably from a much earlier period, and are descended from Bertram, Constable of Dover in the reign of William the Conqueror. By the improvidence of Sir John Ashburnham, who died in 1620, this ancient patrimony was lost for a time, but recovered by Frances Holland, the wife of his eldest son John (the groom of the bed-chamber to Charles I.), who sold her whole estate, and laid out the money in redeeming Ashburnham.

Younger Branch. Ashburnham of Bromham in this county, Baronet 1661, descended from Richard, second son of Thomas Ashburnham, living in the reign of Henry VI.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 249; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 283.

Arms.—Gules, a fess between six mullets argent. The earliest seal remaining of any of the ancestors of this family is, I believe, that of "Stephen de Esburne," great-grandson of Bertram, the Constable of Dover: the device is a slip or branch of Ash. His grandson, "Richard de Hasburnan," bore the Maltravers fret, his mother being daughter of Sir John Maltravers: the present coat was borne by Sir John de Aschebornham, in the reign of Edward II. (Seals and Roll of the reign of Edward II.)

The name is derived from Goring, in the rape of Arundel, where the family can be traced to John de Goring, living in the reign of Edward II. Burton, in this county, was the seat of the principal and elder line of the family, created Baronets in 1662, extinct in 1723. Of a younger branch was the celebrated George Lord Goring 1628, Earl of Norwich 1644, (which titles were extinct on the death of his third son, but heir, the second Lord, in 1670,) sprung from the second son of Sir William Gorynge, of Burton, who died in 1553.

The present family is descended from the second son of Sir Henry Goring, of Burton, Knight, who died in 1594. Highden was purchased in 1647.

Younger Branch. Goring of Wiston, Sussex, descended from the second marriage of Sir Charles Matthew Goring, of Highden, the fourth Baronet, and the co-heiress of Fagg.

See Dallaway's Rape of Arundel, p. 281, who refers to Evidences relating to the family of Goring, MSS. Coll. Arm. Philpot, F. 119; Leland's Itin., vol. vi. fol. 17; Cartwright's Rape of Bramber, p. 132; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. ii. p. 71.

The name is local, from Pelham, in Hertfordshire, the seat of the ancestors of this family in the time of Edward I., and probably even before the Conquest. In the 28th of Edward I., Walter de Pelham had a confirmation grant of lands in Heilsham, Horsey, &c. in this county. From the reign of Edward III. the Pelhams have been a most important Sussex family; it was in that reign that Sir John Pelham assumed the Buckle as his badge, in token of his claim to the honour of taking John King of France prisoner at the battle of Poictiers. Laughton belonged to the Pelhams before 1403, but has been long deserted as the residence of the family.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. v. p. 488; Horsfield's Lewes; and Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. iii. p. 211, for a curious paper on the arms and badges of the Pelhams.

Arms.—Quarterly, 1 and 4, Azure, three pelicans argent, vulning themselves proper; 2 and 3, Gules, two belts in pale argent with buckles and studs or.

Although there is no doubt of the antiquity of the house of Shelley, the accounts of the earlier descents of the family are very scanty. Originally of the county of Huntingdon, the Shelleys are said to have removed into this county at a very early period. But the earliest mention we have in history of any of this family is of John and Thomas Shelley, who, following the fortunes of Richard II., were attainted and beheaded in the first year of Henry IV. The remaining brother, Sir William Shelley, not being connected with the followers of Richard II., retained his possessions, and was the ancestor of this family, who in the reign of Henry VI., by a match with the heiress of Michelgrove, of Michelgrove, in Clapham, was seated at that place, which continued the residence of the Shelleys until the year 1800, when it was sold, and Maresfield became the family seat.

Younger Branches. Shelley or Castle-Goring, Baronet 1806, descended from the fourth son of Sir John Shelley, of Michelgrove, who died in 1526. Shelley of Avington, in the county of Southampton, and Shelley (called Sidney Foulis) Lord de L'Isle and Dudley 1835, descended from the second marriage of Sir Bysshe Shelley, of Castle-Goring, Baronet, and the heiress of Perry, of Penshurst.,

See Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 39; Cartwright's Topography of the Rape of Bramber, p. 76; and Dallaway's Rape of Arundel, p. 40.

The Wests are remarkable, not so much for the antiquity of the family as for the early period at which they attained the honour of the peerage. Sir Thomas West is the first recorded ancestor; he died in the seventeenth of Edward II., having married the heiress of Cantilupe, and thus became possessed of lands in Devonshire, and at Snitterfield in Warwickshire. His grandson, Thomas, married the heiress of De la Warr, and thus became connected with Sussex. But the principal property of the Wests in this county was granted to Thomas West, afterwards Lord la Warr, in the first year of Henry VII. Few families indeed had broader lands; among which may be mentioned, Offington, in the parish of Broadwater, derived from the heiress of Peverel at the end of the fourteenth century; and Halnaker, in the parish of Boxgrove, both in Sussex; and Wherwell, in Hampshire; all now alienated. Buckhurst came to the present Lord by his marriage with the coheiress of Sackville.

Younger Branch. West of Ruthyn Castle, Denbighshire, descended from the younger son of John, second Earl De la Warr.

The Wests of Alscot, in the county of Gloucester, claim to be descended from Leonard, the younger son of Sir Thomas West, Lord De la Warr, K.G., who died in the year 1525, although there is nothing but "family tradition," as is evident by the memorial to the Earl Marshal of Mr. James West, of Alscot, dated December 12, 1768, to justify this assumption; a distinct coat, viz. Argent, a fess dancette pean, was granted to Mr. West on this occasion.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. v. p. i.; Blore's Rutlandshire, p. 100; Cartwright's Rape of Bramber, p. 38; and Dallaway's Rape of Chichester, pp. 129, 133.

Arms.—Argent, a fess dancette sable. The badge of the De-la-Warrs was a crampet or shape of a sword; assumed by Roger la-Warr, Lord la-Warr, for having assisted Sir John Pelham in making John King of France prisoner at the Battle of Poictiers. See Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. iii. p. 211.

John, son of John Gage, living in the ninth of Henry IV., had issue by Joan, heiress of John Sudgrove, of Sudgrove, in Gloucestershire, Sir John Gage; an adherent of the house of York, knighted by Edward IV., and who died in 1475. He married Elianor, second daughter and coheiress of Thomas St.Clere, of Heighton St. Clere, in Sussex, and acquired by this marriage several manors in this county, as well as in Surrey, Kent, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire. The present family, seated at Firle from this period, descend from his eldest son. From his second son sprung the Gages of Raunds, in Northamptonshire, sold in 1675.

Younger Branch. Gage of Hengrave, in Suffolk, Baronet 1622, descended from Edward, third son of Sir John Gage, of Firle, who died in 1633.

See Gage's Hengrave, p. 225; Gage's Hundred of Thingoe, p. 204; Bridges's History of Northamptonshire, vol. ii. p. 188; Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 503, vol. iii. p. 366; Brydges's Collins, vol. viii. p. 249; and Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. p. 12.

The head of this family, according to Dallaway, may be considered one of the most ancient proprietors of land residing upon his estate in this county. The first in the pedigree is Adam de Bartelott, said to be of Norman origin, father of John, who married Joan Stopham, coheiress of lands in the manor from whence the name is derived. He died in 1428, and Stopham has ever since remained the inheritance of their descendants.

See the Topographer, vol. iv. p. 346; and Cartwright's edition of Dallaway's Rape of Arundel, p. 347.

From the reign of King Edward I., this family has been settled at Wadhurst, Lamberhurst, Ticehurst, and the adjoining parishes on the borders of Sussex and Kent: at Goudhurst, in the latter county, they held the manors of Bockingfield and the Pillery from the year 1413 to 1498, and in 1513 Wyleigh, in the parish of Ticehurst, was acquired by John Courthope in marriage with his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Saunders of Wyleigh. From this marriage sprung three sons, John, George, and Thomas; the issue male of the eldest has been long extinct; from the second, who had Wyleigh, is descended the present Representative of the family; and from the third and youngest, who succeeded to the estate of "Courthope" in Goudhurst, is descended William Courthope, Esq. Somerset Herald.

See Collectanea Topog. et Genealog., vol. ii. pp. 279, 363; and The Visitation of Sussex, C. 27, in Coll. Arm.

Sasuualo, or Sewallis, whose name, says Dugdale, "argues him to be of the old English stock," mentioned in Domesday as mesne Lord of Eatington, under Henry de Ferrers, is the first recorded ancestor of this, the oldest knightly family in the county of Warwick. Until the reign of Edward III., Eatington appears to have continued the principal seat of the Shirleys, whose name was assumed in the twelfth century from the manor of Shirley, in Derbyshire, and which, with Ratcliffe-on-Sore, in the county of Nottingham, and Rakedale and Staunton-Harold, in Leicestershire, derived from the heiresses of Basset and Staunton, succeeded, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as the usual residence of the chiefs of the house. In the sixteenth century, Astwell, in Northamptonshire, was brought into the family by the heiress of Lovett; and in 1615, by the marriage of Sir Henry Shirley with the coheiress of Devereux, a moiety of the possessions of the Earls of Essex, after the extinction of that title in 1646, centred in Sir Robert Shirley, father of the first Earl Ferrers; on whose death, in 1717, the family estates were divided, the Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire estates descending with the earldom to the issue of his first marriage, and the Warwickshire property, the original seat of the Shirleys, eventually to the great-grandfather of the present possessor, the eldest surviving son of the second marriage of the first Earl Ferrers.

