De Grey of Merton, Baron Walsingham 1780.
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.
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.