The Lord Clinton and his Lady seem to have occupied the Manor-house; and Sir Thomas, unwilling to quit the place of his affections and of his nativity, erected a castle for himself at Worstone, near the Sand-pits, joining the Ikenield-street; street; where, though the building is totally gone, the vestiges of its liquid security are yet complete.  This Sir Thomas enjoyed several public offices, and figured in the style of his ancestors.  He left a daughter, who married Thomas de la Roche, and from this marriage sprang two daughters; the eldest of which married Edmund, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, who, at the decease of Sir John’s widow, inherited the manor, and occupied the Manor house.  There yet stands a building on the North-east side of the Moat, erected by this Lord Ferrers, with his arms in the timbers of the ceiling, and the crest, a horse-shoe.

I take this house to be the oldest in Birmingham, though it hath not that appearance; having stood about 350 years.

By an entail of the manor upon the male line, the Lady Ferrers seems to have quitted her title in favor of a second cousin, a descendant of William de Birmingham, brother to Sir Fouk.

WILLIAM DE BIRMINGHAM,

1430.

In the 19th of Henry the Sixth, 1441, is said to have held his manor of Birmingham, of Sir John Sutton, Lord of Dudley, by military service; but instead of paying homage, fealty, escuage, &c. as his ancestors had done, which was very troublesome to the tenant, and brought only empty honour to the Lord:  and, as sometimes the Lord’s necessities taught him to think that money was more Solid than suit and service; an agreement was entered into, for money instead of homage, between the Lord and the tenant—­Such agreements now became common.  Thus land became a kind of bastard freehold:—­The tenant held a certainty, while he conformed to the agreement; or, in other words, the custom of the manor—­And the Lord still possessed a material control.  He died in 1479, leaving a son,

SIR WILLIAM BIRMINGHAM,

1479,

Aged thirty at the decease of his father.  He married Isabella, heiress of William Hilton, by whom he had a son, William, who died before his father, June 7, 1500, leaving a son,

EDWARD BIRMINGHAM,

1500,

Born in 1497, and succeeded his grandfather at the age of three.  During his minority, Henry the Seventh, 1502, granted the wardship to Edward, Lord Dudley.

The family estate then consisted of the manors of Birmingham, Over Warton, Nether Warton, Mock Tew, Little Tew, and Shutford in the county of Oxford, Hoggeston in Bucks, and Billesley in the county of Worcester.  Edward afterwards married Elizabeth, widow of William Ludford, of Annesley, by whom he had one daughter, who married a person of the name of Atkinson.