Richard le Fleming, second son of the first Sir Michael, having inherited the estates in Cumberland which William le Meschines had granted to his father for his military services, seated himself at Caernarvon Castle, Beckermet, in Copeland. After two descents his posterity, having acquired by marriage with the de Urswicks the manor of Coniston and other considerable possessions in Furness, returned to reside in that district. The Castle of Caernarvon was abandoned, then erased, and Coniston Hall became the family seat for seven descents. About the tenth year of Henry IV. Sir Thomas le Fleming married Isabella, one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of Sir John de Lancaster, and acquired with her the lordship and manor of Rydal. The manor of Coniston was settled upon the issue of this marriage; and for seven generations more Rydal and Coniston vied with each other which should hold the family seat, to fix it in Westmorland or Lancashire. Sir Daniel le Fleming came, and gave his decision against the latter, about the middle of the seventeenth century. Since that event, the hall of Coniston, pleasantly situated on the banks of the lake of that name, has been deserted. Singularly enough, the inheritance of this long line also has been broken in its passage through the house of Suffolk. Sir Michael, the 23rd in succession from Richard, married, in the latter part of the last century, Diana only child of Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, by whom he had one daughter, afterwards married to her cousin Daniel le Fleming, who succeeded her father in the title. This marriage being without issue, on the demise of Lady le Fleming, the estates passed under her will to Andrew Huddleston of Hutton-John, Esq., and at his decease, which occurred shortly after, in succession to General Hughes, who assumed the name of Fleming; both these gentlemen being near of kin to the family at Rydal. The title descended to the brother of Sir Daniel, the late Rev. Sir Richard le Fleming, Rector of Grasmere and Windermere; and from him to his son, the present Sir Michael, the twenty-sixth in succession from Richard, the second son of Michael, Flandrensis, _the_ Fleming, who came over with the Conqueror, and founded the family in England. In this family there have been since the Conquest twelve knights and seven baronets. The article _le_ is sometimes omitted in the family writings before the time of Edward IV., and again assumed. Sir William Fleming, who died in 1756, restored the ancient orthography, and incorporated the article _le_ with the family name at the baptism of his son and heir.