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Full acknowledgement is given by http://cheshire-heraldry.org.uk to Mr. Derek Whitmore for the transcription of this document from the original. THE RECORD SOCIETY FOR THE Publication of Original Documents RELATING TO LANCASHIRE AND CHESHIRE. ————————— VOLUME LVIII. ————————— 1909. ii COUNCIL, 1908-9. Sir GEORGE J. ARMYTAGE, Bart., F.S.A., Kirklees Park, Brighouse, President . G. E. COKAYNE, M.A., F.S.A., Clarenceux King of Arms, Heralds’ College, London, E.C., Vice-President . Lieut.-Col. HENRY FISHWICK, F.S.A., The Heights, Rochdale, Vice- President. JOHN PAUL RYLANDS, F.S.A., Highfields, Bidston Road, Birkenhead, Vice-President . HENRY BRIERLEY, Thornhill, Wigan. THOMAS H. DAVIES-COLLEY, MA., Newbold, near Chester. WILLIAM FARRER, Hall Garth, Carnforth. Colonel PARKER, F.S.A., Browsholme, Clitheroe. Wm. DUNCOMBE PINK, Winslade, Lowton. R. D. RADCLIFFE, M.A., F.S.A., Old Swan, Liverpool. CHARLES W. SUTTON, M.A., Free Reference Library, Manchester. Wm. ASHETON TONGE, Staneclyffe, Disley. ——— HONORARY TREASURER. JOHN PAUL RYLANDS, F.S.A., Highfields, Bidston Road, Birkenhead. ——— HONORARY SECRETARY. Wm. FERGUSSON IRVINE, M.A., F.S.A., 56 Park Road South, Birkenhead. iii Pedigrees MADE AT THE Visitation of Cheshire, 1613, TAKEN BY RICHARD S t. GEORGE, ESQ., NORROY KING OF ARMS, AND HENRY S t. GEORGE, GENT., BLUEMANTLE PURSUIVANT OF ARMS; AND SOME OTHER CONTEMPORARY PEDIGREES. EDITED BY SIR GEORGE J. ARMYTAGE, BART., F.S.A., AND J. PAUL RYLANDS, ESQ., F.S.A. PRINTED FOR THE RECORD SOCIETY. 1909. iv NOTES FOR THIS VERSION: The layout of this electronic version is similar to the book but not identical. Obvious errors have been corrected. When searching for names/places use the first three letters because some words are split in the text. If anyone notices any errors, either transcription or in the original, please inform [email protected] . Last modified – 19 Jul. 2001. v Introduction ———— THE only practicable means of producing in print the Visitation of Cheshire made in 1613 by Richard St. George, Norroy, 1 and his son Henry, 2 was to take as a basis Harleian MS. 1535, which belongs to a large class of collections of county pedigrees, prepared in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, often described as “Visitations,” for which there appears to have been a not inconsiderable demand. These were usually based on some given Visitation or Visitations, but the scribes who made them were in the habit of omitting some recorded pedigrees altogether, and of furnishing others with additional facts and descents, no doubt giving more complete accounts of such particular families as were of especial interest to their patrons. They also included in such manuscripts some pedigrees which had not been entered at any Visitation. Harleian MS. 1535 is described in the Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts , printed in 1808, as “An Heraldical Book in fol. written, tricked, & coloured (as it seemeth) by the hand of Mr. Jacob Chaloner 3 the Armes-Painter”; and, among other things, it is said to contain, at page 35, “A copy of the Visitation-book of the County Palatine of Chester, as the same was made and taken by Richard St. George Norroy, & in his Company Mr. Henry St. George Rouge Rose. A.D. 1612 & 1613.” Among the “Observables in this particular Copie,” the 1 Richard St. George, Norroy, was knighted at Hampton Court on the 28th September 1616. 2 Henry St. George was successively Rouge Rose Pursuivant 1610, Bluemantle Pursuivant 1611, Richmond Herald 1617, Norroy King of Arms 1635, and Garter King of Arms 1644, in which year he died. He was knighted by Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, in 1627. 3 Jacob Chaloner, like his father Thomas, was an Arms Painter at Chester, and made collections about the year 1620. vi INTRODUCTION. maker of the Catalogue mentions: “Divers Descents intirely added by Mr. Richard Munday 1; not to mention the many Additions & Continuations made to Pedegrees, both by him and others”; and he concludes his note as follows: “This very good Book, hath not only suffered much through the folly of some, & designs of others who have cutt of[f] many Armes from it; but also through the carelefsnefs of the binder, whose Plough hath taken away parts of Descents & Armes, in the margins thereof.” One finds, therefore, in this manuscript a large number of pedigrees of Cheshire gentry, having among them, here and there, a few brief abstracts of early documents; and also the pedigrees of some offshoots from old Cheshire stocks which had taken root in other counties. The compiler of the catalogue might have stated that many of the descents taken at the Visitation of 1580 have been added. and that there are numerous pedigrees of families which, in 1613, had become extinct or were represented only in the female line, and were, therefore, clearly additions to the pedigrees taken at the Visitation