LYS

LYS. This name has a very remarkable and somewhat romantic origin. After the death of Joan of Arc, her previously hmiible family were ennobled, by Charles VII. in 1429, and had a grant of tle following emblematical coat of arms : — " Azure Ijetween two fleurs-delys, Or, a sword, in pale, point upwards, supporting an open crown, fleur-de-lyse Or." In consequence of this distinction, the family assumed the name of Du Lys d'Arc. The last of the race in France is believed to have been Colombe du L)'s, Prior of Coutras, who died in 1760; but the family still exist in England. At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, among the numerous refugees who settled in this country, was a Count Du Lys, who fixed his abode in Hampshire. " His eldest male descendant, and, as I believe," says Mr. Sneyd, in Notes and Queries, vol. vii., p. 295, " the representative of the ancient and noble family of Du Lys d'Arc, derived from a brother of the Maid of Orleans, is the Eev. J. T. Lys, Fellow of Exeter College, whose ancestors, after the period of their settlement in England, thought proper to drop the foreign title, and to curtail their name to its present form."

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.