t balanced by wealthy
marriages.

Siward by his wife Cecilia had a large family: Hugh de Rotley[379]
(dapifer or sewer to his kinsman William de Newburgh), Henry de Arden,
Joseph, Richard, Osbert, Galfridus, a monk of Coventry, Cecilia,
Felicia. Osbert, his stepbrother, was the father of Osbert, Philip,[380]
Peter de Arden, and Amicia, who became the wife of Peter de Bracebridge,
and the ancestress of the Bracebridges of Kingsbury, seat of the Mercian
Kings. Her brother Osbert had daughters only, Amabilia and Adeliza, who
left no children.

The main line was carried on by Henry de Arden, son of Siward, who
married Oliva, and whose eldest son and heir was Thomas de Arden, of
Curdworth (9 John). He had also William de Arden of Rodburn, Herbert,
and Letitia. Thomas de Arden married Eustachia, widow of Savaricius de
Malaleone, and had a son of his own name, Sir Thomas de Arden of Rotley
and Spratton, who took part with Simon de Montfort and the rebellious
Barons, 48 Henry III. This cost him dear. In 9 Edward I. he handed over,
either in sale, lease, or trust, his lands in Curdworth to Hugh de
Vienna; to the Knights Templars the interest he had in Riton; in 15
Edward I., to Nicholas de Eton the manor of Rotley, and to Thomas Arden
de Hanwell and Rose his wife, Pedimore, Curdworth, Norhull, Winworth,
Echenours, and Overton, and made a covenant with William de Beauchamp
and Maud, his wife, of all his fees throughout England.

It is not probable that Turchil, the last Saxon Earl of Warwick, bore
anything that might be strictly called armorial bearings. When the
heiress of the Novoborgos married into their family, the Beauchamps
added to their own the Newburgh arms. But they used them in a peculiar
way, as if they considered they were associated, not so much with the
family as with the earldom. Only the eldest sons bore the Chevron
chequy, the rest of the family bore the Beauchamp crosses crosslet. In
some such way the Ardens also seem to have made a similar distinction,
though in later times the meaning was occasionally forgotten, and the
usage became confused.

Drummond suggests that the Ardens might also have borne these arms to
suggest that they, too, had a claim to the earldom of Warwick. The arms
Thomas bore were Chequy or and azure, a chevron gules, which his
ancestors assumed to show they held their lands from the Earls of
Warwick, whose Chevron was Ermine on the like field.[381]

The descendants of William of Rodb