Arms used by the descendants of Sampson Leonard of Chevening, co. Kent, England.
ARMS- Or, on a fess gules three fleur-de-lis of the first.
CREST- Out of a ducal crown or a wolf-dog's head.
MOTTO- Pour bien desirer.
[Another version of this same family's Arms has a tiger's head in place of the wolf-dog's head. see Memoirs of the Leonard, Thompson, and Haskell families, by Caroline Leonard Goodenough, 1928, p. 52.]
Sampson Leonard was M.P. for Sussex and sheriff of Kent, born About1544, died 1615. He married Lady Margaret Fiennes, Baroness Dacre, daughter of Thomas Fiennes, 9th Lord Dacre, and Mary Nevill.
Sampson and Lady Margaret's home was at Chevening, co. Kent, 15 miles southeast of London, until perhaps 1594, the year of her brother's death, after which they were much at Hurstmonceux Castle, which they greatly embellished and where they entertained lavishly.
At St. Botolph's Church at Chevening is the stately alabaster tomb of Sampson Lennard and Margaret Fiennes. Effigies of the two figures are shown, the former in armour, and beside them are small kneeling effigies of their children: Henry, George and Thomas on the north, and Anne, Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth and Frances on the south.
Sampson Leonard and his wife Lady Margaret Fiennes had children listed in 1911 by the Marquis of Ruvigny as follows:
It is interesting to note this family had for many years been interested in the manufacture of iron. There was early "a steel forge near Hurstmonceux Castle and, on this estate in 1574, an iron works." In 1626, patent rights for making steel were granted to Sampson's grandson, Richard Leonard, Lord Dacre (who married Elizabeth Throckmorton and who died at Hurstmonceux in 1630 and is buried at Hurstmonceux Church). There were also extensive iron works near Chevening, in the western part of Kent on the Sussex line, which gradually had to be abandoned. "Queen Elizabeth was one of those who urged persons aquainted with the iron business to go to Monmouthshire to develope the iron there. This may account for the Leonards of Kent and Sussex giong to Monmouthshire to manage iron works."
Thomas Lennard (Leonard), born 1577, died 1638. He was engaged in the manufacture of iron at Pontypool, in co. Monmouth (once belonging to Wales but, when the boundary between England and Wales was later changed, Monmouth became a part of England). He married Lydia White and had nine children as follows:
To be continued...