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

Stonor of Stonor, Baron Camoys 1383, restored 1839.

"Stonor is a 3 miles out of Henley. Ther is a fayre parke and a warren of connies and fayre woods. The mansion place standithe clyminge on a hille, and hathe 2 courtes buyldyd withe tymbar, brike, and flynte; Sir Walter Stonor, now possessor of it, hathe augmentyd and strengthed the howse. The Stonors hathe longe had it in possessyon syns one Fortescue invadyd it by mariage of an heire generall of the Stonors, but after dispocessed." Thus wrote Leland in his Itinerary, (vii. fo. 62a.): to which it may be added that the family has the reputation of being very ancient, and may certainly be traced to the twelfth century as resident at Stonor. In the reigns of Edward II. and III., Sir John Stonor, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, (whose tomb is preserved in the chancel of Dorchester church in this county,) was the representative and great advancer of the family.

See Magna Britannia, iv. 425; and the first edition of Burke's Commoners, ii. 440; see also Excerpta Historica, p. 353, for some curious letters of the Stonors of the time of Edward IV.

Arms.—Azure, two bars dancetté or, a chief argent. Monsieur John de Stonor bore, Azure, a fess dancetté and chief or, in the reign of Edward III. (Roll.)

Present Representative, Thomas Stonor, 3rd Baron Camoys.

Wykeham of Tythrop.

This ancient family is traced to the commencement of the fourteenth century, when Robert Wykeham was Lord of Swalcliffe, the original seat of the Wykehams in this county, and possessed by the late W. H. Wykeham, Esq., who died in 1800, and still, I believe, belonging to his daughter the Baroness Wenman. Tythrop came from the Herberts by will to the late P. P. Wykeham, Esq. uncle of Lady Wenman.

The relationship of the great William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, with this family is a disputed point, for which see Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, ii. 225, 368, iii. 178, 245; see also the Topographer and Genealogist, iii. 49, for a very interesting paper on this subject by C. Wykeham Martin, Esq., M.P.