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

This is the principal male branch of the great House of Egerton, formerly Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater and Earl of Wilton. The pedigree begins with Philip Goch, second son of David de Malpas, surnamed le Clerk, which David was lord of a moiety of the Barony of Malpas. The present family is descended from Sir Philip Egerton, third son of Sir Rowland Egerton, of Egerton and Oulton, Baronet, who died in 1698. The Baronetcy devolved on Sir John Egerton, uncle of the present Baronet, on the death of the Earl of Wilton, and extinction of the elder line, in 1814. Oulton came from the heiress of Hugh Done, anno 1498. It is thus mentioned in Leland's Itinerary: "The auncientest of the Egertons dwellith now at Oldeton, and Egerton buildith ther now." (Itin. vii. fol. 42.) Younger branch, Egerton-Warburton, of Warburton and Arley, in this county.

See Wotton's Baronetage, i. 271; Brydges's Collins, iii. 170, v. 528; Ormerod, ii. 118, 350; and for many curious particulars of the Bridgewater Egertons, see the Topographer, ii. 136, &c.

Arms.—Argent, a lion rampant gules between three pheons sable. The pheons were the ancient arms of Malpas; the lion was added by Uryan Egerton, about the middle of the fourteenth century; according to tradition, an augmentation granted as a reward for his services in the Scotch wars.

Present Representative, Sir Philip de Malpas Grey-Egerton, 10th Baronet, M. P. for S. Cheshire.

Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley, Marquess of Cholmondeley 1815, Earl of Cholmondeley 1706, Baron 1689.

Descended with the Egertons from the Barons of Malpas, and immediately from Robert de Cholmondelegh, second son of William Belward, lord of a moiety of the Barony of Malpas, and younger brother of David the ancestor of the Egertons; which Robert was seated at Cholmondeley in the reign of King John.

Younger branches. Cholmeley of Whitby, in Yorkshire, Baronet 1641, extinct 1688; descended from Robert, younger son of Hugh Cholmondeley, temp. Edw. III. See the Memoirs of Sir Hugh Cholmeley, Knight and Baronet, a curious book privately printed in 1787.—Cholmeley of Brandsby, since the extinction of the Whitby family the only representative of the Cholmondeleys of Yorkshire.—Cholmeley of Easton, co. Lincoln, Baronet 1806, descended from Sir Henry Cholmeley, of Burton Coggles, co. Lincoln, who died in 1620.

Cholmondeley of Vale Royal in this county, Baron Delamere 1821, descended from Thomas, younger son of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley, who died in 1501.