The founder of the family, Philip de Villers, of Lisle Adam, was a Norman Seigneur; he was also Grand Master of the Island of Rhodes, and signalized himself in the defence of that island against the Turks. After the conquest, certain lands in Leicestershire were granted by William the Conqueror to a Norman Knight hearing the appellation De Villers; but another branch of the same race remained in France, and its various members have been distinguished in courts, in arms, and as legislators. Argiver de Villers was sewer[11] to Philip the First; Pierre de Villers held the office of Grand Master in his native country, under Charles the Sixth.[12] Footnote 11: Fuller’s Worthies of Leicestershire. Footnote 12: Sanderson’s Lives of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her Son, p. 467. Invention was therefore not requisite to dignify the long unbroken line of respectable progenitors to whom George Villiers owed his origin. “Heraldry,” remarks a certain writer, when referring to this celebrated man, “might blazon as large fields of his pedigree as might concern any subject to prove.”[13] Without bringing that assertion to the test, it is sufficient to add that successive generations flourished and passed away, sometimes emerging from their seclusion to follow the reigning monarch to the wars, as in the instances of Sir Alexander de Villers, and Sir Nicholas his son, the former assisting Edward the First in the Crusades, and adding to his name the designation of “Brookesby;” and the latter, after sundry exploits in the Holy Land, augmenting his armorial bearings by the Cross of St. George and five escalop shells, ancient badges of the Crusaders; so that the “coat armour,” esteemed so mean by Sir Symonds D’Ewes, and said to have been borrowed, was not without its distinctions, even at an early period. Footnote 13: An officer appointed to serve up a feast. But it is singular that from a personage of lowly fortunes, if not of humble family, sprang the generation which was so noted in its time. At Brookesby, the manorial residence of the race, there had dwelt, for several centuries, successive proprietors, little remarkable, since the time of the valiant Crusaders, either for their career in arms, or for their ambition to rise in the State. A stream, dignified by the name of the River Wreke, flows near the house, which is said to have been the residence of the Villiers family; a gentleman’s seat, a plain and somewhat insignificant building, having a central division, and two projecting wings, now owns the name of Brookesby.[14] Footnote 14: It is situated nine miles from Leicester, and six from Melton Mowbray.