[Illustration] 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.
See Blomefield, i. 576; and Brydges's Collins, vii. 510.
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.
Present Representative, Thomas de Grey, 5th Baron Walsingham.
BACON OF RAVENINGHAM, PREMIER BARONET OF ENGLAND, OF REDGRAVE,
SUFFOLK, 1611.
[Illustration] 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.
Present Representative, Sir Henry Hickman Bacon, 11th Baronet.