A glance at the lists of sheriffs in the sixteenth century serves to show who were the leading families. The Ayscoughs, Dymokes, and Tyrwhits occur most frequently. The Copledikes had begun to decline in importance during the latter half of the century, owing no doubt to litigation; and the Skipwiths of South Ormsby by no means filled the same position they had done in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A change was taking place. The Monsons and Heneages were rising in importance. Families of comparatively humble rank in the preceding century had acquired land on easy terms after the suppression of the monasteries, when the land-market was glutted with monastic property. Towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign we see the Trollopes beginning to come forward and purchase land; Casewick was bought from the Evingtons in 1621. In 1642 a baronetcy was granted, and in recent times a peerage—_i.e._ Kesteven. The Listers, formerly of Burwell, still survive in the male line. They came into Lincolnshire in the seventeenth century. So also do the Scropes of Cockerington. Their connection with Lincolnshire is not of much older date, but in point of splendour of ancestry they are in the first rank. The present Mr. Scrope of Danby, in Yorkshire, still owns Cockerington, though it is no longer a place of residence. The Cholmeleys of Easton and Norton Place are also still represented in the male line. They, of course, are really a Cheshire family, but came into this county in the sixteenth century. The Fanes of Fulbeck, a cadet branch of the Westmoreland family, hold the estates they acquired early in the seventeenth century. Up to this point I have considered families which are still extant in the male line and connected with the county. It would take far too much space if justice were done to the numerous families now represented in the female line—such as the Skipwiths, Ayscoughs, Wrays, Saundersons, Copledikes, St. Pauls, Meres, Fitzwilliams, Granthams, Armynes, Angevines, Amcotts, Asfordbys, Billesbys, Husseys, Ogles, Tournays, and many others. It may be enough to say that in the fifteenth century the Skipwiths, Copledikes, and Tyrwhits took the lead in county matters, at any rate in the Lindsey division; while in the Isle of Axholme the Sheffields, who became eventually Dukes of Buckinghamshire, were paramount. The Skipwiths and Copledikes dwindled down to extinction in the seventeenth century, and the Tyrwhits in the eighteenth, so far as Lincolnshire is concerned, though Skipwiths and Tyrwhits still hold baronetcies, but in other counties.