Produced by R.G.P.M. van Giesen. For "Slankie".
THE
NOBLE AND GENTLE
MEN OF ENGLAND.
THE
NOBLE AND GENTLE
MEN OF ENGLAND;
OR, NOTES TOUCHING
THE ARMS AND DESCENTS
OF THE
ANCIENT KNIGHTLY AND GENTLE HOUSES OF ENGLAND,
ARRANGED IN THEIR RESPECTIVE COUNTIES.
ATTEMPTED BY
EVELYN PHILIP SHIRLEY, ESQ. M.A. F.S.A.
LATE ONE OF THE KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE FOR THE COUNTY OF WARWICK.
[Illustration]
WESTMINSTER:
JOHN BOWER NICHOLS AND SONS.
Third Edition, Corrected 1866.
PREFACE.
"That noble families are continued in a long succession of wealth,
honour, and reputation, is justly esteemed as one of the most
valuable of worldly blessings, as being the certain tokens of God
Almighty's providential favour, and the prudent conduct of such
ancestors,"--Nath. Johnston's _Account of the Family of Bruce Earl
of Aylesbury_, 1691, Harl. MS, 3879.
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.
Lower Eatington, July 1, 1860.
* Quarterly Review, Jan. 1858, p. 37.
** Quarterly Review, Jan. 1858, p. 31.