Stanley family

The two branches of the Audley family were made Barons Audley but both ended in the male line in the 14th century, after which their considerable estates were passed to a number of female heiresses, while the Stanleys would be elevated in the 15th century first to Barons Stanley and then Earls of Derby, a title they continue to hold.

The earliest documented members of the related Audley and Stanley families are two apparent brothers, Ligulf de Aldelegha and Adam de Standlega, who during the reigns of kings Stephen and Henry II appear to have divided the Audley, Staffordshire, lands that at the time of the 1086 Domesday survey had been the holdings of a man named Gamel, though no familial relationship with their predecessor is known.

The parentage of Ligulf and Adam is unknown, though the English name of the former suggests they had Anglo-Saxon roots.

Later descendants, during a period when it came to be socially prestigious, would fabricate a Norman origin for their family, pushing Ligulf and Adam back in time and presenting them as sons of a fictitious Adam, follower of William the Conqueror and lord of an equally fictitious 'Aldithley in Normandy', despite Ligulf's non-Norman name and the English etymology of 'Aldithley'.

He left no sons and his estates passed via his daughter Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk to the Howard family.

[4] He subsequently became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and King of Mann, a title reflecting the special status of the Isle of Man, which with its successor title Lord of Mann the family would hold with some gaps from 1405 to 1736, when it was sold back to the Crown.