A family of great antiquity, descended from Henry de Boneberi, in the time of Stephen, a younger brother of the House of St. Pierre in Normandy. William de Boneberi, son of Henry, was Lord of Boneberi in the reign of Richard I. But the direct ancestor was David brother of Henry, whose great-grandson Alexander de Bunbury was living in the fifteenth of Henry III. Stanney, still the inheritance, but not the residence, of the Bunburys, came from the heiress of the same name in the seventeenth of Edward III.

See Ormerod, ii. 216, and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 687.

Arms.—Argent, on a bend sable three chessrooks of the field.

Present Representative, Sir Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th Baronet.

Descended from Sir Nicholas Leycester, who acquired the manor of Nether-Tabley in marriage, and died in 1295. The male line of the eldest branch of this family, established at Nether-Tabley, became extinct in 1742. The present and younger branch springs from Ralph, younger brother of John Leycester of Tabley, who married Joan, daughter and heir of Robert Toft of Toft: she was a widow in 1390. The antiquary Sir Peter was of the Tabley line.

Younger branch, Leycester of Whiteplace, co. Berks.

See Ormerod, i. 385, 456; iii. 190.

Arms.—Azure, a fess or, fretty gules, between two fleurs-de-lis of the second. Another coat was granted by Dethick to Sir Ralph Leycester of Toft, the second year of Edward VI., viz. Sable, on a fess engrailed between three falcons volant argent, beaked and membered or, a lion's head caboshed azure between two covered cups gules. But this very unnecessary and overloaded coat does not appear to have been used.

Present Representative, Ralph Oswald Leycester, Esq.

The pedigree in Ormerod begins with Hugh Massie, who married Agnes, daughter and heir of Nicholas Bold, of Coddington. Their son William purchased the manor of Coddington in the eighteenth of Henry VI. The parentage of Hugh Massie is a matter of dispute, but he was probably a younger son of Sir John Massie of Tatton, who died in the eighth of Henry. He is also by others supposed to have been descended from the Massies of Podington, a younger branch of the Barons of Dunham Massey. This family is perhaps the only remnant in the direct male line of the posterity of any of the Cheshire Barons. General Massie, a younger son of this house, was a distinguished officer in the Civil Wars, both in the service of the Commonwealth and in that of Charles II.

Younger branches: Massey of Pool-Hall, in this county, descended from the second son of Massie of Coddington, who was born in 1604. From Edward the third son descended the Massies of Rosthorne, also in Cheshire, now extinct. For the extinct branches of Broxton and Podington, see Ormerod, ii. 372 and 308; for Massie of Coddington, ii. 399; for Massie of Pool-Hall, iii. 188.

Arms.—Quarterly gules and or, in the first and fourth three fleurs-de-lis argent, a canton of the third. There was a dispute about the arms of Massey between the Houses of Tatton and Podington (for which see "The Scrope and Grosvenor Roll," vol. ii. p. 262), which was decided in 1378 by the arbitration of Sir Hugh Calveley and others. The present coat, except that the first and second quarters were or, and the canton omitted, was awarded to Massey of Podington. Massey of Tatton bore the same arms with three escallops argent in lieu of the fleurs-de-lis. The elder line of Dunham bore Quarterly or and gules, in the second quarter a lion passant argent.

Present Representative, Richard Massie, Esq.

This family represents the eldest branch of the Wilbrahams of Cheshire, descended from Richard de Wilburgkam, sheriff of this county in the forty-third year of Henry III. In the third of Edward IV. the Wilbrahams were seated at Woodhay, in Cheshire, by a match with the heiress of Golborne: this, the elder line, created Baronet in 1620-1, was extinct in 1692. The present family are descended from the second son of Thomas Wilbraham of Woodhay, and were seated at Townsend in Nantwich in the reign of Elizabeth; they removed to Delamere the latter part of the eighteenth century.

Younger branches: Wilbraham Baron Skelmersdale 1828; and Wilbraham of Rode, in this county, both descended from Randle, younger brother of Roger Wilbraham, of Nantwich, who died in 1754. Wilbraham of Dorfold, sold in 1754, but existing at Falmouth in 1818, was sprung from the youngest son of Richard Wilbraham, of Nantwich, who died in 1612. See Ormerod, ii. 65; iii. 31, 184, 199.

