photo by Mr. Biz, St. Margarets Lidlington

I have finally decided to undertake writing about my most famous ancestor, Thomas Dudley. He held many roles in the fledgling colony of Massachusetts including that of Governor. According to Robert Charles Anderson his paternal ancestry cannot be proven past that of his father Roger Dudley. It is known that Roger married Susanna Thorne on 8 June 1575 at Lidlington, Bedford [1] and that he was a soldier who held the rank of Captain; that seems to be the extent of documented information on Thomas' father. [2]

Thomas Dudley is one of those perfect ancestors. He is well researched and most of his family are traceable at least a few generations back, especially on his mother's side. In this post I want to tackle the Thorne ancestry of Thomas' mother Susanna Thorne. Susanna was most likely born in Yardley-Hastings; she was baptized on 5 March 1559/60. Her surname was recorded as 'Dorne.' This family, as did many families of that era, had an alias. Today, we think of an alias as a bad thing, something criminals do. But the word alias actually means, "at another time." So, the family name is Thorne, but at another time they went by Dorne.

The Thorne/Dorne family can be traced back to Edmund Dorne, Esq. of Northamptonshire. He was born about 1420. [1] We don't really know much about his ancestors. Edmund was never knighted but he was quite successful in life. His name is found in the records of the time, on land deeds and in court cases. Edmund made a very advantageous marriage to the Widow Margaret Billings Lovatt. [2] The marriage was most likely arranged by parents or family members, love had little to do with medieval marriage. If you've never read The Paston Letters, I highly recommend it. The letters, written by members of the Paston family in the 15th century, open a window into their world and daily life. This would be the same time period as Edmund and Margaret. Margaret Billings' father was actually mentioned in one of their letters.[3]

margaret
Margaret was the daughter of Sir. Thomas Billing of Northamptonshire. The ancestry of Sir Thomas is unknown, it is believed that his beginnings were modest. [4] He trained as a lawyer and was a member of Gray's Inn. His career was centered mostly in London and where he fulfilled many important civic duties.  including that of Common Sergeant and Under Sheriff. He served as a member of Parliament for both Northamptonshire in 1445 and for London in 1449.

As the century progressed the country was convulsed by the tumultuous events now known as the "War of the Roses." The 'war' was the protracted fight for the English throne between the House of York and the House of Lancaster and it   forced many to choose sides. In the early 1450's Thomas Billing was retained as a lawyer for the Lancastrian Queen Margaret of Anjou. In the parliament of 1459 he was one of the crowns legal adviser who drew up the bill of attainder against the rebellious Duke of York. In 1460 a decisive battle was fought at Northampton. The victorious Yorkist had taken up a defensive position at the Delapre Abbey. It is possible that Thomas Billing switched allegiance as he was reappointed King's Sergeant by the new King.

Thomas was, at the height of his career in 1469, the Chief Justice of The King's Bench.   It is thought that he participated in the trial of the Duke of Clarence, brother of King Edward. He, Clarence, was found guilty and supposedly executed by being drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. Thomas was finally knighted in 1475. He remained Chief Justice until his death in 1481. Of course, by 1485, Henry Tudor had captured the throne and set the stage for the glorious Tudor period in England. [5]

Thomas was married twice; his first wife was Katherine Gifford. Their daughter Margaret was born about 1430. Margaret was also married twice. She was first married to Nicholas Lovatt, the son and heir of Thomas Lovatt I. They had one child, a son, who was his grandfather's heir. Thomas Lovatt I was quite wealthy and his grandson became a substantial landowner in Northamptonshire.

edmund and margaret
Edmund and Margaret were married some time before 1455 when they were both named in a land deed from her father in Law, Thomas Lovatt. The land was given to Edmund and Margaret, but would revert to Margaret's son Thomas Lovatt on her death. Margaret and Edmund had at least four children, sons Roger, Thomas, John and William. Thomas and John were mentioned in their half brother's will in 1491.

land deals
In 1471 Margaret Lovatt, named for her grandmother Margaret Dorne, was contracted to marry John Brooks of Great Oakley. Prior to the marriage a complicated land deal was worked out with John's father William and his wife Dowce Billing Lovatt, a cousin of Margaret Dorne. William Brooks exchanged manors and land at Astwell, Falcote, and land in Wappenham, amounting to about 2170 acres and the Dornes and Lovatts gave him land in Ruston, Great Oakley and other land once belonging to Thomas Lovatt I. Margaret Dorne and her heir were given the Manor of Astwell which became the family seat of the Lovatt Family whose descendants eventually became the Earls of Ferrers. [6]

will
Edmund Dorne of Syresham wrote his will on 30 March 1473, no probate record has been found but his land was transferred to his eldest son Roger on 4 October 1477. He made the usual requests to be buried before the alter of St. Thomas in the church of St. James in Syresham. He left land, tenements, rents, meadows, etc. in three counties. [7] It is not known when Margaret his wife died, she was named in his will so she was still alive in 1473 and she and Edmund executed a deed in 1474, this is the last record they are found in.

thomas and alice
Edmund's second son Thomas, b. abt. 1455 married Alice Arden of Cottesford and Kirtlington, Oxfordshire. Thomas died before 7 October 1502. He was called Thomas of Syresham in 1501 and Thomas of Myxbury in 1502 when a writ called a "diem clausit extremum" was written. The term means 'he closed his last day' and is written after a inventory of his estate was done. [8]

Alice was the daughter of William Arden of Cottesford and Agnes Stotesby of Evenley. Williams father was identified as Robert Arden of Cottesford. His widow Alice remarried by 1512 to William Woodward. [9][10] After Thomas' death, Alice remarried to a William Woodward.

william and alice
William was born about 1485, probably at Syresham. He married Alice, possibly Alice Stotesbury before 1515. He wrote his will in 1529 but it was not proved before 1537. The first mention of him in the records is when he was noted to owned suit at the manorial court of Syresham, previously held by his father in 1508. On 22 May 1537 he again owed suit at the manorial court of Syresham whose overload was Magdalen College at Oxford University. But, by then he also owned land in Yardley-Hastings. He seems to be the first of the Thornes with land in that area. In 1531 it was recorded that he was patron of the living at Yardley-Hastings, meaning it was his right to appoint the vicar at the church.

In his will, William named his wife Alys, leaving her 'certain lands'. All his Copyhold lands in Yardley and in Syresham he left to his son Thomas.

thomas and mary purefoy
Thomas was born about 1521 based on the birth of his children. When he wrote his will in 1588 he made his home in Yardley-Hastings. He married Mary Purefoy by about 1550. He and Mary were the parents of Susanna Thorne, wife to Roger Dudley and mother to Thomas Dudley.


Sources:
[1] Brandon, Fradd, "Ancestry of Thomas Thorne, Granfather of Thomas Dudley," The Genealogist vol 19 no 1 (Spring 2005).

[2] Robert Edmund Chester Waters, Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley: Their Ancestors and Descendants, Volume 1, (London: Robson and Sons, 1878)

[3] Nigel Ramsey, "Sir Thomas Billing," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (www.oxforddnb.com : accessed 28 April 2016).

[4] Ramsey, "Sir Thomas Billing."

[5] Ramsey, "Sir Thomas Billing."

[6] Waters, Genealogical Memoirs.

[7] Fradd, "Ancestry of Thomas Thorne".

[8] Fradd, "Ancestry of Thomas Thorne".

[9] Charlotte Carmichael Stopes, "The Warwickshire Ardens," The Genealogical Magazine Vol. 2 (1899) 154, digital images, Google Books (https://www.books.google.org : accessed 1 May 2016).

[10] William Harvey, John Philipot, William Ryley, The Visitations of the County of Oxford Taken in the Years 1566, (London: publisher not noted, 1871) 207, digital images, Google Books (https://www.books.google.org : accessed 1 May 2016).

Here is a list of terms which you may not know.

Advowson - see Patron of the living

Alias - at another time. My name is Jeanie Smith alias Jones. At another time I called myself Jeanie Jones.

Copyhold - Copyhold was a form of land holding that evolved from the Feudal system. The land was held from a manor. The tenant was given a 'copy' of the agreement. The rights and duties of the Copyholder differed from Manor to Manor. The copyhold lands could be inherited by the copyholder's children. See the wikipeida page on Copyhold for more details. Or see this definition of copyhold.

Deforciants - One who wrongfully keeps the owner of lands and tenements out of them. Usually named in a Feet of Fine (see feet of fine).

Diem Clausit Extremum - The phrase diem clausit extremum means he closed his last day, that is, he died. writ of Diem Clausit Extremum is a writ by which the heir of a deceased tenant in capite compelled the escheator to ascertain what land should escheat to the king.

In feudal England, upon learning the death of a tenant, the escheator would hold an inquisition post mortem to learn if the king had any rights to the land. These were often preceded by a writ of diem clausit extremum issued by the king to seize the lands.

Escheat - s a common law doctrine which transfers the property of a person who dies without heirs to the crown or state. It serves to ensure that property is not left in "limbo" without recognized ownership. It originally applied to a number of situations where a legal interest in land was destroyed by operation of law, so that the ownership of the land reverted to the immediately superior feudal lord.


Feet of Fines - sometimes Foot of Fines. At first glance this seems to be a record of a land dispute between the deforciants and the querent. In actuality it was a method of property conveyance that took the form of a fictitious lawsuit. The deforciants had already decided to sell his land to the plaintiff or querent. The court would issue a fine and give each party a written copy which in turn became a land deed. This was a preferred method of proving land ownership.

Free hold - ownership of the land and all immovable structures on it.

Inquistion Postmortem (IPM) - is a local inquiry into the lands held by people of some status, in order to discover whatever income and rights were due to the crown. Such inquisitions were only held when people were thought or known to have held lands of the crown.

Moiety - a fraction or share of land, i.e. one half, two thirds, etc. usually seen when land was divided between heirs.

Patron of the Living - Advowson (or "patronage") is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present to the diocesan bishop (or in some cases the ordinary if not the same person) a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation (jus praesentandi, Latin: "the right of presenting"). In effect, an advowson is the right to nominate a person to be parish priest (subject to episcopal approval), and such right was often originally held by the lord of the manor of the principal manor within the parish.

Querent - Party who initiated the legal action, often in a Feet of Fine (see feet of fine)

Quit claim - A quitclaim deed is a legal instrument which is used to transfer interest in real property. The entity transferring its interest is called the grantor, and when the quitclaim deed is properly completed and executed it transfers any interest the grantor has in the property to a recipient, called the grantee. (from wikipedia)

Seisin - possession of land by freehold (see free hold)

This is the second of my posts on the ancestry of Thomas Dudley. The research  was done by F. N. Craig and published in the Register. I am not reinventing the wheel, just trying to dress it up a bit. The names of the Purefoy family can be traced pretty far back in time, all the way to the 13th century. The name was first recorded in 1260 in the Misterton, Leicestershire. The records form this time deal mostly with land, renting, selling, holding, granting, quit claiming, etc. They include words which are no longer in daily use; moiety, messuage, carucates, and advowson. I have linked these words to a page of definitions, in the event you are like me and want to know what they mean. That being said, here is what is known about the Purefoy family, ancestors of Thomas Dudley, Governor of the Massachsuetts Bay Colony.

misterton
The Purefoy family lived in and around Misterton a small village on the Roman road, known as Watling Street, in the County of Leicestershire. Looking at Misterton today from Google Earth shows a patch work of farm fields in greens and browns, almost in the center of England. The River Swift runs just to it's north. Across Watling Street and slightly south is Churchover, another small farming village where the family held land. Churchover is in County Warwickshire. The family lands remained concentrated in and around the Leicestershire/Warwickshire border area.

The period of time in which these people lived is known as the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500). After a period of prosperity and growth England was facing drought and famine and by 1350 their world would be decimated by the Bubonic Plague, known as the Black Death.

The Purefoy's daily life was centered around two essential and intertwined calendars, the agricultural and ecclesiastical calendars that marked their year. Michaelmas, 29 September, was the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel. This day marked the beginning and ending of the husbandman's year. Many legal documents were dated using a feast day as a reference. Today we have to look up the date of the feast day on wikipedia but the medieval Purefoys were intimately acquainted with the many feast days that made up their year.

william 1
The first Purefoy ancestor that can be identified with certainty was one William. In 1337 William was named in a land transaction in which two brothers; John de Shirford and his wife Ellen and Simon de Shirford, vicar of Nuneaton and brother to John, conveyed a moiety of Churchover to William and his son Philip. Philip was married to John and Simon's sister Margaret de Shirford. Her sister was Katherine de Shirford Knythcote. In 1343 Katherine made over her rights in the moiety of the manor of Churchover to Philip Purefoy and her sister Margaret. The Purefoys would hold this manor until 1566. [1]

William was the largest taxpayer in Churchover in 1332 and his descendants were presented to the living of Churchover until the dissolution of the monasteries. William's wife's name is unknown to us as are any children other than Philip. Also note that the name, at least as far as he is concerned was Purefoy not "de Purefoy". The 'de' was used, but back in 1277. If William of the 1329 deed was our Willliam, then he held a tenement at Misterton from Robert Napton. [2] A tenement, using our modern definition is a run down, squaid apartment block, but in medieval times the word only referred to any abode or place of habitation. It had no reflection on the quality or desirability of the house.

philip
The father/son relationship between William 1 and Philip is well established in the contemporary records, a rare thing. Philip seems to  have married Margaret de Shirford the sister of John and Simon de Shirford. Their marriage occurred by 1343.[3] Philip's birth can then be estimated as 1320 or earlier. The land in Churchover which was given to Philip Purefoy could well have been part of Margaret's dowry. In 1348 Philip was named in a land deed for a messuage and nine acres of land in Misterston. He bought the land from John and Joan Koc (Cock) of Walcote in Misterton for 20 marks of silver. [4]

In the year 1201, during the reign of King John, the English government began keeping a record called the Patent Rolls. These rolls were an administrative record of appointments to commissions, grants, pardons, privileges, etc.  Commissions of peace were made to men of good standing in their communities. They could investigate crimes, settle disputes, put offenders in jail and keep the peace for their county. Philip was commissioned several times for the county of Warwickshire.

In 1368 Philip was commissioned, with others, to investigate the claims by the monks at the Abbey of Stoneleigh in Warwickshire, some twenty four miles from Churchover. The Abbot claimed that 'divers men' were stealing their oxen, cows, sheep, vestments, chalices and jewels. The men had ruined the woods and making it hard for the monks to survive.[5] In 1374 Philip and his son William were witnesses in a civil case. [6] Philip is said to have had some training in the law and was the steward to Ralph, Earl of Stafford and held his courts for him.

Philip's second son was Thomas. He was trained as a lawyer and a member of the Middle Temple,  one of the four Inn's of Court. He is said to have been on the council of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, one of the most powerful men of his time. Thomas was very successful. He bought the manor of Fenny Drayton where his family lived until 1706 when a less than successful Purefoy was forced to sell the manor.


william 2
William was probably born right around the time of the black plague by 1350, by the time of his maturity around 1370 the world was a very different place. The glorious reign of King Edward III was in it's final years. The Hundred Years War was well underway, the Black Prince was dead and tumultuous reign of his grandson, Richard II was about to begin. But the Black Death  brought benefits to the survivors. Men married at an earlier age. Landless men could obtain the land of their brothers, cousins, neighbors or others who had died. Men could fill civil roles that had been done by others; take on new roles to improved their status. Despite the undeniable horror of the Black Death, those who survived reaped some benefit for the 'reset' of their world.

William seems to have been a quite successful man. In 1385 he was granted the reversion of 12 messuages and 13 virgates of land in Cesters over and Cosford. It had been held by held by John Paraunt and Clemence his wife. [7] His mother Margaret must have passed away by 1393 when his right to his share of the manor of Shirford in Barton Hastings was recognized. William served on multiple commissions, again in the County of Warwickshire.

