His mother's family descended from Sir Henry Norris, who represented Berkshire and Oxfordshire in the House of Commons and served as Ambassador to France.

On her death, the title passed to her daughter, the aforementioned Bridget, the fourth Baroness, and second wife of the second Earl of Lindsey.

[4] In 1687, Lord Abingdon assumed by Royal licence the additional surname of Venables, which was that of his father-in-law.

[6] His son, the sixth Earl, represented Oxford and Abingdon in the House of Commons and served as Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire.

[7] His great-grandson, the eighth Earl (the son of Montagu Charles Francis Towneley-Bertie, Lord Norreys, who had assumed by Royal licence his maternal grandfather's surname of Towneley in 1896),[7] succeeded his distant relative (his fifth cousin thrice removed) the twelfth Earl of Lindsey in the earldom of Lindsey in 1938.

The heir apparent is the present holder's son Henry Mark Willoughby Bertie, Lord Norreys (b.