Arms.—Argent, three bends wavy azure. The Dorfold branch bore for distinction a canton gules. Additional coat, granted by Flower, temp. Eliz.; Azure, two bars argent, on a canton of the first a wolf's head erased of the second.

Present Representative, George Fortescue Wilbraham, Esq.

Efward de Lega, who appears from his name to have been of Saxon origin, and who lived at or near the period of the Conquest, was the patriarch of this ancient family, of which the principal male line failed in the time of Edward IV. Thomas Legh, of Northwood, in the same parish of High-Legh, the ancestor of the present family, succeeded after a long litigation as the next heir male in the reign of Henry VIII. See Ormerod, i. 358.

Arms.—Allowed 1566. Argent, a lion rampant gules, armed and langued azure.

Present Representative, George Cornwall Legh, Esq. M.P. for North Cheshire.

Descended from Richard de Lymme, younger son of Hugh de Lymme, which Richard in the latter part of the thirteenth century married Agnes, daughter and sole heir of Richard de Legh, great-grandson of Hamon de Legh, the first mentioned in the pedigree. Richard de Lymme had issue Thomas de Legh, of West Hall, living in 1305.

Younger branches: Leigh (called Trafford), of Oughtrington, in this county, descended from John second son of Richard Leigh, of West Hall, who died in 1486; for whom see Ormerod, i. 439.

Leigh of Leatherlake House in Surrey, descended from Thomas second son of the Rev. Peter Leigh of West Hall, who died in 1719; and Leigh of South Carolina, Baronet 1773, descended from Peter third son of the same Rev. Peter Leigh. See Ormerod, i. 350.

Arms.—Allowed 1563. Or, a lion rampant gules, armed and langued azure. For four descents after the match with Agnes de Legh, her descendants used the coat of Lymme, Gules, a pale fusillé argent, conclusive evidence of the descent of this family from Richard de Lymme, and not from William de Venables, another husband of Agnes de Legh. Indeed, in the Visitation of 1566, this coat of Lymme was allowed to Leigh of West Hall; but in 1584 both the East and West Hall families claimed the lion rampant gules. In 1663 the arms were settled as at present.

Present Representative, Egerton Leigh, Esq.

The pedigree is traced to Hugh de Aldersey, in the reign of Henry III., soon after which time the family divided into two branches; the estate and manor of Aldersey being also held in separate moieties by the representatives of the two families: one moiety eventually passed by an heir-general to Hatton of Hatton, and has since been united into one estate, by purchase from Dutton of Hatton. A younger branch of this family was seated at Chester, of which was William Aldersey the antiquary, mayor of that city in 1614.

See Ormerod, ii. 404.

Arms.—Gules, on a bend engrailed argent, between two cinquefoils or, three leopard's faces vert. The more ancient coat, given in King's Vale Royal, appears to have been, Sable, three chargers or dishes argent.

Present Representative, Thomas Aldersey, Esq.

Ormerod traces this family to Sir John Baskervyle, grantee of a moiety of Old Withington from Robert de Camvyle in 1266, and that estate has ever since remained in the family. In 1758 John Baskervyle, Esq., the representative of the house of Old Withington, having married the heiress of Glegg of Gayton, in this county, assumed that name in lieu of his own.

See Ormerod, iii. 355; and for Glegg, ib. ii. 285.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron gules between three hurts. This coat, the chevron charged with three fleurs-de-lis or, was borne by "Monsire de Baskervile;" see Sir Harris Nicolas's Roll of Arms temp. E. III.

Present Representative, John Baskervyle Glegg, Esq.

Adam Lord of Leighton, in the reign of Henry III., is the first recorded ancestor of this family, who continued at Leighton, the seat of the principal branch of the Brookes, until the extinction of the elder male line, in or about the year 1632. Richard Brooke, younger son of Thomas Brooke of Leighton, purchased Norton from King Henry VIII. in the year 1545, which has remained the residence of his heirs male.

