Younger branch. The Marquess of Ailesbury (1821), descended from Thomas, fourth son of George fourth Earl of Cardigan, and the Lady Elizabeth Bruce, eldest daughter of Thomas second Earl of Ailesbury. ARMS.--_Argent, a chevron gules between three morions azure_. Present Representative, James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, K.C.B. KNIGHTLEY OF FAWSLEY, BARONET 1798. [Illustration] The first recorded ancestor of this ancient family is Rainald, mesne lord of Knightley, in the county of Stafford, under Earl Roger, in the time of William the Conqueror, as appears by Domesday Book. That estate went out of the family by an heiress who married Robert de Peshall, about the reign of Edward III., and the Knightleys removed to Gnowsall, in the same county, in the 17th of Richard II. (1394). Fawsley was purchased in the 3rd of Henry V. (1415-16). It is thus mentioned by Leland: "Mr. Knightley, a man of great lands, hath his principal house at Foullesle, but it is no very sumptuous thing." (Itin. i. fol. 11.) See Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 381. Blakeway (Sheriffs of Salop, p. 103) asserts that "_the Knightleys appear to have been a branch of the Shirleys_," an assumption without any foundation except the similarity of their arms. ARMS.--_Quarterly ermine, and paly of six or and gules_. This coat was borne as early as 1301-2 (30th Ed. I.) by Sir Robert de Knyteley: it is also borne by Cotes of Cotes, co. Stafford, probably from family connection. Present Representative, Sir Rainald Knightley, 3rd Baronet, M. P. for South Northamptonshire. SPENCER OF ALTHORPE, EARL SPENCER 1765. [Illustration] The Spencers claim a collateral descent from the ancient baronial house of Le Despenser, a claim which, without being irreconcileable perhaps with the early pedigrees of that family, admits of very grave doubts and considerable difficulties. It seems to be admitted that they descend from Henry Spencer, who, having been educated in the Abbey of Evesham, obtained from the abbot in the reign of Henry VI. a lease of the domains and tithes of Badby in this county, and was induced to settle there. His son removed to Hodnell in Warwickshire, his grandson to Rodburn in the same county, his great-grandson Sir John purchased Althorpe in 1508. The Spencers of Claverdon, co. Warwick (extinct 1685), were a younger branch. The Dukes of Marlborough (1702) represent the elder line of this family. See Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 106; and Brydges's Collins, i. 378. The poet Spenser boasted that he belonged to this house; though, says Baker, "the precise link of genealogical connexion cannot now perhaps be ascertained."