William's rise in status is evident in his ability to contract a marriage of his heir to the daughter of a knight. The family had risen to the top of the peasant pile and was crossing over into the sphere of the upper class. Again, this was made easier by the Black Death. Merchant and wealthy peasant families were able to join the lower tier of the aristocracy through acquisition of property, service to the king or great lord or through an advantageous marriage. [8]

In 1391, according to Dugdales Warwickshire, William was granted licensed to have an oratory (private chapel) in his house at Shirford. This license was granted by Richard Scrope, teh Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield.

william 3
In 1397 William's father, William 2, covenanted with Aliva, the widow of Sir William Chetwynd, that his son, another William, would marry her daughter Margaret. The covenant was drawn up on the Feast of Barthlomew in the year 21 Richard II, (24 August 1397). The wedding would occur before the feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 14 September. [9] The bride and groom would have been acquainted prior to the covenant. The dower would have been negotiated and agreed upon. Once their commitment to marriage was made known it is practically a slam dunk. The couple could even engage in you know what and were often pregnant by the time they arrived at the church door. The exchange of vows would take place outside on the church porch. The vows were almost identical to what  couples say today. The wedding was followed by a feast.  Then as now, on to real life.

Purefoy Arms

William continued to improve the families fortunes. His name is found on the Patent Rolls multiple times as he was commissioned like his father and grandfather. By 1400 life was getting a bit easier. Houses were more substantial. Roofs were made of tile or shale. The door was framed and windows were made. Houses now have two distinct rooms and some have an upstairs! The central hearth was replaced by a chimney so no more smokey fire in the middle of the room. Life was good!

In 1415 or so, William contracted a marriage for his son William 4. The boy was only about 12 years old but, what the heck. The future father in law was Alan Ayete. He vested the Manor of Shalstone in trustees, including William Purefoy. The trustees would pay Alan Ayete 20 marks of silver a year. The manor of Shalstone would go to William Purefoy 4 and his wife Margery, daughter of Alan Ayete upon his death. The family would hold Shalstone for many years. [10]

william 4
Based on his parents marriage, William was likely born around 1400. He was contracted in marriage at a fairly young age. by 1432 his name was entering the records. He had inherited his grandfather's land in Cester Over and shared over lordship with John Waver. In 1434 an oath was given in all the counties of England. The men taking the oath were the leading men of the county and they swore 'not to maintain peacebreakers.' William Purefoy, Esq. of Shirford was among the men of Warwickshire taking the oath. Notice the esquire attached to his name, William was a Gentleman. [11] His name appeared on a land deed, not for him but for other men, but it is also written esquire.

In 1430 the English had captured Joan of Arc and burnt her at the stake in 1431. Later that year, the English King Henry VI was crowned King of France in Paris in a lavish ceremony that  caused a financial crisis in England. Trouble was always just around the corner. In 1448 William reached the height of his career and was High Sheriff of both Warwickshire and Leicestershire. [12] The sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county. His last entry into the public record was in 1455 when he stood surety (mainpernor) for Sir William Peyto of Warwickshire, who was accused of assaulting a neighbor.

In a document written in 6 Edward IV (1467) Philip Purefoy son of William was 24 said to be years old. It was first believe that he could not have been the son of William and Marion Ayot, therefore he must have been the son of a William 5. It is now believed that he he was the son of William Purefoy 4 and his second wife Margery Moton. In 1464 William sold the manor of Foxcote to Thomas Waldeve.[13] William died in 1466, the first confirmed death of a Purefoy. An IPM of his estate stated that he held no land in Warwickshire. He must have divested his estate to his sons or possible sons-in-law.

 The manor of Misterton passed out of the family at this time when William and Margery deeded it to  Sir William Fielding. Sir William was the son of Sir John Fielding and his wife Margaret Purefoy, daughter of William. [14]

philip (not an ancestor)

Baddesley Clinton by Steve Daniel

William was succeeded by his eldest son Philip who was married to  Isabel Brome. They had two sons who, John and Nicholas who died young. Philip died in 1468, his heir was his younger brother John. There was another brother named Henry who had also died prior to 1468.Philip was buried at the church of St. James in Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire.[15] In 1438 the manor of Baddeley Clinton was bought by John Brome, the Under Treasurer of England, he was the father of Isabel. Her brother Nicholas inherited the house in which he killed the parish priest. To atone for this misdeed he made extensive repairs to the parish church.

john 
Yeah! Finally a different name. John succeeded his brother Philip in 1468. This was a dangerous time in England. Edward IV (Yorkist) had taken the throne from his cousin Henry VI (Lancastrian) in 1461. Henry's wife Margaret of Anjou wanted it back. This was the War of the Roses. In 1470 Margaret and her forces over threw Edward for one year, he returned in 1471 to reclaim the throne after winning at the Battle of Tewksbury. Sir William Fielding was killed at Tewksbury fighting for King Henry.[16] In 1485 the Battle of Bosworth at which Henry VII defeated King Richard III took place only twenty of so miles from Misterton.

In 1472 John's sister in law, Isabel married John Denton. He granted to them the manor of Shirford which his family had held since early in the previous century. John died young, by 1491, leaving a son Nicholas. John's wife is unknown.

nicholas
Because Nicholas' father died while he was still a minor, he was given to a guardian to 'safe guard' his estate and manage it for him until he reached his majority. In 1491 Nicholas of Daventry, was made the ward of John Denton, the man who had married Isabel Purefoy. Daventry is about 16 miles to the south of Misterton. There seems to have been a master plan at work here as Nicholas married Alice Denton, the daughter of John Denton and Isabel Purefoy Denton. Thus, keeping the manor of Shirford in the family.

Nicolas was married in 1494 as evidenced by the birth of his son Edward. He must have reached his majority by 1493, so he was born by 1470 or thereabouts. He was living at Etfield in Leicstershire at the time. I cannot find an Etfield on the map, so I am not sure where this was. In 1507 Nicholas and Alice leased Shirford. It was finally sold in 1545 to Sir Walter Smythe. Sir Walter was murdered by his wife Dorothy who was the daughter of Thomas Chetwynd of Ingestre. [17]

Nicholas was married twice more after Alice. His second wife was Clemence Lydiard the widow of _____Byrde. His third wife who outlived him was Katherine Brayfield. Nicholas died on 18 Feb 1547. [18]


 The family was of Shalstone in Buckinghamshire thereafter.

edward
Edward born on the cusp of a new century and a new dynasty, the Tudors. The future Henry VIII was born in 1491 and would succeed his father in 1509. The golden age of England was upon them. Edward married Anne Fettiplace of Shirford. She was born on 16 July 1496. Edward died in 1558. Their daughter, Mary Purefoy, married Thomas Thorne.


Sources:

[1] F. N. Craig, Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley: Purefoy, Ayot, and Denton Lines, The New England Historic and Genealogical Register, Vol. 142 (July 1988) 227-244

[2] "Parishes: Churchover," in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 6, Knightlow Hundred, ed. L F Salzman (London: Victoria County History, 1951), 62-64. British History Online, accessed April 27, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol6/pp62-64.

[3] F. N. Craig, Maternal Ancestry, 227-244.

[4] medieval genealogy

[5] Great Britain, Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Edward III, Volume 15, 1370-1374, London, The Hereford Times, 1914)

[6] Great Britain, Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Edward III, Volume 16, 1374-1377 (London: The Hereford Times, 1916).

[7]"Parishes: Monks Kirby," A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 6, Knightlow Hundred, ed. L F Salzman (London: Victoria County History, 1951), 173-181. British History Online, accessed May 6, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol6/pp173-181.

[8] Francis Gies and Joseph Gies, Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages, (New York: Harper Row, 1987) 251.

[9] William Dugdale, The Life, Diary and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, (London : Harding, Leopard and Co., 1827). 194.

[10] F. N. Craig, Maternal Ancestry, 227-244.

[11] Calendar of the Patent Rolls Henry 6

[12] calendar of the fine rolls vol 18

[13] medieval genealogy feet of fines

[14] John Lodge and Mervyn Archdall, The peerage of Ireland: or, A genealogical history of the present nobility of that kingdom, Volume 1, (Dublin : James Moore, 1789) 252.

[15] William Dugdale, The antiquities of Warwickshire illustrated : from records, leiger-books, manuscripts, charters, evidences, tombes, and armes : beautified with maps, prospects, and portraictures, ( London : Thomas Warren, 1656) 37.

[16] Lodge and Archdall, The Peerage of Ireland, 252.

[17] "Parishes: Burton Hastings,"A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 6, Knightlow Hundred, ed. L F Salzman (London: Victoria County History, 1951), 57-61. British History Online, accessed May 14, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol6/pp57-61.

[18] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families, 2nd Edition, 2011 Ancestry. page 96.

Thomas Dudley's maternal grandmother, Mary Purefoy, was the daughter of Edward Purefoy and his wife Anne Fettiplace. Anne was born on 13 June 1494 and died in 1558. She was the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Beselles Fettiplace of Shelford, Berkshire. Anne had  sisters, Mary, Eleanor, Dorothy, Elizabeth and Susan. There were also brothers, but my concern here is with the females of the family. The Fettiplace family was of great antiquity and was very wealthy. Education was important for not only the males of the family, but, unusually, for the females as well.

Richard Fettiplace, the girl's father, died in late 1510 or early 1511 leaving a will that made bequests for two daughters marriage portions; Dorothy and Eleanor. Presumably the others were already married at the time of their father's death, or other arrangement had already been made. Mary Fettiplace married James Yate (d. 1543) of Buckand, Berkshire and had daughter Elizabeth. Susan married John Kyngston of Childrey (d. 1514), Berkshire and Thruxton Hampshire. He died very early in their childless marriage at the age of 23. Dorothy married a man named John Coddrington or possibly Goddrington. Their marriage contract was made in Oct. 1517 and stipulated that they should marry by 13 May 1518. John was dead on 31 December 1518. Another Fettiplace daughter widowed young with no children.

After the death of her husband, Susan took an uncommon route for her life, she became a 'Vowess', at the Abbey of Syon. Syon was a, if I may call it such, a co-ed religious establishment that housed both a monastery for men but also an abbey for women. The monks and nuns were of the Brigittine Order. Education and reading were especially important to the abbey.

A vowess was a woman who had been married, but was not a full nun. She could come and go as she pleased. The Vowess paid the Abbey for her room and board and could keep servants. Susan was joined at Syon by her grandmother Alice Besselles in 1520. Susan's mother Elizabeth Besselles Fettiplace Elyot was also believed to have become a vowess at Syon after the death of her second husband.  The maternal grandmother of the Fettiplace girls, Alice Harcourt was living at Syon as a vowess at her death in  1526.
When Dorothy's husband died and left her a childless widow, she choose to take her vows one step further and became a nun at Syon. The sister's were joined by Eleanor, who never married, and became a nun at Syon some time around 1520. Mary Fettiplace Yates' daughter Elizabeth Yate also took her full vows and became a nun as did her cousin Susan Purefoy.  The only sister who did not have ties to Syon was Elizabeth, who was a nun in Amesbury.

The heir of Richard and Alice Besselles was their daughter Elizabeth Fettiplace, the girl's mother. After the death of her husband Richard in 1510 she remarried to Sir Richard Elyot, the father of Sir Thomas Elyot. Sir Richard was a jurist and had been the King's Sergeant at Law for both King Henry VII and his son King Henry VIII.

The 1530's was a time of religious upheaval. Henry VIII, in his desire to marry Anne Bolyen was beginning his break with the Pope in Rome and on his way to establishing a protestant church with himself at it's head. In 1534 Sir Thomas More was imprisoned by Henry for refusing to take an oath recognizing Henry as the head of the English church. Some time that year, after, July, Sir Thomas Elyot published a translation of the sermon of St. Cyprian. He dedicated it to his step-sister Ellen and mentioned her sister at Syon. The sermon may have been meant as an encouragement to Catholics in England during those trying times.

At that time all the religious houses were put under pressure to recognize Anne Bolyen as Henry's true wife. Syon acquiesced and signed. However, one of the monks, Richard Reynolds, refused. He was imprisoned and was, according to the catholic church, martyred, at Tyburn on 4 May 1535. His death was especially brutal. After being dragged through the streets of London, he was drawn and quartered. His body parts were displayed in various parts of London. Today, he is a catholic saint.  

On 25 November 1539 the community was expelled from Syon. Susan Kynston may have already left, she was living with her sister Mary Purefoy at the time of her death on 23 September 1540. Many of the nuns and the Fettiplace vowess' were sheltered at Buckland, the home of  the Yates.The Abbey was briefly restored in 1557 during the reign of catholic Queen Mary. Sir Frances Englefield, husband of Catherine Fettiplace, undertook it's restoration. With the succession of protestant Queen Elizabeth the abbey was shuttered for good.

After the closure of Syon Abbey, the nuns and vowess' were once again dispersed. Eleanor went to Zurich were she died in 1565. Dorothy lived a long life, dying in her eighties in 1586. When she died, her great nephew Thomas Dudley was ten. He would grow up to become the Governor of the Puritan Colony of Massachusetts.  I wonder what they would have thought of each other.

sources:
Mary C. Erler, Women, Reading and Piety in Late Medieval England, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Kathy Lynn Emerson, "Susan Fettiplace,"A Who's Who of Tudor Women: F, (http://www.kateemersonhistoricals.com/TudorWomenF.htm : accessed 22 May 2016).

I wrote a blog post some years ago about what I call "trying to meet in the middle." This is that genealogical problem where you think you know the ancestry down to a certain point and up to a certain point but you cannot connect those two points. You can't meet in the middle. The Fettiplace ancestry of Thomas Dudley almost definitely began with Adam Fettiplace of Oxford in the 12th century and can be traced down to his descendants and it can be traced up to Thomas Fettiplace born about 1394. But, we can't connect Thomas to Adam's line.

This article will deal with Thomas Fettiplace and his descendants to Anne Fettiplace who married Edward Purefoy. They were the great grandparents of Thomas Dudley on his mother's side.

whose doing the writing
So, there have been three major articles written about the Fettiplace Family and most of what you find on the web is from these articles. The first was published in 1889 by James Robinson Planche' who was appointed the Rouge Crouix Pursuivant in 1854. He wrote extensively about the family, beginning with Adam Fettiplace. He wrote that it was his conviction that Henry Fettiplace, who died seized on the manor of Denchworth in 1416, was either the uncle or father of Thomas.

In 1911, J. Rentyon Dunlop wrote an lengthy article on the family. He wrote that Thomas was known to have had a brother John of Woolley Park. He and a Peter Fettiplace of North Denchworth, the representative of the original line, were contemporaries. Peter was the son of John Fettiplace of North Denchworth. Peter and Thomas each served as High Sheriff of Berkshire and both served in 1436 as Comm missioners of Array. Dunlop says, "it is here suggested, that although probably first cousins, it quite possible they were brothers." For this to be true, John of Woolley would have to be John of Denchworth, which has not been suggested by anyone that I can find. Then John and Thomas would both be sons of Henry of Denchworth, Thomas being the fourth son.

Nearer our current time, Donald Lines Jacobus wrote and article for "The Register," in 1969, about the Fettiplace Family. In his two part article, part two begins with Thomas. Of is his ancestry he writes, "In spite of his high rank and social position, enhanced to be sure by the exalted birth of his wife, his descent from Adam Fettiplace, the first definitely known progenitor of this ancient family, has never been worked out. Donald L. Jacobus was one of the finest american genealogist.

English historian and genealogist David Nash Ford has an extensive website on Royal Berkshire History, which includes many of the leading Berkshire families. The Fettiplace articles by Dunlop and Plance' are both reprinted on this website. In a bio of Thomas Fettiplace, the author, unnamed, writes that the parentage of Thomas is "far from certain." But, it "seems likely that he was a son of Henry Fettiplace of North Denchworth." No documentation is offered for this statement, but it is presumable based on the speculation raised in the two previously mentioned articles.

So was Thomas the son of Henry Fettiplace of North Denchworth. It is possible that Henry was his father and it is possible that Henry was not his father. More than that, I cannot say. Sorry.



thomas
Thomas is believed to have been a fourth son, regardless of who his father was. Fourth sons had a difficult time back then, when the first son got the lion's share of his father's estate. These guys had to go out and make their mark on their world. This could be done by excelling in martial arts or if the world of warfare was not to your interest, by managing the estates of a warrior. This is the route chosen by Thomas.

