from the time of King Henry I and held their estates in Wraxall since the time of King Edward II. The Gorges were recipients of many royal appointments and privileges since Edward's time. Ferdinando's great-great-grandfather married the eldest daughter of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, from which connection they claim royal descent. Ferdinando's father Edward Gorges, as first born, became the heir of the family estate in Wraxal when his father died in 1558 when he was 21. Notwithstanding the family tradition in royal offices, neither Edward nor his father Edmund took part in public affairs (the early deaths of both of them may have been a partial explanation). Ferdinando's mother was Cecily Lygon, a daughter of William Lygon of Madresfield, Worcestershire (1512-1567), (whose ancestors' connection with the throne could be traced back to King Richard II), by his wife Eleanor Denys, a daughter of Sir William Denys (d.1533) of Dyrham, High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, whose family was the heir of the Russells of Dyrham, a descendant of which family in a direct male line was Ferdinando Gorges. Among their descendants were the Earls Beauchamp. Ferdinando Gorges was named after his mother's brother, Ferdinando Lygon. After the death of Edward Gorges, Cecily married John Vivian of Brydges. Ferdinando's only sibling was his older brother Edward, who was baptised at Wraxall on 5 September 1564. Edward entered Hart's College, Oxford, in 1582. Career Very little documentation exists regarding his early life and education. He was brought up at Nailsea Court at Kenn near Wraxall. Although as far as is known Ferdinando had no direct connection with the Court in his youth, he could not have been impervious to two great cultural currents of the time: the growing resistance to the absolute power of the monarchy, particularly in ecclesiastical matter, sometimes subsumed under the concept of "Puritanism", and the beginnings of English exploration and exploitation of the Western Hemisphere, the latter especially owing to his distant family connections with Humphrey Gilbert and his half-brother Walter Raleigh. Gorges's military career No documentary evidence records Gorges's activities before 1587 (when he was around 20), but because in that year he is referred to as a captain, it is probable that he took up the profession of arms several years before then, perhaps in his mid-teens (not uncommon in England at the time). It is likely that he was engaged in active duty shortly