The Landed Gentry, the untitled Aristocracy of England, Ireland, and Scotland is a Class unexampled and unrivalled in Europe. Invested with no hereditary titles, but inheriting landed estates transmitted from generation to generation, in some instances from the periods of the Conquest and the Plantagenets, this class has held, and continues to hold the foremost place in each county. A right to Arms, sometimes of remote antiquity, sometimes of modern acquisition, serves to supply the want of an hereditary dignity, and is the rallying point, around which are collected the various members of a family. "Nobiles sunt qui arma gentinitia antecessorum suorum proferre possunt." The tenure of land was, in the olden time, the test of rank and position, and even now, in the 19th Century, it remains the same. The Scropes, Foljambes, and Wentworths still hold their own in Yorkshire; the Giffards, Sneyds, and Fitz Herberts in Staffordshire; the Towneleys and Cliftons in Lancashire; the Mundys and Chandos-Poles in Derbyshire; the Leghs and Massies, the Warburtons and Wilbrahams in Cheshire; the Sanfords and Luttrells in Somerset; the Bassets and Carews in Cornwall; the Wyndhams and Penruddockes in Wilts; the Welds, Digbys and Binghams in Dorset; the Dymokes, Heneages; the Blounts and Lenthalls in Oxfordshire. I mention a few of the Counties, but in all the same fact is to be found.

The Peers and Baronets, in very many cases derived from this Class, have been described in books devoted exclusively to them, but the work, of which this new edition is offered, is the only one that gives the history of the untitled Landed Gentry. It has been, for a long series of years, the object of my special attention. I have endeavoured to render it deserving of popular favour, and I have brought it down to the present day by the introduction of those landholders who have acquired their possessions from families that have either become extinct or been dispersed by some of the various vicissitudes of life.

The assistance of my Brother Kings-of Arms, Garter and Lyon, is always freely afforded me, and I return them my sincere thanks. My son, Mr. Farnham Burke, F.S.A., Rouge Croix, and my genealogical correspondents in all parts of the Kingdom have also contributed largely to my Work’s improvement. One of those friends, Mr. R. R. Stodart of the Lyon Office, a very learned and accomplished Herald, whose recent death is so deeply deplored, lent, most generously, the benefit of his extensive knowledge to the revision of Scottish Pedigrees.

An acknowledgement is likewise due to my son, Mr. John Edward Burke, my private Secretary and Amanuensis, for the constant and valuable aid I received from him.

J. BERNARD BURKE