In 1413 Thomas was appointed steward to Gilbert, Lord Talbot. at his manor of Bampton in Oxfordshire. This manor had been in the Talbot family since 1327 when it was given as part of a dowry at the marriage of Richard Talbot and Elizabeth Comyn. However, Talbot's main lands were in the Welsh Marches, the borderlands between England and Wales. The men who held these lands are called the March Lords and were semi-independent from the King. The first ten or so years of the 15th century saw frequent fighting between the English and the Welsh who briefly rid Wales of their English overlords only fall under their control by 1409.  It is possible that the Talbot family spent time in the Oxfordshire home to avoid the ongoing military conflict.

As steward, Thomas was responsible for the day to day running of the estate. The steward also played a major role in the manorial court system. All in all it was a good gig for a fourth son, in fact, may stewards became wealthy men.

1413
1413 saw the crowning of the most military of kings, Henry V. He is described as a cold and ruthless soldier. Once crowned he immediately began preparing to invade Normandy, which he did in 1415. The next few years brought amazing military victories for England at Harfleur and the amazing defeat of the French at Agincourt. In 1416 the last Welsh "Prince of Wales," died, and Henry was able to give France his full attention. In 1417 he again invaded France, his target was the city of Rouen. After an almost two year siege the once great city surrendered,  it's citizens dying of starvation and illness. Also dying at the siege was Gilbert, Lord Talbot, Lord of the manor of Bampton.

thomas takes a wife
Thomas was married in 1422. His wife was the Lord Talbot's widow, Beatrice. Beatrice was a young widow with only on child, a daughter named Ankaret for her Talbot Grandmother. Beatrice was also a foreigner. She was Portuguese. Let me say right out that she was not the daughter of King Joao (John) of Portugal by either his legal wife, Phillipa Lancaster or a mistress as is seem on multiple websites. All current research points to her being a descendant of King Alphonso III of Portugal and his mistress Mariana Pirez de Enxara. Alphonso died in 1279 and if true would have been Beatrice's 3X great grandfather.  She was not a princess. Suffice it to say, no one really knows who her father was.

Immediately following the death of her husband, Beatrice was given one third of the manor of Bampton as her dower. In 1419 she was given full custody of the estate. Sadly, her daughter and Lord Talbot's only heir, died in 1422. This left Beatrice and her then husband Thomas Fettiplace with only her dower third. She exchanged this dower for the right of tenancy. Gilbert's lands and title passed to his brother John, later the Earl of Shrewsbury.

success
Thomas was obviously a very successful businessman. He held many high offices in the Counties of Berkshire and Oxfordshire including serving as a member of parliament in 1432. He also served as Sheriff of both counties.  In 1442 he was given a commission to basically persuade his neighbors to 'loan' money to the King and bring it post haste to the Royal Exchequer. According to the Royal Berkshire History article on Thomas, he was never knighted and therefore was not Sir Thomas but rather only Thomas Fettiplace.

He seems to have died not long after the 1442 commission. Beatrice died on Christmas day in 1447. They are buried in the little church of St. Thomas that once served the manor of East Shefford. Their alabaster tomb was commissioned by their son John. The manor house of East Shefford was demolished in 1871. The village of East Shefford no long exists.

St. Thomas church photo by Ron Baxter

Sources:
A P Baggs, Eleanor Chance, Christina Colvin, C J Day, Nesta Selwyn and S C Townley. "Bampton Hundred," in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 13, Bampton Hundred (Part One), ed. Alan Crossley and C R J Currie (London: Victoria County History, 1996), 1-5. British History Online, accessed May 25, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol13/pp1-5.

"Parishes: East Shefford or Little Shefford," in A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4, ed. William Page and P H Ditchfield (London: Victoria County History, 1924), 234-238. British History Online, accessed May 15, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp234-238.

David Nash Ford, "Thomas Fettiplace,"David Nash Ford's Royal Berkshire History, (http://www.berkshirehistory.com : accessed 28 May 2016).

Nathaniel L. Taylor, "Beatrice Fettiplace (Ancestress of Gov. Thomas Dudley) : A Summary", PDF file. This was written in 2002 and is the latest information on the ancestry of Beatrice Fettiplace. Taylor is the editor and publisher of  the The American Genealogist.

Donald Lines Jacobus, "The Fettiplace Family,"The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. 123 (October 1969) 254, American Ancestors  (http://www.americanancestors.org : accessed 25 May 2016).

This is a continuation of the Fettiplace Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley of Massachusetts......

John Fettiplace was born about 1424, most likely at his parent's estate of East Shefford in Berkshire. His father was Thomas Fettiplace and his mother was Beatrice, a Portuguese woman who was possibly descended from King Alonoso III through an illegitimate son.He was the second son of a fourth son. If he was going to earn a living he was going to have to work for it. And so he did.

draper
John, in later life, was a citizen of London and a Draper by trade. A Draper was a merchant who dealt in fabrics. John would have begun his career as an apprentice, eventually becoming a full member of the Draper's Guild. Although J. Renton Dunlop felt he was only an honorary member, it would seem that he was inde
ed a working Draper and he eventually became a very rich draper. but, back to the beginning.

order of the garter
In 1447 the King's brother, Duke Humphrey died suddenly. He had been one of the 24 Knights of The Order of the Garter. There were several good candidates to fill the now vacant spot, but the honor went to King Alphonso of Portugal. King Henry commissioned the garter from the London goldsmith Matthew Philips. The garter was not the stretchy thing you see thrown at weddings, it looks more like a small blue belt, that when buckled was/is worn around the left calf. Of course it would be covered with jewels or pearls and the buckle would be made of gold. Along with the the garter went the sumptuous robes worn by the recipient.  Once completed these items had to be delivered to King Alphonso, in Portugal. Who better to deliver them than John, son of Beatrice, a descendant of the royal house of Portugal. John was paid the hefty sum of 40 pounds for his expense.

How did John come to the attention of Court and allowed the honor of this mission. I think it was probably the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was close to the Royal Family who was the instigator of John's rise. John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury was the brother in law to John's mother, Beatrice. She had been married to his brother, Gilbert.  

esquire to the body

King Henry VI

In 1455 John was a member of the Royal Household and no less Esquire to the King's Body. The King in question was the ill fated Henry VI. His Queen was Margaret of Anjou. The job of esquire to the body was one of an attendant of the King. They helped him dress and undress, they were around him day and night to meet his every need. How John achieved this appointment is unknown. Although it has been suggested that his mother might have had some influence I am more incline to believe that it might have been his mother's brother in law, The Earl of Shrewsbury, who might have brought John into the royal sphere.

wool merchant
The 15th century was the heyday of the wool market in England. Men could become fantastically rich dealing wool and the cloth made from it. The best wool in Europe was from England, the best weaver were in Flanders. The raw wool was shipped to Flemish ports and returned to London for the Drapers to sell. John set himself up as a wool merchant in the section of London called Lothbury. There is still a Lothbury Street in London, but the area was all destroyed at the time of the Great Fire including the parish church of St. Margaret's of Lothbury.

marriage
In the late 1450's, John married the widow Joan Fabian Horne. Her husband had been Robert Horne. He was a very successful fishmonger who served as both Alderman for the Bridge Ward and Sheriff of London. He is best known for his part in the rebellion known as Cade's Rebellion which tore through London in 1450. This rebellion was a protest by men in Kent and Sussex against the inept government of Lancastrian King Henry VI. Although first welcomed by the citizens of London, they rebels quickly lost their favor when they looted the city. Robert Horne was throw in prison and only escaped with his life by paying a huge ransom. This rebellion was the beginning of the undoing of King Henry and eventually lead to the War of the Roses.

Joan was the daughter of Edward Fabian. When Robert died he left her with four small children and a large bank account. I doubt she was widowed long. Joan and John had four sons, Richard, Anthony, Thomas, and William and one daughter Margaret.

1460
Whatever influence John had accrued at court as Esquire to the Kings Body and from the Earl of Shrewsbury came to a screeching halt on 10 July 1460 at the battle of Northampton. The King was captured by the Yorkist forces and the Earl was killed defending him. In March of 1461 England had a new King, the Yorkist King Edward IV. Henry would briefly regain his throne in 1470 but John was dead by then.

honor they father
John certainly did honor both his parents with a fabulous alabaster tomb in their small church of St. Thomas in East Shefford. The tomb remains today in the now protected church, a cold silent monument to ancestors long gone. John himself died in 1464, leaving his widow once again holding the bag with a gaggle of small children. John had a will and left his children a small fortune. Their Uncle James Fettiplace was charged with managing their estate until they came of age. John's heir was his eldest son Richard. Unlike his father he was not in trade, but lived the life of the landed gentry in Berkshire on his estate of East Shefford.

john estbury
Joan remarried, again rather quickly. Her third husband was John Estbury of Antwick's Manor in Berkshire. He was probably no stranger to Joan as his manor was only a few miles from East Shefford.  In fact the manor of East Shefford was owned by the Eastbury Family in previous century. When Joan died she was buried next to John Fettiplace at St. Margaret's Lothbury. Joan's date of death is unknown.

errors
The internet is full of errors. Here is just one example of an error laden webpage:

Father: Thomas Sir. K.G. 'Earl of Arundel' FETTIPLACE b: 1397 in East Shefford and Childrey, Berkshire, England
Mother: Beatrice of Portugal , Countess Beatrix Fettiplace (nee De SOUSA?) DE PINTO b: Abt 1386 in of Portugal

Marriage 1 Jane widow of John Horne 'Alderman of London' FABIAN b: CA 1430 in of London and Berkshire, England

be careful out there!

This article is a continuation of the Fettiplace ancestry of Thomas Dudley, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Previously covered were Thomas Fettiplace and his son John Fettiplace. This is the third generation of this line that can be traced with certainty, anything above Thomas is a guess. So, here is what I know about Richard Fettiplace and his wife Elizabeth Bessels.

loss of a father
Richard's parents were John Fettiplace and Joan Fabian Horne Fettiplace Estbury. John was a successful London draper (cloth merchant) who came to the attention of the king and was appointed Esquire of the Body of the King around 1455. King Henry was deposed in 1460 so ending John's court connections. He married about that time a wealthy London widow, Joan Horne, nee Fabian, whose husband Robert Horne had been a stock fishmonger, alderman and one time Sheriff of London. John and Joan had five children in quick succession, four boys and one girl before his untimely death in 1464. Richard was the oldest and his father's heir.  He inherited the manor of East Shefford in Berkshire and New Langport in Kent.

 Joan moved her family from London to their home at East Shefford. The children's estate was put into the hands of James Fettiplace, John's brother and the children's uncle. He lived at nearby Maidencourt, Berkshire. Joan remarried to a local man John Estbury of Antwick's manor in Letcombe Regis.

marriage
When Richard was about 25 years old he married the only daughter and heiress of Williams Bessels and his wife Alice Harcourt Bessels. Her name was Elizabeth. The marriage took place around 1485.She brought the manor of Besselsleigh into the Fettiplace family. The Bessels were an old established Berkshire family as were the Fettyplaces'. That being said, William came into the manor of Leigh in an unusual way. In 1424 Sir Peter Bessels died without an heir. His wife was able to hold the manor of Leigh for her lifetime. After much squabbling by the trustees and the death of Margery the widow of Sir Peter, the manor finally passed to William Bessels, possibly a distant cousin of Sir Peter.

daily life
Richard and Elizabeth seems to have lived quietly in East Shefford. His did not make much of a mark on the public record. They had quite a few children including a daughter Ann who married Edward Purefoy. Now all over the web and is a few books it says that Anne Fettiplace was born in Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire also known as Shelford Parva. But, the Fettiplaces are not known to have had any land there. Why would she been born there? I think this is an error and that she was born in Shefford like the rest of them.

Richard was never knighted and therefore was not Sir Richard.

death
Richard died in 1511, in what was still a Catholic country. He asked to be buried in the church of Poughley Priory, a house for Austin Canon Friars. The Priory was located at Chaddlesworth near Great Shefford. He left money to the Priory and gave them land, asking in return for 99 years worth of prayers. He did not get his money's worth as the Priory was dismantled in 1524 by Thomas Cromwell during the dissolution of the monasteries.

afterwards
In January 1527, Edward Fetyplace, Richard's son, treasurer to the duke of Suffolk, wrote to Thomas Cromwell, upbraiding him with breaking his word as to granting him the site of Poughley, on the faith of which he had given Cromwell 40s. at the time of its dissolution, and yet the lease had been granted to another man. This letter is of particular interest, as showing that the house of the dissolved priory was for a time occupied by scholars of Wolsey's great college then in course of erection.

In February 1529, Fetyplace wrote again to Cromwell desiring his interest that he might be assured of more years in the farm of Poughley. From this letter it is evident that Cromwell had been recently visiting the dismantled priory, as Fetyplace records a visit to Poughley, on 'the Thursday after our departing,' of one John Edden who came with a cart to carry off such stuff as was appointed to go to Wolsey's College at Oxford.

How exciting is this? An ancestor with the sobriquet 'The Plunderer.' Not 'the good', or 'the great' or 'pious,' but a plunderer.  He is a nice contrast to all those prickly puritans that pepper the lower branches of my family tree. (Did you catch that great alliteration?) Not only was he a bad dude but he was a VIP, a very important plunderer. That being said, here is what I know about Macey Bezill.

Origins
You may know Macey Bezill better as Matthew de Besilles,  he was french and his name in the earliest accounts was spelled Macey. He was most often called Mathias. His surname Bezill, is believed by some to a nickname meaning 'to plunder'. It is spelled multiple ways but only once is there a 'de' in front of it it is almost always Bezill. Matthew was born probably around the year 1200. How this Frenchman came to be in England is a complicated story but I will try to flesh it out for you.

a bit of history to set the scene

Henry III

Henry III, son and heir of the notorious King John I of England was born in 1207. He inherited his father's throne at the tender age of nine in the midst of the first Baron's War. When John died Prince Louis of France controlled London and a large part of southern England. After John's death, the rebel baron's dropped their support of Louis and came over to young King Henry's side.

