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, Charles Stourton, 18th Baron Stourton.

Markham of Becca-Hall.

A remote branch of an ancient Nottinghamshire family, which can be traced to the time of Henry II. The name is derived from Markham, near Tuxford, in that county, but Coatham was afterwards the family seat, until it was sold by Markham, "a fatal unthrift," who was the brother of the antiquary Francis Markham; this was about the end of the reign of Elizabeth. William Markham, Archbishop of York, who died in 1807, was the ancestor and restorer of this worthy family; he was descended from Daniel, a younger son of the House of Coatham. Becca-Hall has been in possession of the Markhams since the end of the last century.

See Markham's History of the Markhams, privately printed, 8vo. 1854; the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, 1859; and the Topographer, vol. ii. p. 296, for Markham of Sedgebrook, co. Lincoln, extinct 1779.

Arms.—Azure, on a chief or a demi-lion rampant issuing gules. The Markhams of Sedgebrook bore their arms differenced by a border argent.

Present Representative, William Thomas Markham, Esq.

Burton (called Denison), of Grimstone, Baron Londesborough 1850.

The name is derived from Boreton, in the parish of Condover, in Shropshire, an estate which remained in the family until the reign of James I., although the Burtons became resident at Longner, in the same county, prior to the reign of Edward IV. "Goiffrid de Bortona," (Burton,) one of the foresters of Shropshire, in the reign of Henry I., is the first recorded ancestor. The senior line of this house terminated with Thomas Burton, who died unmarried in 1730, and whose sister carried the Longner estate to the Lingen family, who have assumed the name of Burton (see p. 198.) Thomas, fifth son of Thomas Burton, of Longner, is the ancestor of the present family, and of the Marquess of Conyngham (elder brother of the late Lord Londesborough). He went to Ireland in the reign of James I., and died there in 1665. His great-grandson married the heiress of Conyngham. The late Lord assumed the name of Denison on succeeding to the estates of his uncle W. J. Denison, Esq.