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

See Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 44 and for Mitford of Exbury the same work, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 152; see also Brydges's Collins, ix. 182.

Arms.—Argent, a fess sable between three moles proper.

Present Representative, Robert Mitford, Esq.

Swinburne of Capheaton, Baronet 1660.

Swinburne in this county gave name to this ancient family, the first recorded ancestor being John, father of Sir William de Swinburne, living in 1278, and Alan Swinburne, Rector of Whitfield, who purchased Capheaton from Sir Thomas Fenwick, Knt., in 1274.

Chollerton in Northumberland was also an ancient seat of the Swinburnes; it was held under the great Umfrevile family by this same Sir William de Swinburne, the arms being evidently founded upon the coat of the Umfreviles. The date of the baronetcy points to the loyalty of the family during the civil wars of the seventeenth century.

See the early part of the pedigree in Surtees's Durham, ii. 872; Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 231; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 167.

Arms.—Per fess gules and argent, three cinquefoils counterchanged, borne by Monsieur William Swynburne in the reign of Richard II. (Roll of the date.)

Present Representative, Sir John Swinburne, 7th Baronet.