Because of his age, the kingdom was governed by two powerful men, known as regents; William Marshall and Hubert de Burgh. John's widow, Queen Isabella of Angouleme, left her son Henry and returned to her homeland where she married  a Frenchman named Hugh de Lusignan. Isabella and Hugh had been betrothed when they were young, but King John snatched her away. Isabella and Hugh has several children who were half siblings of King Henry. Henry was to award these Frenchmen many lucrative positions at court, much to the annoyance of the established Anglo-Norman lords. [1]

Peter de Roches, was another Frenchman who had great power in England. He began life in the then English province of Poitou in France. Under the tutelage of King Richard I, Peter trained as a soldier. Later in life he became a bishop and was appointed the Bishop of Winchester England in 1204 by the Pope.  [2] Peter was a great administrator and in 1213 was named Chief Justiciar of England. This really pissed off the Barons and they rebelled. King John was forced to sign a little document called the Magna Carta. In chapter 50 of this document the Barons demanded that John remove all 'foreign soldiers who have come to do the country harm.' Specifically Peter des Roches and his french family and friends from the region of Touraine. [3]

Peter des Roches photo by Ealdgyth

Peter, however, was a loyal servant to King John and he stuck around, even when the Baron's revolted. After John's death he was appointed tutor to the young King Henry. In about 1226 Peter des Roches left England for some years, going to the Holy Land to fight. Meanwhile, King Henry was growing up and in 1227 declared his majority. In 1229 Henry decided he would like to regain land in France lost by his inept father. He was apparently just as inept, but placed the blame on his long time counselor Hubert de Burgh. In 1231 Peter des Roches returned from his holy land adventure and reclaimed the king's favor, he also became the bitter enemy of Hubert de Burgh. The next year the king had poor Hubert imprisoned, and finally this is where Macey Brazill comes into the picture. [4]

the tourangeau
When a medieval man did well, he tended to promote his friends and family, even if it meant importing them from his hometown. Peter des Roches filled English positions with his family and friends. This did not always sit well with the 'natives'. One of the families who the Baron's wished King John to expel was the Chanceaux family. Macey Bezell was related to this family. It seems likely that he was in England because of his or his families relationship with Peter des Roches.[5] So, we can say that Macey was most likely originally from Touraine, his exact birthplace, year and the names of his parents are unknown.

land for macey
If you know your medieval history, then you know that practically all the land in England was the King's. If you had land, it came from either the King or one of his Baron's to whom he had parceled it out. But, the Baron's didn't own the land either, they held it from the King, contingent on their good behavior. When Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent, was imprisoned by King Henry, his land was confiscated. In 1233 the King, 'Grants Macey Besill the lands that were Hubert de Burgh's in Bason and Sutherton," to "maintain himself in our service so long as the King pleases." The King giveth and the King taketh away. Hubert found himself out of favor and depleted of his holdings; Macey was in favor and got the land, for awhile, anyway. [6]

1233 was a tumultuous year in England. Led by Richard Marshall, son of the great English hero and regent, William Marshall, the barons of England once again rebelled against their king. The goal was to rid England of the 'foreigners' favored by Henry, namely Peter des Roches and his cohorts. The barons were defeated and their lands dispersed to those loyal to the King. Mathias Bezell was awarded the lands of Robert Musard of Gloucestershire and Ralph Bloet of Wiltshire. [7]

Also in 1233 the King confirmed the gift of the land in Gomshelve (Gomshall in Surrey). This Mathias held of the king for 1/4 knights fee. Additionally Macey/Mathias was granted the custody of the lands that had belonged to Reginald Bassett. It also seems that Reginald's heir was an underage daughter. When a medieval man died the marriages of his unbetrothed children became the right of his landlord. The King gave Macey the right to control Reginald's daughter's fortune until she married and he had the right to choose her husband. The marriages of heiress' and widows' were frequently bought and sold, it was a lucrative market.[8] In fact, Macey sold the marriage to Engelard de Cigogne but Reginald Basset's widow Agnes, was able to pay the King 20 marks to buy back her daughter. [9]

Mathias would later make Gomshall over to Netley Abbey. Peter des Roches was then the patron of the abbey for a while, the patronage was later taken over by King Henry. Mathias objective may have been less religious that at first seems. He may have been looking to impress either des Roches or the king or possibly both.

growing influence
In 1234  a letter of protection was issued to Mathias. He was travelling on the King's service to Gascony, the remaining English province in France. The letter of protection prevented anyone from bringing legal action against him in his absence. In 1237 Mathias was noted in the Assize Rolls of Devon to have the manor of West Alvington. This manor was granted to him by the King from the 'land of the Normans.' This was land that was basically abandoned by Norman lords who were cut off from their English estates when Normandy was reconquered by the French in 1204. [10]

By 1240 Hubert de Burgh was restored to favor and was given back his lands, including the manor of Westerhal that had been given to Mathias. However Mathias was compensated by the grant of the entire manor of Sherston including the advowson, the right to appoint the cleric to the parish. This was also land of the Normans, but the King in granting it to Mathias stated that if the heirs claimed it or peace was restored, Matthias would be compensated. They never did. [11] In June of 1241 the King granted him the right to hold a weekly market on his manor of Sherston, which added to his income.

Also in 1241 Mathias was awarded the custody of the land and heirs of Roger of Notton. He was also given their marriages. He later sold the right to their marriage to another man for 120 marks.

A sign of Mathias' growing favor at court was his appointment by the King to be the Marshal of the Queen's household. The Queen was Eleanor of Provence. The King had married her in 1236. Mathias would eventually serve as steward, running her household.

Eleanor had been escorted to England by Theobald, Count of Champagne and King of Navarre, a kinsman of Henry III. Henry would meet with Theobald multiple times in Bordeaux in Gascony. In 1243 King Henry sent Matthew Bezell to escort Theobald through Gascony on his way back to Navarre. [12] Matthew had obviously accompanied the King on his travels to the continent.  In a entry in the fine rolls in 1243 the King ordered that the treasury pay "the king's beloved and faithful Mathias Bezill," to reimburse him for going into Provence on the King's ship. A few months later the treasury reimbursed him for a horse that the King bought of him while they were in Bordeaux. [13]

more land stuff
At that time in England, even as a land holder, you couldn't just hunt the animals on your land, you had to pay the King for the right. Or, he could grant you 'free warren' of your land. In December of 1247 Mathias and his heirs were granted free warren on the manor of Sherston. [14] The following year the King granted Mathias the right to hold a yearly fair to be held on the day prior, of and after, the Feast of St. Cyrus. A few years later he was allowed to hold a yearly fair around the feast of St. Matthew which is on 21 September.

marriage
Mathias seemed to have had the marriage of quite a few daughters and widow but somehow remained unmarried until about 1249. This has led some researchers to speculate that he was perhaps repugnant to these women, and that they refused to marry him.. In 1246 he was offered the marriage of Beatrice, the widow of John de Bessingham. The King excused her from her oath not to marry without his consent  if she would marry Mathias. [15] It seems the good lady wished to marry elsewhere and so she did, probably by paying a hefty sum. Unfortunately this next husband, Robert of Lowick, soon died and Beatrice was once more encouraged to marry Mathias. This time she did. [16] In November of 1249 the King ordered the Bailiff of Bristol to buy a 'good tun of wine' and deliver it to Beatrice, wife of Mathias Bezill of the King's gift. [17]

constable of the castle
In 1251 Mathias is assigned a very important post as constable of the castle at Gloucester. This castle no longer exists but in it's time was very important. It was used by the fist three Henry's as a royal residence during their reigns. It remained a property of the crown.

The king has committed his castle of Gloucester to Mathias Bezill together with tine (of ale) and weirs pertaining to the same castle to keep for as long as it pleases the king, and he is to render £10 per annum to the king for the aforesaid tine, which the king has remitted to him in the first year, and he will answer for the lampreys coming from the aforesaid weirs. The king will sustain the aforesaid weirs at his own costs. [18]

In addition to the job as constable, Mathias got some fishing weirs and what sounds like a lot of beer to with his lampreys.

Meanwhile, over in Gascony, Simon de Montfort, the English governor, and brother in law of the king, had his hands full of rebellious inhabitants. He suppressed the revolt by May the next year. In 1252 the Gason leaders traveled to England to put their case against de Montfort in front of the king. Simon resigned his post and returned to England. On his return he allied himself with a group of barons who opposed Henry III. Simon was a man ahead of his time, if you have never read about him, look him up. He became convinced that Henry was ill fit to govern. By 1258 he and the rebel barons had forced Henry to sign a the Provisions of Oxford,  which were akin to a constitution.

The rebel barons were suspicious of all 'foreigners' in places of power and removed several Frenchmen who held English castles. Mathias was allowed to keep his job as constable of the castle in Gloucestershire. However, one of the provisions resulted in previously protected friends of the king being prosecuted for past offenses. Hugh Bigod, the new chief Justiciar, sent up a special eyre (travelling circuit court) to investigate national grievances. Mathias was hauled before the court to answer to a complaint made by Clement of Sherston who claimed that Mathias had deprived him of some land. Mathias countered that Clement was not a freeman, but rather his serf or villein. The jury agreed with Clement and sentenced Mathias to prison. It is not clear if he actually went to prison or just paid a fine to avoid it.

navigating rough waters
To survive, and survive well, a  man had to pick his side carefully and if he was lucky he wouldn't piss off the other side too badly. Mathias seems to have had to ability to stay on the king's side without running afoul of the rebel barons until 1261. That year Henry III managed to regain control of government and got a papal dispensation to set aside the Provisions of  Oxford. The king confirmed Mathias as constable of Gloucester castle  and also appointed him sheriff of Gloucestershire on 8 July 1261. This move did not go down well. [19]

The Earl of Gloucester, Richard de Clare, was a rebel baron. The locals are said to have voted in one of their own men, William de Tracy, to be sheriff. This William was very likely a nephew of the Earl. Mathias did not take this sitting down, in fact he and his men forced their way into a court that was being held by de Tracey, beat him up, dragged him through the mud and threw him into the dungeon of Gloucester castle. Well, I don't know if it was really a dungeon, but it sounded good. Anyway he was locked up in the castle and Mathias carried on as sheriff. [20]

storming of the castle
In 1263 the rebels took their revenge. After arresting the Bishop of Hereford, a 'foreigner,' they marched on Gloucester castle. The rebels were led by Sir John Gifford. Mathias has only a small garrison, but they put up a stout defense. The rebels were able to break down the walls of the prison and the prisoners were able to assist the rebels with the seige. Mathias retreated to a tower but was eventually captured. He was praised for his bravery by the rebels. [21] Mathias and the Bishop were eventually released, but not before his property at Sherston was looted. [22] These acts were recorded by Robert of Gloucester and can be read about in his Metrical Chronicle, but be sure to get the translation as 13th century English is pure gibberish to the masses, which includes myself.

When Prince Edward recaptured Gloucester castle, he executed the two porters who had assisted Sir John and his rebels and punished the burgesses of the town for allowing it to fall into rebel hands. [23]

2nd baron's war
In1264 the revolt turned to full scale war. At the battle of Lewes, on 12 May 1264, rebel forces capture the King and his heir Edward. Simon became the de facto leader of England. He is best known for calling the first parliament that included the average guy and not just nobility and clerics. His time in power was brief, but left a significant impact on England. Historians believe that Mathias was part of the royal garrison at Windsor Castle and not at Lewes. In 1265 the two sides met at the Battle of Evesham; Simon de Montfort was killed and the rebels quickly lost stem and made their terms with the king.

fall out from war
The aftermath of every medieval conflict resulted in rewards and retributions. Mathias took advantage of his close and loyal relationship to the king and queen to take over lands belonging to rebel lords. In 1265 Mathias was appointed as constable of the castle of Dover and keeper of the ports of Dover and Sandwich. This was a sign of the great trust the king and Prince Edward had for him.

rip
Mathias died in 1268. His heir was his son John who was 23 years old. King Henry III died a few years later in 1272. His son who became King Edward I, would be a powerful leader and at least internally, England would be a more peaceful place during his reign. On Christmas Day, John swore homage to King Henry and in return was given his father's lands that had been held from the king as tenant in chief.

25 Dec. Winchester. Concerning homage and relief. The king has taken the homage of John de Bezyll son and heir of Mathias de Bezill lately deceased for all the lands and tenements that the aforementioned Mathias his father held of the king in chief on the day he died, and he has rendered those lands and tenements to him. Order to John le Moyne, escheator this side of the Trent, that having accepted security from the aforementioned John for his rendering reasonable relief at the Exchequer, to cause the same John to have full seisin without delay of all the aforesaid lands and tenements of which the aforesaid Mathias was seised in his demesne as of fee on the day he died in his bailiwick and which were taken into the king’s hand by reason of his death.[24]

fyi
There is no original research in this blog article. The article by Michael Ray, found on the website The Fine Rolls of Henry III provide most of the sources used. That being said this was quite a challenging article to write as I searched out each of his sources to see them for myself. In one or two instances his sources were the original Latin writings and I had to look for the translated versions. This was especially true for the Flores Historiarum by Matthew Paris. The process has been a valuable lesson in medieval history and in locating sources from that period. My ancestry descends, not from John Mathias' heir, but from his second son and namesake Matthew.


Sources:

[1] "Henry III, 1216-1272,"English Monarchs (https://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk : accessed 11 June 2016).

[2] Etienne Robo, "Pierre des Roches, Bishop of Winchester (1204-1238)", The Tablet (archive.thetable,co.uk : accessed 11 June 2016).

[3] David Carpenter, Magna Carta, (Penguin Books, 2015).

[4] The Editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Hubert de Burgh,"Encyclopaedia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/biography/Hubert-de-Burgh-English-justiciar : accessed 11 June 2016).

[5] Michael Ray, "Mathias Bezill, The Unpopular Alien?,"

[6]  "The Bessilles Family of Gloucestershire,"Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica and the British Archivist, vol. 5 (London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clark, 1923-1925) Archive (https://www.archive.org : accessed 14 June 2016).

[7] Calendar of the Fine Rolls, Henry III, 1232-1233, 17/297, Henry III Fine Rolls Project (http://frh3.org.uk/content/calendar/roll_032.html#it297_003 : accessed 12 June 2016)

[8] Eleanor M. Searle, "Women and Marriage in Medieval Society,"Science and Engineering (April 1981).

[9] N. Vincent, Peter des Roches; An alien in English Politics 1205-1238 (Cambridge, 1996), p.330.

[10]Land of the Norman's website

[11] Great Britain Public Record Office, Calendar of the Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Records, vol. I, Henry III 1226-1257, (London: MacCay and Co., 1908).

[12] "The Bessilles Family of Gloucestershire," Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica and the British Archivist, vol. 5 (London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clark, 1923-1925) Archive (https://www.archive.org : accessed 14 June 2016).

[13] Calendar of the Fine Rolls, Henry III, 1232-1233, 17/297, Henry III Fine Rolls Project (http://frh3.org.uk/content/calendar/roll_032.html#it297_003 : accessed 12 June 2016)

[14] Great Britain Public Record Office, Calendar of the Charter Rolls preserved in the Public Records, vol. I, Henry III 1226-1257, (London: MacCay and Co., 1908).

[15] Great Britain Public Record Office, Patent Rolls of the Reign of Henry III, 1232-1247, (London : Mackie and Co., 1906) Google Books (https://books.google.com : accessed 14 June 2016)

[16] Michael Ray, "Mathias Bezill, The Unpopular Alien?,"

[17] Great Britain. Public Record Office, Calendar of the Liberate Rolls Preserved In the Public Record Office, vol 3, Henry III 1245-1251, ( London: 1916) 265, Hathi Trust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000309469/Home : accessed 14 June 2016).

[18] Calendar of the Fine Rolls, Henry III, 1232-1233, 17/297, Henry III Fine Rolls Project (http://frh3.org.uk/content/calendar/roll_032.html#it297_003 : accessed 12 June 2016)

[19] Great Britain. Public Record Office, Patent Rolls of the Reign of Henry III:1258-1266, (London: Mackie and co. ld., 1910) 162, Hathi Trust (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031081048;view=1up;seq=172 : accessed 18 June 2016).

[20] Michael Ray, "Mathias Bezill, The Unpopular Alien?,"

[21] Matthew Paris, The Flowers of History, (London: H. G. Gohn, 1853) 405, Archives (https://archive.org/stream/flowershistorye01parigoog#page/n416/mode/2up : accessed 18 June 2016).

[22] Matthew Paris, The Flowers of History, (London: H. G. Gohn, 1853) 409, Archives (https://archive.org/stream/flowershistorye01parigoog#page/n416/mode/2up : accessed 18 June 2016).

[23] Antonia Gransden, Historical Writings in England c. 500 to c. 1307, (London; Routledge, 1996) 384.

[24] Calendar of the Fine Rolls, Henry III, 1232-1233, 17/297, Henry III Fine Rolls Project (http://frh3.org.uk/content/calendar/roll_032.html#it297_003 : accessed 12 June 2016)

My ancestor, Governor Thomas Dudley was born just about 430 years ago. A long time. About 430 years before the birth of Thomas our common ancestor William de Bocland was born. We are divided by about the same amount of time. I wager, Thomas Dudley did not know about William de Bocland. The internet has opened a world of genealogy to people like me who would never have access to the records and research done on our distant relatives. I have always been a lover of medieval history, my house is full of history books covering this era. Medieval genealogy is a whole nother ballgame, the rules of which I am just learning.

I should start this by saying that doing research on ancestors who lived in medieval times is hard. Information is scanty at best and many times relationships are based on what little is available and how it is interpreted. This can mean that what we think may not be what was true.  Lots of older books are readily available online but newer books with better information may not be and therefore there may be changes in ancestry that you are not aware of if you rely only on the the old books. Ancestry dot com is best avoided for most genealogy research and certainly if you are doing research past the year 1500 or so.

