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

Arms.—Argent, on a bend sable three lutes naiant of the first.

Present Representative, the Rev. John Huyshe.

DORSETSHIRE.

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Knightly.

Bingham of Bingham's Melcombe.

Sir John de Bingham, Knight, who lived in the reign of Henry I., is the first recorded ancestor of this ancient family; he was of Sutton, in the county of Somerset. Melcombe was inherited from an heiress of Turberville in the time of Henry III., and has been ever since the residence of the Binghams, of whom the most remarkable was Sir Richard, a younger son of the head of the family in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who greatly distinguished himself in Ireland.

Younger branch. The Earls of Lucan in the Peerage of Ireland (1795) descended from George, fourth son of Robert Bingham and Alice Coker, and younger brother of Sir Richard.

See Hutchins's History of Dorset, vol. iv. 202; and Archdall's Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, vii. 104.