General Notes

Turchill was a man of great power and note, was lord of vast landed possessions at the time of the Conquest, as appears at the General Survey. Turchill had two wives and has issue by 1st three sons, Siward, Peter, a monk, and Ralph de Arden, of Hampden. This first wife was the Countess of Perche, a widow. Turchill held 52 lordships in County Warwick, 14th of William, the Conqueror, 1080. By his 2nd wife, Leveruma, heiress of the Earls of Mercia, he had a son Osbert. It is
from Siward, his eldest son, descended Mary Arden, who married John Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon, and was the mother of the poet, William Shakespeare. It is said that there are many knightly and noble houses, yet extant, who are thus "participators of the blood that flowed in the Poet's veins." Turchill was one of the first here in England that, in imitation of the Normans, assumed a surname; for it appears that he did, and wrote himself Turchillis de Eardene, in the days of King William Rugus (1087-1100). This most ancient and worthy family, whose surname was first assumed from their residence in this part of the county, in the parish of Cudworth, which was held by Uluvinius, or Ulfa, Turchill's great-great-grandfather. This was then and yet called Arden, by reason of its woodiness, the old Britons and Gauls using the word arden in that sense. However, their principal seats were in other places, Kingsbury and Hampton, but this is the place which continued longest in the family.