Elder Branches.* Shirley of Staunton-Harold, in the county of Leicester, represented by Sewallis Edward, tenth Earl Ferrers 1711; and Shirley of Shirley, in the county of Derby, represented by the Rev. Walter Waddington Shirley, Canon of Christ Church, D.D. only son of the late Bishop of Sodor and Man, and great-grandson of Walter, younger brother of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Earls Ferrers.

Younger Branches (extinct). Shirley, of Wiston, Preston, West-Grinstead, and Ote-Hall, all in Sussex, and all descended from the second marriage of Ralph Shirley, Esq., and Elizabeth Blount; which Ralph died in 1466. All these families are presumed to be extinct on the death of Sir William Warden Shirley, Baronet, in 1815.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, ed. 2, vol. i. p. 621; Nichols's History of Leicestershire, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 704-727; Stemmata Shirleiana, pr. pr. 4to. 1841; and Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 85.

Arms.—Paly of six, or and azure, a quarter ermine. The more ancient coat was, Paly of six, or and sable, as appears by the seal of "Sir Sewallis de Ethindon, Knight," with the legend, "Sum scutum de auro et nigro senis ductibus palatum," engraved in Dugdale's Warwickshire, and in Upton de Studio Militari. Indeed Sir Ralph Shirley bore it as late as the reign of Edward II; see Nicolas's Roll of that date, p. 73. Sir Hugh de Shirley bore the present coat (Roll of Richard II.): so did his father Sir Thomas, and his great-grandfather Sir James, as appears by their several seals engraved in Upton, &c.

Present Representative, Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq., late M. P. for South Warwickshire.

In the time of King John, the venerable family of Bracebridge, originally of Bracebridge in Lincolnshire, acquired by marriage in the person of Peter de Bracebridge with Amicia, daughter of Osbert de Arden and Maud, and granddaughter of Turchill de Warwick, the manor of Kingsbury in this county, an ancient seat of the Mercian Kings, and inherited by Turchill, called the last Saxon Earl of Warwick, with his second wife Leverunia. The descendants of which Peter and Amicia had their principal seat at Kingsbury till about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when it was sold, and the Atherstone estate purchased. "Kinisbyri is a fair manor place," writes Leland, in his Itinerary, "and lordship of 140 li.; one Bracebridge is lord of it; it is in Warwikshir." At Bracebridge, on the river Witham, near Lincoln, the original seat of the family, so called it is supposed from the two bridges which still exist there, a grant of free warren was obtained in the 29th of Edward I., which was still retained by Thomas Bracebridge, Esq. who died in 1567.

The Bracebridges represent the Holtes of Aston, near Birmingham, and, through that ancient family, the Breretons of Cheshire.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 1057-1061; Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iii. part ii. p. 1145; for Holte, see Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 871, and Davidson's History of the Holtes of Aston, fol. 1854; for Brereton, see Ormerod's Cheshire, vol. iii. pt. 31.

Arms.—Vair, argent and sable, a fess gules. This coat was borne by Sir John de Brasbruge, de co. Lincoln, in the reign of Edward II. and again by Monsire de Brasbridge in those of Edward III. and Richard III. (Rolls).

Although the early part of the pedigree of the Comptons is not entirely without doubt, we may conclude that the family was seated at Compton, called "in le Windgate," soon after the Conquest. Arnulphus de Compton and Osbertus de Compton were living in the 16th of Henry II., but Philip de Compton is the first of the name who certainly held the manor of Compton, in the fifth of John. Here the family continued resident for many ages; but its importance arose in a great degree from Sir William Compton having been brought up with Henry Duke of York, afterwards Henry VIII., and from the marriage of his great-grandson, the first Earl of Northampton, with the City Heiress of Spencer.

The Comptons were pre-eminently distinguished for loyalty during the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 549; and Brydges's Collins, vol. iii. p. 223.

Arms.—Sable, a lion of England or between three esquire's helmets argent. A former coat, borne by Thomas de Comptone, apparently about the reign of Edward III., was a chevron charged with three fleurs-de-lis. This is proved by a silver seal dug up at Compton in the year 1845; and the same arms are still to be traced on an ancient mutilated monument of a knight with collar of S.S., supposed to represent Sir Thomas de Compton, in the church of Compton Wyniate. The three helmets were afterwards adopted, and appear to have been the arms of a distinct family, the Comptons of Fenny Compton in this county; to which Henry VIII. gave the lion as an augmentation; at the same time, according to the custom of the period, was added a quartering to the family arms, viz.: Argent, a chevron azure, within a border vert bezantee.

The younger, but, in England, the only remaining branch of a very ancient family, denominated from Chetwynd, in Shropshire, and of Baxterly, in this county, in the 37th of Henry III. Sir William Chetwind was the first of the name seated at Grendon, in the 39th of Edward III., his mother being daughter and coheir of Sir Ralph de Grendon; but Ingestre, in Staffordshire, which came from the heiress of Mutton, was the principal seat of the Chetwinds, which was eventually carried by an heiress into the Talbot family (now Earl of Shrewsbury).

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 1101; Erdeswick's Staffordshire, ed. 1844, p. 61; Eyton's Shropshire, viii. p. 81; and Archdall's Lodge, vol. v. p. 148.

Arms.—Azure, a chevron between three mullets or. In the reign of Edward II. Sir John Chetwind bore, Azure, a chevron or, without the mullets; the present coat was borne by others of the family in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. (Rolls.)

The princely extraction of this noble family from the counts of Hapsburg in Germany is well known; its ancestor, Galfridus, or Geffrey, came into England in the twelfth year of the reign of Henry III., and received large possessions from that monarch. The name is derived from Rinfelden, in Germany, where, and at Lauffenburg, were the patrimonial possessions of the house of Hapsburg. Newnham was in possession of John Fildying in the twelfth of Henry VI., inherited from his mother Joan, daughter and heir of William Prudhome.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 86; Brydges's Collins' vol. iii. p. 265; and Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iv. pt. i. p. 273, for the history of this illustrious family, compiled by Nathaniel Wanley about the year 1670.

Arms.—Argent, on a fess azure three fusils or. The present coat was borne in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., as appears by Seals of those dates.

This family is stated by Thomas, in his additions to Dugdale's Warwickshire, to be a branch of the Stauntons of Staunton, in the county of Nottingham, an ancient house which is traced to the Conquest, and was lately represented by Sir George Staunton, Baronet of Ireland 1785, extinct 1859. The first of the line seated in Warwickshire was Thomas Staunton, in the 39th of Henry VI., 1461. The parent house, existing in the male line, until the year 1688, at Staunton, in Nottinghamshire, held their lands by tenure of Castle-Guard, by keeping and defending a tower in the Castle of Belvoir, to this day called Staunton Tower. There is an ancient custom also that the chief of the house of Staunton should present the key of this tower to any of the Royal Family who may honour Belvoir with their presence.

Younger Branch. Staunton of Wolverton, in this county, settled there in the eighteenth of Elizabeth; extinct in the last century.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 665; Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, p. 157; and for the poetical pedigree of this house, Ib. p. 159; the monuments at p. 164; see also "Memoirs of the Life and Family of the late Sir G. L. Staunton, Bart." pr. pr. 8vo. 1833.

Arms.—Argent, two chevrons within a border engrailed sable. Founded on the coat of Albany Lord of Belvoir, who bore, Or, two chevrons and a border gules. The elder line of Staunton sometimes omitted the border; see the tombs in the church of Staunton.

The sole remains of what was perhaps during the middle ages the most powerful Norman family in England. Illustrious both for the antiquity of race, the former political consequence, and the splendour of connection of the various branches, of which the forfeited Earls of Derby, and De Ferrariis, or Ferrers, were the chiefs. Descended from Henry de Feriers at the time of the Conquest, who held in chief 210 lordships in fourteen counties of England, besides the castle and borough of Tutbury, in Staffordshire, the principal seat of the earldom.

The Baddesley-Clinton line was founded by Sir Edward Ferrers, (son of Sir Henry, who was second son of Thomas Ferrers, of Tamworth Castle, in this county,) by his marriage with Constantia, daughter and heiress of Nicholas Brome, of Baddesley. He died in 1535.

After the forfeiture of the Earldom of Derby, in the reign of Henry III., and the vast possessions attached to it, the Castle of Chartley, in Staffordshire, inherited from Agnes, daughter and coheir of Ranulph, Earl of Chester, became the seat of the principal male line, extinct on the death of William Lord Ferrers of Chartley in the 28th of Henry VI. The representation of the family thereupon devolved on the Ferrers's of Tamworth, sprung from the house of Groby, who were founded by William, younger brother of the last Earl of Derby: and on the decease of John Ferrers, of Tamworth, Esq. in 1680, the present family of Baddesley-Clinton succeeded as chief of this illustrious house.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 971, for Baddesley-Clinton, where however will be found no engravings of the monuments of the Ferrers's, "because," says Dugdale, "so frugall a person is the present heir of the family, now (1656) residing here, as that he refusing to contribute anything towards the charge thereof, they are omitted." For Ferrers of Chartley, and the Earls of Derby, see Sir O. Mosley's History of Tutbury, 8vo. 1832; and Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 1089; and for Ferrers of Tamworth, the same, p. 1135.

