The Noble and Gentle Men of England / or, notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties.

by Evelyn Philip Shirley

Bedingfeld of Oxborough, Baronet 1660.

Traditionally a Norman family seated at Bedingfeld, in Suffolk, soon after the Conquest. Oxburgh, or Oxborough, has been the residence of this eminently knightly house from the reign of Edward IV., when it came by the marriage of Edmund Bedingfeld with Margaret, daughter of Robert Tudenham, and to whom licence was granted to build the walls and towers of Oxburgh in the year 1482. The baronetcy was conferred by Charles II. as a mark of his favour and in consideration of the eminent loyalty and consequent sufferings of the family during the usurpation. The Bedingfelds of Ditchingham, in this county, are a younger branch parted from the parent stem as early as the middle of the fourteenth century.

See Blomefield, iii. 482; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 212; and the Rev. G. H. M'Gill's account of Oxburgh Hall in the Proceedings of the Norfolk Archeological Society.

Arms.—Ermine, an eagle displayed gules, armed or.

Present Representative, Sir Henry George Paston Bedingfeld, 7th Baronet.

Howard of East-Winch, Duke of Norfolk 1483.

The great historical house of Howard in point of antiquity must yield precedence to many other English families: it can only be traced with certainty to Sir William Howard, Judge of the Common Pleas in 1297. Norfolk appears to be the county where this great family should be noticed, the Duke of Norfolk still possessing property in the county of his dukedom derived from his ancestors of the house of Bigod. In the fourteenth century, by the match with the heiress of Mowbray, the foundation of the honors and consequence of the Howards was laid, the first Duke being the son of Margaret, daughter and coheir of Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The Sussex estates came from the heiress of Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, in the reign of Edward VI.; Worksop from the Talbots; Greystoke and Morpeth from the Dacres.

All the English Peers of the house of Howard are traced to a common ancestor in Thomas, the second Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1524. The Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Suffolk and Carlisle, descend from his first wife, and the Earl of Effingham from the second. The Howards of Greystoke, in Cumberland, are a younger branch of the present ducal house. The Howards of Corby Castle, in the same county, descend from the second son of "Belted Will," the ancestor of the house of Carlisle.