That being said if you think I'm wrong please let me know and provide your sources for any corrections. There's nothing worse that someone telling you you have it all wrong but not telling you why they think they are right. That being said, here is what I think I know about the de Say ancestry of Thomas Dudley.

quartered gold and gules

say what?
The farthest back this line can be somewhat reliably traced is to Jordan de Say. Jordan was married to Lucy de Remilly. William's parents were not the oft reported Geoffrey and Hawise de Clare. A Hawise de Clare did marry a Geoffrey de Say, but it was several generations later. The Jordan/Lucy lineage has been accepted by Keats-Rohan. It's not a nice tidy fit, if fact it make some assumptions with no facts to back it up, but for right now it's the best I'v got.[1]

setting the scene
William de Say was born early in the 12th century. Henry I, of England, was crowned in 1100 after the death of his brother William Rufus. The following year, Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy, attempted to invade England and claim the throne,he failed. In 1106, Henry invaded Normandy and imprisoned the Duke, his own brother, and took his title Duke of Normandy. This reestablished the Anglo-Norman kingdom. Many of the wealthy Norman lords held lands in both Normandy and in England.

Henry, unfortunately, had for his heir a daughter, Matilda. Before his death in 1135, Henry made the leading barons swear allegiance and support for his daughter.  Matilda had left England at age five to marry Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor. Hence her title of Empress. Henry died in 1125 and Matilda married Geoffrey Count of Anjou. Despite their oaths many barons defected to the side of Stephen of Blois, a grandson of William the Conqueror. What followed was many years of war for England, in a period of time known as "The Anarchy." One of the barons who played a major role in this drama was Geoffrey de Mandeville.

In 1140 King Stephen was barely hanging onto his crown. He created Geoffrey de Mandeville the Earl of Essex. Kings and queens needed the support of their barons and to bind them to their sides they offered rewards of lands and titles. In 1141 Matilda was waging war in England and entered London. Geoffrey was in control of the Tower of London. He promptly switched sides and turned control of the tower over to Matilda who reconfirmed his title as Earl of Essex. Unfortunately for her, the people of London were against her and drove her out of the city. She fled to the city of Oxford and eventually to Devizes Castle until she finally gave up and returned to Normandy. Her son would eventually be crowned King Henry II of England. [2]

Empress Matilda

While she acting as queen, Matilda issued charters for land, positions and money, presumably to bind the turn coats to her side. In her second charter to Geoffrey de Mandeville she made grants to his supporters as well as to him. One of these men was our William de Say. It is suggested that Jordan de Say held lands in both Normandy and England. In a charter written in 1142 his English lands were granted to his son William by Empress Matilda.

Concedo etiam quod Willelmus de Sai  habeat omnes terras et tenementa quae fuerunt patris sui, et ipse et haeredes sui. [3]

Matilda was only in the position to write charters for a brief time. Why would she give William de Say his father's land? Jordan de Say was still alive in 1142. The chroniclers say that William was a stout and war like man , and Matilda was in need of fighters. [4][5]  But he was also something else, he was the husband of  Beatrix de Mandeville, sister to the Earl of Essex. Did the connection to the Earl influence Matilda's grants or did she even have a choice in the matter.

beatrix
Beatrix and Geoffrey were the children of William de Mandeville and Marguerite, the daughter of Eudes de Rie. William's father, Geoffrey, had either come with William the Conqueror or came shortly there after. He was recorded in charters as early as 1070. Beatrix had previously been married to a Norman lord named Hugh Talbot. For unknown reasons, Hugh and Beatrix were divorced. It was written that Geoffrey brought his sister over from Normandy to marry de Say. [6] It is not known if Beatrix and Hugh had any children.

burwell 
In 1143 King Stephen was back in control of London, and apparently he wasn't to happy with Geoffrey de Mandeville. Geoffrey was arrested in St. Albans in October of 1143 and stripped of his Earldom and his castles at Pleshey and Walden and the Tower of London. This loss of title and lands pushed Geoffrey into open rebellion. He set himself up as a 'robber baron' in the fenlands of England. He was joined by his brother in law William de Say. They seem to have set themselves up at Ramsey Abbey from where they could control and ravage the countryside. Geoffrey's actions were so terrible that he was excommunicated by the Pope. While besieging Burwell in Cambridgeshire, he received a mortal wound and later died at Mildenhall in Suffolk. [7] Although it was written that William de Say also died during this battle, he seems to have survived for a few more years. Presumably he sought forgiveness from King Stephen.

children
William and Beatrix had two children who lived to adulthood, both sons. William the elder and of course another Geoffrey. It is estimated that their parents were married by about 1135 and their father was dead by 1155. This would make them young men when they lost their father. But, men grew up fast and died young in those days, so it was not unexpected.

william of kimbolton
William's oldest son and heir held land in Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire and in Saham in Norfolk. William's uncle, Geoffrey de Mandeville has started a Benedictine Abbey called Walden near Saffron Walden. I'm sure it was to atone for past and future sins. The de Say family continued to support the Abbey with grants of land, and William's name is found in their records. [8] William's name is also recorded in the Liber Rubeus de Scaccario or Red Book of the Exchequer. This 'book' was begun by the officers of the exchequer in the 13th century and contains various documents, deeds, charters and other related matters.[9] If William did anything of great importance in his life, it went unrecorded. There is not much more to add about him.

England had a new, stable king beginning in 1154. Henry II, the son of Empress Matilda was crowned. He was an energetic man who took his role very seriously. England's house was in order, at least for a while.

william's wife and children
The name of William's wife is unknown. She was not Aufrica, daughter of King William of Scotland. Aufrica married William son of Geoffrey de Say, nephew to this William. William had only two daughters as his heirs. The William who married Aufrica had a son, also named William, who was his heir. [10] If Our William was married to Aufrica then his daughters would not have been his heirs. Any hoo, William died at a fairly young age, by 1177, so he was about forty, give or take a few.

all that's left of Ramsey Abbey

It's interesting to note that his father and uncle had ravaged Ramsey Abbey during their revolt. In a document dated between 1150 and 1160 he agreed to grant the monks of Ramsey the rents from a property he held in Norfolk. His mother, Beatrix, assented to the grant. Was this in atonement for the sins of his father?

Beatrice de Say was the elder daughter. She married Geoffrey FitzPiers who would be created the Earl of Essex by King John in 1199. Geoffrey's parents were Peter de Ludgershall and his wife Matilda. Matilda married Hugh de Bocland as her second husband.

Matilda de Say married William de Bocland, son of Matilda and Hugh. So it seems the two sisters were married to half brothers. See this blog article on the de Boclands. The lands of their father were first divided by charter and confirmed by King Henry II. This charter and division were reconfirmed by King Richard I in 1198. Beatrice got the lions share of her father's estate. This had more to do with her husband being a mover and shaker at court rather than the fact she was the older sister. Geoffrey was justiciar of England from 1198 to 1214 and pretty much got what he wanted. [11] Matilda got one manor, that of Bruninton, the service of two tenants and the promise of land to value of about ten pounds.

back to beatrix
Beatrix, mother of the two girls, lived a long time. She is said to have lived into her eighties. She was described as a "model woman" and was a frequent visitor to Walden Abbey, which had been established by her brother, the Earl. She lived at Rickling, Essex, five miles from the abbey. She feed the poor and sick from her home. [12] When Beatrix's nephew, the 3rd Earl of Essex, died childless in 1189 she was next in line. But in 1189 she was an old woman, so she passed tried to pass the title to her son Geoffrey. He could not pay the large amount of money he had promised to obtain the land and titles. The lands went instead to Geoffrey FitzPiers, husband of her granddaughter Beatrice, and a favorite of King Henry II. Geoffrey was given title by King John I when he inherited the throne in 1199.


Sources:

[1] William Farrer and Charles Travis, Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. 7, The Honor of Skipton, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)30-35.

[2] Timothy Venning, Normans and Early Plantagenets, (Barnsey: Pen and Sword, 2014).

[3]  J. H. Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, a Study of the Anarchy, (London, 1892), p. 233, quoting Harleian Cart., 54, I, 44.

[4] John Bernard Burke, The Roll of Battle Abbey, Annoted, (London: Edward Churton, 1848) 75.

[5] Dugdale Monasticon IV, Walden Abbey, Essex, II, p. 142. (When I plugged the line into my Latin to English translator it said that William de Say had an undaunted spirit and was warlike).

[6] Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina Powlett, The Battle Abbey Roll: With Some Account of the Norman Lineages, Volume 3, (London : J. Murray, 1889) 127.

[7] John  Horace Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, A Study of the Anarchy, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1892).

[8] William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and Other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, with Their Dependencies, in England and Wales; Also of All Such Scotch, Irish, and French Monasteries as Were in Any Manner Connected with Religious Houses in England, (London, 1823).

[9] Hurbert Hall, Red Book of The Exchequer, Volume 1, (London: Her Majesties Stationary Office, 1896). 373-374.

[10] Medieval Lands

[11] John Horace Round, Ancient Charters, Royal and Private, (London: Wyman and Sons, 1888) 108.

[12] Andrew Brown, Church and Society in England, 1000-1500, (Houndsmill, Basingstoke : Palgrave MacMillan, 2003).





What to know more about life in medieval England? This is a neat book with lots of good information.

For the past few months I have dipped my toe into ancestry dating to the time of the Norman Conquest. The most important thing I've come away with is the realization of how difficult it is to do genealogy on medieval ancestors and how unreliable the information is out there on the net. A lot of what I found was completely unsourced. Avoid ancestry dot com at all costs! Wikitree is not much better. There is a pretty good website called Medieval Lands, it is part of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, but beware, experts disagree with the expert opinions found there. The rootsweb hosted GEN-Medieval message list is full of folks who know what they're talking about, but even they disagree. Theories abound, but how do you fit a theory into your tree. You can't. Putting speculative ancestors in a tree, especially if you put it on the web is a disservice to everyone who comes along and copies it. If you do include it, please put up a warning flag to let people know that the relationship is not proven. That being said, here I go diving into the de Avranches ancestry of Gov. Thomas Dudley.

simon and cecilia

King John's Tomb by Julian Guffog

Simon de Avranches is said to be the son of a William de Avranches, but no proof has been found to substantial the claim. [1]Simon is first found in the records in the year 2 Richard I (1191) when he paid 100 marks to have a trial for some land that he felt was being withheld from him by the Earl of Ghisene. This would put his age at at least 21 in the year 1191, so his birth was as late as 1170, but may have been much earlier. That same year,1191, Simon and a group of barons were involved in a power struggle between John, Count of Mortain, the future King John,  and the Bishop of Ely, William Longchamp. Longchamp was King Richard's chancellor and Richard was away on crusade. John and his cohorts, including Simon, were all excommunicated by the Bishop. [2]

In the year 6 Richard I, (1195), a scutage, a form of taxation normally used to pay for war, was raised to pay the ransom to release King Richard from captivity. Simon was recorded as paying 21 pounds and 10 shillings. Two years later, in 1197, later he paid for the second scutage for Normandy. His land in Kent was assessed for 21 knight's fees.[3] Simon continued to appear in the Testa de Nevill and the Great Pipe Roll of King John until about 1203.

Simon was married to Cecilia _____. When Simon died in about 1203, she paid the King 100 marks and two Palfreys to remain unmarried. [4][5] Simon's estates were inherited by his eldest son William. Simon's land holdings seem to have been in the county of Kent. Cecelia held land in her name as well and  was recorded in the Testa de Nevill to hold land as a gift of the King in 1219. [6] William had reached his majority prior to 13 John I, 1212, when he was recorded as paying a scutage for Wales. [7] William must have been born by 1191 or earlier.

william in trouble

Rochester Castle by chris Whippit

In 16 John I, things were looking pretty good for William. He was wealthy as evidenced by the amount of scutage he paid. He was granted the right to have a yearly fair at Folkestone as well as a weekly market. But these were troubled times. King John was struggling to keep control of his kingdom; the barons were in open revolt. The first baron's war began in 1215 after King John got the Pope to repudiate the Magna Carta which he had be forced to sign earlier in the year. The first battle in this war was the siege of Rochester Castle in Kent. William was one of the rebel barons. John's forces proved too much for the castle and the barons eventually surrendered. John had erected a gallows intending to hang all the rebels, but was persuaded to imprison them instead, err his men suffer the same fate if captured. [8] William was turned over to Peter de Mauley and sent to Corfe Castle.

Cecilia was able to get a safe conduct granted to her and helped negotiate his release. He had to give King John his daughter Maud as hostage and Cecilia had to sell the manor of Sutton to the monks at Robertsbridge.  [9]

William died in 1230. His children and lands were first given to Hubert de Burgh and then to the Bishop of Exeter for large sums of money. He controlled the land and arranged the marriages of the two children, William and Matilda. William died young but Matilda lived to marry and inherit her father's estates.

simon and joan
On 3 May 1226, the widow Joan de Ferrers pledged 100 marks to the King to be able to choose who she married. Putting up the money were, among others, William de Avranches and Cecilia de Avranches. [10] Joan chose to marry Simon de Avranches. Joan was one of three daughters and heiresses of  Hugh de Bocland and his wife Matilda de Say. Simon's brother William was married to her sister Matilda. At the same time that Joan paid for the right to marry Simon, the King took homage from her and her sister Matilda for the lands that they were inheriting from their recently deceased sister Hawise. She, Hawise, had married John de Boville but they had no children to inherit. [11]

12th century Radcot Bridge

It seems that all of Simon's lands came from his wife's inheritance. In 1229 he was fined and paid 10 marks for his scutage. His name is in the fine rolls of Henry III on several occasions involving court cases over land. [12] Simon through Joan held the manor of Radcot Grafton in Oxfordshire and Brompton Regis in Somerset. The land at Radcot and Brompton was only held at 1/4 knights fee, not much and the Grafton land was rented from the Noyon Priory in Normandy. [13] Simon was last recorded in 1242 and his wife Joan is known to have died by 1252. In her IPM, her heir was her only son John.

john and amice
Not too much can be said of John de Avaranches. His wife's name is only known as Amice. They had three daughters; Joanna, Margaret and Elizabeth. John died at the young age of about 30 in 1257. In 1259 the King, Henry III, gave to two men, William de Renham and Emery de Bezill, the wardship of John's daughters. Two years later, Emery de Bezill was granted the marriage of Amice. [14] Elizabeth Avranches married Matthew de Bezell, nephew of Emery. The land that she brought into the marriage through her inheritance stayed in the family for quite some time, eventually coming into the Fettiplace family.

sources

[1] Medieval Lands

[2] William Dugdale, The Baronage of England After The Norman Conquest, (London: Thomas Newcomb, 1675).

[3] Hubert Hall, The Red Book of the Exchequer, Vol. 1, (London : Eyre and Spottiswood, 1896) 79.

[4] Dugdale, The Baronage.

[5] The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 5th year of the reign of King John, Michaelmas, 1202-1203. (http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/05/1202/28.htm : accessed 6 July 2016). page 27
[6] Great Britain, Exchequer, Liber feodorum. The book of fees, commonly called Testa de Nevill, reformed from the earliest MSS, (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1920) 275. Archives (https:archives.org : accessed 6 July 2016).

[7] The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 13th year of the reign of King John, Michaelmas, 1210-1211 Page 242,(http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/05/1210/242.htm : accessed 6 July 2016).

[8] Paul Hillman, "Rochester Castle and the Great Siege of 1215,"Paul's Castle (http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/castles/page34.html : accessed 7 July 2016).

[9] William Farrer, Honors and Knights' Fees, Vol. 1, (London : Spottiswoode, Ballantyne, and Co., 1923) 263.

[10] Fine Rolls of Henry III

[11] Fine Rolls of Henry III

[12] Fine Rolls of Henry III

[13] IPM Joan de Ferrers

[14] Pipe Rolls of Henry III, volume 5 page 38 and 140

Mathias Bessiles was the son of Mathias and Beatrice Bezill. The surname of this family has been spelled multiple ways with and with out the 'de'. In most of the records I have looked at his name was the french Mathias not  the english Matthew. His parents married about the year 1249 and as he was not the heir, he was born at least a few years after.[1] Where was he born? His father held the manor of Sherston Magna in Wiltshire, Alfington in Devon and lands in Gloucestershire.   He was constable of Gloucester Castle and of Dover Castle. His children could have been born in any of these places or somewhere entirely different.