Arms.—Gules, seven mascles or, a canton ermine. This was the coat of Quinci, Earl of Winchester, from whom the Ferrers of Groby were descended, the canton being added for difference. The original coat assigned to the first Earls of Derby, was, Argent, six horseshoes sable; afterwards, Vair or and gules, within a bordure of horseshoes, was used. The Chartley line bore only, Vair, or and gules, which was latterly also borne by Ferrers of Tamworth. The Quinci coat was used by William de Ferrers at Carlaverock in 1300. (See the Roll.)

Turvey in Bedfordshire was the principal seat in England of this noble Norman family, descended from Osbert le Mordaunt, who came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and received a grant of the lordship of Radwell in that county. In 1529, John Mordaunt, the representative of the family, was summoned to Parliament by writ as Baron Mordaunt of Turvey. His great-great-grandson was created Earl of Peterborough in 1628; which title, together with the elder line of the family, became extinct on the decease of Charles-Henry Mordaunt, fifth Earl, in 1814.

The present family descend from Robert, son of William Mordaunt of Hemsted, in Essex, who was second son of William Mordaunt of Turvey, living in the 11th of Henry IV., which Robert married Barbara, daughter of John le Strange, of Massingham-Parva in Norfolk, and of Walton-D'Eivile, in this county, which since the 32nd year of Henry VIII., 1549-50, has remained the inheritance of their descendants.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 577: Parkins's continuation of Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. iv. p. 643; and that very rare volume compiled by order of the second Earl of Peterborough, called "Halstead's Genealogies," fo. 1685, privately printed.

Present Representative, Sir Charles Mordaunt, 10th. Baronet, M. P. for South Warwickshire.

This ancient family, originally of Biddulph, in the northern parts of Staffordshire, is traced to Ormus, mentioned in the Domesday Survey. He was, it is said, of Norman descent, and is supposed to have married the Saxon heiress of Biddulph, from whence the name was afterwards assumed. The elder line terminated on the death of' John Biddulph, Esq. of Biddulph and of Burton in Sussex, in the year 1835. The Birdingbury branch, now representing this venerable house, was founded by Symon, second son of Richard Biddulph, of Biddulph, in the time of Henry VIII., whose descendant, another Symon, purchased Birdingbury in 1687. The family were eminently loyal during the Civil Wars, when the ancient seat of Biddulph was destroyed by the Cromwellians about 1643-4.

Younger Branch. Biddulph of Ledbury, in the county of Hereford, descended from Anthony, younger brother of the first Baronet.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 324; Shaw's History of Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 352; Erdeswick's Staffordshire, ed. 1844, p. 8; Ward's History of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, p. 277; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 442.

Arms.—Vert, an eagle displayed argent, armed and langued gules. Argent, three soldering-irons sable, is also said to have been borne by the Biddulphs.

The name is derived from Skipwith, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and was first borne by Patrick, living in the reign of Henry I., who was second son of Robert de Estotevile, Baron of Cottingham in the reign of William the Conqueror. In the reign of Henry III. the Skipwiths removed into Lincolnshire, and were seated at Beckeby and Ormesby, in that county; a younger son of Sir William Skipwith, of Ormesby, who died in 1587, was of Prestwould, in Leicestershire. He was the ancestor of the Skipwiths of Newbold Hall, created Baronet in 1670, extinct in 1790, and of the present family, who for five generations were of Virginia, in America, where the grandfather of the present Baronet was born.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 84; Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 368; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 536,

The antiquity of this family need not be doubted, although the lineal descent, as Dugdale avouches, is not very plain. William de Suckeberge is presumed to be the first who assumed the name, from Shuckborough Superior, in this county; he was living in the third of John. The pedigree is deduced by Baker, in his History of Northamptonshire, from John de Shuckburgh, living in the first of Edward III. In the seventh of Henry V. his great-grandson William is ranked amongst those knights and esquires of this county who bore ancient arms from their ancestors. It was to Richard Shuckburgh, head of the family in 1642, that the remarkable incident happened which is related by Dugdale. Charles I. having met him hunting with his hounds a day or two before the battle of Edgehill, "Who is that," said the King, "hunting so merrily, while I am about to fight for my crown and dignity?" He was knighted the next day, and proved his loyalty at the battle of Edge-hill. He died in 1656, and his son was rewarded with the Baronetcy on the Restoration.

Younger Branch. Shuckburgh of Downton, Wiltshire, descended from Charles, fourth son of the first Baronet.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 309; Baker's Northamptonshire, vol. i. p. 371; Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 76; and Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, vol. iv. p. 34.

Arms.—Sable, a chevron between three mullets pierced argent. This coat is evidently founded on the arms of Danvers, the Norman family under whom the Shuckburghs held: it has been fondly assumed that the mullets are allusive to the astroites found in the ploughed fields at Shuckburgh.

The name is derived from Throcmorton, in the parish of Fladbury, in the county of Worcester, where John de Trockemerton, the supposed ancestor of this family, was living about the year 1200. From this John descended, after many generations, another "John Throkmerton," who was, according the Leland, "the first setter up of his name to any worship in Throkmerton village, the which was at that tyme neither of his inheritance or purchase, but as a thing taken of the Sete of Wircester in farme, bycause he bore the name of the lordeship and village. This John was Under-Treasurer of England about the tyme of Henry V.;" and married Elianor, daughter and coheir of Guido de la Spine, and thus became possessed of Coughton, in the parish of Hadley, in this county, which has continued the principal seat of the family, of whom the most remarkable was Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, ambassador in France, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who died in 1570.

Younger Branches (now extinct), were the Throckmortons of Stoughton and Ellington, in Huntingdonshire, [for the latter see Camden's Visitation of that county in 1613, printed by the Camden Society in 1849, p. 123;] and the Carews of Bedington, in Surrey, Baronet 1714, extinct 1764; descended in the male line from Sir Nicholas, younger son of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and Anne, daughter of Sir Nicholas Carew, Knt.; see Wotton's Baronetage, vol. ii. pi 351, and vol. iv. p. 159; Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. pp. 749 and 819; Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 452; Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. p. 16; and for the poetical life of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, see Peck's Memoirs of Milton.

The descent of this family from the ancient house of Sheldon, of Sheldon, in this county, is a matter of doubt, but admitted by Dugdale to be not improbable. It appears to be proved that the Sheldons are descended from John Sheldon, of Abberton, in Worcestershire, in the reign of Henry IV. Nash, in his History of that county, carries the pedigree two descents higher, viz., to Richard Sheldon of Rowley, in the county of Stafford, whose grandson John was of the same place in the fourth of Edward IV. The manor of Beoly, in Worcestershire, was purchased of Richard Neville Lord Latimer by William Sheldon in the same reign, and continued till the destruction of the mansion-house by fire in the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, the principal seat of the family, who were connected with Warwickshire by the marriage of William Sheldon, Esq. with Mary, daughter and coheir of William Willington, of Barcheston, Esq., in the reign of Henry VIII. It was this William Sheldon who purchased the manor of Weston, in the parish of Long-Compton, in this county, and here his son Ralph built "a very fair house" in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but these estates have both, within the memory of man, passed from this ancient family, who still possess considerable properly at Brailes, purchased by William Sheldon in the first of Edward VI.

Younger branches of the Sheldons were formerly of Abberton, Childswicombe, Broadway, and Spechley, in Worcestershire. See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 584; and Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. pp. 65 and 144.

This family is traced to John Gregory, Lord of the manors of Freseley and Asfordby, in the county of Leicester, who married Maud, daughter of Sir Roger Moton, of Peckleton, knight; his son, Richard Gregory, of the same places, died in the year 1292. Arthur Gregory, Esquire, the representative of this ancient family, was seated at Styvechall, within the county of the city of Coventry, of which his father, Thomas, died seized in the sixteenth of Elizabeth.

See Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 19; and Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 202.

This family was founded by the wool-trade in the fourteenth century by William Grevel, "the flower of the wool merchants of the whole realm of England," who died and was buried at Campden, in Gloucestershire, in 1401. He it was who purchased Milcote, in this county, long the seat of the elder line of this family, who, after a succession of crimes, the particulars of which may be seen in Dugdale's Warwickshire, became extinct in the reign of James I. Fulke, second son of Sir Edward Greville of Milcote, who died in the 20th of Henry VIII., having married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheiress of Edward Willoughby, only son of Robert Willoughby, Lord Brooke, became possessed of Beauchamp's Court, in the parish of Alcester, inherited from her grandmother Elizabeth, the eldest of the daughters and coheirs of the last Lord Beauchamp of Powyke. This Fulke Greville was grandfather of the more celebrated Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, "servant to Queen Elizabeth, Counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney," who died in 1628. "The fanatic Brooke," killed at Lichfield Close, was his cousin and successor, and ancestor of the present family. The Castle of Warwick was granted to Sir Fulke Greville by James I. in the second year of his reign.

