Ernle

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Ernle was the surname of an English gentry or landed family descended from the lords of the manor of Earnley in Sussex who derived their surname from the place where their estates lay.

Contents 1 Origins 1.1 Onomastic 1.2 Geographical: Parochial versus Manorial Extent 1.3 Historical 1.4 Ethnic 1.5 Heraldic 1.6 Status 2 Ernle of Earnley, Sussex, and the Manor of Earnley 3 Rise from Local to National Prominence under the Tudors 4 Migration to and Proliferation in Wiltshire 4.1 Migration 4.2 Proliferation of the Wiltshire Ernle Family 4.2.1 Baronetcy 4.2.2 Cadet Lines 4.2.3 Brembridge or Bremeridge manor line at Dilton, an 18th century survival 4.2.4 Distaff Relatives: Female Lines 5 New National Prominence: Civil War, Anglo-Dutch Wars, and the later Stuarts 6 Devon 7 Dorset 8 Yorkshire 9 Orthographical variety and Recent use as a Surname, Forename, and Titular Territorial Designation 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Origins

[edit] Onomastic

Onomasticians say that the surname's origin being drawn from the name of a manor is topographical in nature, and therefore identical with the place name's origins. As such, it is derived from an Old English compound name composed of earn meaning eagle combined with leah meaning wood.

The name is loosely described as meaning a place to which eagles resort. The earliest forms noted are Earneleach, Earnaleagh, Earnelegh all of which are to be found in a document dated 780 during the reign of Oslac, duke of the South Saxons. A later form, Earneleia, derives from a charter of England's King Aethelstan dated 930. Other English place names deriving from the same two words are thought to include Earley, Berkshire and Areley Kings (otherwise Areley-on-Severn), formerly called Ernley, Worcestershire. The latter place is connected with Layamon, poet and historian, who is said to be one of the earliest writers in the English tongue (The Beginnings of English Literature, C.M. Lewis, 1900, p. 66):

About the year 1205 an English 'Brut' was written. This was the work of Layamon, a parish priest of Ernley in Worcestershire. The opening lines give us the best information we have about him. Their metre should be noted. It is a relic of the Old English verse, each half-line (or each line, as here printed) containing two principal accents, and being more or less closely connected with its fellow. The poet, however, often omitted the alliteration; and the scribe, who attempted by marks of punctuation to show which half-lines belonged together, seems in consequence to have sometimes lost his way.

An preost wes on leoden Laȝamon wes ihoten. He wes leouenaðes sone, liðe him beo drihten. He wonede at ernleȝe, at æðelen are chirechen. vppen seuarne staÞe, sel Þar him Þuhte. on fest Radestone Þer he bock radde. Hit com him on mode, & on his mern Þonke.

[translation into Modern English]

A priest was among the people Who was called Layamon. He was Levenath's son. Gracious to him be the Lord. He dwelt at Ernly, at a noble church upon Severn's bank. Well there to him it seemed, fast by Radestone. There he read books.

[edit] Geographical: Parochial versus Manorial Extent

The parish of Earnley lies on the southern coast of England in the county of Sussex. Anciently, it formed part of the hundred of La Manwode or Manwood, now found under the form Manhood, which in turn took its name from a locality in the parish of Earnley. The parish and hundred lie in an area of the original pre-Conquest Saxon division of Sussex known as the Rape of Chichester. It should be noted, however, that the boundaries of manor of Earnley and the parish of the same name are not strictly coterminous as the manor itself was not entirely contained within the parish borders, but included part of the neighbouring parish of West Wittering. In addition, the parish of Earnley was enlarged in 1524 by the addition of the former parish of Almodington, now a hamlet of Earnley parish. The resulting parish which is held by a rector is formally referred to as Earnley with Almodington.

During the Civil War and Interregnum, the parish of Earnley was united with East Wittering for the purposes of officially countenanced Presbyterian worship and oversight during the official suppression of Anglicanism. At the Restoration which saw not just the return of the king, but also of the Anglican Settlement, the parishes reverted to their separate status as in pre-Commonwealth times.

[edit] Historical

Historians trace the origins of this Sussex landed family to 1166, when Bertha de Lancing confirmed a charter for lands amounting to quarter of a knight's fee less one virgate at Earnley, Sussex granted by her father William de Lancing and his wife Maud to his uncle, Lucas de Ernle, whose name simply means Luke of Earnley. This man, whom historians name as Luke de Ernle, is the first known member of the family, and is the probable progenitor of all subsequent Ernles, though it is not known whether he was actually the first person to be known by this designation.

Since he is denominated as de Ernle in this document, it is quite likely that he or his family was already known and distinguished from others by the use of that sobriquet or surname. Indeed, since the grant of lands was given to him by a family member, it appears logical to assume that his own connexion to the place, like theirs, dated to an earlier period.

As for the de Lancing family itself, to whom Luke de Ernle was kin: they were supporters of the Arundel earls of Sussex who were descended from Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, a major feudal baron who was granted large tracts of Sussex known as the Rape of Arundel in 1067 or 1068 from his kinsman, William I of England.

[edit] Ethnic

It is not now known whether Luke de Ernle was of Norman, Saxon, or other, origin, these events having occurred a century after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. It is, however, noteworthy that the designation de Ernle occurs very early in the history of the adoption of hereditary surnames in England, a phenomenon that began along the south-eastern coast of England among the feudal gentry and nobility.