When it came to his land he was out of luck, his older brother was his father's heir and he got it all. Luckily Mathias' Uncle Emery Bezill was given custody of the heirs and widow of John de Avranches who died in 1258. John had only three girls age 9,6, and 3 as his heirs. Mathias married the youngest, Elizabeth.  They probably married shortly after she reached puberty and they were definitely married by July 1272. [2] Elizabeth as an heiress brought to the marriage several parcels of much needed land.

brompton regis
Brompton Regis in Somerset was held by William de Say in the late 11th century. He and his daughter Matilda founded a priory of Augustian Canons called Barlynch. William endowed the priory with the manor of Brompton Regis and this was ratified in 1220 by King Henry III.[3] From Matida de Say who married William de Bocland, the manor passed to her daughter Joan de Ferrers Avranches, next to Joan's son John. Joan and her son John continued the family tradition and offered to support the priory. [4] The support of the priory seems to have come to a stop or at least lessened when Mathias Besilles came into the land through marriage.

Brompton Regis was held of the King in chief for 1/4 knights fee in right of Elizabeth's inheritance. In 1276 Mathias claimed the manorial rights for himself despite the prior's claims that they had held the right in grant. These rights include the right to hold fairs and markets, grazing rights, the right to hunt, shoot or fish, and of course keep any income that came from these rights. In Fact in Elizabeth's IPM it claimed she had a fishery on the Hadeho River.[5] It does not seem as if the family ever lived in Brompton Regis, it was some 125 miles from the rest of their property which was centered around the Oxfordshire/Berkshire county border. The manor stayed in the family, passing to the Fettiplace family with the marriage of Elizabeth Bessels and Richard Fettiplace.

buckland

farmland in Buckland photo by Steve Daniel

Mathias and Elizabeth did not hold the manor of Buckland. The demense of Buckland was inherited by Matilda de Bocland who married William de Avranches. In turn it was inherited by their daughter Maud who married Hamo de Crevequer and passed on down through their heirs. Elizabeth de Avranches inherited an estate that was part of the manor of Buckland called West Hall. [6] This estate was held of John de Lenham, the heir of Buckland Manor for 20d. and service in his manorial court which was held every three weeks. The estate was 110 acres of land, 14 of which were meadow and the other 96 arable pasture. The estate included a messuage, (medieval dwelling house with out buildings) and a free tenement. This would be a tenant who was free as opposed to a serf who was tied to the land. The tenant paid 20 shillings yearly for rent. [7] Between 1367 and 1374 Robert de Lenham the heir to Buckland sued Thomas and Katherine Bessels over the estate of West Hall.

radcot
Radcot manor was in the parish of Langford. It was right on the Thames River and the border of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It was only a few miles from their estate of West Hall. After the Norman Conquest Radcot was given to Hugh de Bocland and it passed through his heirs to Elizabeth de Avranches. There were as many as 35 households in Radcot during the early middle ages. Radcot was a transshipment area, goods left the river Thames to travel by road or vice versa. The meaning of Radcot is believed to be reed cottage, and the area is mostly flat meadows and marshes. In 1279, of the 35 households, 31 were unfree, or held by serfs. Radcot was hit hard by the black death in 1349 and the population plummeted.

13th Century Radcot Bridge photo by Philip Halling

Mathias Bessiles established a weekly market on Fridays and was granted the right to hold a yearly fair on the 13-15 of September. Mathias also owned a watermill. Their were also fisheries, the Fettiplace family owned a 1/2 mile stretch of the river from their Radcote Bridge Farm. The manor was occupied by either the family or their lesse until the 15th century. A three story manor house was eventually built in 1318 by Geoffrey de Bessiles. Radcot held a manorial court every three weeks and Matthew de Besyles claimed the privilege of infangthief and outfangthief, the right to execute thieves caught red-handed. [8]

heirs
In 1295 Mathias leased Radcot to John Wogan for the duration of his lifetime.[9] The manor reverted to the Bessiles after Wogan's death. Mathia himself died in late 1295. Elizabeth survived him. It was noted in his IPM that she was the heir of his estate and that she was aged about 40. In 1315 Elizabeth died leaving her estates to her son Geoffrey.[10] If she and Mathias had other children they remain nameless. Mathias was about 40 years old when he died and Elizabeth about 60, old for a medieval woman. The estates she inherited had been handed down from father to daughter almost exclusively. The land would now remain in the Bessels family for a few centuries before another daughter inherited changing the owners name to Fettiplace.

Sources:

[1] Michael Ray, "Mathias Bezill, The Unpopular Alien?,"

[2] Public Record Office, Calendar of the Charter Rolls, Henry III - Edward I, 1257-1300, (London : Mackie and Co., 1906) 183.

[3]"Houses of Augustinian canons: The priory of Barlynch," A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 2, ed. William Page (London: Victoria County History, 1911), 132-134. British History Online, accessed May 18, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol2/pp132-134.

[4] William Dugdale, Monasticon, Vol. 6, p. 384-387.

[5] "Houses of Augustinian canons: The priory of Barlynch,"A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 2, ed. William Page (London: Victoria County History, 1911), 132-134. British History Online, accessed May 18, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol2/pp132-134.

[6] "Parishes: Buckland," A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4, ed. William Page and P H Ditchfield (London: Victoria County History, 1924), 453-460. British History Online, accessed July 1, 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp453-460.

[7]  "The Bessilles Family of Gloucestershire,"Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica and the British Archivist, vol. 5 (London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clark, 1923-1925) Archive (https://www.archive.org : accessed 14 June 2016).

[8] "Parishes: Buckland."

[9] Patent Rolls, 1292-1301.

[10] IPM Edward II, File 36/8. (IPM for Elizabeth de Bessiles, 1315)

Geoffrey de Besiles was a second generation 'Englishman' whose grandfather, Macey Bezill, was one of numerous Anglo-Norman knights who curried the favor of the English king, looking for positions, land and power. Geoffrey's father was not the heir, but had married an heiress thereby acquiring her estate for their descendants. He, Geoffrey, was a minor when his father Mathias de Besilles died in 1295. He was born probably about 1285 based on testimony given at his mother's IPM. His mother was Elizabeth d' Avranches; her father, John, had died when she was only three. Her inheritance and her marriage were awarded to Emery Bezill, his father's uncle. Elizabeth and Mathias have only one documented child, Geoffrey. In 1315 Geoffrey's mother Elizabeth died, leaving her estates to him. He was said to be somewhere between 24 and 30 years of age at the time of her death.

Search the internet for William Smith Bryan and you will find a plethora of information about him. He is said to be the progenitor of many a Bryan/Bryant in America. He has also be the subject of many biographies, beginning in the late 19th century up until very recent times. Over the years his story has evolved, becoming more and more fanciful as the years go by. Here is a breakdown of his evolving story.

1832
In 1832 Samuel Bryan of Marion County Indiana applied for a Revolutionary War pension. He had relocated from North Carolina to Indiana late in life. His wife applied for a widow's pension after his death. Included in their pension application was a document supplied by their son Luke which contained the following:

[Luke Bryan submitted the following with his mother’s application for a pension, and he deposed that it was written by his father, Samuel Bryan.]
My great grandfather Bryan was a Dane born in Denmark & rais’d in that Kingdom where he married a wife & lived untill he had a sone born whome he called Morgan after which he remov’d to Ireland where he lived untill said Morgan came to manhood who left his father in Ireland & came to Pensylvania in Amerricia where he Married a woman by the name of Martha Strode the daughter of a man by the name of Strode a Hollander who had moved to France where he resided with his wife untill he had three children, he & his wife being protestants, in time of a great persecution fled for their lives, bound for Pensylvania in Amerricia but himself & wife sickened on the seas & died before they arrived to the end of their voige....

Samuel's great grandfather was not named in the application. Nor was the name of his grandfather or father. This would change and by the time this genealogy was found in print Samuel's ancestors had aquired some names.

1876
William Smith Bryan is an interesting character. He is first written about in a book published in 1876 called The Pioneer Families of Missouri, written by William Smith Bryan, his descendant. [1] Mr. Bryan wrote that his ancestor landed in Virginia by way of Ireland in 1615, saying he "arouse the hostility of the British Government by a too ardent Irish patriotism and was deported as a rebellious subject." He also claims that William Smith Bryan was the only living lineal descendant of Brian Boru, a high king of Ireland from the 10th century. Mr. Bryan goes on to say that William Smith Bryan had eleven children but the name of only one was known; Francis, who returned to Ireland to reclaim the family lands.

This Francis was unsuccessful in his attempt to regain the old family land and for whatever reason is said to have fled to Denmark. In Denmark two sons were born; Morgan and William. Morgan inexplicably became the Standard Bearer for William of Orange and was present at the battle of the Boyne in 1690. He then left Europe and immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1695, where he married Martha Stroud. [2]

On page 132 of the Pioneers of Missouri, a second William Bryan is introduced. He is said to have come from Wales with Lord Baltimore in 1650 and settled in Maryland. His wife was Irish and they had three children; William, Morgan and Daniel. A descendant of this William, another William, settled in Roan County, NC and married a woman named Sally Bringer. The had eleven children, one of whom, a daughter named Rebecca, married Daniel Boone. [3]

1915
By 1915 the story had changed quite a bit. In the book The Shearer and Akers Family, by J. W. Shearer, William Smith ? Bryan, his question mark, was a descendant of Sir Francis Bryan. No wife is identified. William Smith Bryan is said to be a landowner in Ireland, probably County Clare. In 1650 he and his family were deported by Cromwell for being a rebellious subject. Accompanying him were eleven sons, but only two are given in this book, Morgan and Francis. [4] This newer version sets the action forward by 35 years into the Cromwell era.

Again, Francis is said to have returned to Ireland to reclaim the family land but was persecuted by the English and fled to Denmark. Morgan is identified only as a possible son and is said to have been in Norfolk, Virginia in 1663. His son Morgan married a woman named Martha Stroud and ended up in Davie County, North Carolina. [5]

1917
In a 1917 publication William is described as an Irish land owner with eleven children who was deported by Cromwell's forces in 1650 for being a rebellious subject. Francis returned to Ireland in 1677 and fled for Denmark where his sons William and Morgan were born. William married a Margaret and they lived in Ballyrooney, County Down, Ireland. William and Margaret and their son John left Ireland after John was arrested for poaching. [6]

1922
In 1922  a book called Notable Southern Families was published. [7] William Smith Bryan is also discussed in this book, in which he is said to be the son of Sir Francis Bryan. He was deported in 1650 for being an undesirable citizen. He arrived in Virginia in 1615 with his family and a boatload of household goods. This book makes the amazing claim that William Smith Bryan was the ancestor of the O'Briens who were the Lords of Inchquin. The book repeats the story of Francis' return to England and the troubles that led him to Denmark, his marriage to Sarah Brinker. This version of the story says that Francis eventually returned to live in Ireland. It also supposes that Morgan Bryan was a son of William Smith Bryan.  Morgan, this time, left Ireland for Pennsylvania. [8]

Another book published in 1922 was a history of the Boone Family. This book gives two versions of the story of Morgan Bryan. In the first, Morgan grew to manhood in Ireland and then left for America, settling in Pennsylvania where he married Martha Stroud. [9] The second version is the William Smith deported version but has Francis returning for his land in 1650. Again Francis goes to Denmark where son Morgan is born. Morgan of the battle of the Boyne comes to Pennsylvania in 1695. Francis died in Belfast in 1694. The author says that he does not know which if either were the correct story.

1962
A 1962 article in the Virginia Magazine perpetuates the story of Francis Bryan returning to Ireland to reclaim the family estates. His son Morgan, then living in poverty, sailed, possible under indenture to Pennsylvania. [10]

1965
In 1965, in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Volume 53, it is Francis that is the standard bearer for William of Orange in 1690.

2011
Skip forward a few decades to the age of the internet. In 2011 this was posted on a ancestry.com message board:

Sir William Smith BRYAN, 8th Great-Grandfather. PMC" Prince William of Ireland", Deported in 1650, to Gloucester Beach, Virginia as a "Rebellious Subject." Marriage 1: Countess Of Ormond Catherine MORGAN, b: 1594 in , Claire, Ireland.
Married: 1620, in , Claire, Ireland.

 Note: In 1650, William Smith Bryan, the Grandson of Sir Francis Bryan, declared himself Heir-to-the-Throne Of Ireland, and fought against Cromwell, from the back of a White horse. Defeated by sheer numbers of the Puritan army, Bryan was deported to the Colony of Virginia in America, together with "twenty-one sons and grandsons." Declares himself Heir to the Throne of Ireland. 

So in about 150 years William Smith Bryan has gone from a Danish man to 1615 Irish rebel to a full on pretender to the throne, a knight no less, seated on a white horse, battling the forces of evil Cromwell. He is now married to the Countess of Ormand! And, he has accrued 21 sons, but still only two that can be identified.

William Smith O'Brien
So where did this William Smith Bryan stuff come from and is any of it real, or is William a mythical fantasy ancestor. My vote is that he is an imaginary character. I believe that he is based on a real life man named William Smith O'Brien. William was the younger son of Sir Edward O'Brien and his wife Charlotte Smith, daughter of William Smith. Sir Edward was also Baron Inchquin. William Smith, despite being a member of the upper class and a protestant took the side of the poor roman catholic Irish population. He encouraged the use of the Irish language and sought relief during the famine. In 1848 he was charged with sedition as the result of a ill executed 'rebellion.' Sentenced to death, the country took up a petition to spare his life. He was deported to an island off of Tasmania in exile. Eventually he was release, spent some time in Brussels before returning to Ireland.

Doesn't that sound familiar? A son of a Lord, Irish rebel, deported, spent time in a European country before he eventually returning home to Ireland. William Smith Bryan and William Smith O'Brien. I believe that the life of O'Brien was transferred to a unknown ancestor by a Bryan biographer in the past. This fable has been added to over the years, resulting our knight in shining armour, riding a white horse.

Sources:

[1] William Smith Bryan, Pioneer Families of Missouri, (St. Louis, MO : Bryan Brand & Co., 1876) viii; digital images, Archive (https://archive.org/stream/historyofpioneer00bryauoft#page/viii/mode/2up : accessed 2 September 2016).

[2] Bryan, Pioneer Families, viv.

[3] Bryan, Pioneer Families, 132.

[4] J. W. Shearer, The Shearer Akers Family, (Sommerville, N.J : Press of the Somerset Register, 1915) 11; digital images, Archive (https://archive.org/details/shearerakersfami00shea : accessed 2 September 2016).

[5] J. W. Shearer, The Shearer Akers Family, 11.

[6] George Norbury Mackenzie, Colonial Families of the United States, (Grafton Press, 1917) digital images, Google Books.

[7] Zella Armstrong, Notable Southern Families, (Chattanooga, Tennessee; The Lookout Publishing Co., 1922) 33, digital images, Google Books, (https://www.books.google.com : accessed 2 September 2016).

[8] Zella Armstrong, Notable Southern Families, 33.

[9] Jesse Procter Crump, The Boone family: a genealogical history of the descendants of George and Mary Boone, who came to America in 1717 : containing many unpublished bits of early Kentucky history : also a biographical sketch of Daniel Boone, the pioneer, by one of his descendants
(Buffalo, New York: Tuttle Co., 1922) 505-506, digital images, Google Books, (https://www.books.google.com).

[10] Charles W. Bryan, "Morgan Bryan; Pioneer of the Opequon and Yadkin," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 70. no. 2 (April 1962) 154-164, digital images, JSTOR ( http://www.jstor.org/stable/4246837 : accessed 2 September 2016).

Most people are familiar with the Salem Witches of 1692. Many books and articles have been written about them. Plays and movies have made about these unfortunate souls and whole websites devoted to their stories. But there were many other early New Englanders who suffered the same fate. This is a brief story of Hugh and Mary Parsons of Springfield who were accused of Witchcraft in 1650.

Hugh Parsons
Hugh was most likely born in England and arrived in Springfield by 1645. His ancestry in unknown. He was a brick maker by trade and on 20 October 1645 he agreed to make bricks for a chimney for William Pynchon, founder and leading citizen of Springfield.[1] He also felled trees and sawed lumber. Hugh was given a land grant and in 1647 he was recorded as having 37 and 1/2 acres. His was, at that time, one of the last lots in the small outpost of Springfield. The lots stretched along the Connecticut River. Immediately behind their house lots each man was assigned a woodlot and directly across the river they had a planting lot. His planting lot was just north of the confluence of the then Agawam, now Westfield, River and the Connecticut River. His neigbor to the south was John Lombard and Jonathan Burt lived on the north side of him. three lots to the north was Reice Bedortha who married Blanche Lewis, believed to be the sister of his wife's first husband.[2] Nothing remains today of those long ago homes.

