SURREY.
Knightly.
Bray of Shere.
The first in the pedigree is Sir Robert Bray, of Northamptonshire, father of Sir James, who lived about the period of Richard I. His great-grandson, Thomas, was lord of Thurnby, in the same county, in the ninth of Edward II. (1316); from him descended Sir Edward Bray, who died in 1558. Harleston, also in the county of Northampton, was an ancient seat of the Bray family, which rose into opulence with the success of Henry VII. after the Battle of Bosworth, where Sir Reginald Bray, the devoted adherent of the King, was said to have discovered the crown in a thorn-bush, in memory of which he afterwards bore for his badge, "a thorn with a crown in the middle of it." Shere was granted, with many other manors, to Sir Reginald as a reward for his services. The present family spring from Reginald, eldest son by the first wife of Sir Edward Bray, son of John, and nephew of the celebrated Sir Reginald. Edmund Lord Bray was elder brother of Sir Edward; he had an only son, John Lord Bray, who died s. p. in 1557.
Of this family was William Bray, Esq., Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries, and joint Historian of Surrey.
See Leland's Itinerary, viii. 113, a; and Manning and Bray's Surrey, vol. i. p. 514-523.
Arms.—Argent, a chevron between three eagle's legs sable erased a la cuisse, their talons gules. Another coat usually quartered with the above is, Vair, three bends gules.
Present Representative, Edward Bray, Esq.