ASTON, lord, a title in the peerage of Scotland, now extinct, possessed by a noble family of the same name, which originally belonged to the county of Stafford in England, the progenitor of which was Randal or Ranulph de Astona, who lived in the reign of Edward the First. His descendant, Sir Edward Aston of Tixall, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, possessed estates of the value of ten thousand a-year, in the counties of Stafford, Derby, Leicester, and Warwick. He married Anne, only daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot, and died in 1598. His eldest son, Sir Walter Aston, at the coronation of James the First of England, was honoured with the order of the Bath, and in 1611 he was created a baronet. In 1622 he was employed to negociate a marriage between Charles, prince of Wales, afterwards Charles the First, and the Infanta of Spain; and, in requital for his services upon that occasion, he was elevated to the peerage 28th November 1627, as Lord Aston of Forfar. He married Gertrude, only daughter of Sir Thomas Sadler of Standon, son of the celebrated Sir Ralph Sadler, and died in 1689. He supported Michael Drayton the poet for many years, and his seat of Tixall is noticed in his ‘Polyolbion.’ At his investi— ture as knight of the Bath in 1603, Drayton, who has dedicated several of his poems to this Lord Aston, acted as one of his esquires. The title became extinct on 21st January 1845, on the death without issue of the Rev. Walter Hutchinson-Aston, ninth baron Aston, a clergyman of the church of England, vicar of Tardebigg, Worcestershire, and of Tamworth, Warwickshire. The motto of the family was "Numini et Patriae Asto." The title does not appear on the Union Roll; but the eighth baron Aston, the father of the last lord, was recognised as a peer by George the Third.