[edit] Heraldic

The ancient coat of arms or heraldic shield of the Ernle family was not used pursuant to specific rights described in an extant grant of arms from one of the royal officers of arms, but appears to have been borne by the head of the family through prescriptive right having been adopted in time immemorial. The contents of the shield reflect a knowledge of the name's original meaning, resort of eagles, that is, a place where eagles congregate. As such, the coat could be said to fall into the category of canting arms. The blazon is

Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or

which means that on a heater shield coloured silver appears a wide sash-like strip of black running diagonally from the top left toward the bottom right of the escutcheon on which is placed a row of three golden eagles with their wings open and bodies showing.

According to Burke's General Armory (1884) and Burke's General Armory Two (1974), this basic coat of arms, sometimes varying in one detail or another, accompanied by various crests or none, was used over the centuries by the many different branches of the family, who, by the similarity of their descriptions, appear to claim descent from a shared gentle origin in the same Sussex locality, Earnley, from which they derive their surname.

These armigerous branches of the family, whose current fate is not always known, with their various differences or departures from the original paternal coat, taken as denoting cadency, were in alphabetical order:

(From Burke's General Armory, 1884, p. 312, col. 2)

1. Earnley (co. Cornwall). Argent, on a bend cotised sable, two (another, three) eagles displayed with two necks or.

2. Earnley (co. Kent). Argent, a bend sable cotised between three eagles displayed gules.

3. Earnley (co. Sussex). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or. Crest: A savage's head affrontée, couped at the shoulders, wreathed about the temples, issuing therefrom a plume of three ostrich feathers all proper.

(From Burke's General Armory, 1884, p. 328, col. 2)

4. Erneley (place unspecified). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed of the field.

5. Ernelle (co. Kent). Argent, on a bend cotised sable, three eagles displayed or. Crest: A chevalier on horseback wielding a scimitar, all proper.

6. Ernelle (place unspecified). Argent, a bend sable.

7. Ernle (Ernle [i.e. Earnley, co. Sussex, and Whetham, co. Wilts.; descended from RICHARD ERNLE, of Ernle (that is, Earnley, Sussex), temp. Hen. III, the ancestor of Sir John ERNLE, Knt., of Ernle, Chief Justice, K.B., whose descendant*, Sir John Ernle, Knt., of Whetham, co. Wilts., was Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Privy Councillor, temp. Charles II and James II. The family name, EARNLEY, or ERNLE, is derived from a village in Sussex, so called from the Saxon words Earn and Lege, the place or habitation of eagles, and, in allusion, the eatgles are borne in the arms). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or. Crest -- An eagle displayed vert.. Another crest -- A man's head sidefaced, couped at the shoulders proper, on the head a long cap, barry of six or and sable, at the end two strings and tasselled gold.

* it should be noted that this filiation conflicts with what appears in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which points out the confusion of genealogists over the two Ernle brothers both named John, the elder of whom, John Ernle, Esq., of Fosbury, was the progenitor of the Wiltshire line, and thus the Chancellor's direct ancestor, and the younger of whom, Sir John Ernley, was the Lord Chief Justice, but who was, moreover, not as the post-nominal letters K.B. denote, a Knight of the Order of the Bath, but a simple knight, or what would now be termed a Knight Bachelor, or carpet knight.

8. Ernle (Etchilhampton, co. Wilts., baronet, extinct 1787; a branch of ERNLE, of Ernle). Same Arms, &c.

9. Ernley (JOHN ERNLEY, Sheriff of Wilts., temp. Henry VII). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or.

10. Ernley (quartered by TIDERLEIGH, of Tiderleigh, co. Devon (modern, Tytherleigh). Robert TIDERLEIGH, of that place, temp. Henry VIII, m. ELIZABETH, dau. and co-heir of ANTHONY ERNLEY. Visitation of Somerset, 1620. Same Arms.

(From General Armory Two, 1974, p. 57, col. 2)

(as per 4 above) Erneley. Insert (Cos. Wilts. And Sussex). V.* W. (which abbreviations refer to the following items: V.=Glover's Ordinary. Cotton MS. Tiberius D. 10; Harleian MSS 1392 and 1459, with the asterisk referring to the note that "Coats incorrectly given in the printed Glover[']s Ordinary which may have been copied into books of reference and probably used as actual coats." W.=Withie's additions to Glover's Ordinary, in Harleian MS 1459)

(as per 5 above) Ernelle (Co. Kent). Add: V.W.

11. Ernell (place unspecified). Argent, on a bend sable, 3 eagles displayed with 2 heads or. W.

(as per 7 above) Ernley (John Ernley). Sheriff of Wilts... Add: Ernley (New Sarum co. Wilts., Baronetcy 1660). Same arms. Sir John Ernley. Chief Justice of Common Pleas. 1509 (recte, 1519, see Dictionary of National Biography). Dug. O.J. (an abbreviation denoting William Dugdale's work, Origines Juridiciales, London, 1671).

It is of interest also to note that apparently no motto was borne along with any of these coats-of-arms.

[edit] Status

As an armorial family whose origins derive from ancient landed property, the Ernle family belonged to the class known as the gentry. As gentlemen with a coat-of-arms, or armigers, the heads of the family were hereditary esquires and the youngers son and their cadets all gentlemen and their daughters all gentlewomen. The family were thus all of gentle birth, and were classed as members of what has been termed the minor or lesser nobility, corresponding to what the Germans term, Uradel, which the French call noblesse de race, or ancient nobility.

