Elder Branches.* Shirley of Staunton-Harold, in the county of Leicester, represented by Sewallis Edward, tenth Earl Ferrers 1711; and Shirley of Shirley, in the county of Derby, represented by the Rev. Walter Waddington Shirley, Canon of Christ Church, D.D. only son of the late Bishop of Sodor and Man, and great-grandson of Walter, younger brother of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Earls Ferrers. Younger Branches (extinct). Shirley, of Wiston, Preston, West-Grinstead, and Ote-Hall, all in Sussex, and all descended from the second marriage of Ralph Shirley, Esq., and Elizabeth Blount; which Ralph died in 1466. All these families are presumed to be extinct on the death of Sir William Warden Shirley, Baronet, in 1815. See Dugdale's Warwickshire, ed. 2, vol. i. p. 621; Nichols's History of Leicestershire, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 704-727; Stemmata Shirleiana, pr. pr. 4to. 1841; and Brydges's Collins, vol. iv. p. 85. ARMS.--_Paly of six, or and azure, a quarter ermine_. The more ancient coat was, _Paly of six, or and sable_, as appears by the seal of "Sir Sewallis de Ethindon, Knight," with the legend, "Sum scutum de auro et nigro senis ductibus palatum," engraved in Dugdale's Warwickshire, and in Upton de Studio Militari. Indeed Sir Ralph Shirley bore it as late as the reign of Edward II; see Nicolas's Roll of that date, p. 73. Sir Hugh de Shirley bore the present coat (Roll of Richard II.): so did his father Sir Thomas, and his great-grandfather Sir James, as appears by their several seals engraved in Upton, &c. Present Representative, Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq., late M. P. for South Warwickshire. * The Iretons of Little Ireton, in the county of Derby, extinct in 1711, were in fact the elder line of the family, sprung from Henry, eldest son of Fulcher, and elder brother of Sewallis de Shirley. BRACEBRIDGE OF ATHERSTONE. [Illustration] In the time of King John, the venerable family of Bracebridge, originally of Bracebridge in Lincolnshire, acquired by marriage in the person of Peter de Bracebridge with Amicia, daughter of Osbert de Arden and Maud, and granddaughter of Turchill de Warwick, the manor of Kingsbury in this county, an ancient seat of the Mercian Kings, and inherited by Turchill, called the last Saxon Earl of Warwick, with his second wife Leverunia. The descendants of which Peter and Amicia had their principal seat at Kingsbury till about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when it was sold, and the Atherstone estate purchased. "Kinisbyri is a fair manor place," writes Leland, in his Itinerary, "and lordship of 140 li.; one Bracebridge is lord of it; it is in Warwikshir." At Bracebridge, on the river Witham, near Lincoln, the original seat of the family, so called it is supposed from the two bridges which still exist there, a grant of free warren was obtained in the 29th of Edward I., which was still retained by Thomas Bracebridge, Esq. who died in 1567.