See Mackenzie's Northumberland, i. p. 328, note; Raine's North Durham, p. 224; and Wotton's Baronetage, ii. 388.
Arms.—Azure, on a bend cotised argent three billets sable. The ancient arms of this venerable family, of which Raine writes, "few families can boast of such a pedigree or of such a shield of arms," was a scaling ladder between two leaves, alluding to the coat of Hazlerigg, an heiress of that house having married into the Haggerston family. The arms were so borne in 1577, as appears by a seal of that date: the scaling ladder was afterwards corrupted into the bendlets and billets.
Present Representative, Sir John Haggerston, 9th Baronet.
Ridley of Blagdon, Baronet 1756.
The pedigree is proved for three descents before the reign of Henry VIII., the original seat of the family being at Willimoteswick in this county, of which place Nicholas de Rydle is designated Esquire in 1481; here also was born the Martyr Bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley, early in the sixteenth century.
The present family is a younger branch, seated at Blagdon and inheriting the baronetcy on the death of Sir Mathew White in 1763.
See Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 322, and vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 340.
Arms.—Gules, a chevron between three goshawks argent. The more ancient coat was, Argent, an ox passant gules through reeds proper.
Present Representative, Sir Mathew White Ridley, 4th Baronet.