Younger branches: Broke of Nacton in the county of Suffolk, Baronet 1813; descended from Sir Richard Brooke, Knight, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, in the reign of Henry VIII., youngest son of Thomas Brooke of Leighton, the ancestor of the Norton family. There was a former baronetcy in this family, created 1661, extinct 1693. Brooke of Mere in this county, sprung from Sir Peter Brooke, third son of Thomas Brooke of Norton, established at Mere by purchase in 1632.

See Ormerod, i. 360, 500; and iii. 241; Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, i. 22; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 392.

Arms.—Or, a cross engrailed party per pale gules and sable.

Present Representative, Sir Richard Brooke, 7th Baronet.

Ormerod gives no detailed pedigree, but states that the Cluttons had been settled at Clutton, in the parish of Farndon, in this county, as early as the 21st of Edward I, and that the manor of the same place was held by this family in the time of Henry VI. In the reign of Henry VIII., Roger, third son of Owen Clutton of Courthyn, having married an heiress of Aldersey of Chorlton, became seated there, and was the ancestor of the present family. From Henry, elder brother of this Roger, were descended the Clutton Brocks late of Pensax in Worcestershire, who were there established in the seventeenth century.

See Ormerod, ii. 366, 410, and a pedigree of this family in Harleian MS. 2119.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron ermine, cotised sable, between three annulets gules.

Present Representative, Thomas Charlton Clutton, Esq.

The pedigree commences in the reign of Henry IV. with John Leche, (said to be a younger brother of the house of Leche of Chatsworth, in Derbyshire,) who married the heiress of Cawarthyn, or Carden, and settled there about the year 1475. Some pedigrees, however, seat the Leches at Carden as early as the twentieth of Edward III.; and there is also a tradition that the family is descended from the leche, or chirurgeon, of that monarch himself. It is remarkable that Nolan has been the family christian name, with one exception, during thirteen generations.

Younger branch, extinct in 1694, Leche of Mollington, in this county.

See Harl. MS. 2119, 50, quoted by Ormerod, ii. 385.

Arms.—Ermine, on a chief indented gules three crowns or.

Present Representative, John Hurleston Leche, Esq.

The descent of this family is not proved beyond Robert Barnston, of Churton, in the third year of Richard II. But Hugh de Barnston was lord of a moiety of Barnston in the twenty-first of Edward I. The pedigree was confirmed in the Visitations of 1613 and 1663-4.

See Ormerod, ii. 408.

Arms.—Azure, a fess indented ermine between six cross-crosslets fitchée or. Thomas de Bernaston bore this coat, except that the crosses were argent. See the Roll of Arms of the Reign of Edward III.

Present Representative, Roger Barnston, Esq.

This is an instance of an ancient family, which, having gone down in the world, has recovered itself by means of commercial pursuits, after centuries of comparative obscurity. Antrobus was sold by Henry Antrobus in the reign of Henry IV., and repurchased by Edmund Antrobus in 1808; he having proved himself a descendant of Henry, youngest son of Henry Antrobus above mentioned. Antrobus of Eaton Hall, in this county, is again a younger branch of this family.

See Ormerod, i. 487; Lysons's Cheshire, p. 532; Debrett's Baronetage, ed. 1836, p. 383.

Arms.—Lozengy or and azure, on a pale gules three estoiles of the first.

Present Representative, Sir Edmund William Romer Antrobus, 2nd Baronet.

It is not improbable that this family is descended from Robert, a younger son of Vivian de Davenport, who settled at Lawton in the 50th of Henry III. and assumed the local name: this assertion is borne out by the arms, which are evidently founded on those of Davenport. The pedigree is not however traced beyond Hugh Lawton, who married Isabella, daughter of John Madoc, in the reign of Henry VI. The manor of Lawton was purchased by William Lawton, Esq. from King Henry VIII. It had been formerly held by the Abbey of Chester, to which the Lawtons appear to have been tenants from a very early period. Younger branch, Lawton of Lake Marsh, in the county of Cork.

See Ormerod, iii. 11, and Lysons's Cheshire, p. 673.

Arms.—Argent, on a fess between three cross-crosslets fitchée sable a cinquefoil of the first.

