Generation 3 · angevin · 4 of 60 · Stanley / Sneyd cadet — not the barony

William de Stanleigh

First of the name Stanley

Son · husband · father of this house

Cadet split. This line does not inherit the 1313 barony; it is the forensic sibling of the Audley ascent.

William de Stanleigh, full figure, Royal / court, front

Helm or circlet of rank

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Chronicle of this board

Recorded as William de Stanle, 1203

William, son of Adam of Hooton, held Talk on the Hill. His cousin Adam held Stanleigh. They swapped. William moved to the stony meadow and, following the custom of minor barons, took his surname from the dirt.

He is in charters as William de Stanle between 1203 and 1223. That date is the official birth of the Stanley lineage as a distinct cadet of Aldithley.

Everything later — Foresters of Wirral, Kings of Mann, Earls of Derby, the three golden stags — hangs on this unromantic real-estate exchange while an overlord lay dying in the Holy Land.

Cadet split. This line does not inherit the 1313 barony; it is the forensic sibling of the Audley ascent.

Wardrobe

Green hunting tunic, cross-gartered hose, a cloak the colour of oak mast. Not yet the three stags — those come with the Wirral forestership in 1284 — but already a man named for a stony meadow.

Weapons · animals · lands

Hunting spear, short sword, horn.

Hounds of Wirral type; later generations will lock the stag into the coat of arms.

  • Stanleigh (exchanged for Talk on the Hill)