A family of great antiquity, descended from Henry de Boneberi, in the time of Stephen, a younger brother of the House of St. Pierre in Normandy. William de Boneberi, son of Henry, was Lord of Boneberi in the reign of Richard I. But the direct ancestor was David brother of Henry, whose great-grandson Alexander de Bunbury was living in the fifteenth of Henry III. Stanney, still the inheritance, but not the residence, of the Bunburys, came from the heiress of the same name in the seventeenth of Edward III.
See Ormerod, ii. 216, and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 687.
Arms.—Argent, on a bend sable three chessrooks of the field.
Present Representative, Sir Charles James Fox Bunbury, 8th Baronet.
Leycester of Toft.
Descended from Sir Nicholas Leycester, who acquired the manor of Nether-Tabley in marriage, and died in 1295. The male line of the eldest branch of this family, established at Nether-Tabley, became extinct in 1742. The present and younger branch springs from Ralph, younger brother of John Leycester of Tabley, who married Joan, daughter and heir of Robert Toft of Toft: she was a widow in 1390. The antiquary Sir Peter was of the Tabley line.
Younger branch, Leycester of Whiteplace, co. Berks.
See Ormerod, i. 385, 456; iii. 190.