Present Representative, John Lawton, Esq.

There are several places called Cotton, and antiquaries have doubted from which of them the present family is called. The house usually assigned is that of Cotton, near Wem, in Shropshire, where Sir Hugh Cotton was seated in the reign of Edward I., and whose descendant, Roger Cotton, acquired the estate of Alkington, in the same county, by marriage of the heiress, in the reign of Richard II. He was the ancestor of Sir George Cotton, grantee of Combermere after the Dissolution in 1540, from whom the present family directly descend. Younger branch, extinct in the male line, but represented in the female line by R. H. Cotton of Etwall, co. Derby, Esq.

MSS. of the late Mr. Joseph Morris of Shrewsbury. See a different account of this family in Ormerod, iii. 212; Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, p. 104; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 611.

Arms.—Azure, a chevron between three hawk's lures, or cotton-hanks, argent.

Present Representative, Wellington Henry Cotton, 2nd Viscount Combermere.

"The most Cornish gentlemen can better vaunt of their pedigree than their livelyhood," wrote Richard Carew, of Antonie, Esq. in 1602,—"for that they derive from great antiquitie; and I make question whether any shire in England, of but equal quantitie, can muster a like number of faire coat-armours:" and again,

There are two manors called Trelawny in Cornwall, one in the parish of Alternon, the other in that of Pelynt; the former was the original seat of the Trelawnys, probably before the Conquest, and here they remained till the extinction of the cider branch in the reign of Henry VI. The latter was purchased from Queen Elizabeth by "Sir Jonathan Trelawny, a knight well spoken, stayed in his cariage, and of thrifty providence," the head of a younger line of this family, in the year 1600; and it has ever since remained the seat of this venerable house. Hamelin, who held Treloen, i.e. Trelawny, under the Earl of Moreton, at the period of the Domesday Survey, is the first recorded ancestor.

See Leland's Itin., iii. fol. 20; Carew's Survey of Cornwall, ed. 1602, p. 63 b; Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, i. 546; Lysons's Cornwall, pp. 14 and 257; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 87.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron sable. In the reign of Henry V. an augmentation was added, viz. three oak-leaves vert, borne by Sir John Trelawny with the ancient coat, in consequence of his having greatly distinguished himself in the French wars with that monarch.

Present Representative, Sir John Salusbury-Trelawny, 9th Baronet, late M. P. for Tavistock.

This is the eldest remaining branch of the ancient family of Prideaux, who trace their descend from Paganus, lord of Prideaux Castle, in Luxulion, in this county, in the time of William I.; where the family continued till the latter part of the fourteenth century, when Prideaux passed by an heiress to the Herles of West Herle, in Northumberland. The present family, which was seated at "Place" in the sixteenth century, is sprung from the Prideauxes of Solden, in Holsworthy, in Devonshire, a branch of Prideaux of Thuborough in Sutcombe, in the same county, who were themselves descended from Prideaux of Orcherton in Modbury, also in Devonshire, where the family was established by marriage with the heiress of Orcherton in the reign of Henry III.

Younger branch, Prideaux of Netherton, co. Devon, Baronet 1622, founded by Edmund Prideaux, an eminent lawyer, second son of Roger Prideaux of Solden.

See Carew, 143 b; Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, i. 542; Lysons, 252, cxii.; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 515; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, p. 470; Prince's Worthies of Devon, ed. 1, p. 307.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron sable, a label of three points gules. This was the coat of Orcherton.

Present Representative, Charles Prideaux-Brune, Esq.

The immediate ancestor of the Cornish Bassets was William Basset, who married in 1150 Cecilia, daughter and coheiress of Alan de Dunstanville, and the daughter of Reginald Fitzhenry, Earl of Cornwall, natural son of Henry I., who thus acquired the manor of Tehidy, which has ever since continued the residence of his descendants of the house of Basset. In the early part of the sixteenth century, John Basset appears to have been the chief of this ancient family: he married Frances daughter and coheir of Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, natural son of King Edward IV. From Arthur, his eldest son, descended the Bassets of Heanton Court in Devonshire, extinct in the early part of the present century; and from George, the second son, the house of Tehidy, the elder branch of which were created Barons de Dunstanville in 1797. Extinct 1855.