Younger Branch. Greville of North Myms Place, in the county of Hertford, and of Westmeath, in Ireland, descended from Algernon, second son of Fulke 5th Lord Brooke.

See Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. pt. i. fol. 16, vol. vi. fol. 19; Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. pp. 706, 766; Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 330; and Edmondson's Account of the Greville Family, 8vo. 1766.

Arms.—Sable, on a cross engrailed or, five pellets within a border engrailed of the second. The present coat, with the addition of a mullet in the first quarter, was borne by William Grevil, of Campden, as appears by his brass, still in good preservation; his son John differenced his arms with ten annulets, in lieu of the five pellets; both were omitted by the Grevilles of Milcote.

Eminently a knightly family, traced by Brydges to Sir Gervase de Lowther, living in the reign of Henry III. Other authorities make Sir Hugh de Lowther, knight of the shire for this county, in the 28th of Edward I., the first recorded ancestor; his great-grandson was at Agincourt in 1415. There have been three principal branches of this family, the first descended from Sir John Lowther, created a Baronet of Nova Scotia in 1640, who was grandfather of the first Viscount Lonsdale (1696), extinct on the death of the third Viscount in 1750. The second family sprung from Richard, third son of Sir John Lowther; and the third and present family descended from William, third son of a former Sir John Lowther, of Lowther, who died in 1637.

Younger Branch. Lowther of Swillington, in the county of York, Baronet 1824, descended from John, second son of Sir William Lowther, who died in 1788.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. v. p. 695; Burn's Westmorland, vol. i. p. 428; Whitaker's Leeds, vol. i. p. 281; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. ii. p. 302.

Arms.—Or, six annulets sable, and borne by Monsire Louther, in the reign of Edward III. (Roll )

Descended from Walter de Stirkland, Knight, so called from the pasture-ground of the young cattle, called stirks or steers, in the parish of Morland, in this county; who was living in the reign of Henry III. A good account of this family, derived from original evidences, is given by Burn.

Sizergh, in the parish of Helsington, appears to have belonged to the Stricklands in the reign of Edward I. Sir Walter de Strickland had licence to empark there in the ninth of Edward III. During the civil wars of the seventeenth century the head of this house was loyal, while Walter, son of Sir William Strickland, of Boynton, Baronet 1641, was one of Cromwell's pretended House of Peers. The Stricklands of Boynton are supposed to be a younger branch of the house of Sizergh. The Stricklands called Standish, of Standish, in the county of Lancaster, represent the elder line, the present Mr. Standish being the eldest son of the late Thomas Strickland, of Sizergh, Esq.

See Burn's Westmorland, vol. i. p. 87; and Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. ii. p. 333.

Arms.—Sable, three escallops within a border engrailed argent. The present coat, but without the border, was borne by Walter de Strykelande, in the reign of Richard II. Another coat, used in the reign of Edward II. was Argent, two bars and a quarter gules. (Rolls.) The Stricklands of Boynton bear, Gules, a chevron or between three crosses patée argent, on a canton ermine a stag's head erased sable.

Michael le Fleming, living in the reign of William the Conqueror, is the ancestor of this ancient family, originally seated in Cumberland and at Gleston, in Furness, in Lancashire. Isabel, daughter of Sir John de Lancastre, living in the sixth of Henry VI., having married Sir Thomas le Fleming, of Coniston, Knight, seated the Flemings at Rydal, ever since the residence of the family.

See Burn's Westmorland, vol. i. p. 150; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iv. p. 105.

Arms.—Gules, fretty argent. The present coat, called "The arms of Hoddleston," with a label vert, was borne by John Fleming de Westmerland in the reign of Edward III. (Roll.) A more ancient coat, according to Wotton, was a Fleur-de-lis, within a roundell.

In the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Edward III., William de Wybergh, of Saint Bee's, in Cumberland, became possessed of the manor of Clifton, in marriage with Elianor, only daughter of Gilbert D'Engayne, whose family had held it from the time of Henry II. It has ever since continued the seat and residence of their descendants. In Cromwell's days the Wyberghs had the honour to be considered delinquents; and in the succeeding century, in 1715, the head of the house was taken prisoner in consequence of his allegiance to the house of Hanover.

Arms.—Sable, three bars or, in chief two estoiles of the last. Sometimes I find two mullets in chief, and one in base, used in place of the estoiles.

This great historical family is of Norman origin, descended from Roger de Seimor, or Seymour, who lived in the reign of Henry I. Woundy, Penhow, and Seymour Castle, all in the county of Monmouth, (the last sold in the reign of Henry VIII.,) were ancient seats of the family, who we find in the fourteenth century resident in Somersetshire, after the marriage of Sir Roger Seymour with the coheiress of Beauchamp of Hache; his grandson married the heiress of Esturmi or Sturmey of Chadham, in this county, and thus first became connected with Wiltshire. Maiden-Bradley belonged to Sir Edward Seymour, the elder, the eldest surviving son of the Protector Somerset by his first wife, and the ancestor of the present family, who in 1750, on the death of the seventh Duke of Somerset, succeeded to the Dukedom, which by special entail went first to the descendants of the Protector by his second wife, until the extinction of her male line in that year.

Younger Branches. Seymour, of Knoyle, in this county, descended from Francis, next brother of Edward eighth Duke of Somerset, and second son of Sir Edward Seymour, Baronet, of Maiden-Bradley, who died in 1741. Seymour Marquess of Hertford, (1793,) descended from Francis, son of Sir Edward Seymour, Bart., who died in 1708, and his second wife, Letitia, daughter of Francis Popham.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. i. p. 144, vol. ii. p. 560; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, p. 479; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 86.

Arms.—Quarterly, 1 and 4, Or, on a pile gules between six fleurs-de-lis azure three lions of England; 2 and 3, Gules, two wings conjoined in lure of the first, the points downwards. The wings, the original coat, was borne by Sir Roger de Seimor in the 23rd Henry III., as appears by his seal, with the legend "Sigill' Rogeri de Seimor." (Collins.) The first quarter was granted by Henry VIII. as an augmentation in consequence of his marrying Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour.

A Norman family, which for centuries has flourished in the West of England, traced by Dugdale to "Rogerius Arundel," mentioned in Domesday. "The most diligent inspection, however," writes Hoare in his Wiltshire, "of an immense collection of ancient charters, deeds, and instruments of all kinds, and from the earliest periods of documentary evidence, among the archives of Wardour Castle, have not enabled us to trace the filiation of this House from the said Rogerius." Reinfred de Arundell, who lived at the end of the reign of Henry III. stands therefore at the head of the pedigree as given by Hoare. Gilbert in his "Survey of Cornwall," is inclined to believe the name to be derived from Arundel in Sussex, and refers to "Yorke's Union of Honour." He says the family came into Cornwall by a match with the heiress of Trembleth about the middle of the twelfth century. Lanherne, in that county, was in the fourteenth century their principal seat. The Castle of Wardour was purchased by Sir Thomas Arundell from Sir Fulke Greville in 1547.

Camden, Carew, and Leland unite in recording the hospitality and honourable demeanour of this family, in all relations of social life, and state that from the pre-eminence of their ample possessions they were popularly designated "The Great Arundells."

See Coll. Topog. et Genealog., vol. iii. p. 389; Leland's Itin., vol. iii. fol. 2; Gilbert's Cornwall, vol. i. p. 470; Brydges's Collins, vol. vii. p. 40; and Hoare's Wiltshire, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 175, &c.

Arms.—Sable, six martlets argent. The martlets, or hirondelles, may be considered an early instance of Canting Heraldry.

The sole remaining branch in the male line of this ancient family, said to be of Saxon origin, and descended from "Ailwardus" of Wymondham, or Wyndham, in Norfolk, living soon after the Norman Conquest. Felbrigge, in the same county, was for many ages the seat of the Wyndhams, and afterwards Orchard, in Somersetshire, which came from the co-heiress of Sydenham. The present family, who succeeded to the representation on the death of the fourth and last Earl of Egremont, in 1845, descend from Sir Wadham, ninth son of Sir John Wyndham, of Orchard and Felbrigge. They were seated at Norrington, in this county, about 1660. Dinton was purchased in 1689.

See Parkins's Continuation of Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. iv. p. 309; Hoare's Wiltshire, vol. iii. pt. i. 108, and vol. iv. p. 93; Hutchins's History of Dorset, vol. iii. p. 330; Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 346; and Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 401.

A noble Norman family of great antiquity, who were of Baronial rank immediately after the Conquest, descended from William Baron Malet, whose grandson, another William Baron Malet, was expelled by Henry I. The elder branch of the family were long seated at Enmore, in the county of Somerset; but the ancestors of the present family, whose baronetcy was conferred for services in the East Indies, at Corypole and Wolleigh, in the county of Devon, and at Pointington and St. Audries, in Somersetshire. Wilbury was purchased in 1803.

See Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 106; Collinson's History of Somersetshire, vol. i. p. 90; and the Gentleman's Magazine for 1799, p. 117.