They never achieved the ranks of the greater nobility which, in England, was confined to members of the peerage, but at least one branch of the family did accede to the ranks of hereditary knighthood created by King James I of England and known as the baronetage. In the twentieth century, a female-line descendant, Rowland Prothero, was granted an hereditary peerage as Lord Ernle, though that title only existed from 1919 to 1937 due to the early death in action during World War I of his only son, who would have been heir to the peerage, had he outlived the hostilities.

As can been seen in the case of the cadet lines of the family, junior members of the family sometimes ceased to live as gentry. In England, however, as opposed to the Continent, this led to no automatic loss of their gentility of blood, so they did not suffer loss of their hereditary gentle status. It is possible, however, that some sank so far from their gentle origins that all memory of their family's former rank and armigerous status was lost.

Both the senior male line of the family and their surviving male cadet branch in Wiltshire (see Ernle of Brembridge) died out in the late eighteenth century, within a year of one another. It is not known if anyone is now entitled to claim a male-line descent from this ancient noble family, and thereby make a claim to use the undifferenced coat-of-arms borne by the head of the family since time immemorial.

[edit] Ernle of Earnley, Sussex, and the Manor of Earnley

This family derived from Luke de Ernle who was granted almost a quarter of knight's fee by his de Lancing relations in 1166.

Historians' attempts to trace this family over later centuries have met with only partial success, though the continuity of the descent of the manor of Earnley among people bearing that early surname is thought to indicate that successive manorial lords all belonged to the same family.

The evidence recited in the published account of the manor of Earnley cites a later lord of the manor living around 1260 whose name was also a Luke de Ernle (in this instance, the documentary spelling is de Ernele, and the account favours that spelling of the name). Next, John de Ernle son of Luke held the manor in 1284. A man who may be this John or his younger son John received a grant of free warren at Earnley in 1318.

In 1337, mention is made of John and Richard de Ernele, and of Joan daughter of John de Ernele in connexion with the recovery of the nearby manor of Almodington by Robert de Almodington.

The next two citations from the 1340s probably pertain to one or other of the two men called John de Ernele mentioned in 1337.

According to the Sussex Archaeological Collections (1865, p. 248):

John de Ernele (Ernley), one of the Coroners for Sussex in 1343, being found inefficient, another was ordered to be elected by the County in his place. (Rot. Cl. 17th Edward III.)

A Fine dated 1347 names John de Ernele of La Manwode. The place referred to here can be either the name of the hundred in which the parish of Earnley was situate or an actual locality within the parish of Earnley which happens to have given its name to the hundred, probably because it was the usual meeting-place for the whole hundred when it gathered to conduct business.

Thereafter, almost a century elapses before there is a mention of John Ernle conveying the manor of Earnley to John Michelgrove and his wife, Joan, in 1427. In 1431 and 1432, however, William Ernele held the manor.

A generation later, in 1467, there is record of the manor being settled on John Lunsford and Margaret his wife, who was the widow of John Ernele. The descent hereafter is paralleled by the account of the family cited in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to be found under the heading, Sir John Ernley, Chief Justice.

John Ernele, Ernle, or Ernley, Solicitor General, then Attorney General of England and finally Chief Justice, is mentioned in 1480 as passing the manor to his kinsmen John Clerkson, the elder, and John Inglere, who were great-grandsons of his own forebear, an earlier John Ernele. This is a curious reference as this particular John Ernley was born in 1464 or 1465, and so was not of age to make a conveyance. Moreover, he had an elder brother, also called John, whom historians refer to as John Ernle, The Elder, Esq., of Fosbury and Bishop's Cannings, Wilts., to distinguish him from his younger brother of the same name), who would normally have been the heir to their father, John Ernle, Esq., of Sidlesham, Sussex who died in 1465.

Thereafter, whomever the John Ernle of the 1480 conveyance may have been, the manor passed to people of other names who may or may not be connected by blood or marriage to the Ernle family of Earnley. In 1564, the manor was once again conveyed to Richard Ernle (Erneley in the documentation in this case), indicating that it may for a time have been held in trust for the right Ernle heir, and then returned at an appropriate time. At any rate, the connexion between the descent of the manor of Earnley and the family of the name Ernle ends finally when a later Richard Erneley sold it to Richard Taylor in 1630. Thereafter, the family of Ernle as distinct from the manor of the same name became attached to Cakeham and West Wittering, both places close to Earnley in Sussex.

Despite their proximity to their ancestral home, the Sussex branch of the Ernle family's close ties with the manor and parish from which they derived their surname, seem, however, to have been severed finally in the first third of the seventeenth century, after the space of nearly 500 years of continuous manorial tenure.

Evidence of the eclipse of the Sussex branch of the Ernle family by their Wiltshire kinsmen is seen in the lifetime of the immediate heir of the Sussex line's most successful member:

"In Sussex, William Earnley was the son of the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; in contrast to most of his colleagues, who had at least £40 a year with an average of £100, he had only £26 produced by a medley of very small properties, in addition to which he leased Cakeham manor from the Bishop of Chichester."

