Perhaps the most distinguished of these ancestors of ours was Sir John de Mitford, who was Knight of the Shire for Northumberland in various Parliaments during the reigns of King Edward the Third, King Richard the Second and King Henry the Fourth. He was High Sheriff for two years, and acted as Commissioner with John Widdrington and Gerald Heron to tender the Oath of Allegiance to the King of Scotland. On the 20th of May, 1369, at Newton Hall, he received by deed of feoffment from David Strathbolgi, Second Earl of Athol, a grant of all his lands and tenements in the Ville of Molesden, to be holden of the grantor and his descendants by the annual payment of sixpence. It has been said that this transfer led to the adoption of the three moles as the family arms, but our family tradition, which I believe to be well founded, is that they were of much older date and taken from the Want’s Beck, the mole’s stream, as was the name of Molesden itself. Sir John was in 1386 Keeper of the Seal to Edward Duke of York for the Liberty of Tyndale. On his death he was succeeded by his elder son William, who was, like his father, Knight of the Shire and High Sheriff in Henry the Fifth’s reign. Then followed his son John, a pious benefactor of the Church, living, no doubt, in the sweetest odour of sanctity, who granted tenements in Newcastle to the Church of St. Nicholas, and gave lands in Echewicke to the Abbot and Convent of Newminster, to pray for his soul and the souls of his ancestors. He died in the sixteenth year of the reign of King Henry the Sixth. The following three Lords of the Manor, Thomas, Bertram and Cawen, were inconspicuous persons, and there is nothing to be said of our forebears until we come to Cuthbert, who in the sixth year of Edward the Sixth was with Anthony Mitford of Ponteland, Commissioner for the inclosure of the Middle Marches. This said Anthony was a rogue. Cuthbert Mitford by his first wife, Ann, daughter of one Wallis of Akeild, had one son, Robert, and three daughters: failing that son Robert, Anthony of Ponteland would become Lord of the Manor of Mitford and heir to all Cuthbert’s estate. To achieve this end he hatched a plot, seeking to prove that there had been no marriage between Cuthbert and Ann Wallis, and that in consequence Robert was illegitimate.