In the reign of Anne, the heir-male of the Lyttons dying without issue, the estate passed to his cousin, William Robinson, _ceu_ Norreys, of Guersylt, Denbighshire, and Monacdhu, in Anglesey, who, on the maternal side, descended from the Lyttons, and on his father’s, from a race still more ancient; tracing, indeed, in a direct and acknowledged line, from the heroes and princes of our earliest history,--Elystan Glodrydd, or the Glorious (godson of King Athelstan), Prince of North Wales, and Lord of all between Wye and Severn; Karadoc Vreicfras; Roderic the Great; and Cadwallader the last of the British kings. His ancestor, Sir William Norreys, married Anne, sister of Owen Tudor, and grand-aunt to Henry VII. His son, Sir Robert, married Anne, daughter of Sir W. Griffiths, Grand Chamberlain of Wales, and his name was of such eminence in the wars of the time, that his son, according to Welsh custom, took the name of Rob’s or Robin’s son, which was afterwards borne by the descendants indiscriminately with the proper patronymic of Norreys. Through later intermarriages this family claim also descent from the Norman houses of Grosvenor, Stanley of Hooton, Brereton of Malpas, and Warburton of Ardely. The great-granddaughter of this William Robinson, who took the name and arms of Lytton on succeeding to the estates of his maternal ancestry, was Elizabeth Warburton Lytton, who became sole heiress and representative of the families of Lytton and Robinson. She married William Earle Bulwer (brigadier-general), of Heydon Hall and Wood Dalling, Norfolk; lands which had been in possession of his family since the Conquest. (See Burke’s “Commoners,” and Bloomfield’s “Norfolk.”) By this marriage there were three sons: 1st, William Lytton Bulwer, the present possessor of Heydon; 2nd, the Right Hon. Henry Lytton Bulwer, Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Madrid, to whom his grandmother bequeathed a considerable fortune; and Sir Edward Bulwer, Bart., who succeeded to his mother by will, in December 1843, and took the surname and arms of Lytton. The ancient house of Knebworth is described in an early number of the “Gentleman’s Magazine.” It was a large quadrangular building, the front, or east side, being part of the early fortress, and dating as far back as the time of Edward III. Three sides of the pile were, however, removed, as both too vast and too ruinous to inhabit, by the late Mrs. Bulwer Lytton; and the fourth side, which was built in the reign of Henry VII. by Sir Robert Lytton, forms the present residence. It was repaired and restored by Mrs. Bulwer Lytton and the present possessor, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. The house stands on what Sir Henry Chauncy calls “a dry hill in a fair large park, stocked with the best deer in the county, excellent timber and well wooded, and from whence you may behold a most lovely prospect to the east.”