One of the latest references to a member of this branch playing a prominent role in the affairs of the county dates from December 1624:

Justices warrant to apoynte a Provost Marshall and to sett Watch & Ward December 1624

After our very harty comendacons : Whereas we have lately receaved Letters from the Lords of his Ma[jesty's] most hon[ourable] Privy Councell directed to us the Justices of Peace of this County; wherein theire Lo[rdships] require for the better secureinge of high wayes and the more safety of places wh. about this season of the yeare are usually offended by idle and loose p'sons and at this tyme is more to be suspected than at other tymes in respect of the great leavyes of Souldiers lately made and to be made who are to be conducted through this County that there should be provost Marshalls stirringe and therefore we have thoughte good to apoynte you

Mr Earnely of Cr. [i.e. Chichester]

to be provost Marshall for the Rape of Cr. [Chichester] & p'sently to take uppon you the said office And we have thought it fitt and convenient, that you should make choyse of vj or viij of the substantiallest yeomen to be well armed to attend you at such tymes as yo° doe apoynte to make your p'ambulacon W[ithin] that rape by such convenient division thereof as to yo'selves shall seeme best to app'hend all idle and loose persons and other dangereuse people or vagabonds that are to be suspected of any fellonyes or other disorders. That they may be brought to the next Justice of Peace (if Cause require) or otherwise to be committed to the constable to be justified accordinge to the Lawe, And that you do continue this course iij tymos in the weeke at the loaste and afterwards as you shall hand have further directions ; and so not doubteinge of yor good care accordingly, we bid you heartely farewell.

This reference to Mr Earnely of Chichester in 1624, appears to have been one of the last times a male Ernle was alive and active in the county. By the time of the 1634 heraldic Visitation of Sussex, the evidence shows that the remaining Sussex Ernle heritage was represented by Bridget, da. of Richard Ernley and wife of Richard Stanney. When 1662 heraldic Visitation of Sussex was made no further pedigree was recorded for the ancient Sussex family of Ernle, and what Ernle blood remained in the county was inherited via the female line, as in the case of the Stanney family.

Thus was extinguished one of the historic surnames of the county of Sussex. The Sussex Ernle family might well have deserved some place in Sir J. Bernard Burke's chronicle of the rise and fall from prominence of old names, The Vicissitudes of Families.

[edit] Rise from Local to National Prominence under the Tudors

As noted in the foregoing, the Ernle family maintained their manorial demesne at Earnley on the Sussex coast for centuries. In the early Tudor period, the original, or Sussex branch, of the Ernle family gave rise to Sir John Ernle or Ernley, Knight, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas (1519-1520), whose career, begun during the reign of King Henry VII of England reached its height in the reign of his son and successor, King Henry VIII of England. Sir John Ernley's legal and judicial career and family connexions are detailed in the DNB and its successor, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Sir John's descendants remained in Sussex until well into the Elizabethan period maintaining their connexion with the manor of Earnley until its sale in 1630. Thereafter, it becomes harder to trace the descent of the Sussex branch of the family, though there are traces of it in Sussex in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as well as in neighbouring Hampshire.

In 1538, under Henry VIII, William Ernle, son of Sir John Ernle, Lord Chief Justice, was sent to Chichester cathedral as a royal commissioner along with Sir William Goring to take down the Shrine of St Richard of Chichester located there.

As Chichester cathedral was the chief church of the diocese where their estates lay, and St Richard was a local saint whose Shrine was decorated by pilgrims and members of the local gentry for over 250 years during the pre-Reformation period, this task was partly a test of the Sussex Ernle family head's loyalty to the new religion, the Church of England, whereof, on earth, the king had declared his royal supremacy supplanting the authority of the pope.

Local legends at West Wittering in Sussex (a place where the Ernle family also held lands at this time) which claim that the bones of St Richard were hidden in a tomb there give rise to the possibility that this William Ernle or someone closely associated with him managed to secure the saint's relics for posterity when the removal and destruction of the ornaments and relics of St Richard's Shrine took place partly under Ernle's direction. William Ernle and Elizabeth his wife's tombs with their partially destroyed inscriptions are considered by historians to lie in West Wittering parish church, so the connexion, if true, was close.

Be that as it may, later generations of Sussex Ernles appear to have conformed to the Church of England more enthusiastically. In 1564, Mr Richard Ernlie (misprinted as Crulie), of Cackham (now Cakeham), Sussex, son of William, the royal commissioner of 1538, is listed as being one of the gentlemen of Sussex who was designated as being among the "favourers of godlie procedinges", indicating that he was by then a staunch, if rather sobre, Anglican, when such a description was a mark of approval from Church and State alike.

[edit] Migration to and Proliferation in Wiltshire

[edit] Migration

In the eighteenth century, the senior Wiltshire branch of the Ernle family claimed that they had established themselves in Wiltshire and abandoned their ancestral lands in Sussex in order to avoid any further exposure to England's seafaring enemies caused by their estate's proximity to the Sussex coast. Examination of their published pedigree reveals that, in fact, the two branches of the family, seated in Sussex and Wiltshire, existed simultaneously for over a century.

By the seventeenth century, however, the name Ernle seems virtually to have disappeared from Sussex, while the branch established in Wiltshire by John Ernle, The Elder, Esq., of Fosbury, Wiltshire and Bishop's Cannings, Wiltshire (born 1464/5), elder brother of Sir John Ernle, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas (1519-1520), or his ancestors, continued to flourish in its new home.

Recorded in the Visitation of Wiltshire in 1565 and 1623, the main seat of the family in Wiltshire was at Bourton, said to be a former priory in the parish of Bishop's Cannings, but the initial connexion of the family with Wiltshire seems to have stemmed not from this estate but from the marriage in the first third of the fifteenth century of a Sussex Ernle to the heiress of an old Wiltshire manorial family, Malwyn (or Malwain) of Etchilhampton (alias Ashlington).