Mary Lewis
October was  busy month for Hugh. On the 20th he signed a contract with the town leader and on the 27th he formed a contract of a different sort, one he would surely regret a few years later. On that day he married Mary ____Lewis. Mary was originally from Wales. [3] Her husband has run off, abandoning her. William Pynchon called him a 'Papist' and said that they had been separated for some seven years. What she did prior to her marriage to Hugh is unknown. She possibly worked as a servant for a Springfield family.

Children
Hugh and Mary are known to have had three children. It does not seem as if she had any with her first husband.
Hannah b. 7 August 1646, nothing more known
Samuel b. 8 June 1648, b. end of September 1649
Joshua b. 26 October 1650 d. 4 March 1651

name calling 
On 29 May 1649 the Widow Marshfield brought Mary Parsons to court and charged her with slander. Mary had made a serious accusation against the widow and had called her a witch. John Matthews and his wife were called to testify. He said that Mary had told him that the Widow Marshfield was a witch. She had started coyly by saying she was taught to know a witch by a widow now living in Springfield who had lived in Windsor, that this woman had three children, one of whom was married. I'm sure it was not hard for John and his wife to guess who she was talking about, but she admitted that it was the Widow Marshfield.

Mary was found guilty of slander and sentenced to 20 lashes or a payment of 3 pounds to the widow. Hugh paid the fine in Indian corn.

Hugh is not nice
It seems that Hugh was not a very nice man, or was he a caring husband, at least that is what can be gleaned from the public records of the time. He argued with his neighbors, he failed to hold up his side of business dealsing, usually having to do with bricks. When angered he insulted and used verbal threats against the offender. His neighbors were it seemed fed up with him.

the accusations are reversed
In 1651 Mary was accused of being a witch and she in turn accused her own husband. No less that 35 neighbors turned out to testify against him. Today the supposed acts of witchcraft for which he was accused seem pretty silly. From exploding sausages to missing knives and trowels to men falling off their horses, the actions for which he stood trial are laughable today, but were deadly serious in 1651. During the trial their third child died and Mary claimed that she had killed it. When the magistrate, William Pynchon had gatherer all the testimony, Mary and Hugh were taken to Boston to await trail by the General Court.

Mary's case was heard right away. She was indicted and charged with witchcraft and murder of her child for which she was found guilty. She was sentenced to died by hanging. She was given a reprieve on the 29th of May. Nothing more is known about her fate. It is presumed that she died in prison as her execution was never recorded.

Hugh's trial did not occur for another year. On 12 May 1652 Hugh was found guilty of witchcraft by the court of Assistants, but two weeks later the verdict was rescinded by the General Court. John Pynchon sold his lands in Springfield and forwarded him the proceeds.  What he did after the trial is also unknown as is the fate of their daughter Hannah.

Where did he go?
Hugh was still in Boston in May 1654. He was not the Hugh Parsons who lived in Watertown. That Parsons was granted land there in 1649 too soon to be the Hugh of Springfield. There was also a Hugh Parsons who lived in Rhode Island. He had a daughter Hannah, like the Springfield Parsons but he also had a daughter named Grace who seems was born about 1637, too early to be his daughter. [5] The Rhode Island Hugh married and seemed to have some responsibility in community where he lived. I would think that Hugh Parsons of Springfield, would be something of a pariah, not to mention that he was not a very nice fellow.





Sources: 

[1] Gerald James Parsons, "The Early Parsons Families of the Connecticut Valley,"The New England Historic and Genealogical Register, Vol. 149 (January 1995) 69-70, digital images, American Ancestors (https://www.americanancestors.org : accessed 5 September 2016).

[2] Henry M. Burt, The First Century of the History of Springfield, Vol. 2 (Springfield, Mass: H. M. Burt, 1899), digital images, Internet Archive ( https://archive.org/stream/firstcenturyofhi021899spri#page/670/mode/2up : accessed 5 September 2016).

[3] Parsons, "The Early Parsons," 69.

[4] Parsons, "The Early Parsons," 69

[5] Parsons, "The Early Parsons, " 69.

Many people believe that John Partridge who immigrated from England and lived in Medfield, Massachusetts was the son of John and Jane (Hogg) Partridge of Navestock, Essex, England. This is not correct. The origins of John of Medfield and his siblings is unknown.

The idea that these were the same men comes from the Visitation of Essex which had the family tree of Bartholomew Partridge and includes his son John who married Jane Hogg. [1] The visitation shows that Captain John Partridge had four children: John (age 14 in 1634), William, Jane and Margaret.

There is a marriage recorded in the parish of St. Gregory by St. Paul in London. [2] Jane Hogg and John Partridge were married on 11 May 1619. This is quite likely the marriage of John. In the visitation John and Jane Partridge are said to have four living children: John, William, Jane and Margaret. In the Navestock parish register there are baptismal records that would correspond to Jane and William. [3] There is also a burial record for William Partridge son of John on 12 September 1636.

On 1 Oct 1652 John Partridge of Navestock wrote his will. He made his son John and his wife Jane his executors. He left bequeaths to his daughter Margaret, married to Unknown Hudson and to the children of his daughter Jane, who had married John Lake, it would seem that she was dead. The will was probated in 1663 by his wife Jane. [4]

Jane wrote her will in 1666. She named her Lake grandchildren, Thomas and Jane, her Hudson (Hutchin) grandson Robert. He daughter Margaret Hudson, her daughter Ann Partridge (wife of her son John) and her Partridge grandson John. [5] The bulk of the estate went to Ann Partridge, as her grandson John was still under the age of 21.

In the church of St. Thomas the Apostle in Navestock, Essex is a memorial stone for several men named John Partridge. The stone reads: John Partridge, Gentleman died 24 March 1653 age 34. John Partridge the son died 18 December 1671 age 23. These are the son and grandson of Jane Hogg Partridge. Another stone is for John Partridge Gentleman heir to John Partridge Citizen and Cutler of London who died 25 October 1683. These are the son and grandson of Gabriel Partridge who was the brother of John Partridge of Navestock.

Clearly the children of John and Jane Hogg Partridge are not the Partridge siblings who settled in Medfield Massachusetts.

Sources:

[1] Walter Charles Metcalf, The Visitations of Essex by Hawley, 1552; Hervey, 1558; Cooke, 1570; Raven, 1612; and Owen and Lilly, 1634. To which are Added Miscellaneous Essex Pedigrees from Various Harleian Manuscripts: And an Appendix Containing Berry's Essex Pedigrees, Part 1, (London: Mitchell and Hughes, 1878) 465, digital images, Google Books (https://www.books.google.com : accessed 14 September 2016).

[2] "England Marriages, 1538–1973 ," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NKG1-8NG : 10 December 2014), John Partridge and Jane Hogge, 11 May 1619; citing Saint Gregory By Saint Paul, London,England, reference ; FHL microfilm 375,028.

[3] Navestock Parish Register, St. Thomas the Apostle, database, FreeReg2 (http://freereg2.freereg.org.uk/search_records/55106e51e9379072060e9aa1?search_id=57db262d791e3b017d03b40e : accessed 15 September 2016) Jane Partrech baptized 24 Oct 1622, daughter of John Partrech.

[4]"London, England, Wills and Probate, 1507-1858," digital images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 16 September 2016) John Partridge, Essex, 1663, citing London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section, Clerkenwell, London, England; Reference Number: DCP/K/C/06/MS 25628/3; Will Number: 14.

[5] "London, England, Wills and Probate, 1507-1858," digital images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed 16 September 2016) Jane Partridge, Essex, 1666, citing London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section, Clerkenwell, London, England; Reference Number: DCP/K/C/06/MS 25628/7; Will Number: 19.

If the Thornton Project at FamilyTreeDNA is an accurate  reflection of the Thornton men who immigrated to North America then there are two large groups of  related descendants. The largest by far are the Virginia descendants of William and Luke Thornton. The next largest group seems to be the Thorntons of Rhode Island. Many of the other Thorntons have no match; my father's YDNA has one match.

My father was a descendant of the Thorntons who immigrated from the North of Ireland to New England in about 1720. They first established themselves in Maine, but were forced out by the Native Americans. They moved on to Worcester, Mass before settling in New Hampshire. His ancestors were James Thornton and his son William who died in Thornton, NH in 1790. The YDNA match was from a man who descended from Samuel Thornton who died in 1797 in Abbeville, South Carolina. So who was Samuel Thornton of Abbeville?

the simonton family of conestoga manor
Theophilus Simonton, believed to have immigrated from Ireland, purchased land in what was called the Conestoga Manor in Lancaster County, PA. Sometime around 1754 brothers William and Robert Simonton, sons of Theophilus, bought land in what was then Anson County, North Carolina. [1] Samuel Thornton purchased his land grant on 7 May 1757. He was married to Theophilus' daughter Mary Simonton. There is no record of their marriage so we cannot be sure where this marriage took place, in Pennsylvania or in North Carolina.



The map above shows the location of the Samuel Thornton land. It's interesting to note that his closest neighbors were Wassons. The Thornton family of Londonderry had close family ties with a Wasson family as well.


who was samuel?
Some folks claim that Samuel was the brother of Matthew Thornton who signed the Declaration of Independence. Another thought is that he was the son of Robert Thornton of West Bradford, Chester, PA. Robert did have a son named Samuel. He also had a daughter Hannah Thornton Freeman who is said have immigrated with her husband John to Cane Creek, North Carolina. Thornton/Freeman families were Quakers and they belonged to the first Quaker church in North Carolina. I do not think that Samuel of Abbeville is the Samuel son of Robert in this family for two reasons. First Samuel Thornton of Abbeville was a Presbyterian and was one of the founders of the Forth Creek Church in Anson/Rowan/Irdell County North Carolina. The other problem is that Samuel Thornton was still on the tax rolls for West Bradford, Chester, PA in 1789.

was samuel the brother of matthew?
If Samuel was the brother of both Matthew Thornton and my ancestor William Thornton, then the common ancestor between my father and the matching YDNA kit would have to be their father James Thornton. James would be my father's fourth great grandfather. Below is the chart showing the probability of our common ancestor.



I am only a novice when it comes to deciphering DNA results, but to me it seems that our common ancestor is more likely further up the chain. What we need is more Thornton descendants to take a DNA test to solidify the results. With only two tests it's simply not possible to tell. So, that being said, Hey all you Thornton males, get tested!


related story: The Mysterious Samuel Thornton



Sources:
[1] North Carolina, Land Grant Files, 1693-1960, database with images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 September 2016), Anson County, Robert Simonton, 20 February 1754.

Most Americans, especially those whose immigrant ancestors passed though New York City, are familiar with Ellis Island and the part it played in processing the new arrivals, especially those who were possibly ill with a contagious disease. But, long before Ellis Island there were many such places. I was surprised to see that one of my ancestors died on a Island in the Boston Harbor called Rainsford Island. Her named was Cynthia Thornton Brown. She was born in 1812 in Thornton, New Hampshire. Cynthia married a local man, Obadiah Brown, and the eventually settled in Boston. In May of 1856 she contracted the deadly disease of small pox. Cynthia was transported to the Island, located in the Boston Harbor to live or die. She died.


Rainsford
Rainsford, as I said, is very small, only about eleven acres and has an elevation of 49 feet. It had been used by the Native Americans prior to the arrival of English colonist. In 1632 it was given to Edward Rainsford who used it to raise cattle, safe from hungry wolves and poachers. In 1737 the town of Boston to use a place of quarantine. Ships coming into the Boston harbor who drop off any sick sailor or passenger, complete with their bedding and clothes. If you lived you left, if you died, you were buried in an unmarked grave.

The Island was used for various additional purposes in the ensuing years. Boston sent it's  desperately poor there to live in almshouses. A boy's school was established, called the Suffolk School for Boys, it remained open until the 1920s. When there was no contagion on the island, the caretakers could rent out holiday houses to Bostonians.

Today there are no remaining buildings on the Island which is reachable only by private boat. It is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area.

The Lazaretto
Many of the colonial east coast cities had their own quarantine island. While Philadelphia did not have a quarantine Island, it did have a large facility, called the Lazaretto located just outside the harbor area. The word Lazaretto is Italian and is defined as a maritime quarantine station. The building, erected in 1799, still stands and is near the airport. This 217 year old building is the oldest surviving quarantine hospital in the United States. It was built shortly after the terrible yellow fever epidemic of 1793 during which about 5,000 people died.

The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.


New York Island
New York City had multiple quarantine Islands. North Brother Island is in the East River between Rikers Island and the Bronx. Beginning in the 1880's it was the site of Riverside Hospital, the ruins of which still stand on the abandoned Island. This was the eventually home of the cook, Mary Mallon, famously known as Typhoid Mary.  She infected 51 people before being quarantined, for the rest of her life.

The federal government built several man made island in the lower New York Bay for the purposes of quarantine. Swineburne and Hoffman Islands housed victims of cholera epidemics, the last of which was in 1910-1911.  New York also had quarantine ships to house infected people.

North Brother Island is a bird sanctuary, owned by the City of New York. Swineburne and Hoffman are managed by the National Park Service and is off limits to the public.

Maine Islands
There are multiple islands off the coast of Maine that were once used for quarantine. Widows Island, a 15 acres land mass off the shore of North Haven was used to house yellow fever victims. Wood Island was used by the U.S. Navy for the same reason. Hospital Island in the Passamaquoddy Bay is a tiny three acre island that was used in 1832 to isolate ship passengers with cholera.

Thankfully, the days of rampant infectious disease are behind us. I can only imagine the pain and suffering felt by these people. What was Obidiah thinking when his wife Cynthia Thornton Brown was taken to Rainsford Island? He would never see her again. Did someone come by and tell him she had died?

