[Illustration] 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_.
Present Representative, The Rev. Francis Charles Massingberd.