In contrast, the following account given by Archdeacon Macdonald in the Wiltshire Archæological and Natural History Society Magazine (1860) reflects the traditional view of how the connexion of the Ernle family was forged with Wiltshire:

"Tything of Bourton and Easton (Consolidated)."

"Bourton was one of the seats of the ancient family of Ernle, who came into possession of this property in the time of Henry VIII; John son of William de Ernle having purchased the estate on the dissolution of the monasteries; the land being said to have been Priory property, but for this we have only vague traditional authority, no account of any religious house there, being to be found in any of the best works on the subject. The Ernle property at Echilhampton [Etchilhampton] belonged to the ancient family of Malwyn, came into the Ernle family with Joan Best wife of John Ernle..."

This tradition needs to be examined carefully, for it contains two sections that require separation so that its true significance is understood.

First, the acquisition of the lands at Bourton could not have occurred in the lifetime of William de Ernle's son John Ernle because he died in 1417 according to a Sussex inquisition post mortem. The period of monastic dissolution occurred over a century later in the period 1538 to 1541. As an aside, this may also be the reason why no one has been able to find a record of the sale of Bourton as a monastic property in the latter period.

Secondly, a better idea of when the Ernle link with Wiltshire was forged can, however, be gleaned from the latter half of the foregoing account. The aforementioned heiress of the Malwyn family, Joan Best (daughter of Simon Best and his wife Agnes, daughter of John Malwyn or Malwain, Esq., lord of the manor of Etchilhampton) must have married John Ernle of Sussex, not later than about 1430, for their son, another John Ernle (of Sidlesham and Earnley, Sussex), was already a father of young sons himself, when he died in 1465, naming his mother Joan (born circa 1410 to 1415) and wife, Margaret (née Morley, of Glynde Place, Sussex) in his will dated that year.

The Ernle family, however, did not inherit Etchilhampton until several intervening heirs of the Malwain's property occupied it and then died before Joan Best's senior heir, her grandson, John Ernle of Fosbury, Wiltshire, finally gained possession of the estate many years after his grandmother's death.

Before their eventual inheritance of these lands in Wiltshire, it is not surprising then that the Ernle family concentrated their activities on Sussex, while maintaining a presence in both counties.

Christopher Whittick's DNB account of Sir John Ernley's career has this to say about Ernle family two-county history:

The family had been lords of the manor of Earnley near Chichester since the 13th century...the acquisition by marriage of lands and a parliamentary seat in Wiltshire in the 1430s, and legal preferment in Sussex after the Yorkist victory in 1460...

culminated, in terms of the early modern period, in the career of the Lord Chief Justice Ernle under the first two Tudor monarchs.

[edit] Proliferation of the Wiltshire Ernle Family

Nonetheless, the fortunes of the Sussex branch of the family went into a slow decline under the heirs of Sir John Ernley (died 1520): his son William Ernle, M.P., of Cakeham, Sussex, (died 1545), and grandson Richard Ernle (died 1577). Wiltshire, however, proved to be fertile ground for the expansion of the family over successive generations.

John Ernle of Fosbury (fl. 1507) had three sons: John his heir (died 1556), Anthony, of Laverstoke, Wilts. (died 1530), and William, a Fellow of New College, Oxford, and later parish priest of Yatesbury, Wilts.

John Ernle (died 1556), in turn, had a son and heir John Ernle (died 1572) and William Ernle, founder of the Dorset branch of the family.

John Ernle (died 1572), married Mary, daughter of William Hyde, Esq., of Denchworth, Berkshire, and had three sons: Michael his heir; Thomas (died 1595), of Brembridge manor, Dilton, Westbury, Wilts., and Francis, of Yatesbury, Wilts.

The proliferation of cadet branches in Wiltshire, however, arose chiefly from the two marriages of Michael Ernle (died 1595), first to the heiress of the Whetham House estate, Mary Finnemore, and, secondly, to Susan Hungerford. From these two marriages there were ten children giving rise to a number of cadet branches of the family seated throughout the county. The chief of these lived at Whetham House in the parish of Calne, Wiltshire. There were also branches at Conock, parish of Chirton, Wiltshire, All Cannings, Wiltshire, Etchilhampton alias Ashlington, Wiltshire, Brimslade Park, parish of Brimslade, Wiltshire, and Burytown, Bury Blunsdon, parish of Highworth, Wiltshire.

[edit] Baronetcy

Of these, the most prominent was the branch descended from Edward Ernle, son of Michael Ernle, Esq., of Bourton (died 1595) by his second wife, Susan Hungerford, daughter of Sir Walter Hungerford, Kt, of Farley Castle, Somerset, a granddaughter of Walter, Lord Hungerford. Baptised at Calne in 1587, Edward Ernle, and his wife Gertrude St Lowe, were progenitors of the Ernle Baronets of Etchilhampton, alias Ashlington, Wiltshire, and the 'self-styled' Ernle baronets of Brimslade Park. It was their son Sir Walter Ernle, Knight, of Etchilhampton, who was created a baronet shortly after the Restoration by King Charles II on February 2, 1660/1, as Sir Walter Ernle, 1st Baronet. Passing first through his own heirs, the baronetcy was used, with doubtful authority, according to The Complete Baronetage, by the Brimslade Park branch of the family established by his younger brother, Michael Ernle, gent., of Brimslade. That line, too, died out, and the soi-disant baronet's dignities, real or imagined, were finally extinguished with the death in 1787 of the Reverend Sir Edward Ernle, 7th Baronet, the Anglican rector of Abingdon, Berkshire, without issue, at the age of 75.