made in that year. Among the pedigrees comprised in the manuscript there are, however, most, though not all, of those taken in 1613. The same remark applies to the official record of the Visitation, numbered C. 6, preserved in the College of Arms, 2 for in Harleian MS. 1070 there will be found a number of pedigrees which are in fact the original papers drawn up in 1613 for inclusion in the record of the Visitation. In many cases these are signed by the persons who attested their general accuracy, and some of them are marked “entered.” All of these original papers are printed in this volume, since such value as they possess for genealogical purposes is in no way lessened by the fact that they do not appear in the official record at the College of Arms. The reason for their exclusion is not far to seek, for in consequence of the deaths of the heads of some of the families occurring in or about the yea.r 1613, the fees for 1 Richard Munday was a Painter-Stainer, whose copies of the pedigrees taken at visitations were sometimes borrowed by the heralds when they went on later visitations. 2 A list of the pedigrees contained in C. 6 will be found at pp. x, xi, INTRODUCTION. vii entering their descents were probably not forthcoming, and in other cases apathetic lack of interest in their family histories caused payment of the fees to be neglected until tbe official record was completed. There was precisely the same state of things after the Visitation of Berkshire in 1665-6, and the Editor of that Visitation truly remarks, in the Introduction to Volume II., 1 “It is clear that a Visitation was not an official record of the Gentry of a County, but comprised only the Pedigrees of those who were prepared to pay the Fees of Entry.” From the Harleian Manuscripts alone it was not possible to collect the whole of the pedigrees recorded in C. 6, but by means of copies of a number of pedigrees from that record, as well as some transcripts from the Ashmole Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and from a manuscript at Capesthorne Hall, known as the Capesthorne MS., the whole series has been completed. Without, therefore, claiming that the following pages contain word for word what is recorded in the College of Arms, in C. 6, the Editors are able to say that they have placed in the hands of the Members of the Society a very fairly accurate collection, comprising the pedigrees of all those families whose descents are recorded in C. 6, together with all the pedigrees now obtainable of those taken in 1613, but not entered in the College of Arms, and also a number of other actually contemporary pedigrees of Cheshire families which seemed of sufficient interest to be included in this volume. In the task of editing, the Editors have endeavoured to print, as nearly as possib1e (except as stated above), the pedigrees taken at the Visitation of Cheshire in 1613. With this object early descents, not brought down to the beginning of the seventeenth century, which occur in Harleian MS. 1535, have been omitted altogether, and other portions of that manuscript are also omitted where they record the genealogies of persons of Cheshire origin who had removed to other counties, and who, therefore, would not appear at a Cheshire Visitation. 1 “The Four Visitations of Berkshire,” edited by W. Harry Rylands, F.S.A. (printed by the Harleian Society). viii INTRODUCTION. In cases where Harleian MS. 1535 contains pedigrees of which the earlier generations have already been printed in the Visitation of Cheshire of 1580, which forms Volume XVIII. of the Harleian Society’s publications, such generations are omitted and a reference is made to the printed pedigree as “[See Visit. Chesh. 1580, page . .].” Some explanatory additions were found necessary in certain cases for the purpose of ascertaining whether the pedigrees were those taken in 1613 or not, and these notes in the process of checking led to others, which are retained, as it is hoped they will be of assistance to those who have occasion to refer to this work. For the sake of uniformity the pedigrees extracted from C. 6 have also been annotated. These annotations are taken from Sir Peter Leycester’s Bucklow Hundred , Ormerod’s History of Cheshire , Earwaker’s East Cheshire , Hall’s History of Nantwich , the volume of Funeral Certificates printed by the Record Society for Lancashire and Cheshire, various local histories, genealogical works and manuscripts, and in every case are distinguished by being placed within square brackets. It was not considered advisable to give the Arms from Harleian MS. 1535, partly because they are very numerous, amounting in all to about 1260 shields, but principally because, in many cases, they are not clearly drawn, some are wanting, and they certainly could not in their entirety have formed part of the Visitation of 1613; moreover, they are of no authority, and some of them are probably inaccurate and misleading.