Notices of the Ellises of England, Scotland, and Ireland, from the conquest to the present time

79—80
is in many particulars incorrect ; not in dates, for there are few,
but in affiliation, which in most pedigrees of the time, in the
absence of plain proof, is made on supposition, as that the next
successor mentioned in a deed was son of the predecessor, when
he might have been nephew or cousin only. The pedigree be-
gins with
William Ellis* [of Burton, in Kennington, Esq., Conservator
of the Peace, M.P. for Canterbury, 8, 11, & 18 Kichard II.,
and King's Attorney (General) f in the Common Pleas, 1381
(Fosses Judges of England, iv. 20)]. The armorial bearings
* Thomas Ellis, M.P. for Sandwich, 43 Edward III., and 1 Eicliard II., and
Mayor of that town, 1370 and 1382, was probably brother of William Ellis. His
name occurs among the witnesses to a number of deeds between 1356 and 1389.
He is mentioned as having lent £40 to the King, 1 Richard II. (Ryruer's Fcedera,
vii. 178). He founded St. Thomas's or Ellis's Hospital in Sandwich. Denn Court,
a manor in Woodnesborough, adjoining to the borough of Hammill, was purchased
by him, 13 Richard II., of Sir Nicholas de Dabridgeeourt, and was part of the
endowment of the Hospital, and, in 1792, was leased at £220 per annum (Hasted's
Kent, x. 132). He is said to have been a " worshipful merchant " (Harris's Hist,
of Kent), and to have been buried with his wife Margaret, in the north aisle of
St. Peter's Church, in Sandwich. He had a son Thomas Ellis, who, in 1389, was
forty years of age (Proc. of Privy Council, i. 15), who died s.p., leaving two sisters
co-heiresses : Alice, wife of Sir Thomas C'hiche, Knt., and Constance, wife, 1st of
John Sejitvans, Esq., s. of Sir William S., Knt., 2nd of John Notbeame. The arms
borne by Thomas Ellis were azure, on a/ess argent three roundels sable between
six cross crosslets fitchee of the second, which were, int. alia, in Ash Church, near
Sandwich, and were also there quartered in the shield of Septvans (Peter le Neve's
'Church Notes in Kent,' Add. MSS., Brit. Mus. 5479, p. 3). These arms might have
been his wife's, who was probably a heiress. Boys, however, in his Hist, of Sandwich,
says, " The arms on the font of St. Clement's Church, which I conjecture to have
been the gift of Thomas Elys, are five escallop shells on a cross engi'ailed with a
crescent in the first quarter" (p. lfi5-6) ; and further (p. 308-9), " In the wall of
the north aisle (of St. Peter's Church) are three arches ; the second arch is behind
the pulpit : the tomb was exposed to view in digging a vault in 1770. Its front
i3 divided into six compartments. The two at the ends are demi-quatrefoil arches.
In each of the four middle ones is a shield, in the centre of a starred quatrefoil,
highly embellished with tracery. The first shield has three wheaifans a crescent
in the fess point [Septvans] ; the second a fess fusilly between three griffins'
heads [Godard] ; the third has three lions rampant [Chiche] ; the fourth is with-
out any engraving."
" The chantry of St. Thomas, usually called Ellis's Chantry (and it is remarkable
that the two capital endowments of Thomas Ellis were made in the course of five
months), was the principal establishment of this kind in Sandwich, being dedicated
to St. Thomas the Martyr, and founded in St. Clement's Church by Thomas Ellis,
a wealthy merchant of this town, who enfeoffed certain persons in two messuages
and 216 acres of land and rent to the amount of £4, in Eastry, Woodnesborough,
Worth, Hinxhill, and Willesborough, for the endowment of it : and in 1392, the
king granted a licence of mortmain to assign these estates to three priests or chap-
lains, to celebrate mass daily in this church for the soids of the said Thomas Ellis,
etc. [see p. 176] . . . This chantry was suppressed by the Act of the 2 Edward VI.,
and, with the revenues of it, was surrendered into the king's hands." — (Hasted's
Kent, x. 215.)
f 3 Richard II., Willielmus Elys de Cantuar. Attornatus Regis in communi
banco ad placitum Regis (Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 204).
There was a Law-Officer of the Crown called the king's Attorney, but no king's
Solicitor- General, till the reign of Edward IV., in which reign we also find the
first mention of "Attorney-General in England," attornatus generalis in Jnglid.
(Pictorial Hist, of England i. 164.)