[edit] Cadet Lines

In addition, cadet branches stemming from Michael Ernle's forebears include those derived from his father John Ernle's second son, Thomas Ernle, gent., of Brembridge manor, Dilton, Westbury, Wiltshire (died 1595), and his third and youngest son, Francis Ernle, gent., of Yatesbury, Wiltshire. Earlier still, a cadet line derived from Michael Ernle's uncle William Ernle had established itself at Sutton Benger, Wiltshire, and later at Chalbury in Dorset.

[edit] Brembridge or Bremeridge manor line at Dilton, an 18th century survival

This line was established by Thomas Ernle (I), gent. (died 1595), second of the three sons, with one daughter, of John Ernle, Esq., of Bourton Priory, Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire, by his wife, Mary, daughter of William Hyde, Esq., of Denchworth, Berkshire.

The Brembridge or Bremeridge manor branch of the family proliferated through the fourteen children - no fewer than 10 sons and four daughters - of Thomas Ernle (died 1595) and his wife Bridget (died 1610), daughter of Richard Franklin.

The eldest son, Thomas Ernle (II), gent. (died 1639) married Praxed or Praxeda Lambe, a daughter of John Lambe (died 1615), lord of the manor of Coulston, Wiltshire. Thomas (II) became lessee of the manor of Abingdon Court, Cricklade St Sampson, Wiltshire, in succession to his father, and held the advowson of St Sampson's parish church, Cricklade. From him was descended the Ernle family of Braydon and Purton, Wiltshire, continued by Thomas (II)'s son Thomas (III), gent., of Braydon, Purton (1614-1694), and his wife, Jane, daughter of the Antwerp-born naturalised London merchant, Philip Jacobson, gent., King's Jeweller, to James I of England and Charles I of England, and fee-farmer of estates in Braydon Forest, Wiltshire.

Other sons of the line's founder established themselves elsewhere: Edward Ernle, gent., (1577-1655) at Bath, Somerset; Francis Ernle, gent. (born 1577) in the parish of St John Zachary in London; William Ernle, gent. (1583-1663) at Bideford in Devon.

The line at Bremeridge itself was continued by Richard Ernle, gent. (1584-1650), seventh son of the original Thomas Ernle (II) (died 1595). He married Elizabeth Cogswell, a member of the wealthy family of clothiers in Westbury parish, Wiltshire, and their line continued until the last scion of that family, another, Richard Ernle, was buried at Old Dilton chapelry, Westbury, Wiltshire, in 1786 aged 84.

[edit] Distaff Relatives: Female Lines

Today the surname Ernle only survives as an inheritance via the female line, employed by the Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax family, but there are few mentions of the Ernle women over the centuries.

Most Ernle daughters made suitable marital alliances with members of other gentry families, but it can still be difficult to trace their posterity beyond the first or second generation. Often all that is known of an Ernle wife is her name, her father's name, and his rank and the name of the place where he had his estate or resided. One slight exception is noteworthy simply due to the paucity of other material. It comes from an epitaph and extols the chief adornment that any lady of good family in times past could bring to her husband besides a dowry of money and land: physical beauty. The quotation comes from John Aubrey's Collections for Wiltshire, under the section on the parish of Calne:

Here under liethe the body of Lady Frances Mildmay, wife to Sir Thomas Mildmay. She dyed in the faith of Christ the ninth of December, 1624. She was daughter to Sir Jno. Ernle of Whetham, and was a very rare beauty.

[edit] New National Prominence: Civil War, Anglo-Dutch Wars, and the later Stuarts

The senior line at Whetham House, Calne, Wiltshire, gave rise to the Right Honourable Sir John Ernle (1620-1697), Knight, P.C. Chancellor of the Exchequer to kings Charles II and James II from 1676 to 1689.

Another member of the Whetham line, Sir Michael Ernle (1599-?1645), Knight, uncle to the Chancellor, was a royalist commander during the English Civil War. His end is unclear, as John Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire, points out:

"Sir Michael Ernele, Knight, was second son of Sir John Ernele, of Whetham in the County of Wilts. After he had spent some time at the University of Oxford, he betooke himself to a militarie life in the Low Countries, where he became so good a proficient that at his return into England at the beginning of the Civill warres, King Charles the First gave him the commission of a Colonell in his service, and shortly after he was made Governour of Shrewsbury, and he was, or intended to bee, Major Generall. He did his Majesty good service in the warres, as doth appeare by the Mercurii Aulici. His garrison at Shrewsbury being weakened by drawing out great part of them before the battel at Marston Moore, the townesmen plotted and betrayed his garrison to the Parliament soldiers. He was slain then in the market - place, about the time of the battle of Marston Moore.*"

* "[It was the common belief that Sir Michael Erneley was killed, as here stated, by the Parliamentary soldiers at the time Shrewsbury was taken (Feb. 3,1644-5); but in Owen and Blakeway's Hist, of Shrewsbury, 4to. 1825, the time and manner of his death is left uncertain. His name is included in the list of those who were made prisoners when the town surrendered.-J. B.]"

Sir John Ernle, R.N. (1647-1686), Knight, of Burytown, Bury Blunsdon (otherwise Broad Blunsdon in Highworth parish), Wiltshire, eldest son of the foregoing Chancellor of the Exchequer, was an English naval officer during the Anglo-Dutch Wars, notably commanding H.M.S. Dover at the Battle of Solebay at the start of the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672. He is also mentioned in John Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire,

Sir John Ernele, great-grandson of Sir John Ernele above sayd, and eldest sonn of Sir John Ernele, late Chancellour of the Exchequer, had the command of a flag-ship, and was eminent in some sea services. He married the daughter and heir of Sir John Kerle [modern, Kyrle] of .... [Much Marcle] in Herefordshire.