King's Lynn COA from Wikipedia

This post is about my ancestor Henry Kinne (Kenny, Kinny, Keny, and any other variant of the name) and his wife Ann of Salem, Massachusetts. Multiple books have been written about Henry, his ancestors and his descendants which you would think would make this an easy bio to write. However, these books are full of undocumented claims which under scrutiny do not hold up. Unfortunately not everyone is willing to do the leg work needed to get the facts and instead copy and paste information from ancestry and other internet genealogy sites including, sadly, my favorite Wikitree. Luckily one researcher, Georgia Kinney Bopp, has done her research and has put up a great website about Henry. I'll post a link at the bottom. For sanity's sake I am going to use the surname spelling of Kinne for this article, but there is no clear consensus of how to spell his surname.

fictitious claims?
According to multiple publications and most internet genealogy site the standard 'facts' about Henry Kinne are as follows:

1. Henry was born on 8 July 1623 in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England
2. Henry was baptized on 3 May 1624 in Leiden, Holland (Netherlands) where he parents had fled to avoid persecution.
3. His father/Grandfather was Sir Thomas Kinne who was created a baronet in 1618
4. Henry arrived in Massachusetts in 1635, sailing on the "Elizabeth and Ann"
5. Henry married Ann Putnam/ Ann Howard

The first four of these claims are outright fabrications; the fifth, whether true or not, cannot be proven. What, then, are the source(s) of these claims and how were they backed up?

fiction writers
In the mid to late 1800's Americans, with our wars with England behind us and firmly settled in their identity, began looking back to England fondly. They began wanting to make a connection with their forefathers homeland and began to look for their ancestral origins. New England ancestry is centered in the British Isles. In the 1800's up to the mid 1900's the only way to travel to England was by boat; it was expensive and once you got there how would you know where to start your research? Many Americans employed  researchers to find their ancestors for them. Rich Americans did not want to find that their ancestor was a serf on a farm, they wanted to be related to someone of significance, a gentleman or a knight at the very least. And some Americans got what they wanted whether it was actually true or not because the researcher created a fake ancestry for them. This would have been okay except, once in possession of the fake information they began to publish it in books and journals. Genealogy Standards did not exist very early on and many of these writers did not include sources for their information and if they had employed a researcher they may not had be given the source information.

emerson kinne 1881
We do not know who introduced the false information but it seems some of  it was first published by Emerson Kinne in 1881. Emerson's version of Kinne is as follows: born in 1624 in Norfolk, son of Sir Thomas Kinne who was knighted for some 'signal service' to the government. The family left England for Holland. Henry arrived in Massachusetts when he was 30 years old and settled on a farm in Salem in 1653. No mention of wife and the author states that Henry, a prosperous farmer died in 1712. [1] Where did he come  by the name Sir Thomas Kinne? Did he make it up or was it given to him by a researcher? We will never know, but the fact remains that there was no such person as Sir Thomas Kinne. This man simply did not exist. He did not live in King's Lynn, he was not knighted, he did not have a son who was born in 1624 and he did not leave England for Leiden. But he is the snowball that started the avalanche of false information about Henry Kinne's origins.

raymon myers tingley 1935
Raymon Tingley adds a bit more to the Henry story in his 1935 book on his family. He states the following about Henry: Henry was born 3 May 1624 and died 6 June 1712 in Salem. Apprenticed to Vincent Potter 1639, married 3 May 1650, Ann, daughter of Thomas and Susanna Howard and Ann Unknown widow of James Lane after 1688. Tingley steers clear of the Sir Thomas Kinne story. Notice how he says Henry was born and married on 3 May. [2]

florance kenney robertson 1947
In 1947 Florance Kenney Robertson published her book on the ancestry of Henry and Ann Kinne. Her version of the Kinne ancestry had evolved greatly and is as follows: Henry was the son of John Keney and Sarah Cheever and was the grandson of Sir Thomas Kinne, Baronet, of King's Lynn. Born 8 July 1623, he was baptized in Leiden on 3 May 1624. [3]  Robertson introduces two very specific dates, one for his birth and one for his baptism. No explanation for the delay in baptism is given.  Most children born in this time of high infant mortality were baptized fairly soon after birth. Florance has also changed his father from Sir Thomas to Sir Thomas' son John. The false information has begun to evolve and Henry is given what appears to be a solid birth and baptismal date. Where did this information come from? Why did Emerson Kinne not know his birth or baptismal date? Why can no record of these events be found? These dates are clearly fabricated. Florance also seemed to be in possession of some document which confirmed a different name of Henry's wife. She said that he married Ann Putnam on 10 December 1649. More about that later.

In the preface of her book, Florance says that one of her future publications will be the ancestry of certain pioneers back to Adam (as in Adam and Eve). Thank the gods of genealogy that she never wrote it! What a mess that would be.

leiden
Henry was not baptized in Leiden. His Puritan parents did not flee to Leiden to escape religious persecution. In 1607 a group of religious separatists, who would later become the Pilgrims, fled the small English village of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire for Amsterdam. A year later the settled in Leiden where they took up their lives, learning new trades, but continuing in their 'separate' religious beliefs. They eventually became dissatisfied with Leiden and their failure to convert their Dutch protestant neighbors to their particular beliefs. We all know what happened in 1620, they left.[4] For more information read Nick Bunker's  Making Haste from Babylon a great book on the separatist who became the Pilgrim Fathers.

hazel otis crane 1955
How Hazel got away with her book I'll never know. This woman copied Florance Robertson's book, word for word, when she wrote her bio of Henry Kinne. I mean word for word, she totally plagiarized Robertson. Just like Florance she included Pope's reference to Henry Kenninge in his book Pioneers of Massachusetts. Pope said Henry Kenninge was apprenticed to William Parks of Roxbury by Vincent Potter on 21 (4) 1639. Pope does not say much about Potter, only noting that he was a Gentleman and that he came on the "Elizabeth and Ann" in 1635. Florance Robertson made a huge leap and assumed without a shred of proof that Vincent Potter was related to Henry and somehow zipped over to Holland to pick him up on his way to Massachusetts. [5] Potter was born in 1614 in Warwickshire to unknown parents, he was a merchant, soldier and regicide who returned to England in 1639, hence the reassignment of his four apprentices. There is no reason to believe that he was in any way related to any of the apprentices he left behind in England. See this interesting bio of Potter.

mabel gould demers hinckley, whew! 1968
In previous books on Henry, not much mention is made of his purported parents, John and Sarah Cheever Keney. Who were they and where did they come from? Who knows?  Mabel knows. According to Mabel Gould Demers Hinckley, John and Sarah Cheever were married in England. She says John was an Innkeeper in Boston and died in 1670. Sarah, she said, died in 1674. [6] No record can be found that confirms these people existed.

There was however, a John Kenney/Keeney who in 1657 married a Sarah Farr in Salem. Salem was also home to Henry Kinne. This John died in 1670, other than making a few bequeaths, he named no children of his own in his will, leaving the bulk to Sarah. Sarah remarried to John Holmes in 1672. [7] Some people claim that these were Henry's parents but, John Kenney did not name Henry in his will and Sarah remarried and had children with  her second husband. [8] Clearly a woman who is child bearing in 1672 cannot be the mother of a man born in 1623, not to mention the fact that she and John were not married until 1657.

There is no reason to believe that Henry's parents immigrated to New England or that their names were John and Sarah Cheever Kinne.

coat of arms

From F. K. Robertson's book

In her book, Florance Robertson included a picture which she claims was of the Kinne coat of arms. She says that it was the original Kinne arms and that on the bottom of the drawing the following was written: By the name of Kinne, granted and confirmed, 4 October 1618, to Sir Thomas Kinne of Norfolk and his descendants of the name.[9] How can a man who didn't exist have a coat of arms. He couldn't of course, the coat of arms is not his.

A rootsweb group took a long hard look at Henry Kinne in the early 2000's. An Englishman named Laurence Kinney tackled the question of the coat of arms. He says that he visited with Windsor Herald William G. Hunt at the College of Arms in the City of London. They searched the College's extensive records and could find no one with any variant of the name Kinne who had been knighted or had received a Baronet. [10] One of the indexes they searched was the "Britain, Knights Of The Realm & Commonwealth Index" which is currently searchable on Findmypast. No Thomas Kinne.

There is an undated entry for the name Kinne in the General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. But there is no forename. The entry says only: Kinne Gu a chev. ar. That's it.

john kynne
John Kynne was a real man, who lived in King's Lynn during the 1500's. He was a shipowner and merchant who served as alderman, mayor and member of parliament for King's Lynn. See this bio of him on History of Parliament online. This John had only one son who was a minor in 1573, the year of his death. Nothing further is known about this family. He did not have a son named Thomas. There is no information on his son John and whether he married and had children is not known, but he did not have a son named Thomas who was made a Baronet in 1618 or any other year.

edward randolph kinney
Edward Kinney was a family researcher, living in Denver in the 1930's-1940's. While he never published a book, he wrote many letters to his family about his ancestry and Henry Kinne. One of his letters was transcribed and can be found in the Kinney-L archives. I cannot speak to his integrity but I can say that his letter is full of garbage.

His writings include a lurid description of life in England for the adherents of the more puritan strain of Protestantism. He says, "those who dared to differ were persecuted to the limit" and  "confiscation of property and breaking up of families was the order of the day." This is blatantly untrue. He also paints a bleak future for those traveling to the new world. He says of the indentured servant, "they were to be auctioned off to the highest bidder," and then, "they were slaves to those who bid on them. Seldom if ever did they work out their passage money in 21 years." He said that indenture servants who ran away from their masters were penalized by death. Again, not true. Now it was probably not a easy life and as always there are those who are cruel and unfair, but to categorically paint all those who employed indentured servants as diabolical master is ridiculous.

Kinney then goes on to say that apprenticeship was another form of slavery. He says, " apprentices...were indentured for a period of seven years for 6 shillings and 5 pence." He says they automatically became freeman and the end of their indenture. This is bollocks and nonsense. Apprenticeship was a centuries old tradition of teaching professions. Goldsmiths, Merchants, Candle Makers, Linen Drapers, and on and on, all learned their trade through apprenticeship, and their fathers paid a pretty penny for their sons to be trained.

Here is a brief list of other false statements made in this one letter:

1. Henry reconciled with his father and mother John Keney and Mary Cheever in Roxbury- these are not his parents.
2. Upon completion of his apprenticeship Henry was made a Freeman- false Henry was a Freeman in 1678.
3. Henry disembarked at Salem Village- false Salem Town and Salem Village were separate places. Salem Town was a seaport, Salem Village a farming community.
4. Henry was a master of law pertaining to his real and personal rights. He never lost a case and always acted as his own attorney. - Check out the court records, Henry lost most of the time.
5. Henry is mentioned in the diary of Rev. Green concerning the Witch Trials- Rev. Green did not start his diary until after the trials. Henry is not mentioned in them at all.
6. Henry's wife and daughter testified at the trial- false, Anne Putnam who testified was not Henry's wife but the wife of Thomas Putnam and it was their daughter Anne who testified not Henry's.
7. Henry was called Goodman, the highest honor a church could bestow on a layman- what????? Goodman had nothing to do with the church and everything to do with how much money you had.

I could list more, but clearly Edward Kinney did not have a firm grip on his history. And in the scheme of things these are pretty minor but then he wrote about the bible. [11]

the bible and the fire
Edward Kinney's writings are pretty easy to dismiss or forgive until he began to write about Henry's bible. He claimed that Henry wrote his own name, that of his parents, and his grandfathers and their place of residence in England in his family bible. This enabled his descendants to trace their lineage back to the date 28 September 1066. In case you don't know that is the date that Duke William of Normandy invaded England. How was he able to trace this lineage is anyone's guess. Kinney called it an 'authentic' record. Kinney next said that Henry's son Thomas made a copy of the names for his own records. Henry's house in Roxbury burned down, according to Kinney, all his worldly goods were lost including the bible. The Roxbury congregation took up a collection for Henry, five pounds, for him to start a new life.  Nothing about this story rings true.

Henry lived in Roxbury when he was an apprentice. Once complete, Henry moved to Salem Village where he settled down and started his family. Henry and Ann's first child was John. His birth was recorded in the Salem records in as Jan __ 1651. Henry's son Thomas, b. 1655 died at the young age of 32. Thomas and his family also lived in a part of Salem that was first known as Salem Village, but is now called Danvers. Henry never lived in Roxbury after his removal to Salem.

There is no proof that Henry knew how to write. He made his mark and one time made his autograph, but that does not mean he knew how to write. Many small children can print their name, but they do not know who to actually write.

On her website Georgia Bopp writes,

In one of his papers/letters, ERK (Edward Randolph Kinney) states that the bible was destroyed in a fire.  Elsewhere he states that his uncle offered someone $5000 for the Bible in the early 1900's and that [the uncle or ERK had] traced the bible to a family in New Preston, CT, but the owner refused to let him see it.[12]

No one has ever seen the bible or the copied pages of the bible. It seems as if the bible never existed and that Edward Kinney fabricated it's existence in order to advance his genealogy. So all we are left with is the deposition.

the deposition
In a 1911 publication, Henry Kinne is said to have been deposed in 1684, giving his age as 60. This establishes  a birth year of 1624. [13] A earlier publication offered more information about the deposition. It seems a man named John Burton wrote his will in October 1684 and died the following month. Henry Kenney, was deposed in the probate of his estate. During the deposition he gave his age as 60 years old and made a statement concerning the will of John Burton. [14]

By the 1992 publication by Basil E. Kinney, this simple deposition by Henry Kinne and John Nichols concerning the wishes of their friend John Burton for the disposal of his estate has become a recitation of Henry's genealogy. This is what B. E. Kinney claims was in Henry's deposition:

In making a deposition in 1684 at Salem, Ma. Henry Keney stated that he was sixty years of age, "my father was ye John Keney out of Norfolk, in ye olde England, and my mother was ye Cheever, and my grandfather was ye Sir Thomas Keney in Lynne ye marchant and trader there who was soe Knighted by ye Goode Queen Elizabeth for ye gifte of ships to ye Captaine Daves ye Navigator, etc."

B. E. Kinney then goes on to comment:

Surely Henry erred in the last portion of this statement. His grandfather, Thomas, was knighted 4 Oct 1618, fifteen years after the death of "ye Goode Queen Elizabeth and fifteen years into the reign of the Stuart King James I. These last lines thus apply to the great grandfather of Henry reported to be Sir Robert Kinne of Kings Lynne, Country of Norfolk, England. The deposition of Henry Keney of Salem, Ma., continues, " I ye Henry borne ye 8th of the 7th month 1623 and came by ye colonies in ye year of 1635. [15]

This is so crazy! First of all, no one gives their pedigree in a simple deposition. Who cares who Henry's father was, the court case was not about him, he was only a witness. The language is so fake with all the 'ye' this and 'ye' that. Somehow Queen Elizabeth got dragged into this and to save the day B. E. Kinney fabricates a Sir Robert Kinne of King's Lynn who just like Sir Thomas Kinne did not exist.

conclusion
The ancestry of Henry Kinne of Salem Village, now Danvers, is unknown. There is no such person as Sir Thomas Kinne. There is no document that would suggest who the parents of Henry were, and they certainly were not John Kinney and Sarah Farr of Salem. There is no reason to believe that Henry's mother's maiden name was Cheever.

The bible and deposition are fabricated stories. I do not know who started these stories, but it's time to stop passing them on. Good genealogy relies on strict standards and stories without substance do not make the grade. Please help me to stamp out this fake genealogy. Check out the Georgia Kinney Bopp website on Henry, it's awesome!


Sources:

[1] Emerson Kinne, History and Genealogy of a Branch of the Kinne Family, (Syracuse, NY : Masters and Stone, 1881) digital images, Archive (https://archive.org/stream/historygenealogy00kinn#page/n5/mode/2up : accessed 15 December 2016).

[2] Raymond Meyers Tingley, Some ancestral lines : being a record of some of the ancestors of Guilford Solon Tingley and his wife, Martha Pamelia Meyers / collected by their son, Raymon Meyers Tingley, (Rutland, Vermont : Tuttle Publishing Company, 1935) 184.

[3] Florance Kenney Robertson, The Genealogy of Henry and Anne Kinne, Pioneers of Salem, Massachusetts, (Los Angeles : Wetzel Publishing Co., 1947), digital images, HatiTrust (https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE2609319 : accessed 14 December 2016).

[4] Nick Bunker, Making Haste from Babylon ( New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010).

[5] Hazel Otis Crane, Our Ancestry, (Ann Arbor : Unknown Publisher, 1955), digital images, Hathi Trust (www.hathitrust.org : accessed 16 December 2016).

[6] Mabel Gould Demers Hinckley, The Kenney--Kinney Family: A Monograph (Unknown, 1969).

[7] Clarence Almon Torrey, New England Marriages Prior to 1700, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1985) 433

[8] The Probate Records of Essex County, Vol. II, (Salem, Massachusetts: The Essex Institute, 1917) 202, digital images, American Ancestors (www.americanancestors.org : accessed 15 December 2016.

[9] Robertson, The Genealogy of Henry and Anne Kinne.

[10] Jeff Green <skeech@comcast.net> Rootsweb, Kinney-L Archives, mailing list reference list number 1045155795, message of date 13 Feb 2003, entitled The Sir Thomas Myth.

[11] Mary L. Kinney <marylkinney@webtv.net> Rootsweb, Kinney-L Archives, mailing list reference list number 0979177938, message of date 10 January 2001, entitled Re: Influence of reilgion, childrens names, immigration patterns pre-20th Century.

[12] Georgia Kinney Bopp, Henry Kinne Website, rootsweb

[13] John W. Jordan, Colonial and Revolutionary Families of Pennsylvania: Genealogical and Personal Memoirs, Vol. 3, (Pennsylvania: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1911),1290. [entry for Charles Clinton Kinney]

[14] Mrs. William Roome, "Notes on Burton Family of Essex County, Mass,"Putnam's Historical Magazine, Vol 7, (Jan-Dec 1899) 305, digital images,  Google Books, (https://books.google.com : accessed 18 December 2016).

[15] Basil E. Kinney, By the name of Kinne : ancestors and descendants of Nathan Kinne of Preston, Ct. & Norton, N.S, (Bangor, Me : B. E. Kinney, 1992).