The title Baron Saye and Sele was created in the Peerage of England in 1447, when letters patent granted the title to James Fiennes for his services in the Hundred Years War. The patent creating the original earldom was lost, so it was assumed that the barony was created by writ, meaning that it could descend to heirs_general, and not only heirs_male. However, several authorities, including Burke's Peerage, agree that the assumption was erroneous, and that the original creation was by patent.
At the death of his son, the second baron, the title became dormant (unclaimed). The title remained dormant until Richard Fiennes, the seventh de jure baron claimed it in 1573. For years, he remained unsucsessful, until 1603, when James II granted letters patent to him. The patent confirmed that the barony created in 1447 belonged to Richard Fiennes, but on the condition that, for the purposes of precedence or seniority, it would be considered as having been created in 1603, and also provided that no future Baron Saye and Sele would assert the precedence of 1447. The patent, furthermore, allowed the title to pass to heirs-general, based on the erroneous assumption that the barony was created by writ.
The eighth baron was created Viscount Saye and Sele. At the death of the second Viscount, the barony fell into abeyance between several coheirs, while the viscountcy was inherited by another heir. By 1715, all of the coheirs died save one; the surviving coheir, Cecil Twisleton, assumed the title.
Dudley North, 3rd Baron North (1581-1666), son of Sir John North and of Dorothy, daughter and heiress of Sir Valentine Dale, was born in 1581 and succeeded his grandfather, the 2nd Baron North, at the age of nineteen.
In 1626 he attached himself to the party of Lord Saye and Sele in the Lords, who were in sympathy with the aims of the Commons; and when the civil war broke out he was on the side of the parliament.
He was an accomplished man, of studious bent, and had fourteen children, of whom the third son, Francis, became lord chancellor as Lord Guilford; the fourth was Sir Dudley North, the economist; the fifth, John (1645-1683), master of Trinity, Cambridge, and professor of Greek in the university; and the sixth, Roger, the lawyer and historian.
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