His son, John Kyrle Ernle, Esq., (1683-1725), of Whetham, Calne, Wiltshire, and Much Marcle, Herefordshire, entertained Queen Anne at Whetham.

[edit] Devon

William Ernle (1583-1663), gent., sixth of the tens sons, with four daughters, of Thomas Ernle, gent., of Bremeridge manor, Dilton, Wiltshire, and his wife, Bridget, daughter of Richard Franklin, established himself as a merchant at Bideford, Devon. He married Philippa, a daughter of Edmund Tremayne, by his wife, Elizabeth St Ledger. He is mentioned in a work on the Bideford Witch trial, one of the last such events in England. In that text, the connexion to the Ernle at Newburgh Park, Coxwold, Yorkshire, is established from contemporary documents.

[edit] Dorset

In the seventeenth century, a cadet branch of the Wiltshire-based family also established itself in Dorset, a county to the south-west of Wiltshire, where it was recorded in the Visitation of Dorset of 1623. Seated first at Sutton Benger, Wiltshire, it later became associated with Chalbury in Dorset. The published registers of the University of Oxford, Foster's Alumni Oxonienses show that members of the family persisted there, and elsewhere in Dorset, until well into the eighteenth century.

[edit] Yorkshire

The Life of Marmaduke Rawdon notes that in the seventeenth century, one John Ernle (here recorded as Mr. John Earneley) was chiefe gentleman in the service of Lord Falconbridge, whose seat was at Newburgh Park, near Coxwold, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. At that period, members of the lesser gentry often served the greater, that is, the nobility, a practice which gave rise to the expression, a gentleman's gentleman. Information about Ernle of Bideford, Devon shows that this Yorkshire gentleman belonged to the family of Ernle of Brembridge. In 1670, Mary one of the daughters of John Earnley of Alne, gent. [Yorkshire] accused Anne Wilkinson, widow, of having used witchcraft against her and two of her sisters, allegedly causing the death of her sister Eleanor. This anecdote serves to show the links not only between the Ernle family in Devon and Yorkshire, but also the shadow cast in both counties by the witchcraft hysteria then so prevalent.

[edit] Orthographical variety and Recent use as a Surname, Forename, and Titular Territorial Designation

The surname itself has many variants, including Erneley, Ernley, Earnely, Earneley and Ernly. Though apparently extinct in the male line in the United Kingdom, its current use as an ancient English surname has been actively maintained by its inclusion as the second component of the quadruple-barrelled patronymic, Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (see double-barrelled surname), borne by descendants of John William Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany, whose wife was Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Maria Grosvenor Ernle-Erle-Drax, née Ernle Elizabeth Louisa Jessica Burton (1855-1916), a female-line descendant of the Wiltshire Ernle family.

As demonstrated in the foregoing passage, the name Ernle, Ernley (also Ernlé, Ernlè, Ernly, and Ernleigh) is also employed by descendants of the family and others as a given name. Examples include Ernle Bradford (1922-1986), the writer, and Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, 1st Baron Chatfield, PC (1873-1967), and his son Ernle David Lewis Chatfield, 2nd Baron Chatfield (born 1917), (see also Baron Chatfield), and Sir Ernley Blackwell, KCB, legal assistant under-secretary of State at the Home Office (1906-1931). The British Conservative politician and writer Ernle Money was given the name at birth in 1931.

Additionally, it was also used as the name for the barony granted to Rowland Edmund Prothero (1851-1937), who was created the 1st Baron Ernle, on 4 February 1919, for whose career and family history consult L.G. Pine's New Extinct Peerage.

A one-name study of all instances and variants of the name world-wide is being conducted.