Leland mentions "the right goodly lordship of Tehidy, and the castelet or pile of Bassets on Carnbray Hill."

See Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, i. 486.

Arms.—Or, three bars wavy gules.

Present Representative, John Francis Basset, Esq.

The first recorded ancestor is Sir Vyel Vyvyan, Knight, who lived in the thirteenth century, and whose descendant John, having married an heiress of Ferrers, succeeded to the lordship of Trelowarren in the reign of Edward IV., which has since continued the seat and residence of this family. The Baronetcy was conferred by King Charles I. on Sir Richard Vyvyan, as a reward for his services in the civil wars of that period.

See Leland's Itin. iii. fol. 3; Gilbert's Survey, i. 557; Lysons, pp. xc. and 218; Polwhele's Cornwall, 1803, vol. i. p. 42; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 411.

Arms.—Argent, a lion rampant gules, armed sable.

Present Representative, Sir Richard Rawlinson Vyvyan, 8th Baronet, late M.P. for Helstone.

This is a younger branch of the Molesworths of Ireland, Viscount Molesworth of Swords, in the county of Dublin, 1716. They can be traced to the reign of Edward I. as a knightly family, but never remained very long in any one county: they have been seated in Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire. Sir Walter de Molesworth, the first recorded ancestor, is said to have attended Edward I. in his expedition to the Holy Land. The family estate is believed to have been greatly impoverished by the profuse entertainment of Queen Elizabeth at Fotheringay, by Antony, elder brother of John Molesworth, who settled at Pencarrow in the reign of the same Queen.

See Gilbert's Cornwall, i. 571; Lysons, xcii. 82; Wotton's Baronetage, iv. 25; Archdall's Lodge, v. 127.

Arms.—Vaire, a border gules charged with cross-crosslets or.

This coat, except that the crosses were argent, was borne by Sir Walter de Molesworth of co. Huntingdon, as appears by the Roll of Arms of the reign of Edward II. Sir Gilbert Lyndesey (?) of the same county bore the present coat.

Present Representative, the Rev. Sir Paul William Molesworth, 10th Baronet.

This venerable family, supposed to be of Saxon origin, traces its descent to one Drogo or Drew, Chamberlain to the Empress Maude, and Grantee of the Manor of Polwhele in the year 1140. The family are said to have been seated there even before the Conquest; there appears however no proof that Drogo was the descendant of Winus de Polhill, the owner of this place in the time of Edward the Confessor. The Rev. Richard Polwhele, the historian of this county, was the representative of the family.

See Polwhele's Cornwall, i. 42; Gilbert's Survey, ii. 239; and Lysons, pp. cxi. 60.

Arms.—Sable, a saltier engrailed ermine.

Present Representative, T. R. Polwhele, Esq.

From time immemorial this ancient family have been seated at Trefusis, from whence the name is derived. The pedigree is traced four generations before the year 1292. The ancient Barony of Clinton devolved upon this family, (through the Bolles,) on the death of George third Earl of Orford, in 1791.

See Carew, 150 b; Leland's Itin. iii. 26; Polwhele's Cornwall, i. 42; Gilbert's Cornwall, i. 468.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three wharrow spindles sable, which Randle Holmes, in his Academy, p. 288, explains, as a "sort of Spindle used by women at a distaff put under their girdle, so as they oftentimes spin therewith going."

Present Representative, Charles Rodolph Trefusis, 18th Baron Clinton.

Descended from Henry who lived in the reign of King John, and who took the name of Boscawen from the lordship of Boscawen-Rose, still the property of the family. In the reign of Edward III. the Boscawens removed to Tregothnan, their present seat, in consequence of the marriage of John de Boscawen with Joan, daughter and heir of John de Tregothnan of that place, in the parish of St. Michael-Penkevil.

See Gilbert's Survey, i. 452; Lysons, pp. lxxiv. 50; Brydges's Collins, vi. 62.

Arms.—Ermine, a rose gules barbed and seeded proper. The ancient arms of the family were, according to Lysons, Vert, a bull-dog argent, with a chief containing the arms now used.

