See Blomefield, iii. 796, and iv. 708; also Brydges's Collins, v. 631.
ARMS.--_Or, on a fess between two chevrons sable three cross-crosslets of the first_.
Present Representative, Horatio William Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford.
[Illustration] Berney, in the hundred of North Greenhow in this county, doubtless gave name to this ancient family, who are traced pretty nearly to the Conquest. Park Hall, the former seat, is in the parish of Reedham, and was acquired by the marriage of Sir Thomas de Berney with Margaret daughter and heir of Sir William de Reedham in the reign of Edward III.
Younger branch, Berney of Morton Hall in this county, descended from a younger brother of the first Baronet.
See Parkins's continuation of Blomefield's Norfolk, v. 1482; and Wotton's Baronetage, i. 378.
ARMS.--_Party per pale gules and azure, a cross engrailed ermine_.
Present Representative, Sir Henry Hanson Berney, 9th Baronet.
ASTLEY, OF MELTON-CONSTABLE, BARON HASTINGS 1841, BARONET 1660.
[Illustration] Descended from the noble house of Astley Castle in Warwickshire, and traced to Philip de Estlega in the 12th of Henry II., and in the female line from the Constables of Melton-Constable, which estate came into the family by the second marriage of Thomas Lord Astley with Edith, third sister and coheir of Geffrey de Constable, in the time of Henry III. Astley Castle, the original seat, descended by an heiress to the Greys of Ruthin, afterwards Marquesses of Dorset, and Dukes of Suffolk. Hill-Morton in Warwickshire was also the seat of this family from the reign of Henry III.
The Astleys formerly of Patishull in Staffordshire were the elder branch, sprung from the first marriage of Thomas Lord Astley, who was killed in the Barons' Wars at Evesham, (the 49th of Henry III.,) extinct 1771. The Astleys, now of Everley, in Wiltshire, Baronets 1821, descend from the second son of Walter Astley of Patishull, the father of the first Baronet of that line (1662).
See Parkins's Blomefield's Norfolk, v. 940; Thomas's Dugdale's Warwickshire, i. 19, 107; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 63; for Astleys of Patishull, Shaw's Staffordshire, ii. 287; and Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 368.
ARMS.--_Azure, a cinquefoil ermine within a border engrailed or_. The Patishull and Everley family omit the border, and it was thus borne by the head of the house in the reign of Richard II. Thomas de Astley, at the same period, differenced his coat by _a label of three points or, charged with two bars gules_. (Rolls.)