Arden family

The Arden family is an English gentry family that can be traced back in the male line to Anglo-Saxon landholders who managed to maintain status after the 1066 invasion of England by the Normans of France.

The family held lands in Warwickshire, Staffordshire,^[1] Worcester, Cheshire^[2] and Shropshire.^[3] The family shares its name with the Forest of Arden, a culturally defined area ranging across these counties south of Watling Street which is associated with the setting of the action in Shakespeare's play As You Like It.^[4]

By the 14th century, under Sir John de Arderne, the most senior line of the Arden family had their primary estate near Solihull at Park Hall, Castle Bromwich.^[5] A branch of the Arden family were in Stockport in 1500s at Underbank Hall, Arden Hall (also known as Harden or Hawarden).^[6][7]

It has been claimed the Ardens are one of only five families in England that can trace its lineage in the male line back to Anglo-Saxon times. The other four are the Berkeley family, Swinton family, Grindlay family, and Wentworth family.^[8][9][10]

Modern scholars Parry and Enis have noted the importance which 16th investigations into the ancestry of the Ardens had for the powerful Dudley family. They needed to either claim ancestry from Turchil, or else their prestigious ancestors had lied in their claims to descend from him, which were bound up with the famous legend of Guy of Warwick, who was supposed to be an ancestor of Turchil, who was the real ancestor of the Ardens at the time of William the Conqueror. Concerning Turchil Parry and Enis describe him as "the only Saxon magnate to increase his territories after the Norman conquest" and "the largest landholder in Warwickshire at the time of the Domesday survey".^[11]

The Ardens have also often been discussed because of their connection to William Shakespeare, whose mother was an Arden.^[12]