[Illustration] William de Bredenhill, seated at Dodington in
Oxfordshire, in the reign of Edward I., and the owner of lands at
Aynho in this county at the same period, is the first ascertained
ancestor of the Brudenells, whose principal consequence however must
be traced to Sir Robert Brudenell, Chief Justice of the King's Bench
in the reign of Henry VII., who married a coheiress of Entwisell,
and thus became possessed of Dene and of Stanton Wyvill in the
county of Leicester.
See the pedigree of this family in Nichols's History of
Leicestershire, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 807; see also Brydges's Collins,
iii. 487.
Younger branch. The Marquess of Ailesbury (1821), descended from
Thomas, fourth son of George fourth Earl of Cardigan, and the Lady
Elizabeth Bruce, eldest daughter of Thomas second Earl of Ailesbury.
ARMS.--_Argent, a chevron gules between three morions azure_.
Present Representative, James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of
Cardigan, K.C.B.