The Ernle family was an English gentry or landed family descended from the lords of the manor of Earnley in Sussex who derived their surname from the name of the place where their estates lay.
Origins
Onomastic
Onomasticians say that the surname's origin, in being drawn from the name of a manor, is topographical in nature, and identical with the place name's origins. As such, it is derived from an Old English compound name composed of earn meaning eagle combined with leah meaning wood. The name's meaning is interpreted as signifying a place to which eagles resort.
The earliest forms noted are Earneleach, Earnaleagh, Earnelegh found in a document dated 780 during the reign of Oslac, duke of the South Saxons. A later form, Earneleia, derives from a charter of England's King Aethelstan dated 930. Other English place names deriving from the same two words are thought to include Earley, Berkshire and Areley Kings (otherwise Areley-on-Severn), formerly called Ernley, Worcestershire. The latter place is connected with Layamon, poet and historian, one of the earliest writers in the English tongue (The Beginnings of English Literature, C.M. Lewis, 1900, p. 66):
About the year 1205 an English 'Brut' was written. This was the work of Layamon, a parish priest of Ernley in Worcestershire. The opening lines give us the best information we have about him. Their metre should be noted. It is a relic of the Old English verse, each half-line (or each line, as here printed) containing two principal accents, and being more or less closely connected with its fellow. The poet, however, often omitted the alliteration; and the scribe, who attempted by marks of punctuation to show which half-lines belonged together, seems in consequence to have sometimes lost his way.
An preost wes on leoden Laȝamon wes ihoten. He wes leouenaðes sone, liðe him beo drihten. He wonede at ernleȝe, at æðelen are chirechen. vppen seuarne staÞe, sel Þar him Þuhte. on fest Radestone Þer he bock radde. Hit com him on mode, & on his mern Þonke.
[translation into Modern English]
A priest was among the people who was called Layamon. He was Levenath's son. Gracious to him be the Lord. He dwelt at Ernly, at a noble church upon Severn's bank. Well there to him it seemed, fast by Radestone. There he read books.
Geographical: Parochial versus manorial extent
The parish of Earnley lies on the southern coast of England in the county of Sussex, 4 miles (6.4 km) south-west of Chichester, the local cathedral city.
It formed part of the hundred of La Manwode or Manwood, now found under the form Manhood, which in turn took its name from a locality in the parish of Earnley. The parish and hundred lie in the original pre-Conquest Saxon division of Sussex known as the Rape of Chichester. The boundaries of the manor of Earnley and the parish of the same name are not strictly coterminous, as the manor itself was not contained within the parish borders, but included part of the neighbouring parish of West Wittering. Also, the parish of Earnley was enlarged in 1524, absorbing the former parish of Almodington, now a hamlet of Earnley parish. The resulting parish, held by a rector, is formally referred to as Earnley with Almodington.
During the Civil War and Interregnum, the parish of Earnley was united with East Wittering for the purposes of officially countenanced Presbyterian worship and oversight during the official suppression of Anglicanism. At the Restoration, which saw not just the return of the monarchy, but also of the Anglican Settlement, the parishes reverted to their separate status as in pre-Commonwealth times.
Historical
Historians trace the origins of this Sussex landed family to the latter part of the twelfth century. About 1190, Bertha de Lancinges confirmed an earlier charter for lands amounting to a quarter of a knight's fee less one virgate at Earnley, Sussex granted about a generation earlier, that is, circa 1166, by her father William de Lancinges and his wife Maud to his uncle, Lucas de Ernle. This name simply means Luke of Earnley. This man, whom historians call Luke de Ernle, is the first known member of the family, and is the probable progenitor of all subsequent Ernles, though it is not known whether he was actually the first person to be known by this designation.
Since he is denominated as de Ernle in this document, it is quite likely that he or his family was already known and distinguished from others by the use of that sobriquet or surname. Since the grant of lands was given to him by a family member, it appears logical to assume that his own connexion to the place, like theirs, dated to an earlier period.
As for the de Lancinges family itself, to whom Luke de Ernle was kin: they were supporters of the Arundel earls of Sussex who were descended from Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, a major feudal baron who was granted large tracts of Sussex known as the Rape of Arundel in 1067 or 1068 from his kinsman, William I of England.
Ethnic
It is not now known whether Luke de Ernle was of Norman, Saxon, or other, origin, these events having occurred a century after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The designation de Ernle occurs very early in the history of the adoption of hereditary surnames in England, a phenomenon which began along the south-eastern coast of England among the feudal manorial lords (of the greater and lesser nobility) whose members were mostly drawn from the descendants of the Norman invaders and their allies.
Heraldic
The ancient coat of arms or heraldic shield of the Ernle family was not used pursuant to specific rights described in an extant grant of arms from one of the royal officers of arms, but appears to have been borne by the head of the family through prescriptive right having been adopted in time immemorial. The contents of the shield reflect a knowledge of the name's original meaning, resort of eagles, that is, a place where eagles congregate. As such, the coat could be said to fall into the category of canting arms. The blazon is
Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or
which means that on a heater shield coloured silver appears a wide sash-like strip of black running diagonally from the top left toward the bottom right of the escutcheon on which is placed a row of three golden eagles with their wings open and bodies showing.
