LIFE OF GENERAL HENRY LEE,
THE Lee family in Virginia* is the younger branch of one of the oldest families in England. Launcelot Lee, the founder, was originally from Loudon, in France, and went to England with William the Conqueror. After the battle of Hastings, when the estates of the native English nobility were divided among the followers of William, a fine estate in Essex was bestowed upon him. Lionel Lee, first Earl of Litchfield, raised a company of gentlemen cavaliers, at the head of which he accompanied Richard Cœur de Lion in the third Crusade, in 1192. For gallant conduct at the siege of Acre, he was made Earl of Litchfield, and another estate was bestowed on the family, called Ditchley. The armor worn by Lionel Lee was placed in the Horse Armory in the Tower of London. (See "Guilliam's Complete Heraldry.") Richard Lee accompanied the unfortunate Earl of Surrey in his expedition against the Scotch Borders in 1542. Two of the family were Knights Companions of the Garter, and their banners surmounted by the Lee arms were placed in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. The arms consisted of a shield, band sinister, battled and embattled; crest, a closed visor surmounted by a squirrel holding a nut; the motto, Non incautus futuri. Richard Lee, a younger son of the house of Litchfield, emigrated to America in the year 1600.
Richard Lee, of Shropshire, whose picture, in 1771, was at Coton, near Bridgenorth, the seat of Launcelot Lee, Esq., during the reign. of Charles I. came over to the colony of Virginia as secretary and one of the king's privy council. He is described as a man of good
*This pedigree of the Lee family is abridged from a narrative written by Mr. William Lee in London, September, 1771, and obtained from his daughter, Mrs. Hodgson. He was American Minister at the Hague during the Revolution.