de Grey family, Barons Lucas

Sir Roger de Grey of Ruthin (Denbighshire) had lands in Bedfordshire and other counties in the early 14th century, and property in Northamptonshire and Norfolk was acquired later by marriage. Burbage (Leicestershire) was inherited by Reginald, 3rd Lord Grey of Ruthin as heir general of John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke (d. 1389). On the death of Henry Grey, 8th Earl of Kent, in 1639 the barony of Grey of Ruthin devolved on a nephew but the earldom of Kent passed to a cousin. The 11th Earl married in 1663 Mary, daughter of the 1st Baron Lucas, of Shenfield and Colchester (Essex). She was created Baroness Lucas of Crudwell (Wiltshire), another Lucas family property, the same year.

When Henry, Duke of Kent died in 1740 he was succeeded in turn by his daughter, the Countess of Hardwicke, and by her daughter Amabel, Lady Polwarth, created Countess De Grey in 1816. Lady De Grey died in 1833, being succeeded by her nephew Thomas Robinson (later De Grey) as 2nd Earl De Grey and 5th Baron Lucas. He died in 1859, leaving two daughters: Anne, Baroness Lucas, who married the 6th Earl Cowper and Mary, who married Henry Vyner. Part of the Robinson estates in Yorkshire descended to Lady Mary Vyner (Newby etc.) (see Vyner of Gautby and Newby) and her cousin the 2nd Earl of Ripon (see Robinson, Marquesses of Ripon). Studley Royal was not among these properties, having been inherited by the first Earl of Ripon in 1845. The Wrest Park and other Lucas estates, together with Robinson property in the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire (the Clifton and Craven estates) passed to Lady Cowper.

On Lady Cowper’s death in 1880 the Lucas estates were inherited by her son, the 7th Earl Cowper, and on his death in 1905 by his nephew, the Hon. Auberon Herbert, who also succeeded to the Barony of Lucas. He died in 1916, and Wrest Park was sold the following year. The Craven estates passed in 1880 to the Hon. H.F. Cowper, Lady Cowper's younger son, who died without issue in 1887. Both the Clifton and Craven estates continued to be held in trust for Lady Cowper's descendants until they were sold following the First World War.

Estates in 1883: Earl Cowper: 9,105 acres in Bedfordshire; 3,227 acres in Essex; 2,536 acres in Wiltshire; 913 acres in Leicestershire; together worth £21,533 a year. Hon H.F. Cowper: 5,720 acres in West Riding of Yorkshire, worth £6,333 a year.