+Knightly.+
SHIRLEY OF EATINGTON (ELDER BRANCH OF STAUNTON-HAROLD, IN THE COUNTY
OF LEICESTER, EARL FERRERS 1711, BARON FERRERS OF CHARTLEY 1677,
BARONET 1611.)
[Illustration] Sasuualo, or Sewallis, whose name, says Dugdale,
"argues him to be of the old English stock," mentioned in Domesday
as mesne Lord of Eatington, under Henry de Ferrers, is the first
recorded ancestor of this, the oldest knightly family in the county
of Warwick. Until the reign of Edward III., Eatington appears to
have continued the principal seat of the Shirleys, whose name was
assumed in the twelfth century from the manor of Shirley, in
Derbyshire, and which, with Ratcliffe-on-Sore, in the county of
Nottingham, and Rakedale and Staunton-Harold, in Leicestershire,
derived from the heiresses of Basset and Staunton, succeeded, during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as the usual residence of
the chiefs of the house. In the sixteenth century, Astwell, in
Northamptonshire, was brought into the family by the heiress of
Lovett; and in 1615, by the marriage of Sir Henry Shirley with the
coheiress of Devereux, a moiety of the possessions of the Earls of
Essex, after the extinction of that title in 1646, centred in Sir
Robert Shirley, father of the first Earl Ferrers; on whose death, in
1717, the family estates were divided, the Derbyshire,
Leicestershire, and Staffordshire estates descending with the
earldom to the issue of his first marriage, and the Warwickshire
property, the original seat of the Shirleys, eventually to the
great-grandfather of the present possessor, the eldest surviving
son of the second marriage of the first Earl Ferrers.
Elder Branches.* Shirley of Staunton-Harold, in the county of
Leicester, represented by Sewallis Edward, tenth Earl Ferrers 1711;
and Shirley of Shirley, in the county of Derby, represented by the
Rev. Walter Waddington Shirley, Canon of Christ Church, D.D. only
son of the late Bishop of Sodor and Man, and great-grandson of
Walter, younger brother of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Earls
Ferrers.
Younger Branches (extinct). Shirley, of Wiston, Preston,
West-Grinstead, and Ote-Hall, all in Sussex, and all descended from
the second marriage of Ralph Shirley, Esq., and Elizabeth Blount;
which Ralph died in 1466. All these families are presumed to be
extinct on the death of Sir William Warden Shirley, Baronet, in
1815.
See Dugdale's Warwickshire, ed. 2, vol. i. p. 621; Nichols's History
of Leicestershire, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 704-727; Stemmata
Shirleiana, pr. pr. 4to. 1841; and Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p.
85.
ARMS.--_Paly of six, or and azure, a quarter ermine_. The more
ancient coat was, _Paly of six, or and sable_, as appears by the
seal of "Sir Sewallis de Ethindon, Knight," with the legend, "Sum
scutum de auro et nigro senis ductibus palatum," engraved in
Dugdale's Warwickshire, and in Upton de Studio Militari. Indeed Sir
Ralph Shirley bore it as late as the reign of Edward II; see
Nicolas's Roll of that date, p. 73. Sir Hugh de Shirley bore the
present coat (Roll of Richard II.): so did his father Sir Thomas,
and his great-grandfather Sir James, as appears by their several
seals engraved in Upton, &c.
Present Representative, Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq., late M. P. for
South Warwickshire.
* The Iretons of Little Ireton, in the county of Derby, extinct in
1711, were in fact the elder line of the family, sprung from
Henry, eldest son of Fulcher, and elder brother of Sewallis de
Shirley.