According to Burke's General Armory (1884) and Burke's General Armory Two (1974), this basic coat of arms, sometimes varying in one detail or another, accompanied by various crests or none, was used over the centuries by the branches of the family, who, by the similarity of their descriptions, claim descent from a shared origin in the same Sussex locality, Earnley, from which they derive their surname.
These armigerous branches of the family, whose current fate is not always known, with their various differences or departures from the original paternal coat, taken as denoting cadency, were in alphabetical order:
(From Burke's General Armory, 1884, p. 312, col. 2)
1. Earnley (co. Cornwall). Argent, on a bend cotised sable, two (another, three) eagles displayed with two necks or.
2. Earnley (co. Kent). Argent, a bend sable cotised between three eagles displayed gules.
3. Earnley (co. Sussex). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or. Crest: A savage's head affrontée, couped at the shoulders, wreathed about the temples, issuing therefrom a plume of three ostrich feathers all proper.
(From Burke's General Armory, 1884, p. 328, col. 2)
4. Erneley (place unspecified). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed of the field.
5. Ernelle (co. Kent). Argent, on a bend cotised sable, three eagles displayed or. Crest: A chevalier on horseback wielding a scimitar, all proper.
6. Ernelle (place unspecified). Argent, a bend sable.
7. Ernle (Ernle [i.e. Earnley], co. Sussex, and Whetham, co. Wilts.; descended from RICHARD ERNLE, of Ernle (that is, Earnley, Sussex), temp. Hen. III, the ancestor of Sir John ERNLE, Knt., of Ernle, Chief Justice, K.B., whose descendant*, Sir John Ernle, Knt., of Whetham, co. Wilts., was Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Privy Councillor, temp. Charles II and James II. The family name, EARNLEY, or ERNLE, is derived from a village in Sussex, so called from the Saxon words Earn and Lege, the place or habitation of eagles, and, in allusion, the eagles are borne in the arms). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or. Crest -- An eagle displayed vert.. Another crest -- A man's head sidefaced, couped at the shoulders proper, on the head a long cap, barry of six or and sable, at the end two strings and tasselled gold.
* This filiation conflicts with what appears in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which points out the confusion of centuries of genealogists over the two Ernle brothers both, according to a common mediaeval usage unfamiliar to many modern researchers, named John. The elder of these brothers was John Ernle, Esq., of Fosbury and Bishop's Cannings, Wilts., esquire. He was the progenitor of the Wiltshire line, and thus the 17th-century chancellor's direct ancestor, while the younger of them, known to history chiefly as Sir John Ernley, was the Lord Chief Justice. This latter personage was, moreover, not as the post-nominal letters K.B. denote, a Knight of the original Order of the Bath, but rather a simple knight, formerly called a banneret, or knight of the field, or what would now be termed a Knight Bachelor, or, in casual usage, a carpet knight.
8. Ernle (Etchilhampton, co. Wilts., baronet, extinct 1787; a branch of ERNLE, of Ernle). Same Arms, &c.
9. Ernley (JOHN ERNLEY, Sheriff of Wilts., temp. Henry VII). Argent, on a bend sable, three eagles displayed or.
10. Ernley (quartered by TIDERLEIGH, of Tiderleigh, co. Devon (modern, Tytherleigh). Robert TIDERLEIGH, of that place, temp. Henry VIII, m. ELIZABETH, dau. and co-heir of ANTHONY ERNLEY. Visitation of Somerset, 1620. Same Arms.
(From General Armory Two, 1974, p. 57, col. 2)
(as per 4 above) Erneley. Insert (Cos. Wilts. And Sussex). V.* W. (which abbreviations refer to the following items: V.=Glover's Ordinary. Cotton MS. Tiberius D. 10; Harleian MSS 1392 and 1459, with the asterisk referring to the note that "Coats incorrectly given in the printed Glover[']s Ordinary which may have been copied into books of reference and probably used as actual coats." W.=Withie's additions to Glover's Ordinary, in Harleian MS 1459)
(as per 5 above) Ernelle (Co. Kent). Add: V.W.
11. Ernell (place unspecified). Argent, on a bend sable, 3 eagles displayed with 2 heads or. W.
(as per 7 above) Ernley (John Ernley). Sheriff of Wilts... Add: Ernley (New Sarum co. Wilts., Baronetcy 1660). Same arms. Sir John Ernley. Chief Justice of Common Pleas. 1509 (recte, 1519, see Dictionary of National Biography). Dug. O.J. (an abbreviation denoting William Dugdale's work, Origines Juridiciales, London, 1671).
While coats of arms are often accompanied by mottoes, heraldists and other interested parties will also to note that, apparently, no motto accompanies any of these coats-of-arms.
Status
As an armorial family whose original status derives from ancient landed property, the Ernle family belonged to the class known as the gentry. As gentlemen with a coat-of-arms, or armigers, the heads of the family were hereditary esquires, and the younger sons and their cadets all gentlemen, and their daughters all gentlewomen. The family were thus all of gentle birth, and were classed as members of what has been termed the minor or lesser nobility, corresponding to what the Germans term, Uradel, which the French call noblesse de race, or ancient nobility.