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

LANCASHIRE.

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Knightly.

Pennington of Pennington, Baron Muncaster in Ireland 1676.

Gamel de Pennington, ancestor of this ancient family, was seated at Pennington at the period of the Conquest. But, as early as the reign of Henry II., Muncaster, in Cumberland, belonged to the Penningtons, and afterwards became their residence; and here King Henry VI. was concealed by Sir John Pennington in his flight from his enemies. There is a tradition that, on quitting Muncaster, the king presented his host with a small glass vessel, still possessed by the family, and called "The Luck of Muncaster:" to the preservation of which a considerable degree of superstition was attached.

See Baines's History of the County of Lancaster, iv. 669; Lysons's Cumberland, 139; Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 602.

Arms.—Or, five fusils in fess azure.

Present Representative, Josslyn Francis Pennington, 5th Baron Muncaster.

Molyneux of Sefton, Earl of Sefton in Ireland 1771 Viscount Molyneux in Ireland 1628; Baron Sefton 1831; Baronet 1611.