(George)**; a lawyer, poet, historian, and accomplished gentleman, was descended from an ancient family in Hertfordshire, and born about the year 1510, in a village near St Alban's. He was educated at Oxford, and thence removed to Lincoln's inn; where applying with uncommon diligence to the study of the law, he was soon distinguished for his elocution at the bar. Cromwell earl of Essex, the great minister of Henry VIII., introduced him to the king, who employed him as his menial servant, and, in 1535, gave him... him a grant of the manor of Flamstead in his native county. This is supposed to have been a profitable estate; nevertheless, Mr Ferrars being a gay courtier, and probably an expensive man, about seven years after was taken to execution by a sheriff's officer for a debt of 2,000 marks, and lodged in the compter. Being at this time member for Plymouth, the house of commons immediately interfered, and he soon obtained his liberty. He continued in favour with the king to the end of his reign, and in that of Edward VI. he attended the lord protector Somerset as a commissioner of the army in his expedition to Scotland in 1548. In the same reign, the young king being then at Greenwich, Mr Ferrars was proclaimed lord of misrule, that is, prince of sports and pastimes; which office he discharged during 12 days, in Christmas holidays, to the entire satisfaction of the court. This is all we know of Mr Ferrars; except that he died in 1579, at Flamborough in Hertfordshire, and was buried in the parish church. He is not less celebrated for his valour in the field, than for his other accomplishments as a gentleman and a scholar. He wrote, 1. History of the Reign of Queen Mary; published in Grafton's chronicle, 1569, fol. 2. Six tragedies, or dramatic poems; published in a book called the Mirror for Magistrates, first printed in 1559, afterwards in 1587, and again in 1610.

(Henry), a Warwickshire gentleman of a good family, was eminent in antiquities, genealogies, and heraldry. Mr Wood says, that out of the collections of this gentleman, Sir William Dugdale laid part of the foundation of his celebrated Antiquities of Warwickshire. Camden also makes honourable mention of his assistance in relation to Coventry. Some scattered poems of his were published among others in the reign of queen Elizabeth; and he died in 1633.