[Illustration] "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.)
Present Representative, Sir Thomas Gresley, 10th Baronet.