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

Present Representative, Sir Francis Shuckburgh, 8th Baronet.

Throckmorton of Coughton, Baronet 1642.

The name is derived from Throcmorton, in the parish of Fladbury, in the county of Worcester, where John de Trockemerton, the supposed ancestor of this family, was living about the year 1200. From this John descended, after many generations, another "John Throkmerton," who was, according the Leland, "the first setter up of his name to any worship in Throkmerton village, the which was at that tyme neither of his inheritance or purchase, but as a thing taken of the Sete of Wircester in farme, bycause he bore the name of the lordeship and village. This John was Under-Treasurer of England about the tyme of Henry V.;" and married Elianor, daughter and coheir of Guido de la Spine, and thus became possessed of Coughton, in the parish of Hadley, in this county, which has continued the principal seat of the family, of whom the most remarkable was Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, ambassador in France, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who died in 1570.

Younger Branches (now extinct), were the Throckmortons of Stoughton and Ellington, in Huntingdonshire, [for the latter see Camden's Visitation of that county in 1613, printed by the Camden Society in 1849, p. 123;] and the Carews of Bedington, in Surrey, Baronet 1714, extinct 1764; descended in the male line from Sir Nicholas, younger son of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and Anne, daughter of Sir Nicholas Carew, Knt.; see Wotton's Baronetage, vol. ii. pi 351, and vol. iv. p. 159; Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. pp. 749 and 819; Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 452; Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. p. 16; and for the poetical life of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, see Peck's Memoirs of Milton.

Arms.—Gules, on a chevron argent three bars gemelles sable.

Present Representative, Sir Nicholas William Throckmorton, 9th Baronet.

Sheldon of Brailes.

The descent of this family from the ancient house of Sheldon, of Sheldon, in this county, is a matter of doubt, but admitted by Dugdale to be not improbable. It appears to be proved that the Sheldons are descended from John Sheldon, of Abberton, in Worcestershire, in the reign of Henry IV. Nash, in his History of that county, carries the pedigree two descents higher, viz., to Richard Sheldon of Rowley, in the county of Stafford, whose grandson John was of the same place in the fourth of Edward IV. The manor of Beoly, in Worcestershire, was purchased of Richard Neville Lord Latimer by William Sheldon in the same reign, and continued till the destruction of the mansion-house by fire in the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, the principal seat of the family, who were connected with Warwickshire by the marriage of William Sheldon, Esq. with Mary, daughter and coheir of William Willington, of Barcheston, Esq., in the reign of Henry VIII. It was this William Sheldon who purchased the manor of Weston, in the parish of Long-Compton, in this county, and here his son Ralph built "a very fair house" in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but these estates have both, within the memory of man, passed from this ancient family, who still possess considerable properly at Brailes, purchased by William Sheldon in the first of Edward VI.