Katherine Frank recently wrote a biography on Mary Kingsley, an interesting writer. She describes Mary's ancestry with these comments:
"Some six hundred years before Mary Kingsley was born in 1862, Sir Ranulph de Kingsley of Cheshire won the favor of Ranulph, earl of Chester, thereby acquiring for 'his her and assigns forever,' the office of 'Baliwick and Keeper of the Forest of Delamere with diverse other liberties.' Hence the Kingsley family device of a horn, the symbol of the family's forestry rights.
"Despite Mary's description of the family as anonymously hunting and fishing and fighting its gentlemanly way through the centuries, several figures emerge from this even historical tide and call attention to themselves. A seventeen-century Kingsley ancestor, the Puritan Col. George Fleetwood, for example, was among those who signed the death warrant for King Charles 1."
Frank, Katherine. A Voyager Out: The Life of Mary Kingsley. 2005:6 Taurus Publishers.
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