From Dives, Normandy. The name is altered in Domesday from de Dina to de Diuâ, but seems to have been written sometimes in one way and sometimes in the other. “Beuselin de Dive” is on the Dives Roll, and became seated at Cambridge, where his descendants, however, appear to have left no traces. Hugh de Divâ held a barony in Notts and Northants temp. Hen. II.; and his son William (who gave the church of Haddon to Sulby Abbey in Northamptonshire) left three daughters. Maud, the eldest, in 1199 “gave ten Marks that she might not be compelled to marry; but if she had a Mind, would do it by the King’s Advice” (e.g. command). She “had a mind” for Sir Saer de St Andrea, whom she married; and her two sisters were the wives of two brothers, Sir Richard and Sir Simon de Mucegros.

So far Dugdale; but, according to the pedigree given in Baker’s History of Northamptonshire, he has left out one generation in the descent. William, the son of Hugh de Dyve, the first Baron of East Haddon in Northants, married Maud de Waterville (whose mother, Ascelin, had been one of the sisters and co-heirs of William Peverell), and had two sons and a daughter. Hugh, his heir, was the father of the three co-heiresses; the other brother, Ralph, settled in Lincolnshire; and their sister Maud was the wife of William FitzOtho. The Lincolnshire branch terminated with Sir William Dive, who married a co-heir of the great house of Amundeville, Ermentrude, the eldest daughter of Peter, the last of that line. She was dowered with Kingerby, the seat of the Amundevilles, and several other manors in Lincolnshire, but brought him only two daughters: Joan, married first to Sir William Disney of Norton Disney; and secondly to Ralph de Trehampton, Sheriff of Lincoln in 1293; and Elizabeth, who had also two husbands: Sir Lambert de Bussy, of Hougham; and John de Aubeney. They bore Gules a fesse dancettre Or between three escallop shells Ermine.

Several others of the name and lineage were, however, forthcoming in Northamptonshire. “Hugh Dyve and Henry Dyve, the mesne-lord of Brampton, who held under him, were probably of one common origin, as well as the Dyves of Wyke Dyve or Wicken, with whom this family has been erroneously identified, though they bore different arms, and the contemporary Christian names do not correspond.”—Baker. Henry Dyve’s descendants continued seated at Brampton for eight generations, till another Henry acquired Bromham in Bedfordshire in right of his wife, and their son, Sir John, settled at Bromham, and served as Sheriff of Bucks and Beds 2 Hen. VIII. On the chancel floor of Bromham Church are the brasses of this Sir John, his mother (who was the heiress of Thomas Wilde), and his wife Isabel, daughter and heir of Sir Ralph Hastings. From him descended Sir Lewis, a distinguished Cavalier officer during the Civil War. “Lord Clarendon informs us that in October, 1643, the King sent Prince Rupert with a strong party of horse and foot into Bedfordshire; that he took the town of Bedford, which was occupied as a strong quarter by the enemy; and that this expedition was principally designed to countenance Sir Lewis Dyve, whilst he fortified Newport-Pagnell, at which place he hoped to fix a garrison. Heath says that it was Sir Lewis himself who had command of the expedition; and that, being sent into Bedfordshire with two thousand or three thousand horse, he came first to Ampthill, then to Bedford, which town he entered, and took Sir John Norris, and other Parliamentary officers, prisoners. From thence he went to Sir Samuel Luke’s house, and served that as Sir Lewis himself was served in the same county by sequestrators.”—Lysons. Sir Lewis had to abandon Newport-Pagnell on the approach of the Earl of Essex, after the first battle of Newbury in 1643, and it was taken possession of for the Parliament.

He suffered severely for his loyalty, his estates of Harleston and East Haddon being sequestered and sold in 1652. His son did, indeed, succeed to Bromham, which appears soon afterwards to have been sold. I can find no further account of this son; but in the next generation we meet with another Lewis Dyve (no doubt a grandson), who was an officer in the 2nd Horse Guards, and the brother of Charlotte, Viscountess Sundon, Mistress of the Robes to George II.’s Queen. She had married Mr. William Clayton, originally a Treasury clerk, employed as one of the managers of the Marlborough estate during the Duke’s absence on foreign service. Duchess Sarah took a fancy to her, and introduced her at Court, where she afterwards exercised great influence, and eventually became head of the Queen’s household.Even Sir Robert Walpole was jealous of her great ascendency over the Queen. Horace Walpole calls her “an absurd and pompous simpleton.” She had obtained an Irish peerage for her husband in 1735: and three of her nieces, Frances, Dorothy, and Charlotte Dyve, were successively placed at Court—one, as a Maid of Honour.

There was a branch of this family in Essex, who about 1230 were lords of the manor of Dives Hall, to which they gave their name: “and under them it was holden by the Botetourts and other families.”—Morant's Essex.

Another is found at nearly the same date in Kent, where John Dive held Diven’s manor in Easling of the Honour of Chilham. “His descendant Andrew, 20 Ed. III., paid for it as half a knight’s fee of the above barony, when it paid ward annually to Dover Castle. In this name it continued till the beginning of the next reign, when it was alienated.”—Hasted's Kent In the sixteenth century they were seated at Bethersden, in the same county, where several of them lie buried in the parish church. The name was then spelt, as it continues to be, Dyne: and their arms, Argent, two bars gemelles between three escallops Gules, differ from those of the Northamptonshire house. Some of them must have migrated into Sussex: for John Dyne (the son of an earlier John who had died in 1646) married Timothea, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Dyne, of Westfield, Sussex, and had two sons: 1. Thomas, of Westfield, the father of Edward Dyne, whose wife was another Sussex heiress, Mary Fletcher of Coghurst. He left an only daughter, who inherited the estates, and was married to Musgrave Briscoe.

2. Henry, whose descendants continued in Kent, and are now seated at Gore Court, near Sittingbourne. Andrew Dyne, in 1783, married the heiress of James Bradley, whose name and arms they have since added to their own.