With few exceptions, almost all the families of importance in feudal days have passed away. The great House of Neville,[27] that once threatened to overshadow the Lords Palatine themselves, survives only in several southern branches, and their name is almost forgotten in their native land. The baronial houses of Eure,[28] Conyers, Hylton, and FitzMarmaduke have all passed away. So, too, have nearly all the names recorded in the Heralds’ Visitations at intervals from 1530 to 1666. Of the latter, eight only retain their patrimonial acres. These are the Chaytors, Edens, Lambtons, Liddells, Lumleys, Salvins, Vanes, and Whartons. To these may be added the Williamsons, who came from Nottinghamshire, and the Shaftos from Northumberland.
The Visitations of Durham[29] are, like those of the sister county of Northumberland, notoriously incomplete. Of the latter, Surtees wrote: "The Northumbrian gentry, many of whom probably never heard of the Visitation, would scarcely leave their business or amusements to attend an Officer of Arms for a purpose of which few then saw the utility, and which, it is plain, in many instances was considered an extreme nuisance." In the adjoining county to the south there was a similar state of affairs. Of Dugdale’s Visitation of York, Mr. Davies wrote: "Nearly one-third of the whole number of gentry whom the herald called upon to appear before him with proofs of their arms and pedigrees treated his summonses with neglect."
In this county both a long and a strong list of families of gentle blood can easily be enumerated who, for one reason or another, make no appearance in the Heralds’ books. No one familiar with the history of the county can have helped remarking the absence of families formerly so well known, and in many cases still well known, as the Allgoods of Bradley, Blacketts of Hoppyland, Bromleys of Nesbitt, Dales of Dalton, Douthwaites of Westholme, Emersons of Westgate, Goodchilds of Pallion, Greenwells of Greenwell and Stobilee, Holmeses of Wearmouth, Hunters of Medomsley, Ironsides of Houghton, Meaburns of Pontop, and others whose names spin out too long a list to give in full. Now, most of these families had intermarried with families who registered and had written themselves as "gentlemen" for several generations; and, as an interesting sidelight upon the Visitations, we believe it could be shown that more than one family who registered was in debt pretty heavily to others who didn’t register. So it does not appear to have been altogether a matter of means.
It may perhaps be as well, before proceeding farther, to notice the principal material we have, in addition to the Visitations, for proving the succession to estate in this county.
Durham, being a separate regality, is not included in the Domesday Book, and our earliest record is the Boldon Book, dated some years later, being compiled by order of Bishop Pudsey in 1183. Later there is a survey of the county, made by order of Bishop Hatfield, who ruled from 1345 to 1381. From the time of Bishop Beaumont (1318-33) the succession may be proved by the inquisitions post-mortem taken upon the death of every owner. These documents were formerly kept at Durham, but are now, with many other local records, in London.
With these must be mentioned the Halmote Rolls, commencing in 1349, containing a record of all holders of the Bishop’s lands and other records of the cursitors. The Durham Chancery Proceedings, also now in the Record Office, are full of the most interesting information respecting local families.
The wills of residents in the Bishopric from the sixteenth century onwards are of great value. A few also of the parish registers within the diocese commence towards the end of the same century, but the majority do not date with any regularity until another hundred years had passed.
Limited space forbids any lengthy account of the families individually, and a few passing notices must suffice. Amongst the existing "indigenous" families, as Surtees calls them, the Lumleys must bear the palm, not for length of pedigree, but for the long period they have ranked amongst the greater nobility.
Probably for some generations before, and certainly from, the days of Uchtred, Lord of Lumley, temp. King Stephen, the family has held high rank. Marmaduke de Lumley, who was in right of his mother one of the coheirs of the barony of Thweng, made an interesting change in the family arms. His father had borne a scarlet shield with six silver popinjays, whilst his mother’s family arms were a golden shield, thereon a fess gules. Marmaduke dispensed with three of the popinjays, and placed his mother’s fess between the remaining three, two above it and one below. His son Sir Ralph, the builder of the castle at Lumley, was summoned to Parliament as a Baron in the eighth year of Richard II.’s reign. Yorkist in sympathy, he joined in an unfortunate attempt to overthrow the fourth Henry in the year that monarch grasped the throne, and was killed at Cirencester in a skirmish. One of his younger sons, Marmaduke, was successively Bishop of Carlisle and Lincoln, and Lord High Treasurer of England. John de Lumley, Sir Ralph’s second but eldest surviving son, was restored to his father’s estates by King Henry, became a distinguished leader in the French wars, and was slain on the field of Baugé in 1421. The successor, his only son Thomas, was summoned to Parliament in his grandfather’s barony in 1461, the attainder of the latter being reversed upon petition.
Third in descent from the last-named peer, John, the fifth Baron, took part in the great victory of Flodden. He lived to see his son and heir, George Lumley, beheaded for high treason, and attainted, for taking part in the Pilgrimage of Grace.