Arms.—Azure, three escallops or. Robert Malet bore Argent, three fermaux sable, in the reign of Edward I. as appears by Sir R. St. George's Roll, Harl. MS. 6137.

The name is local, from Codrington, in the parish of' Wapley, in the county of Gloucester, where this family was seated as early as the reign of Henry IV. John Codrington, Esquire, Standard-bearer to Henry V. in his wars in France, was the direct ancestor; he died in 1475, at the age, it is said, of 112; his monument remains at Wapley.

Codrington remained in the family till 1753, when it passed with an heiress to the Bamfyldes of Poltimore, and has since been re-purchased by the present owner of Dodington. Didmarton, also in Gloucestershire, which came by marriage in 1570, and was afterwards sold, and latterly Wroughton, in this county, became the family seats.

Two younger branches have been seated at Dodington; the first, descended from Thomas Codrington, brother of John the Standard-bearer, long settled at Frampton-on-Severn in Gloucestershire, bought Dodington in the time of Queen Elizabeth and sold it at the beginning of the eighteenth century to the ancestor of the present family, Codrington of Dodington, in the county of Gloucester, Baronet 1721, descended from Christopher, second son of Robert Codrington, who died in 1618.

See Atkyns's Gloucestershire, pp. 204 and 391; Rudder's Gloucestershire, p. 787; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iv. p. 201. Corrected by the information of Mr. R. H. Codrington.

Arms.—Argent, a fess embattled counter-embattled sable, fretty gules, between three lioncels passant of the third. The fretty is sometimes omitted by the present Dodington branch. The ancient coat was simply, Argent, a fess between three lioncels passant gules, still used by the former family of Dodington, now settled in Somersetshire. The embattlement and fret was an augmentation granted to the Standard-bearer in the 19th of Henry VI.; and again two years before he died he received a further acknowledgement of his support of the Red Rose in a coat to be borne quarterly, Vert, on a bend argent three roses gules, in the sinister quarter a dexter hand couped of the second.

The name is derived from the mansion or inn at Stretton, in the county of Salop, to which the freehold lands of the family, with various detached copyholds, were attached. The original name was Botfield, so called from Botfield in Stretton; the first on record being William de Bottefeld, sub-forester of Shirlet, in Shropshire, in 1255. About the time of Edward IV. the elder line of the family assumed the name of Thynne, otherwise Botfeld, which was borne for three generations before the time of Sir John Thynne, the purchaser of Longleate, who died in 1580, the ancestor of the present family.

Younger Branch represented by the late Beriah Botfield of Norton Hall, in the county of Northampton, and Decker Hill, co. Salop, descended from John, second son of Thomas Bottefeld, of Bottefeld, living in 1439.

See the Topographer and Genealogist, vol. iii. p. 468; and the Stemmata Botevilliana, (privately printed,) second edition, 1858, 4to.

Arms.—Barry of ten or and sable. The younger branch, who retained the name of Botfield, bore Barry of twelve or and sable.

A junior branch of a very ancient family, said indeed by Habington, the Worcestershire antiquary, to be of Saxon origin, and formerly seated at Acton, properly Oakton, in the parish of Ombersley. Elias de Acton, of Ombersley, occurs in the third of Henry III. He was the ancestor of various branches of the Actons resident in different parts of this county, at Sutton, Ribbesford, Elmley-Lovet, Bokelton, and Burton, all of whom now appear to be extinct, the male line being preserved by the present family, founded by a younger son of Sir Roger Acton, of Sutton, and the heiress of Cokesey, about the middle of the seventeenth century.

See Nash's History of Worcestershire, vol. ii. p. 217; and Blakeway's Sheriffs of Salop, p. 60.

The name is derived from a place in the Vale of Evesham, where the ancestors of this family in the female line were seated before the reign of Richard I. Frankley came from an heiress of that name in the reign of Henry III. In that of Henry V. Elizabeth, heiress of Sir Thomas Lyttleton, of Frankley, married Thomas Westcote of Westcote, in the county of Devon, Esquire, "but the old knight, her father, desirous to perpetuate his name, (and his purpose failed not,) would not yield consent to the marriage but upon his son's-in-law assured promise that his son, enjoying his mother's inheritance, should also take her name, and continue it, which was justly performed." (Westcote's Devonshire, p. 306.)

Hagley, the principal seat, was purchased in 1564. Mr. John Lyttleton, the head of this family, was implicated in Lord Essex's rising in 1600; but his son, Sir Thomas, was right loyal to the Crown in 1642.

See Leland's Itinerary in Coll. Topog. et Genealog., vol. iii. p. 339; Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 493; Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1701, p. 583; Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 306; and Brydges's Collins, vol. viii. p. 316. See also in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries a genealogical account of this family, in the handwriting of Dr. Charles Lyttleton, Bishop of Carlisle, No. 151, 4to.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three escallops sable, borne by Thomas Lyttelton in the reign of Henry IV. as appears by his seal.

This great historical family is traced to the Conquest, Richard Talbot, living at that period, being the first recorded ancestor. No family in England is more connected with the history of our country than this noble race; few are more highly allied. The Marches of Wales appear to be the original seat; afterwards we find the Talbots in Shropshire, in Staffordshire, (where their estates were inherited from the Verdons in the time of the Edwards,) and lastly in Yorkshire, at Sheffield, derived from the great heiress of Neville Lord Furnival. This was the seat of the first seven Earls of Shrewsbury, of whom an excellent biographical account will be found in Hunter's Hallamshire (p. 43). The manor of Grafton, formerly the estate of the Staffords, was granted by Henry VII. to Sir Gilbert Talbot in 1486; it afterwards became the seat of a younger branch, who eventually, on the death of the eighth Earl, became Earls of Shrewsbury, from whom all the succeeding Earls, to the decease of Bertram Arthur, 17th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1856, were descended. The present and 18th Earl, who is also the 3rd Earl Talbot, springs from the second marriage of Sir John Talbot of Albrighton in Shropshire, and of Grafton, in this county, who died in 1550, and who was grandfather of the 9th and ancestor of the succeeding Earls.

Younger Branch. Talbot, Baron Talbot of Malahide in Ireland, (1831,) descended from Richard, second son of Richard Talbot and Maud Montgomery, the third ancestor of the House of Shrewsbury, who was living in 1153.

See Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 158; Brydges's Collins, vol. iii. p. i.; and the Shrewsbury Peerage Claim before the House of Lords, 1857.

Arms.—Gules, a lion rampant within a border engrailed or. Borne by Sir Gilbert Talbot in the reign of Edward II. (Rolls), and said to be the coat of Rhese ap Griffith, Prince of South Wales. The ancient arms of Talbot being Bendy of ten argent and gules. The Talbots of Malahide bear the border erminoise instead of or.

Present Representative, Henry John Chetwynd Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, and third Earl Talbot.

Descended from Paul Winnington, living in 1615, great-grandson of Robert, who was son of Thomas Winnington of the Birches, in the county of Chester, living in the reign of Henry VII. This Thomas represented a younger branch of the Winningtons, of Winnington, in the same county, descended from Robert, son of Lidulfus de Croxton, who took the name of Winnington in the reign of Edward I., on his marriage with Margery, daughter and heiress of Robert de Winnington, living in the fifty-sixth of Henry III. Stanford, formerly the seat of the Salways, came to the Winningtons in the early part of the reign of Charles II., on the marriage of Sir Francis Wilmington and Elizabeth Salway.

See Ormerod's Cheshire, vol. ii. p. 112, vol. iii. pp. 74 and 93; Pedigree privately printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, from an original MS. penes Sir Thomas Winnington, Bart.; and Nash's Worcestershire, vol. ii. p. 368.

Present Representative, Sir Thomas Edward Winnington, M.P. for Bewdley, 4th Baronet.

This is the only remaining branch in the male line of the very ancient family of Noel; of which the Earls of Gainsborough, created 1681, extinct 1798, represented a junior line. William, the ancestor of all the Noels, was living in the reign of Henry I., and was at that period Lord of Ellenhall, in the county of Stafford. In the time of Henry II., either he or his son founded the Priory of Raunton, in the same county.

From the Noels of Ellenhall descended a branch of the family seated at Hilcote, in Staffordshire; an estate which remained with them until recent times; the father of the present representative, who was son of Walter Noel, of Hilcote, Esq., having removed to Bell-Hall, in the parish of Bell-Broughton, in this county.

The Noels of Rutlandshire and Leicestershire were also descended from the house of Ellenhall.

See Harwood's edition of Erdeswick's Staffordshire, 1844, p. 132 and Blore's Rutlandshire.

A family of great antiquity, said to have migrated from the Low Countries, and to have received a grant of land called "Lechmere's Field," in Hanley, from William the Conqueror. The first in the pedigree is Reginald de Lechm'e de Hanlee, mentioned in a deed without date. He was father of Adam de Lechmere, who married Isabella, and was the ancestor of this venerable house, whose ancient seat at Severn-End, in Hanley, with the exception of a period of thirty years, has ever since remained in the family. During the civil wars the Lechmeres were on the side of the Parliament. A second son, who died without issue in 1727, was raised to the Peerage in 1721.