Present Representative, Evelyn Boscawen, 6th Viscount Falmouth.

Tremayne is in the parish of St. Martin, and here the ancestor of the family, Perys, lived in the reign of Edward III. and assumed the local name. This estate passed with the heiress of the elder branch of the family to the Trethurfes, and from them to the Reskymers, to whom it belonged in Leland's time. A grandson of the first Tremayne, having married the heiress of Trenchard, of Collacomb, in Devonshire, removed hither, where his descendants existed till the extinction of that line in 1808. The founder of the present family was Richard Tremayne, whose son purchased Helligan in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and who is thus noticed by Carew in his Survey of this county. "At the adjoining St. Ive, dwelleth master Richard Tremayne, descended from a younger brother of Colocome House in Devon, who, being learned in the laws, is yet to learne, or at least to practise, how he may make other profit thereby, then by hoarding up treasure of gratitude in the mindful breasts of poor and rich, on whom he gratis bestoweth the fruits of his pains and knowledge."

See Leland's Itin. iii. 25, fol. 9; Carew, 104 b; Gilbert's Survey, ii. 292; Lysons, pp. cxv. 96, 214; Prince's Worthies of Devon, 1st ed. 569.

Arms.—Gules, three dexter arms conjoined at the shoulders and flexed in triangle or, fists proper.

Present Representative, John Tremayne, Esq.

A younger branch of an ancient Cornish family of which the principal line became extinct in the early part of the seventeenth century. They were formerly seated at Treworgy in Duloe, and are traced to Richard Kendall of Treworgy, Burgess for Launceston in the forty-third of Edward III. Pelyn has been for many generations the seat of this family, descended from Walter, third son of John Kendall of Treworgy, who married a daughter and coheir of Robert Holland, an illegitimate son of a Duke of Exeter. It has been remarked of this family, that they have perhaps sent more members to the British Senate than any other in the United Kingdom.

See Carew, 132 c.; Gilbert's Survey, ii. 176; Lysons, pp. cviii. 178.

Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three dolphins naiant embowed sable.

Present Representative, Nicholas Kendall, Esq. M.P. for East Cornwall.

An old Devonshire family, descended from Robert le Wrey, who lived in the second of Stephen (1136-7), and whose son was seated at Wrey, in the parish of Moreton-Hamstead, in that county. A match with the heiress of Killigrew removed the Wreys into Cornwall, and Trebigh became their principal house, until, by the marriage of Sir Chichester Wrey, the second Baronet, with one of the co-heiresses of Edward Bourchier, fourth Earl of Bath, they became possessed of the noble seat of Tawstock, in Devonshire, the present usual residence of the family.

See Carew, 117 a; Gilbert's Survey, i. 555; Lysons, lxxxix. 146; Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 84; Westcote's Devonshire Pedigrees, 567.

Arms.—Sable, a fess between three pole-axes argent, helved gules.

Present Representative, Sir Bourchier Palk Wrey, 8th Baronet.

Rashleigh in the parish of Wemworthy, in Devonshire, gave name this ancient family, the elder line of which became extinct in the reign of Henry VII.

John Rashleigh, a merchant of Fowey, was the first who settled in Cornwall, and was in fact the founder of the present family. He is thus mentioned by Carew, writing in 1602, "I may not passe in silence the commendable deserts of Master Rashleigh the elder, descended from a younger brother of an ancient house in Devon, for his industrious judgement and adventuring in trade of merchandize first opened a light and way to the townsmen newe thriveing, and left his sonne large wealth and possessions, who, with a dayly bettering his estate, converteth the same to hospitality, and other actions fitting a gentleman well affected to his God, Prince, and Country."

See Carew, p. 136 a; Gilbert's Survey, ii. 244; Lysons, pp. cxiii. 316.

Arms.—Sable, a cross or between, in the first quarter, a Cornish chough argent, beaked and legged gules, in the second a text T, in the third and fourth a crescent, all argent. The Cornish chough and crescents were added on removing into Cornwall; the elder branch bore only two text T's in chief with the cross S.

Present Representative, William Rashleigh, Esq.