Baron Saye and Sele is a title in the Peerage of England held by the Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes family.

[1] However, the history of the title has been traced to another William de Saye, who was granted lands by Empress Matilda in 1141–42 and, at a later time in The Anarchy, joined his brother-in-law Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex, fighting against King Stephen of England.

Geoffrey II de Saye filed legal suits against his cousin, the new Earl of Essex, for the lands belonging to the Mandeville family.

[3] His son Geoffrey III de Saye, who held the Lordship of West Greenwich inherited from his mother, was one of the 25 feudal barons who stood surety for Magna Carta in 1215.

Their son William, the third baron, was knighted in 1361 and married Beatrice, daughter of Sir Thomas de Brewose (Breouse/Brewes/Braose).

After his death she married secondly Sir William Heron, who sat in Parliament as Lord Say by right of his wife.

[1] The Barony of Saye and Sele is thought to have been created by letters patent in 1447 for Sir Roger's second son, James Fiennes, for his services in the Hundred Years' War.

[1][4] However, several authorities, including Burke's Peerage, agree that the assumption was erroneous, and that the original creation was by letters patent, and thus identify the initial holder as Lordship of Saye and Sele.

The patent, furthermore, allowed the title to pass to heirs-general, based on the erroneous assumption that the barony was created by writ.

William Fiennes, the eighth Baron, was created Viscount Saye and Sele, also in the Peerage of England, in 1624.

However, the barony was only formally called out of abeyance in favour of her great-grandson, Thomas Twisleton, who became the thirteenth Baron Saye and Sele.

In 1849 he assumed the additional surnames of Wykeham-Fiennes (the first Viscount Saye and Sele was a descendant of the sister and heiress of William of Wykeham).

Eustace Edward Fiennes, second son of the seventeenth Baron, represented Banbury in Parliament and also served as Governor of the Leeward Islands.