[edit] References

• Burke's Commoners (short title for A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank), vol. 3, p. 619, vol. 4, p. 209
• Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies (see Ernle of Etchilhampton, pp. 186-187)
• Burke's General Armory [short title], being The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, Sir John Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms, reprint of last edition, 1884, by The Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, Maryland, 1969.
• Burke's General Armory Two being Alfred Morant's Additions and Corrections to Burke's General Armory. Edited and augmented by Cecil R. Humphery-Smith, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, Maryland, 1974.
• Burke's Landed Gentry (short title for A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry; or, Commons of Great Britain and Ireland) (in the 1937 edition, see the articles entitled, , and Drax of Charborough, showing their descent from the family of Erneley, p. 641, and Money of Much Marcle for their Ernle antecedents, p. 1312)
• Burke's Peerage and Baronetage (see Chatfield, Barony of, and Dunsany, Barony of, and, in pre-1937 editions, Ernle, Barony of)
• C.W. Bingham (ed.), Private Memoirs of John Potenger, Esq. (pedigree of Ernle at end)
• Calne, p. 185
• The Camden Miscellany, Royal Historical Society (Great Britain), Camden Society (Great Britain), 1895, p. 10 (re Richard Ernlie of Cackham, 1564)
• C. L'Estrange Ewen, Witchcraft and Demonism: A Concise Account from Sworn Testimonies, 1933, p. 403
• D.C.G. Elwes and C.J. Robinson, Castles, Mansions, and Manors of Western Sussex, p. 75
• Dallaway's, Sussex, vol. 1, p. 25
• Robert Davies (ed.), The Life of Marmaduke Rawdon of York, or Marmaduke Rawdon The Second of that Name, Camden Society, 1863, p. 77
• Ebenezer Treman, The history of the Treman, Tremaine, Truman family in America, with the related families of Mack, Dey, Board and Ayers: being a history of Joseph Truman of New London, Conn. (1666), John Mack of Lyme, Conn. (1680), Richard Dey of New York City (1641), Cornelius Board of Boardville, N.J. (1730), John Ayer of Newberry, Mass. (1635), and their descendants. Ithaca, N.Y.: Press of the Ithaca Democrat, 1901, page 16 (for Ernle of Bideford, Devon)
• Ekwall, The Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th edition, p. 156, col.1
• Foster, Alumni Oxonienses
• From Whippingham to Westminster (the biography of R. E. Prothero, later 1st and last Baron Ernle)
• George W. Marshall, The Genealogist's Guide, Billings and Sons, Guildford, 1903, p. 281 (heading, Erneley, Ernely, Ernley, or Ernle)
• George W. Marshall (ed.), Visitation of Wiltshire, p. 74
• Hutchin's, Dorset, vol. 3, p. 543
• J.B. Whitmore, A Genealogical Guide, 1953, p. 174 (see Erneley, Ernley and Ernle)
• John Aubrey Collections for Wiltshire (Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt, editor), 1838, p. 43 (epitaph for Frances Ernle, Lady Mildmay, d. 1624)
• John Aubrey, The Natural History of Wiltshire (Colonel Sir Michael Ernle and Capt. Sir John Ernle, R.N.)
• Julian Cornwall. Wealth and Society in Early Sixteenth Century England, 1988, p. 21
• L.G. Pine, New Extinct Peerage (for the barony of Ernle held by R. E. Prothero)
• Olof Sigfrid Arngart, English Hundred Names, 1939, p. 74 (for John de Ernele of La Manwode, fl. 1347)
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (for biography of Sir John Ernley, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas)
• Sussex Archaeological Society, Sussex Archaeological Collections Relating to the History and Antiquities of the County, 1865, p. 248 (for John de Ernele, Sussex coroner 1343)
• Sussex Archaeological Society, Sussex Archaeological Collections Relating to the History and Antiquities of the County, 1896, pp. 5-6 (for Mr Earnely of Chichester's appointment as Provost Marshal, December 1624)
• Sir Thomas Phillipps, Baronet (ed.), Visitatio Comitatus Wiltoniæ, 1623 Middle Hill Press
• Sir Thomas Phillipps, Baronet (ed.), Visitation of Sussex, 1570 Middle Hill Press, (fol.), 4
• Sir Thomas Phillipps, Baronet (ed.), Wiltshire Institutions (on the Ernle advowson of St Sampson, Cricklade, Wiltshire)
• The Genealogist (New Series), vol. 12, p. 26
• Victoria History of the County of Sussex, vol. 2, p. 24, vol. 4, p. 202
• Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire
• Visitation of Dorset of 1623, Harleian Society (on Ernle of Chalbury)
• Visitation of London Anno Domini 1633, 1634, and 1635, 2 vols, IN: Harleian Society, London, England (1880), vols 15 & 17 (see vol. 2, p. 5 for Jacobson of St Margaret's parish, Billingsgate ward, City of London)(from a manuscript at The College of Arms, London, c. 24)
• Visitation of Sussex of 1633, Harleian Society, vol. 53, p. 48
• W. Green & Stevens (eds.), The English Reports, vol. 21 (being Chancery series vol. 1) (1930), pp. 634-635 (for Still v. Lynn & Al., 28 Car. 2, fo. 195 [1676-1677], 2 Chan. Rep. 121, which names Thomas Ernle [herein Earneley] as husband of Jane Jacobson, daughter of Philip Jacobson, deceased, by his first wife Elizabeth, and states that Jacobson père married, in 1643, as his second wife, Frances Ernle [herein Earnely], sister of his son-in-law, Thomas Earneley [called Thomas Ernle (III) above, under Bremeridge])
• W.P.W. Phillimore & Lord Phillimore, Genealogy of the Family of Phillimore, 1922, p. 97 (for the Finnemore-Ernle connexion)
• Washbourne Family, p. 195
• Who's Who (various editions)
• Wiltshire Archæological and Natural History Society Magazine, Devizes, vol. 11, p. 192 & vol. 24, p. 217
• Wotton's English Baronetage, vol. 3, p. 217 (for the legend of the migration of the Ernle family from Sussex to Wiltshire)

[edit] External links

• On another version of the history of names derived from the same Old English root words meaning Eagle's wood [1] (see the forms it cites as being derivative: "Earny, Eronie, Arney, Arnely, etc.")
• On the connexion of the Ernles of Bideford, Devon, and Newburgh Park, Coxwold, North Riding, Yorkshire, and their common descent from Ernle of Bremeridge manor, Dilton, Wiltshire: Frank J. Gent, The Trial of the Bideford Witches, Crediton, Devon, 1st edition, 1982, 2nd edition, 1998, internet edition, 2001. [2]
• On the Lancing or de Lancing family who granted lands at Earnley, Sussex to Luke de Ernle, from the Victoria County History series: 'Lancing', A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 1: Bramber Rape (Southern Part) (1980), pp. 34-53. [3] (Date accessed: Tuesday, October 16, 2007.) (see the manorial section)
• On the Relics of St Richard at West Wittering, Sussex, the Ernle church after Earnley, Sussex itself: [4]