[Illustration] 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.)
Present Representative, Jacob Henry Delaval Astley, 3rd Baron
Hastings.