Younger Branches. Lechmere of Steeple-Aston, in the county of Oxford, and Lechmere of Fanhope, in the county of Hereford; also the Lechmeres (called Patteshalls) of Allensmore, in the same county; the two last being descended from Sandys, second son of Sir Nicholas Lechmere, the Judge, who died in 1701.

Arms.—Gules, a fess and in chief two pelicans or, vulning themselves proper.

William Sebright, of Sebright, in Much Beddow, in Essex, living in the reign of Henry II. is the ancestor of this ancient family, who removed into this county at a very early period, apparently after the marriage of Mabel Sebright with Katharine, daughter and heir of Ralph Cowper, of Blakeshall, in the parish of Wolverly, in which parish the Sebrights possessed lands in the sixth year of Edward I. Besford was purchased about the reign of Elizabeth.

See Wotton's Baronetage, vol. ii. p. 8; and Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 78.

This is a Warwickshire family of good antiquity, traced to Robert de Boreton, grandfather of William, who lived in the reign of Edward III. In that of Henry VI. by the heiress of Allesley, the family became possessed of the manor of Lawford, which remained their residence till the murder of Sir Theodosius Boughton, Baronet, by his brother-in-law Mr. Donnellan, in 1781. After that event, a younger branch succeeding to the estate and title, Lawford Hall was pulled down, and the ninth Baronet, on inheriting the property of the Rouses of Rouse-Lench, in this county, assumed that name, and made it his seat and residence.

See Dugdale's Warwickshire, second ed., vol. i. p. 98; Nichols's Leicestershire, vol. iv. pt. i. p. 202; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. ii. p. 220.

William FitzGodric, who married Albreda de Lizours, Lady of Sprotsborough, in this county, and who died before 1195, is the remote ancestor of this ancient house. Their son, William FitzWilliam, was seated at Sprotsborough in the reign of Henry II., and here the family continued till the extinction of the elder line, which ended in coheiresses in the reign of Henry VIII.

The rise of this branch of the family must be ascribed to Sir William Fitzwilliam, Lord Justice, and afterwards Lord Deputy of Ireland, in the reign of Elizabeth, whose grandson was created Baron Fitzwilliam in 1620. In the year 1565, Hugh Fitzwilliam collected whatever evidences could be found touching the descent of the family. This account, which is in the possession of Earl Fitzwilliam, is the foundation of most of the histories of this great family, whose present Yorkshire property came from the Wentworths through the coheiress of the Marquis of Rockingham in 1744. From this match resulted the Earldom in 1746.

See Hunter's South Yorkshire, vol. i. p. 331, vol. ii. p. 93; and Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 374.

Arms.—Lozengy argent and gules. The present coat, except that ermine takes the place of argent, was borne by Thomas Fitzwilliam in the reign of Henry III. In that of Richard II. William Fitzwilliam bore the arms as at present used.

Present Representative, William Thomas Spencer Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, K.G. 6th Earl Fitzwilliam.

Few families were more important in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries than the noble house of Scrope; their descent is unbroken from the Conquest. Few houses also have been more distinguished by the number of great offices of honour held both in Church and State. The Scropes were very early settled in Yorkshire, Bolton being, from the period of the reign of Edward I., their principal seat and Barony. The present family is sprung from a younger son of Henry, 6th Lord Scrope of Bolton; it was established at Danby about the middle of the seventeenth century, by marriage with the heiress of Conyers.

See Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 368; the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll by Sir Harris Nicolas, 1832, vol. ii. p. 1, and Poulett-Scrope's History of Castle-Combe; see also Blore's Rutlandshire, (fol. 1811,) p. 5-8, for full pedigrees of the Scropes of Bolton and Masham, (Yorkshire,) Cockerington, (Lincolnshire,) Wormsleigh or Wormsley, (Oxfordshire,) and Castle-Combe, (Wiltshire,) all now extinct; also the Topographer, vol. iii. p. 181, for Church Notes from Cockerington by Gervase Hollis. Adrian Scrope the Regicide was of the Wormsley branch.

Arms.—Azure, a bend or. These arms were confirmed by the Court of Chivalry in 1390, on the celebrated dispute between the houses of Scrope and Grosvenor, as to the right of bearing them. In the reign of Edward III. M. William le Scroope bore the present coat, "en le point de la bend une lyon rampant de purpure." In that of Richard II., M. Henry le Skrop differenced his arms with a label of three points argent, M. Thomas le Scrop at the same period charged his label with an annulet sable, while other members of the family bore the label ermine charged with bars gules, and lozenges and mullets ermine. (Rolls of the dates.)

Sylvester de Grimston, "Standard-bearer and Chamberlain to William I.," of Grimston, in the parish of Garton, is claimed as the ancestor of this venerable Norman family, who have ever since the period of the Conquest resided at the place from whence the name is derived.

Younger branches of the Grimstons were seated in Norfolk and Essex, besides the Grimstons of Gorhambury, Earls of Verulam, all now extinct in the male line.

See Poulson's Holderness, vol. ii. p. 60; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, vol. i. p. 95; Brydges's Collins, vol. viii. p. 209; and the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, vol. ii. p. 292. See also Boutell's Brasses, p. 129, for inscriptions to Sir Edward Grimston and his son in Rishangles Church, near Eye, in Suffolk.

Arms.—Argent, on a fess sable three mullets of six points or, pierced gules. This coat was borne by Monsieur Gerrard de Grymston in the reign of Richard II. (Roll.)

This ancient Norman family is said to be descended from Sir Humphry de Wyvill, who lived at the time of the Conquest, and whose descendants were seated at Slingsby in this county; the more modern part of the pedigree begins with Robert Wyvill of Ripon, whose son was of Little Burton, in the reign of Henry VIII.; from thence the family migrated to Constable-Burton, about the end of the reign of James I. During the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, the Wyvills were distinguished by their loyalty and consequent sufferings in the royal cause. An elder line of this family, on whom the Baronetcy, created in 1611, has descended, is said to be resident in Maryland, in the United States of America.

See Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. pl. i.; Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 322; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 232.

Arms.—Gules, three chevronels interlaced vaire, and a chief or. The arms are founded upon the coat of Fitz Hugh, and may be taken as a proof of high antiquity.

The pedigree of this ancient family is traced to Roger, whom Dr. Whitaker calls "Progenitor of this the oldest and most distinguished of the Craven families now surviving. That this man was a Norman the name will not permit us to doubt; that he was a dependant of Roger of Poitou is extremely probable; that he was at all events possessed of Bracewell (in Craven) early in the reign of Henry I., is absolutely certain." Dr. Whitaker proceeds to remark on the name of Tempest, which he says, "whatever was its origin, seems to have been venerated by the family, as in the two next centuries, when local appellation became almost universal, they never chose to part with it." The elder line of the Tempests continued at Bracewell till the time of Charles I., when Richard Tempest, the last representative, pulled down the family house, and devised the estate to a distant relation. The house of Broughton descends directly from Roger, second son of Sir Peirs Tempest, which Roger married in the seventh of Henry IV. Katharine daughter and heir of Peter Gilliott of Broughton, which has been ever since the seat of the Tempests— "a name never stained with dishonour, but often illustrated with deeds of arms."

A younger branch was of Tong in this county, descended from Henry, youngest son of Sir Richard Tempest of Bracewell, Sheriff of Yorkshire in the 8th of Henry VIII. created Baronet in 1664, extinct 1819.

One of the most ancient families in the North of England, according to Dr. Whitaker, descended from Richard de Hamerton, who lived in the twenty-sixth of Henry II., anno 1170. From Hamerton, the original seat, the family removed to Hellifield, acquired by marriage with the heiress of Knolle, in the reign of Edward III. The Castle, or Peel, was built in the reign of Henry VII. The Hamertons were engaged in the Northern Rebellion in 1537, and thereby Sir Stephen Hamerton lost his head, and his family the estate; which was restored to the male representative of the family, in the third year of Elizabeth, by a munificent settlement made by John Redman, who had become possessed of the property, and was related by marriage to the Hamertons. A younger branch was of Preston-Jacklyn in this county.

See Whitaker's Craven, ed. 1812, p. 124; and Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, 1665-6, printed by the Surtees Society in 1859, p. 354.

Arms.—Argent, three hammers sable. The Preston-Jacklyn line bore Argent, on a chevron between three hammers sable a trefoil slipped or.

Peter de Trehouse, who assumed the local name of Hotham, and was living in the year 1188, is the ancestor of this family, who were of Scarborough in this county in the reign of Edward I., a seat which continued the principal residence of the Hothams for several centuries until it went to decay after the Civil Wars in the seventeenth century. The siege of Hull in 1643, when Sir John Hotham was Governor for the Parliament, and with his son was discovered holding correspondence with the Royalists, for which they both suffered death, will ever render this family historical.

See Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 473; the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, vol. ii. p. 306; and Oliver's Beverley, p. 509.

Arms.—Barry of ten argent and azure, on a canton or a raven proper. M. John de Hotham is stated in the Roll of arms of the period of Edward III. to have borne, Or, a bend sable charged with three mullets argent voided gules.

