ARMS.--_Quarterly ermine, and paly of six or and gules_. This coat was borne as early as 1301-2 (30th Ed. I.) by Sir Robert de Knyteley: it is also borne by Cotes of Cotes, co. Stafford, probably from family connection.
Present Representative, Sir Rainald Knightley, 3rd Baronet, M. P. for South Northamptonshire.
[Illustration] The Spencers claim a collateral descent from the ancient baronial house of Le Despenser, a claim which, without being irreconcileable perhaps with the early pedigrees of that family, admits of very grave doubts and considerable difficulties. It seems to be admitted that they descend from Henry Spencer, who, having been educated in the Abbey of Evesham, obtained from the abbot in the reign of Henry VI. a lease of the domains and tithes of Badby in this county, and was induced to settle there. His son removed to Hodnell in Warwickshire, his grandson to Rodburn in the same county, his great-grandson Sir John purchased Althorpe in 1508. The Spencers of Claverdon, co. Warwick (extinct 1685), were a younger branch. The Dukes of Marlborough (1702) represent the elder line of this family.
See Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 106; and Brydges's Collins, i. 378.
The poet Spenser boasted that he belonged to this house; though, says Baker, "the precise link of genealogical connexion cannot now perhaps be ascertained."
ARMS.--_Quarterly, first and fourth argent, second and third gules, a fret or, over all a bend sable charged with three escallops of the first_. This coat, which is differenced from the ancient baronial arms by the three escallop shells, was used by Henry Spencer of Badby, who sealed his will with it. In 1504 another coat was granted, viz. _Azure, a fess ermine between six sea-mew's heads erased argent_, but the more ancient arms have been generally borne by the Spencers.
Present Representative, John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer.
[Illustration] This is a junior branch of the Rokebys of Rokeby in Yorkshire, a knightly race immortalized by Scott. The principal line has been long extinct. Sir Thomas Rokeby was Sheriff of Yorkshire in the eighth of Henry IV. The family was seated in the parish of Ecclesfield, and also at Sandal-Parva, in South Yorkshire, where William Rokeby was Rector in the reign of Henry VII. In 1512 he became Archbishop of Dublin. His brother Ralph wrote the history of the family, now in possession of Mr. Rokeby of Arthingworth, and which is printed in Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 158. The present family acquired Arthingworth from the Langhams by marriage in the end of the seventeenth century.