Bartholomew de Bovington, living at the beginning of the twelfth century, stands at the head of the pedigree; other authorities mention Sir Ingram de Boynton of Aclam, (in Cleveland,) who lived in the reign of Henry III., as the first recorded ancestor. Barmston came from the daughter and coheir of Sir Martyn del See, about the end of the fifteenth century.

During the Civil Wars, Sir Matthew Boynton, the head of this family, was one of the gentlemen chiefly trusted in Yorkshire by the Parliament.

See Poulson's History of Holderness, vol. i. p. 196; the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, vol. ii. p. 309; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 301.

Arms.—Or, a fess between three crescents gules. This coat was borne by Monsieur Thomas de Boynton in the reign of Richard II. (Roll.)

Waterton in the county of Lincoln was the original seat, and from hence the name was derived at an early period. Sir Robert Waterton, Master of the Horse to Henry IV., and John Waterton, who served King Henry V. at Agincourt in the same office, were of this place; the last was succeeded by his brother Sir Robert, who was of Methley in this county, which he inherited with his wife Cicely, the daughter and heir of Robert Fleming, of Woodhall in that parish, and where his tomb is still preserved. This Sir Robert was Govenor of Pontefract Castle during the time that Richard II. was confined there. The present family descend from John Waterton, a younger son of this house, (the male line of the elder branch being extinct,) who married Catherine de Burgh, heiress of Walton, in the year 1435, which has since continued the residence of this ancient knightly lineage.

See Whitaker's Leeds, vol. i. p. 269; and the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, vol. ii. p. 190, for a memoir of Hugh Waterton, Esq.; and the History of the Isle of Axholme by Archdeacon Stonehouse.

"The truly ancient family of Fairfax," as Camden styles it, is supposed to be of Saxon origin, and to have been seated at Torcester in Northumberland at the period of the Conquest. In 1205 (sixth of John,) Richard Fairfax, the first of the family proved by evidence, was possessed of the lands of Ascham, not far from the City of York. His grandson William purchased the Manor of Walton in the West Riding, which continued for near six hundred years, till the extinction of the elder male line of the family in the person of Charles Gregory Fairfax, tenth Viscount Fairfax of Ireland, in 1772, the inheritance of his descendants. From a younger son of Richard Fairfax, of Walton, Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry VI. the present family is descended, as well as Fairfax of Denton, Baron Fairfax of Cameron in Scotland (1627,) who represents an elder line,* and who resides in the United States of America.

Steeton was the gift of the Chief Justice to Sir Guy Fairfax, his third son, the founder of this branch of the family, and here he erected a castle in 1477.

Arms.—Argent, three bars gemelles gules, surmounted by a lion rampant sable, crowned or.

The pedigree begins with Egbert Coigniers, whose son Roger was living in the ninth year of Edward II., and was father of another Roger, who marrying the heiress of Norton of Norton, their son took that name; sixth in descent was Richard Norton, who joined with the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland in the Rebellion of the North in 1569, and thereby caused the destruction of almost every branch of his family. He was attainted in the twelfth of Elizabeth, and died in exile in Spain. The present family descend from Sir Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the House of Commons, descended from Edmund Norton of Clowcroft, third son of old Richard Norton, which Edmund had taken no part in the Northern Rebellion.

An elder branch, also descended from the third son of Sir Richard, and believed to be now extinct, was of Sawley near Ripon, from the period of Charles I.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. vii. p. 546; Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. ii. p. 182; and "Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569."

Arms.—Azure, a maunch ermine, over all a bend gules. In the reign of Edward II., Sir John de Conyers bore, Azure, a maunch or, and a hand proper. Sir Robert de Conyers at the same period reversed the colours, bearing, Or, a maunch azure, and a hand proper. Monsieur Robert Conyers in the reign of Richard II. bore, Azure, a maunch or charged with an annulet sable. (Rolls of the dates.)

The family of Savile was one of the most illustrious in the West Riding of the county of York. Some writers have fancifully ascribed to it an Italian origin, but it probably had its rise at Silkston, in this county. It certainly flourished in those parts in the thirteenth century; and in the middle of the fourteenth century we find (1358) Margaret Savile Prioress of Kirklees.

In the reign of Edward III. the family divided itself into two main branches, in the person of two brothers, John of Tankersley and Henry of Bradley. The senior branch acquired its greatest renown in the person of George first Marquess of Halifax, a title which became extinct in 1700. The junior branch was of Copley and Methley, and, having produced one of the most learned men of our country, Sir Henry Savile, the Provost of Eton, is now represented by the Earl of Mexborough.

See Dugdale's Baronage, ii. p. 462; Whitaker's Leeds, vol. i. pp. 272, 310; Archdall's ed. of Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 156; Hunter's Antiquarian Notices of Lupset, 1851; and the Savile Correspondence, edited for the Camden Society by W. D. Cooper, F.S.A., 1858.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend sable three owls of the field. This coat was borne by Monsieur John Sayvill, in the reign of Richard II. His son John differenced it by a label of three points gules.

Descended from Sir Nicholas Gower, knight of the shire for this county in the reign of Edward III., and seated at Stittenham from about the same period. Of this family, it has been said, was Gower the Poet, but Sir Harris Nicolas in his memoir of Gower could not trace the connection. Leland remarks, "The House of Gower the Poet yet remayneth at Switenham (Stittenham) in Yorkshire, and divers of them syns have beene knightes." In the end of the seventeenth century the wealth of this family was greatly increased by marriage with the heiress of Leveson, of Trentham, in Staffordshire, and also in the year 1785 by the marriage of the Marquess of Stafford with Elizabeth, daughter and heir of William eighteenth Earl of Sutherland, mother of the present Duke.

Younger Branches. The Earl of Ellesmere 1846, and Gower of Bill-Hill, co. Berks, descended from John son of John first Earl Gower, by his third wife.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. ii. p. 441; Historical and Antiquarian Mag., 1828, vol. ii. p. 103; and Leland's Itin., vol. vi. fol. 15.

Present Representative, George Granville William Sutherland Leveson Gower, 3rd Duke of Sutherland, K. G.

A Norman family by reputation, and said to be traced to the Conquest, descended from Sir William Downay, who was in the wars in the Holy Land with Richard I. in 1192, at which time that King gave him, in memory of his acts of valour, a ring from his finger, which is still in possession of the family.

At an early period the Dawnays were in possession of lands in Cornwall; fifteen manors in that county descended by an heiress to the house of Courtenay Earl of Devon, about the reign of Edward II. In Richard the Second's time the family removed into this county by a match with the heiress of Newton of Snaith. Cowick was the seat and residence of Sir Guy Dawnay, in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.

See Brydges's Collins, vol. viii. p. 453; and Gilbert's Cornwall, vol. i. p. 457.

"A right ancient family, gentlemen of repute in the county (of Lancaster) before the Conquest," according to Fuller in his "Worthies," and also mentioned by Gwillim as a "knightly family of great antiquity, taking name from Pilkington in Lancashire." That estate appears to have remained in the family until the ruin of the elder branch in consequence of Sir Thomas Pilkington having taken part against Henry VII. and with Richard III. at the battle of Bosworth. The present house descended from Sir John Pilkington, second son of Robert Pilkington, and brother of the unfortunate Sir Thomas. His son Robert is stated to have been of Bradley, in this county. He died in 1429, and was the ancestor of Sir Arthur the first Baronet.

Younger Branches. Pilkington of Park-Lane Hall, in this county, descended from the second son of Robert Pilkington, of Bradley, who was living in 1540; and Pilkington of Tore, in the county of Westmeath, descended from Sir Robert, younger brother of Sir John Pilkington, ancestor of the house of Bradley.

See Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iv. p. 338; Hunter's South Yorkshire, vol. ii. p. 394; Burke's Landed Gentry; and "The Grand Juries of the County of Westmeath," vol. ii. p. 254.

Arms.—A cross patonce voided gules. The crest, "a mower of parti-colours argent and gules," is said by Fuller in his "Worthies of England" to have been assumed in memory of the ancestor of the family having so disguised himself in order to escape after the Battle of Hastings. The Battle of Bosworth is the more probable scene of this event, where four knights of the family were in arms on the part of Richard III.

Present Representative, Sir Lionel Milborne Swinnerton Pilkington, 11th Baronet.

A well-known Wiltshire family, seated at Stourton, in that county, soon after the Norman Conquest. "The name of the Stourtons be very aunciente yn those parties," writes Leland in his Itinerary. "The Ryver of Stoure risith ther of six fountaines or springer, wherof three be on the northe side of the Parke harde withyn the pale: the other three be north also, but without the Parke; the Lord Stourton gyveth these six Fountaynes yn his armes."

The Yorkshire property, and consequent settlement in this county, came from the match with the heiress of Langdale Lord Langdale in 1775.

Younger Branch. Stourton, (called Vavasour,) of Hazlewood. Baronet 1828, first cousin of the present peer.

A remote branch of an ancient Nottinghamshire family, which can be traced to the time of Henry II. The name is derived from Markham, near Tuxford, in that county, but Coatham was afterwards the family seat, until it was sold by Markham, "a fatal unthrift," who was the brother of the antiquary Francis Markham; this was about the end of the reign of Elizabeth. William Markham, Archbishop of York, who died in 1807, was the ancestor and restorer of this worthy family; he was descended from Daniel, a younger son of the House of Coatham. Becca-Hall has been in possession of the Markhams since the end of the last century.

See Markham's History of the Markhams, privately printed, 8vo. 1854; the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 1859; and the Topographer, vol. ii. p. 296, for Markham of Sedgebrook, co. Lincoln, extinct 1779.

Arms.—Azure, on a chief or a demi-lion rampant issuing gules. The Markhams of Sedgebrook bore their arms differenced by a border argent.

The name is derived from Boreton, in the parish of Condover, in Shropshire, an estate which remained in the family until the reign of James I., although the Burtons became resident at Longner, in the same county, prior to the reign of Edward IV. "Goiffrid de Bortona," (Burton,) one of the foresters of Shropshire, in the reign of Henry I., is the first recorded ancestor. The senior line of this house terminated with Thomas Burton, who died unmarried in 1730, and whose sister carried the Longner estate to the Lingen family, who have assumed the name of Burton (see p. 198.) Thomas, fifth son of Thomas Burton, of Longner, is the ancestor of the present family, and of the Marquess of Conyngham (elder brother of the late Lord Londesborough). He went to Ireland in the reign of James I., and died there in 1665. His great-grandson married the heiress of Conyngham. The late Lord assumed the name of Denison on succeeding to the estates of his uncle W. J. Denison, Esq.

See Archdall's edition of Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vol. vii. p. 173; and Morris MSS.

Arms.—Per pale azure and purpure, a cross engrailed or between four roses argent, granted in 1478, and commemorative of the devotion of this house to the White Rose of York.

Present Representative, William Henry Forester Denison, 2nd Baron Londesborough.

Rawdon, in the parish of Guiseley in this county, is the original seat of this ancient family, which is traced to Thor de Rawdon, whose son Serlo lived in the reign of Stephen. Rawdon remained the family residence till early in the seventeenth century, when Sir George Rawdon, the then head of the house, removed into the North of Ireland, and was seated at Moira, in the county of Down, where the family principally lived till the match with the heiress of Hastings in 1752.

See Whitaker's Leeds, vol. i. p. 171; Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 606; Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iii. p. 467; and Archdall's Lodge, vol. iii. p. 95.

Present Representative, Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet Rawdon Hastings, 4th Marquess of Hastings.

At a very early date, and probably not long after the Conquest, the ancestors of this family were seated at Borough-Bridge, which appears to have been ever since one of the residences of the house of Tancred.

Hilton in Cleveland appears to have been the original seat of this ancient family; here it was resident in the twelfth century, and here it remained till the middle of the sixteenth, when Anthony Meynell, the immediate ancestor of the present family, removed by purchase to North Kilvington, which has since continued the residence of his descendants.

Arms.—Azure, three bars gemelles and a chief or. This is the ancient coat of Meysnill or Meynell of Dalby-on-the-Woulds in Leicestershire, and was borne by Trevor de Menyll in the reign of Henry III., and also by Sir Nicholas de Meynell in that of Edward II., with the exception of two instead of three bars gemelles. (Rolls of the dates.)

Of this family Mr. Hunter has remarked, that "it is a single instance of the male line being maintained in its ancient port and rank out of all the gentry of the Deanery of Doncaster, summoned to appear before the Heralds in 1584." The pedigree begins with Sir William de Anne, Constable of the Castle of Tickhill in the time of Edward II. He married the coheiress of Haringel, from whom came the manor of Frickley, sold in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Burgh-Wallis came from the heiress of Fenton in the reign of Elizabeth. Mr. Hunter observes, "The Annes, like too many other families, have not been careful of preserving their ancient evidences, and theirs was not one of the muniment rooms to which our diligent antiquary Dodsworth had access."

The pedigree is traced to the sixth of Edward II., when John de Lister was resident at Derby. He married the daughter and heiress of John de Bolton, Bowbearer of Bollond, and thus became connected with this county. The elder line was of Mydhope, or Middop, and afterwards, in the reign of Philip and Mary, of Thornton in Craven, and became extinct in 1667. The present family is sprung from Thomas, second son of Christopher Lister, who lived in the time of Edward IV. The Listers were of Gisburn early in the sixteenth century, the ancient seat of Arnoldsbiggin in that manor being their seat for many generations. Lyster, of Rowton, in Shropshire, is supposed to be a branch of this family, though there is no evidence of the fact; Rowton has been in possession of the Lysters since 1482.

See Whitaker's Craven, ed. 1812, pp. 38, 103; and Brydges's Collins, vol. viii. p. 584; and for Rowton, Blakeway's Sheriffs of Salop, p. 144.

Arms.—Ermine, on a fess sable three mullets or. Lyster of Rowton bears the mullets argent.

A family of ancient standing in this county, descended from John de Lascelles, of Hinderskelfe, now called Castle Howard, in the wapentake of Bulmer, in the North riding, living in the ninth year of Edward II. For seven generations immediately following they were called "Lascelles alias Jackson." About the reign of Henry VI. they removed to Gawthorpe, also in the North riding, and afterwards to Stank and Northallerton; Harewood was purchased about 1721.

Arms.—Sable, a cross flory within a border or. This coat, without the border, was borne by Monsieur Lascelles de Worthorpe, as appears by the Roll of the reign of Edward III. Monsieur Rafe de Lascelles bore at the same period, Argent, three chaplets of roses vermaux, with a border engrailed sable.

There was a family who took the local name of Wombwell from that manor in the thirteenth century, but this cannot with certainty be connected with it. The pedigree therefore commences with Hugh Wombwell of Wombwell, son of Henry Lowell de Wombwell, living in the reign of Edward III. The elder branch of this family became extinct in the male line on the death of William Wombwell of Wombwell, Esq. in 1733. Part of the estate from whence the name is derived belongs to the present family, who represent a junior line, descended from George Wombwell, of Leeds, who died in 1682, by purchase of the coheirs.

Arms.—Gules, a bend between six unicorn's heads cooped argent; and so borne in the sixth of Henry IV.

There appears no reason to doubt the antiquity of this family, said to be descended from Manfred Palmes, living in the reign of Stephen, and seated at Naburn since the year 1226, by a match with the heiress of Watterville.

On the authority of Whitaker we learn that Screven has been in this family since the early part of the fifteenth century; the first recorded ancestor being John Roundell, of Screven, living in the third of Henry VI.

INDEX

Transcriber's Notes:

The following misprints have been corrected:

[in this county of B ckingham] —>
[in this county of Buckingham]

[directly to the Couquest] —>
[directly to the Conquest]

[This family wrs originally] —>
[This family was originally]

[Torr-Abbey was purchasd] —>
[Torr-Abbey was purchased]

[Earl Waldegrve 1729] —>
[Earl Waldegrave 1729]

[Cornewwall of Delbury.] —>
[Cornewall of Delbury.]

See under "Compton of Compton Wyniate":
[the seventeenth eentury.] —>
[the seventeenth century.]

[extinct in the last centnry.] —>
[extinct in the last century.]

[who assumed the loca name] —>
[who assumed the local name]

[G. H. M'Gill's account], this may seem a misprint but [M'Gill] is an existing name.

As the text below "DIGBY OF MILTON" suggests, the placename [Milton] should be [Tilton]. Confirmation for this has been found in "the Leicestershire Historian", vol. 2, no. 8 (the article "The Tilton Family in America and its Link with Tilton on the Hill" written by Peter D. A. Blakesley), page 7: "... the family of Digby, lords of the manor of Tilton from the twelfth century until the seventeenth century, when the manor was sold."
[DIGBY OF MILTON, BARON] —>
[DIGBY OF TILTON, BARON]

Another misprint for [Tilton] has been found in the "Index":
[Digby of Minton, 76] —>
[Digby of Tilton, 76]

[Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, 156] —>
[Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, 150]

[Leigh of East Hall, 21] —>
[Legh of East Hall, 21]

[Onslow of West Clandon, 52] —>
[Onslow of West Clandon, 251]

Two misprints in this one:
[Wake of Courtenhall, 138] —>
[Wake of Courteenhall, 158]

The author used asterixes to indicate notes. Unfortunately 3 asterixes lack an explanation. They are located at:
[Leicestershire, iv. pt. 2. p. 519.*]
[Leicestershire, iii. pt. 2, p. 1009*]
[ii. pt. i. p. *261;]

The word [coheiress] also occurs with the notation [co-heiress].
Both notations have been maintained.

The plain text file of this ebook uses underscores to indicate italic text
and plus signs to indicate a bold Gothic typeface.

Each family description starts with an illustration representing
their arms. In the plain text file these have been replaced with
[Illustration].

Obvious punctuation/spelling errors were corrected without note.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Noble and Gentle Men of England

NOBLE AND GENTLE

MEN OF ENGLAND;

THE ARMS AND DESCENTS

ANCIENT KNIGHTLY AND GENTLE HOUSES OF ENGLAND,

EVELYN PHILIP SHIRLEY, ESQ. M.A. F.S.A.

PREFACE.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Noble and Gentle Men of England

INDEX

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE