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Elizabeth Cheney, Seventeenth Great-Grandmother
August 14, 2018
— 3 Comments
Elizabeth Cheney
My 17th great-grandmother was married twice. She was the great-grandmother of Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Catherine Howard, who all met an unfortunate end as wives of Henry VIII. That is really a coincidence, I think. She was buried with her second husband St. Augustine church at Broxbourne.
Sir John and Lady Elizabeth Say are buried together at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.
Elizabeth Cheney (1420 – 1473)
17th great-grandmother
Elizabeth Tilney (1450 – 1497)
Daughter of Elizabeth Cheney
Lord Thomas Howard (1473 – 1554)
Son of Elizabeth Tilney
Lady Katherine Howard Duchess Bridgewater (1495 – 1554)
Daughter of Lord Thomas Howard
William ApRhys (1522 – 1588)
Son of Lady Katherine Howard Duchess Bridgewater
Henry Rice (1555 – 1621)
Son of William ApRhys
Edmund Rice (1594 – 1663)
Son of Henry Rice
Edward Rice (1622 – 1712)
Son of Edmund Rice
Lydia Rice (1649 – 1723)
Daughter of Edward Rice
Lydia Woods (1672 – 1738)
Daughter of Lydia Rice
Lydia Eager (1696 – 1735)
Daughter of Lydia Woods
Mary Thomas (1729 – 1801)
Daughter of Lydia Eager
Joseph Morse III (1756 – 1835)
Son of Mary Thomas
John Henry Morse (1775 – 1864)
Son of Joseph Morse III
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
Son of John Henry Morse
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
Son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
Son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
Son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
Son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Elizabeth Cheney (April 1422 – 25 September 1473), later known as Elizabeth, Lady Tilney and Elizabeth, Lady Say, was an English aristocrat, who, by dint of her two marriages, was the great-grandmother of Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Catherine Howard, three of the wives of King Henry VIII of England, thus making her great-great-grandmother to King Edward VI, the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, and Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Her first husband was Sir Frederick Tilney, and her second husband was Sir John Say, Speaker of the House of Commons. She produced a total of nine children from both marriages.
Born in Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire in April 1422, she was the eldest child of Laurence or Lawrence Cheney or Cheyne, Esq. (c. 1396 – 1461), High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Elizabeth Cokayn or Cokayne Her paternal grandparents were Sir William Cheney and Katherine Pabenham, and her maternal grandparents were Sir John Cockayne, Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Ida de Grey, the daughter of Reginald Grey, 2nd Baron Grey de Ruthyn and Eleanor Le Strange of Blackmere.
On an unknown date, Elizabeth married her first husband Sir Frederick Tilney, of Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk, and Boston, Lincolnshire. He was the son of Sir Philip Tilney and Isabel Thorpe. They made their principal residence at Ashwellthorpe Manor. The couple had one daughter:
Elizabeth Tilney (before 1445 – 4 April 1497), married firstly in about 1466, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, by whom she had three children; and secondly on 30 April 1472, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, who later became the 2nd Duke of Norfolk, by whom she had nine children. These children included Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Elizabeth Howard, mother of Anne Boleyn, and Lord Edmund Howard, father of Catherine Howard.
Sir Frederick Tilney died in 1445, leaving their young daughter Elizabeth as heiress to his estates. Shortly before 1 December 1446, Elizabeth Cheney married secondly Sir John Say, of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, Speaker of the House of Commons, and a member of the household of King Henry VI. He was a member of the embassy, led by William de la Pole, which was sent to France in 1444 to negotiate with King Charles VII for the marriage between King Henry and Margaret of Anjou. Her father settled land worth fifty marks clear per annum upon the couple and their issue before Candlemas, 1453. They made their home at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.
Sir John Say and Elizabeth had three sons and four daughters:
Sir William Say (1452- 1529), of Baas (in Broxbourne), Bedwell (in Essendon), Bennington, Little Berkhampstead, and Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, Lawford, Essex, Market Overton, Rutland, etc., Burgess (M.P.) for Plympton, Knight of the Shire for Hertfordshire, Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, 1478–9, Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, 1482–3, Justice of the Peace for Hertfordshire, 1486–1506, and, in right of his 1st wife, of East Lydford, Radstock, Spaxton, Wellesleigh, and Wheathill, Somerset, and, in right of his 2nd wife, of Wormingford Hall (in Wormingford), Essex, Great Munden, Hertfordshire, etc. He married (1st) before 18 November 1472 (date of letters of attorney) Genevieve Hill, daughter/heiress of John Hill, of Spaxton, Somerset. She was still alive in 1478. He married (2nd) shortly after 18 April 1480 Elizabeth Fray, widow of Sir Thomas Waldegrave, by whom he had two daughters, Mary Say and Elizabeth Say.
Mary, the eldest daughter married Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex and 6th Baron Bourchier, by whom she had one daughter, Anne Bourchier, 7th Baroness Bourchier
Thomas Say, of Liston Hall, Essex.
Leonard Say, clerk, Rector of Spaxton, Somerset. See Testamenta Eboracensia, 4 (Surtees Soc. 53) (1869): 86–88 (will of Leonard Say, clerk).
Anne Say (died 1478/1494), married Henry Wentworth, K.B., of Nettlestead, Suffolk, Goxhill, Lincolnshire, Parlington and Pontefract, Yorkshire, and of London, Esquire of the Household, Knight of the Body, Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, 1481–82, Sheriff of Yorkshire, 1489–90, 1492, Knight of the Shire for Yorkshire, 1491–92, by whom she had issue, including Margery Wentworth, mother of Jane Seymour.
Mary Say, married Sir Philip Calthorpe, Knt., by whom she had issue.
Margaret Say, married Thomas Sampson, Esq.
Katherine Say, married Thomas Bassingbourne.
On 25 September 1473, aged 51, Elizabeth Cheney died. She was buried in the church at Broxbourne. Following her death, John Say remarried to Agnes Danvers. He died five years later on 12 April 1478. Sometime after 1478, Elizabeth’s eldest son, Sir William Say, married his second wife, Elizabeth Fray, a daughter of his stepmother Agnes, by her first husband, Sir John Fray (1419- 1461), Chief Baron of the Exchequer.
Sources
John Smith Roskell, Parliament and Politics in Late Medieval England, Vol. 2, Google Books, accessed 9 September 2009
References
Lundy, Darryl. “p.335.htm#3342”. The Peerage.
Ida Ashworth Taylor, Lady Jane Grey and Her Times, page 8, Google Books, accessed 3 September 2009
John Smith Roskell, Parliament and Politics in Late
Sir John Say, 1478, and wife Elizabeth, 1473, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.
Augustine Steward, 11th Great-Grandfather
July 15, 2018
— 13 Comments
Augustine Steward
It is possible today to visit the home of my 11th great-grandfather, Augustine Steward. He was a successful mercer and mayor or Norwich.
Augustine Steward Home
Augustine Steward Home
Augustine Steward (1491 – 1571)
11th great-grandfather
Elizabeth Steward (1528 – 1575)
daughter of Augustine Steward
Augustine Jarnigo Sotherton (1553 – 1585)
son of Elizabeth Steward
Elizabeth Southerton (1582 – 1628)
daughter of Augustine Jarnigo Sotherton
Margaret Warner (1615 – 1649)
daughter of Elizabeth Southerton
Captain William GARTON (1635 – 1709)
son of Margaret Warner
Margaret Garton (1678 – 1773)
daughter of Captain William GARTON
Thomas Morris (1730 – 1791)
son of Margaret Garton
Joanna Morris (1762 – 1839)
daughter of Thomas Morris
John Samuel Taylor (1798 – 1873)
son of Joanna Morris
William Ellison Taylor (1839 – 1918)
son of John Samuel Taylor
George Harvey Taylor (1884 – 1941)
son of William Ellison Taylor
Ruby Lee Taylor (1922 – 2008)
daughter of George Harvey Taylor
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Ruby Lee Taylor
Augustine Steward was born in 1491 in the Tombland house opposite the Erpingham Gate of Norwich Cathedral. His father, Geoffrey, was a Norwich mercer and alderman. Shortly after Augustine’s birth the family moved from Tombland to a prestigious, stone-built house (Suckling House) in St. Andrews. Augustine was apprenticed to his father, who died in 1504. Augustine’s mother then married John Clerk, a rich merchant and grocer. John was mayor of Norwich in 1505 and in 1510. Augustine’s mother traded as Cecily Clerk with her own registered merchant’s mark.
A successful mercer
Augustine, known as Austen, became a highly successful Norwich mercer, who signed himself Awstyne Styward. He married twice and lived in the Tombland house where he was born. His first wife was Elizabeth Read of Beccles with whom he had a family of two sons and six daughters. His second wife, Alice Repps, from West Walton gave him a son and two daughters. Augustine was a Norwich councillor from 1522 to 1525, an alderman from 1526 to 1570 and Sheriff in 1526, He was Mayor in 1534, 1546 and 1556, a record that was only equalled by two other men within the sixteenth century. Augustine was also M.P for Norwich in 1542 and a Burgess in Parliament in 1547. During the sixteenth century, the office of mayor meant undertaking a demanding, full-time task for a year. A mayor’s own business had to be successful and so arranged that it could run without him. The mayor was expected to use his personal funds for some civic hospitality. However, the Corporation did stage a three-part show to mark Steward’s third term in office. It was recognised that Augustine had ‘allwayes ben a good and modest man, hee was beloved of poore and rich’.
Rebuilding the Guildhall
Steward’s influence was prominent in the 1534 rebuilding of the Council Chamber of Norwich Guildhall. He was involved with purchasing Black Friars Church, (St. Andrew’s Hall), from the Crown, for Norwich. A 1540 charter conveyed the Black Friar’s Monastery to the city for £81, paid by ‘our beloved Augustine Steward, of our city of Norwich, merchant.’ A portrait of Augustine in his mayoral robes can be seen in the Blackfriar’s wing of St. Andrew’s Hall.
Kett’s Rebellion
During Kett’s Rebellion in 1549, Augustine Steward played a leading part in negotiations between the rebels and the King’s army. Mayor Thomas Codde, who had been taken prisoner on Mousehold Heath by the rebels, appointed Steward his deputy. The Marquis of Northampton, representing the King, was entertained in Steward’s house. A plaque on the cathedral wall marks the spot, not far from Augustine’s house, where the rebels killed Lord Sheffield and Sir Thomas Cornwallis. Some of Kett’s followers ransacked Steward’s house but did not harm him. The Earl of Warwick used the house as his headquarters when he put down the rebellion.
Augustine Steward House
Steward’s home, opposite the cathedral, is a fine, surviving example of a successful Tudor merchant’s trading-house with goods stored in the stone undercroft and a shop or workshop at street level. The family lived in the upper storeys. Augustine’s house is jettied, and the timbers have warped over time giving the house a crooked appearance. An upper wing of brick, timber and plaster is built across Tombland Alley. Here you can see Augustine’s merchant mark and that of the mercer’s guild embossed on a corner stone, together with the date, 1549. Through the arch, the old house timbers are exposed and the carpenters’ marks can be seen, denoting the order in which the timbers were assembled on-site after being pre-cut in a timber yard. After Steward’s death in 1571, the house became in turn, a butcher’s, a broker’s, an antique dealer’s, a bookshop and a coffee house. At present it houses several antique dealers. Allegedly, there are underground passages leading from the crypt to the Cathedral and also to St. Gregory’s church. The ghost of a ‘Lady in Grey,’ a 1578 plague victim, is said to haunt the house.
A man of property
Augustine Steward owned Norfolk manors at Gowthorpe and at Welborne. His estate around Tombland extended along the north and west sides of St. George’s churchyard into Prince’s Street and included the site of an ancient inn. In later life he resided in a large, quadrangle house that he had built on Elm Hill, on the site of Paston Place originally owned by the Paston family. In 1507 all the houses on Elm Hill, except the modern Briton’s Arms, had been destroyed by fire. Augustine’s new house occupied the area now sub-divided into numbers 20, 22, 24 and 26. The carved beam over the archway of Crown Court bears Augustine Steward’s merchant mark on the right and the arms of the mercer’s guild on the left. Augustine Steward was buried in the church of St Peter Hungate.
Footnote
The house on Tombland where Augustine Steward was born still exists and has been called Augustine Steward House. It is generally reputed to date to 1530, however Marion Hardy, in an unpublished biography of Steward, discloses an earlier date for the house in the 1504 will of Augustine’s father, in which the house was mentioned as the location of Steward’s birth in 1491. Perhaps the 1491 house was damaged in the 1507 fires of Norwich and Augustine Steward re-built in 1530.
Further Reading
Blomefield F, The History of the City and County of Norwich, Volume 2. (Norwich 1745).
Hardy, M. Austen Steward of Norwich, unpublished partial manuscript.
Jones, W. H. A Quaint Corner of Old Norwich: Samson and Hercules and AugustineSteward’s Houses, Norwich, 1900.
Kennet, H. Elm Hill, Norwich: The Story of its Tudor Buildings and the People who Lived in them, ecollectit Ltd, Harleston, 2006.
Rawcliffe, C. and R. Wilson, (eds), Medieval Norwich, Hambledon and London, London, 2004.
Solomons, G. Stories Behind the Plaques of Norwich, Capricorn Books, Cantley,1981.
From “Genealogies of Virginia Families” vol. 5, page 546. Eldest son, Mercer, sheriff 1526, mayor 1534, 1546, 1556, M.P. 1541. Buried 1571 St. Peter Hungate.
Elizabeth Trussel, 16th Great-Grandmother
July 18, 2016
— 8 Comments
Church of St Nicholas, burial place of Elizabeth de Vere, Countess of Oxford
Spouse John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford
My 16th great-grandmother was a lady-in-waiting to Ann Boleyn. She was the second wife of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford.
Elizabeth de Vere (née Trussel), Countess of Oxford (1496 – before July 1527) was an English noblewoman. Through her daughter Frances, she was the mother-in-law of celebrated poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
Elizabeth was born in Kibblestone, Staffordshire, England on an unknown date in 1496 to Sir Edward Trussel and Margaret Dun. On 10 April 1509 at the age of about thirteen, she became the second wife of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford. His first wife, Christian Foderingey had died about ten years earlier without having produced children. Together John and Elizabeth had seven children.
Children
1. Elizabeth de Vere (born about 1512)
2. John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford (1516 – 3 August 1562 married (1) Dorothy Neville (2) Margery Golding
3. Lady Frances de Vere (c. 1517 – 30 June 1577 married Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
4. Aubrey de Vere (born about 1519) married (1) Margaret Spring (2) Bridget Gibbon
5. Robert de Vere (born about 1520)
6. Anne de Vere (c. 1522 – February, 1571/72) married Edmund Sheffield, 1st Baron Sheffield of Butterwick
7. Jeffrey de Vere (born about 1526) married Elizabeth Hardkyn daughter of Sir John Hardkyn of Colchester
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elizabeth de Vere, Countess of Oxford
Church of St Nicholas, burial place of Elizabeth de Vere, Countess of Oxford
Spouse(s)John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford
Issue
John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford
Aubrey Vere
Robert Vere
Geoffrey Vere
Elizabeth Vere
Anne Vere
Frances VereNoble familyDe Vere (by marriage)FatherEdward TrussellMotherMargaret DonneBorn1496DiedBefore July 1527BuriedChurch of St Nicholas, Castle Hedingham, Essex
Elizabeth de Vere (née Trussell), Countess of Oxford (1496 – before July 1527) was an English noblewoman. As a young child she became a royal ward. She married John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, and by him was mother of the 16th Earl and grandmother ofSir Francis and Sir Horace Vere, the ‘fighting Veres’.
Family
Elizabeth Trussell, born in 1496,was the daughter of Edward Trussell (c.1478 – 16 June 1499) of Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire, only son of Sir William Trussell (d. before 24 June 1480) of Elmesthorpe, Knight of the Body for King Edward IV, by Margaret Kene. The Trussells were a ‘very ancient Warwickshire family’; Elizabeth’s ancestor, Sir Warin Trussell, was of Billesley, Warwickshire.
Elizabeth Trussell’s mother was Margaret Donne, the daughter of Sir John Donne (1450–1503) of Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, and Elizabeth Hastings (c.1450 – 1508), daughter of Sir Leonard Hastings and Alice Camoys, and sister of William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings. Sir John Donne’s mother, Joan Scudamore, was the granddaughter of the Welsh rebel, Owain Glyndŵr.
Elizabeth had a brother, John Trussell (d.1499), to whom she was heir.
Through her father’s family, Elizabeth was a descendant of King Henry II by his mistress, Ida de Tony.
Elizabeth Trussell’s grandfather, Sir John Donne, from the Don triptych by Hans Memling.
Elizabeth’s father, Edward Trussell, had been a ward of William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, and at Hastings’ death in 1483 was still a minor. In his will, Hastings expressed the wish that Trussell’s wardship be purchased by Hastings’ brother-in-law, Sir John Donne:
Also I will that mine executors give to my sister Dame Elizabeth Don 100 marks . . . Also where I have the ward and marriage of Edward Trussell, I will that it be sold and the money employed to the performing of this my will and for the weal of my soul; and if my brother Sir John Don will buy the said ward, I will that he be preferred therein before any other by £10.[9]
After her father’s death on 16 June 1499 and the death of her brother, John, in the same year,[10] Elizabeth Trussell became a royal ward. Her wardship and marriage were initially purchased from King Henry VII by George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent (d. 21 December 1503), who intended her as a bride for Sir Henry Grey (d. 24 September 1562), the 2nd Earl’s son by his second marriage to Katherine Herbert, daughter of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, by Anne Devereux, the daughter of Sir Walter Devereux. However after the 2nd Earl’s death, Richard Grey, 3rd Earl of Kent, the 2nd Earl’s eldest son and heir by his first marriage to Anne Woodville, abducted Elizabeth Trussell, a crime for which the King levied a heavy fine against him:
Aged at least twenty-five when he succeeded his father in 1503, [the 3rd Earl] wasted his family’s fortunes — possibly, as Dugdalesays, he was a gambler. In a striking series of alienations he gave away or sold most of the lands, principally in Bedfordshire, that he had inherited . . . The earl also fell quickly into debt to the king: he failed to pay livery for his father’s lands, and he was fined 2500 marks for abducting Elizabeth Trussell, whose wardship the second earl had left to Richard’s half-brother Henry; he then failed to keep up the instalments laid down for the payment of the fine.
As a result of these events Elizabeth Trussell’s wardship and marriage again came into the hands of the King, who sold it on 29 April 1507[12] to John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, and his cousin John de Vere, later 15th Earl of Oxford, for an initial payment of 1000 marks and an additional £387 18s to be paid yearly, less £20 a year for Elizabeth’s maintenance. The annual value of Elizabeth’s lands had been estimated in the inquisition post mortem taken after her brother John’s death at £271 12s 8d a year.
Marriage and issue
Between 29 April 1507 and 4 July 1509 Elizabeth became the second wife of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford, whose first wife was Christian Foderingey (born c. 1481, died before 4 November 1498), the daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Foderingey (c. 1446 – 1491) ofBrockley, Suffolk, by Elizabeth Doreward (c. 1473 – 1491), daughter of William Doreward of Bocking, Essex, by whom the 15th Earl had no issue.
By her marriage to the 15th Earl of Oxford, Elizabeth had four sons and three daughters:
John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford (1516 – 3 August 1562), who married firstly, Dorothy Neville (died c. 6 January 1548),[16] second daughter of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland, by whom he had a daughter, Katherine de Vere, who married Edward Windsor, 3rd Baron Windsor. The Earl married secondly, Margery Golding (d. 2 December 1568), by whom he had a son, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and a daughter, Mary de Vere.
Aubrey de Vere (d. 1580), who married firstly Margaret Spring, the daughter of John Spring of Lavenham, by whom he had a daughter, Jane, who married Henry Hunt of Gosfield,Essex, and a son, Hugh Vere,[18] who married Eleanor Walsh, the daughter of William Walsh. Hugh Vere and Eleanor Walsh had a son, Robert, who inherited the title as 19th Earl of Oxford. Aubrey de Vere married secondly, Bridget Gibbon, the daughter of Sir Anthony Gibbon of Lynn, Norfolk.
Robert de Vere (died c. 1598), who married firstly, Barbara Berners, by whom he had a son, John Vere, and a daughter, Mary Vere, and secondly, Joan Hubberd, sister of Edward Hubberd (d. 1602), by whom he had no issue.
Geoffrey Vere (d. 1572), who in 1556 married Elizabeth Hardekyn (d. December 1615), daughter of Richard Hardekyn (d. 1558) of Wotton House near Castle Hedingham, by whom he had four sons, John Vere (c. 1558 – 1624) of Kirby Hall near Castle Hedingham, Sir Francis Vere (born c. 1560), Robert Vere (b. 1562), and Sir Horatio Vere (b. 1565), and a daughter, Frances Vere (born 1567), who married, as his second wife, the colonial adventurer and author, Sir Robert Harcourt (1574/5–1631), of Nuneham on 20 March 1598.
Elizabeth de Vere (born c. 1512), who married, as his second wife, Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy of Chiche (d. 28 June 1558), by whom she had three sons, John Darcy, 2nd Baron Darcy of Chiche (d. 3 March 1581), Aubrey (d. 1558–68) and Robert (died c. 1568), and two daughters, Thomasine and Constance, of whom the latter married Edmund Pyrton (died c. 1609).
Anne de Vere, (born c. 1522, died c. 14 February 1572), who married firstly, Edmund Sheffield, 1st Baron Sheffield of Butterwick, Lincolnshire, second but eldest surviving son of Sir Robert Sheffield by Margaret Zouche, by whom she had a son and three daughters. Edmund Sheffield was slain 31 July 1549 during the suppression of Kett’s rebellion. Anne de Vere married secondly, John Brock, esquire, of Colchester, Essex, son and heir of John Brock of Little Leighs, Essex, by Agnes Wiseman, by whom she had no issue.[23]
Frances de Vere (c. 1517 – 30 June 1577), who married firstly, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, by whom she was the mother of Jane Howard, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, Margaret Howard, Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, and Katherine Howard. Frances de Vere married secondly, Thomas Steynings, by whom she had no issue.
Elizabeth died before July 1527, and was buried in the Church of St Nicholas, Castle Hedingham, Essex, where her effigy can be seen on the black marble tomb erected for Elizabeth and her husband, the 15th Earl.
Footnotes
She is usually said to have been born at the Trussell manor of Cubleston or Kibblestone near Barlaston and Stone, Staffordshire.
Elizabeth DeVere, Countess of Oxford
Elizabeth Trussel (1494 – 1527)
16th great-grandmother
Frances DeVere (1517 – 1577)
daughter of Elizabeth Trussel
Thomas Howard (1536 – 1572)
son of Frances DeVere
Margaret Howard (1561 – 1591)
daughter of Thomas Howard
Lady Ann Dorset (1552 – 1680)
daughter of Margaret Howard
Robert Lewis (1574 – 1656)
son of Lady Ann Dorset
Robert Lewis (1607 – 1644)
son of Robert Lewis
Ann Lewis (1631 – 1686)
daughter of Robert Lewis
Joshua Morse (1669 – 1753)
son of Ann Lewis
Joseph Morse (1692 – 1759)
son of Joshua Morse
Joseph Morse (1721 – 1776)
son of Joseph Morse
Joseph Morse III (1756 – 1835)
son of Joseph Morse
John Henry Morse (1775 – 1864)
son of Joseph Morse III
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
son of John Henry Morse
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Margaret Howard, 13th Great-Grandmother
June 30, 2016
— 2 Comments
Margaret Howard
Margaret Howard was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk (March 10, 1538-June 2, 1572) and his second wife, Margaret Audley (1539-January 10, 1564). Her father’s execution for treason when she was ten limited her choice of husbands but in February 1569 she married Robert Sackville of Bolbrooke and Buckhurst, Sussex and Knole, Kent (1561-February 27, 1609), later Lord Buckhurst and earl of Dorset. They had three sons and three daughters, including Richard (1590-1624), Edward (1591-1652), Anne, and Cecily. After her death, Robert Southwell published a small volume in her honor and Sackville described his late wife as “a lady . . . of as great virtue . . . as is possible for any man to wish to be matched withal.” He asked to be buried at Withyham “as near to my first dearly beloved wife . . . as can be” and ordered that £200 to £300 be spent on their tomb, with effigies of them both. A devout Catholic, she influenced his religious beliefs.
Robert Sackville and Margaret Howard
Margaret Howard (1561 – 1591)
13th great-grandmother
Lady Ann Dorset (1552 – 1680)
daughter of Margaret Howard
Robert Lewis (1574 – 1656)
son of Lady Ann Dorset
Robert Lewis (1607 – 1644)
son of Robert Lewis
Ann Lewis (1631 – 1686)
daughter of Robert Lewis
Joshua Morse (1669 – 1753)
son of Ann Lewis
Joseph Morse (1692 – 1759)
son of Joshua Morse
Joseph Morse (1721 – 1776)
son of Joseph Morse
Joseph Morse III (1756 – 1835)
son of Joseph Morse
John Henry Morse (1775 – 1864)
son of Joseph Morse III
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
son of John Henry Morse
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset, married first, in February 1580, Lady Margaret, by then only surviving daughter of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, then suspected as a crypto-Catholic. By her he had six children, including:
Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset (18 March 1589 – 28 March 1624)
Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset (1591 – 17 July 1652)
Anne, married Sir Edward Seymour, eldest son of Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, and, secondly, Sir Edward Lewis (d.1630) by whom she had issue
Cecily, married Sir Henry Compton, K.B.
Lady Margaret died on 19 August 1591; Robert Southwell, who never met her, published in her honour, in 1596, Triumphs over Death, with dedicatory verses to her surviving children
My 15th great-uncle, Thomas Sackville, inherited a calendar house, Knole House, in Kent, where they, no doubt, all visited. The house became famous:
Knole is an English country house in the town of Sevenoaks in west Kent, surrounded by a 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) deer park. One of England’s largest houses, it is reputed to be a calendar house, having 365 rooms, 52 staircases, 12 entrances and 7 courtyards. It is known for the degree to which its early 17th-century appearance is preserved, particularly in the case of the state rooms: the exteriors and interiors of many houses of this period, such as Clandon Park in Surrey, were dramatically altered later on. The surrounding deer park has also survived with little having changed over the past 400 years except for the loss of over 70% of its trees in the Great Storm of 1987.
In 1566, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, it came into the possession of her cousin Thomas Sackville whose descendants the Earls and Dukes of Dorset and Barons Sackville have lived there since 1603 (the intervening years saw the house let to the Lennard family). Most notably, these include writer Vita Sackville-West (her Knole and the Sackvilles, published 1922, is regarded as a classic in the literature of English country houses); her friend and lover Virginia Woolf wrote the novel Orlando drawing on the history of the house and Sackville-West’s ancestors. The Sackville family custom of following the Salic rules of primogeniture prevented Sackville-West herself from inheriting Knole upon the death of her father Lionel (1867–1930), the 3rd Lord Sackville, and her father bequeathed the estate to his brother Charles (1870–1962).
Elizabeth Dutchess Norfolk Stafford Howard, 15th Great-Grandmother
June 11, 2015
— 4 Comments
Elizabeth Stafford
My 15th great-grandmother was married to a duke who treated her very badly. She was involved with court intrigue during the reign of Henry VIII.
Elizabeth Stafford was the daughter of Edward, 3rd duke of Buckingham (February 3,1478-May 17,1521) and Eleanor Percy (1470-1530). Robert Hutchinson’s House of Treason gives alternate life dates as 1493-September 4, 1558. Elizabeth was to have married one of her father’s wards, Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland, at Christmas 1512, but shortly before that she acquired a new suitor in the person of the recently widowed Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey (1473-August 25,1554).
Buckingham offered his other daughters to Sussex, but the earl was determined to have Elizabeth, described by Jessie Childs in Henry VIII’s Last Victim: The Life and Times of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey as “…passably pretty, with soft features, light colouring and a distinguished forehead….”
Early in 1513, Elizabeth married Surrey, bringing with her a dowry of 2,000 marks. They had five children:
Henry (1517-x.January 19,1547),
Mary (1519-December 9,1557),
Charles (d.yng),
Thomas (1528-1582), and a fifth child who died young and may have been named Muriel.
Elizabeth was often at court and became close friends with Catherine of Aragon. She carried Princess Mary to the font at the princess’s christening in 1516 and was a patron of the poet John Skelton, who describes Elizabeth and her ladies making a chapelet in the poem “A Goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell.” When the earl of Surrey was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1520, he was ordered to take his entire family with him.
There they were exposed to war, disease, crowded conditions, and severe shortages of just about everything. To make matters worse, during their sojourn in Ireland, Elizabeth’s father was accused of treason and beheaded. In 1524, with the death of her father-in-law, Elizabeth became duchess of Norfolk. She continued to serve as a lady-in-waiting to the queen, at court for months at a time, but with the king’s growing determination to obtain a divorce, her role changed.
By 1530, Elizabeth was spying on her own husband, on the lookout for any information that would help Queen Catherine. By then, there were also problems in Elizabeth’s marriage. In 1526, Norfolk took Bess Holland, daughter of his chief steward, as his mistress, a long-term relationship which he did not trouble to keep secret from his wife.
Elizabeth continued to be vocal in her support of Catherine of Aragon. Norfolk, and most of the Howard family, favored the king’s plan to marry Anne Boleyn, whose mother was a Howard. Elizabeth went so far as to refuse to bear Anne’s train at her investiture as Marchioness of Pembroke and was conspicuously absent from both Anne’s coronation and the christening of Princess Elizabeth. In May,1533, Norfolk wrote to Elizabeth’s brother, Henry Stafford, asking him to take her in. Stafford refused, expressing the fear that “…her accustomed wild language…” would place him and his family in danger if he did so.
The matter came to a head on Tuesday of Passion Week, 1534. Norfolk arrived at Kenninghall, his principal residence, to find his wife in a rage because he was still keeping Bess Holland as his mistress. Norfolk’s response was to lock Elizabeth in her chamber, then banish her to Redbourne, a manor in Hertfordshire. Elizabeth referred to this as imprisonment, even though she had twenty servants and an allowance of three hundred marks per annum.
Legally Norfolk was within his rights to do as he wished with her. She tried three times for a reconciliation, but to no avail. Norfolk was not about to forgive some of the claims she had made, including one that he had assaulted her when she was pregnant with their daughter in 1519. Some of the charges may indeed have been “false and abominable lies,” but Norfolk was known to have a temper, too. In 1541, Elizabeth was still trying to regain freedom of movement, as well as a bigger allowance.
Her children, to her distress, sided with their father. Indeed, most people did. Wives were expected to put up with their husbands’ infidelities, not make a fuss about them. Upon Mary Tudor’s accession, Elizabeth returned to court and there was reunited with her husband, who had been in the Tower of London since 1547. He died at Kenninghall the following August.
Although both Elizabeth and Norfolk appear in effigy on the same monument in Framlingham, completed in 1559, only he is buried there. She was interred in the Howard Chapel in St. Mary’s Church, Lambeth, in December 1558. The epitaph written by her brother lauds her kindness and says she was to him “a mother, sister, a friend most dear.”
Biography:
“Marriage Sixteenth-Century Style: Elizabeth Stafford and the Third Duke of Norfolk” by Barbara J. Harris in Journal of Social History, 15/3 (1982).
Source– A WHO’S WHO OF TUDOR WOMEN: Stafford
Elizabeth Dutchess Norfolk Stafford Howard (1497 – 1558)
is my 15th great grandmother
Lady Katherine Howard Duchess Bridgewater (1495 – 1554)
daughter of Elizabeth Dutchess Norfolk Stafford Howard
William ApRhys (1522 – 1588)
son of Lady Katherine Howard Duchess Bridgewater
Henry Rice (1555 – 1621)
son of William ApRhys
Edmund Rice (1594 – 1663)
son of Henry Rice
Edward Rice (1622 – 1712)
son of Edmund Rice
Lydia Rice (1649 – 1723)
daughter of Edward Rice
Lydia Woods (1672 – 1738)
daughter of Lydia Rice
Lydia Eager (1696 – 1735)
daughter of Lydia Woods
Mary Thomas (1729 – 1801)
daughter of Lydia Eager
Joseph Morse III (1756 – 1835)
son of Mary Thomas
John Henry Morse (1775 – 1864)
son of Joseph Morse III
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
son of John Henry Morse
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Elizabeth Howard (nee Stafford) (1494- 30 November1558) was the daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and the wife of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk.
Elizabeth was born in 1494, the eldest daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (3 September1478-1521 and Eleanor Percy. Her paternal grandparents were Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Catherine Woodville. Her maternal ancestors were Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland and Maud Herbert. Her grandfather, the Duke of Buckingham, was executed in 1483 by King Richard III for treason, and in 1521, her own father suffered the same fate when he was beheaded on Tower Hill for treason against his king, Henry VIII. Elizabeth had two sisters, Mary, Lady Bergavenny and Catherine, Countess Westmoreland, and a brother, Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford.
On 8 January1513, Elizabeth married Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey, who in 1524, would become the 3rd Duke of Norfolk. The marriage was his second. His first wife had been Anne of York, the daughter of Edward IV, but none of their children had lived beyond early infancy. Elizabeth bore her husband four surviving children but their marriage was unhappy and violent. He had taken as his mistress Bess Holland, who was her own laundress, and when Elizabeth protested, calling her “a churl’s daughter who was but a washer in my nursery for eight years” Howard savagely beat her. She later accused his mistress of striking her. They separated in 1533, the year Howard’s niece, Anne Boleyn, was crowned Queen of England. Elizabeth did not like Anne and was staunchly partisan in favour of Catherine of Aragon. In 1530, Elizabeth smuggled letters received from Italy to Catherine concealed in oranges Elizabeth also later told the Spanish Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, that Howard had confided in her that “Anne would be the ruin of all her family”.. Anne, however, managed to win the favour of Elizabeth by arranging brilliant matches for the Howard children. Henry was married to the daughter of the Earl of Oxford, while Mary married the King’s illegitimate son, Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset. Appeased, Elizabeth stopped plotting against Anne and returned to Court. She died on 30 November 1558 in Lambeth, London at the age of sixty-four. Elizabeth was the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk at the time of her death, her estranged husband, the Duke, having died four years earlier. She was buried on 7 December 1558 in Lambeth.
Elizabeth was often at court and became close friends with Catherine of Aragon. She carried Princess Mary to the font at the princess’s christening in 1516.
Elizabeth Stafford, Duchess of Norfolk, wife of Anne Boleyn’s uncle Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk
Elizabeth Stafford
Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, 16th Great-grandather
January 13, 2015
— 6 Comments
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- Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham
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- Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham
My 16th great-grandfather was beheaded for listening to prophecies of Henry VIII’s death. The king was personally involved in convicting him.
Edward Richard Buckingham Stafford (1479 – 1521)
is my 16th great grandfather
Elizabeth Dutchess Norfolk Stafford Howard (1497 – 1558)
daughter of Edward Richard Buckingham Stafford
Lady Katherine Howard Duchess Bridgewater (1495 – 1554)
daughter of Elizabeth Dutchess Norfolk Stafford Howard
William ApRhys (1522 – 1588)
son of Lady Katherine Howard Duchess Bridgewater
Henry Rice (1555 – 1621)
son of William ApRhys
Edmund Rice (1594 – 1663)
son of Henry Rice
Edward Rice (1622 – 1712)
son of Edmund Rice
Lydia Rice (1649 – 1723)
daughter of Edward Rice
Lydia Woods (1672 – 1738)
daughter of Lydia Rice
Lydia Eager (1696 – 1735)
daughter of Lydia Woods
Mary Thomas (1729 – 1801)
daughter of Lydia Eager
Joseph Morse III (1752 – 1835)
son of Mary Thomas
John Henry Morse (1775 – 1864)
son of Joseph Morse III
Abner Morse (1808 – 1838)
son of John Henry Morse
Daniel Rowland Morse (1838 – 1910)
son of Abner Morse
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Daniel Rowland Morse
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
Born
3 February 1478
Brecon Castle, Wales
Died
17 May 1521 (aged 43)
Tower Hill
Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, KG (3 February 1478 – 17 May 1521) was an English nobleman. He was the son of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Woodville, whose sister, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, was the wife of King Edward IV. He was convicted of treason, and executed on 17 May 1521.
Edward Stafford, born 3 February 1478 at Brecon Castle in Wales, was the eldest son of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Woodville, the daughter of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, by Jacquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of Pierre de Luxembourg, Count of St. Pol, and was thus a nephew of Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of King Edward IV.
By his father’s marriage to Katherine Woodville, Stafford had a younger brother, Henry Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and two sisters, Elizabeth, who married Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex, and Anne, who married firstly, Sir Walter Herbert (d. 16 September 1507), an illegitimate son of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, and secondly, George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon.
After the execution of the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, his widow, Katherine Woodville, married Jasper Tudor, second son of Owen Tudor and King Henry V’s widow, Catherine of Valois. After Jasper Tudor’s death on 21 December 1495, Katherine Woodville married Sir Richard Wingfield (d. 22 July 1525). Katherine Woodville died 18 May 1497. After her death, Sir Richard Wingfield married Bridget Wiltshire, daughter and heiress of Sir John Wiltshire of Stone, Kent.
In October 1483 Stafford’s father participated in a rebellion against King Richard III. He was beheaded without trial on 2 November 1483, whereby all his honours were forfeited. Stafford is said to have been hidden in various houses in Herefordshire at the time of the rebellion, and perhaps for the remainder of Richard III’s reign. However after Richard III’s defeat at Bosworth on 22 August 1485, and King Henry VII’s accession to the crown, Stafford was made a Knight of the Order of the Bath on 29 October 1485 as Duke of Buckingham, and attended Henry VII’s coronation the following day, although his father’s attainder was not formally reversed by Parliament until November. The young Duke’s wardship and lands were granted, on 3 August 1486, along with the wardship of his younger brother, Henry Stafford, to the King’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, and according to Davies it is likely Buckingham was educated in her various households.
Buckingham was in attendance at court at the creation of Henry VII’s second son, the future King Henry VIII, as Duke of York, on 9 November 1494, and was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1495. In September 1497 he was a captain in the forces sent to quell a rebellion in Cornwall.
According to Davies, as a young man Buckingham played a conspicuous part in royal weddings and the reception of ambassadors and foreign princes, ‘dazzling observers by his sartorial splendour’. At the wedding of Henry VII’s then eldest son and heir Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catherine of Aragon in 1501, he is said to have worn a gown worth £1500. He was the chief challenger at the tournament held the following day.
At the accession of King Henry VIII, Buckingham was appointed on 23 June 1509, for the day of the coronation only, Lord High Constable, an office which he claimed by hereditary right. He also served as Lord High Steward at the coronation, and bearer of the crown. In 1509 he was made a member of the King’s Privy Council. On 9 July 1510 he had licence to crenellate his manor of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, and according to Davies rebuilt the manor house as ‘an impressively towered castle’ with ‘huge oriel windows in the living-quarters in the inner court’.
In 1510 Buckingham was involved in a scandal concerning his sister, Anne. After hearing rumours concerning Anne and Sir William Compton, Buckingham found Compton in Anne’s room. Compton was forced to take the sacrament to prove that he and Anne had not committed adultery, and Anne’s husband, George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, sent Anne away to a convent 60 miles distant from the court. There is no extant evidence establishing that Anne and Sir William Compton were guilty of adultery. However in 1523 Compton took the unusual step of bequeathing land to Anne in his will, and directing his executors to include her in the prayers for his kin for which he had made provision in his will.
From June to October 1513 Buckingham served as a captain during Henry VIII’s invasion of France, commanding 500 men in the ‘middle ward’. About 1517 he was one of twelve challengers chosen to tilt against the King and his companions, but excused himself on the ground that he feared to run against the King’s person. He and his wife, Eleanor, attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.
Although Buckingham was appointed to commissions of the peace in 1514 and charged, together with other marcher lords, with responsibility for keeping order in south Wales, he was rebuked by the King in 1518 for failing to achieve the desired results. According to Davies, in general Buckingham exercised little direct political influence, and was never a member of the King’s inner circle.
Buckingham fell out dramatically with the King in 1510, when he discovered that the King was having an affair with the Countess of Huntingdon, the Duke’s sister and wife of the 1st Earl of Huntingdon. She was taken to a convent sixty miles away. There are some suggestions that the affair continued until 1513. However, he returned to the King’s graces, being present at the marriage of Henry’s sister, served in Parliament and being present at negotiations with Francis I of France and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Buckingham was one of few peers with substantial Plantagenet blood and maintained numerous connections, often among his extended family, with the rest of the upper aristocracy, which activities attracted Henry’s suspicion. During 1520, Buckingham became suspected of potentially treasonous actions and Henry VIII authorised an investigation. The King personally examined witnesses against him, gathering enough evidence for a trial. The Duke was finally summoned to Court in April 1521 and arrested and placed in the Tower. He was tried before a panel of 17 peers, being accused of listening to prophecies of the King’s death and intending to kill the King. He was executed on Tower Hill on 17 May. Buckingham was posthumously attainted by Act of Parliament on 31 July 1523, disinheriting most of his wealth from his children.
Guy (1988) concludes this was one of the few executions of high personages under Henry VIII in which the accused was “almost certainly guilty”. However Sir Thomas More complained that the key evidence from servants was hearsay.
Buckingham’s literary patronage included two translations, a printed translation of Helyas, Knyghte of the Swanne, which he commissioned in 1512, and A Lytell Cronicle, a translation of an account of the Middle East which he may have commissioned in 1520 in connection with his proposed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
In 1488 Henry VII had suggested a marriage between Buckingham and Anne of Brittany, but in December 1489 the executors of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, paid the King £4000 for Buckingham’s marriage to Percy’s eldest daughter Eleanor (d. 1530). They had a son and three daughters:
Lord Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford (18 September 1501 – 30 April 1563), who married Ursula Pole, daughter of Sir Richard Pole by his second wife, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence.
Lady Elizabeth Stafford, Duchess of Norfolk (c. 1497 – 30 November 1558), who married, as his second wife, before 8 January 1513, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk.
Lady Katherine Stafford (c. 1499 – 14 May 1555), who married Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland.
Lady Mary Stafford, the youngest daughter, who married, about June 1519, as his third wife, George Neville, 5th Baron Bergavenny.
Buckingham is also said to have had three illegitimate children: George Stafford, Henry Stafford, Margaret Stafford (c. 1511 – 25 May 1537), whom Buckingham married to his ward, Thomas Fitzgerald of Leixlip, half-brother to the Earl of Kildare.
Henry Bedingfield, 13th Great-Grandfather
February 14, 2014
— 2 Comments
Henry Bedingfield
My 13th great-grandfather was instrumental in placing Mary Tudor on the throne of England.
Son of Edmund Bedingfield and his wife Grace, dau. of Henry Marney, first B. Marney. He was the grandson of Sir Edmund Bedingfield who had served in the Wars of the Roses, and to whom were granted by Edward IV for his faithful service letters patent authorizing him “to build towers, walls, and such other fortifications as he pleased in his manors of Oxburgh, together with a market there weekly and a court of pye-powder”. Henry’s father, other Edmund, had been Catalina of Aragon’s custodian during her last sad years at Kimbolton Castle.
Sir Henry Bedingfield and his fellow-Member Sir William Drury were included in Cecil’s list of gentlemen who were expected to transact ‘affairs for Queen Jane’, but in the event both rallied to Mary. Sir Henry was mainly instrumental, together with Sir Henry Jerningham, in placing Mary Tudor on the throne. In ‘The Chronicle of Queen Jane and of two years of Queen Mary’, the anonimous author said:
‘… The 12. of Jul word was brought to the Councell, being then at the Tower with the lady Jane, that the Lady Mary was at Keninghall castle in Norfolk, and with her the earle of Bath, sir Thomas Wharton sonne to the lord Wharton, sir John Mordaunt sonne to the lord Mordaunt, sir William Drury, sir John Shelton, sir Henry Bedingfield, master Henry Jerningham, master John Sulierde, master Richard Freston, master sergeant Morgan, master Clement Higham of Lincolnes inne, and divers others; and also that the earle of Sussex and master Henry Ratcliffe his sonne were comming towards her…’
He proclaimed her at Norwich, and for his loyalty received an annual pension of £100 out of the forfeited estates of Sir Thomas Wyatt. Ultimately he became Lieutenant of the Tower of London and Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard.
As jailer of Princess Elizabeth, who was suspected of complicity in Wyatt’s rebellion, he has been persistently misrepresented by Foxe and others. On 5 May 1554, Sir John Gage was relieved of his office as Constable of the tower and Sir Henry Bedingfield placed in his room. Bedingfield marched in to take over command of the Tower bringing with him a hundred men in blue liveries, and Elizabeth’s reacción to this ‘sudden mutation’, at least as described by John Foxe, clearly illustrates her state of mind. The arrival of Sir Henry, being ‘a man unknown to her Grace and therefore the more feared’, seems to have induced a fit of panic. She demanded to be told ‘whether the Lady Jane’s scaffold were taken away or no?’ Reassured on this point, but still not entirely satisfied, she went on to ask who Sir Henry Bedingfield was and whether, ‘if her murdering were secretly committed to his charge, he would see the execution thereof?’
On 19 May, at one o’clock in the afternoon he joined Sir John Williams and Sir Leonard Chamberlain to escort Elizabeth from the Tower to Woodstock. Foxe, in his “The myracolous preservation of Lady Elizabeth, nowe Queen” said:
“… In conclusión, on Trinitie Sonday being the 19. day of Maye, she was remooved from the Tower, the Lorde Treasurer being then there for the lading of her Cartes and discharging the place of the same. Where Syr Henry Benifielde (being appoynted her Gailer) did receive her wyth a companie of rakehelles to Garde her, besides the Lorde of Darbies bande, wayting in the Countrey about for the mooneshine on the water. Unto whome at length carne my Lorde of Tame, ioyned in Commission with the sayd Syr Henry, for the guiding of her to prisone: and they together conveied her grace to Woodstock, as hereafter followeth…”
Foxe’ s narrative contains many circumstantial anecdotes of her imprisonment, intended to emphasise her constant danger, and the boorish behaviour of Sir Henry. In fact, he seems to have been nomore than conscientious, and Elizabeth herself understood that. The whole history of his custodianship of Elizabeth is contained in a series of letters addressed to the Queen and the Privy Council, and in their replies. This correspondence, which has been published by the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society, completely exonerates Sir Henry from either cruelty or want of courtesy in his treatment of the royal captive.
Thomas Parry, the princess cofferer had to provide for her household but on 26 May, three days after her arrival at Woodstock, the Council told Bedingfield that there was no reason for Parry to stay there. Elizabeth’s guardian communicated this decision to Parry, who baffled him by staying in the town. Parry now proceeded to make Bedingfield’s life a misery. He first objected to the provisioning of his retinue out of Elizabeth’s resources, until Bedingfield was commanded to supply them by a special warrant. This was simply a harassing tactic, for books were being conveyed to Elizabeth, some of which Bedingfield suspected of being seditious, and when Parry sent him two harmless ones he was forced to return them for want of explicit instructions. Bedingfield complained that he was helpless, as ‘daily and hourly the said Parry may have and give intelligence’, and once again the cofferer’s position was referred to the Council. Early in Jul Parry was at the Bull inn, ‘a marvellous colourable place to practise in’, receiving every day as many as 40 men in his own livery, besides Elizabeth’s own servants. At length the Council forbade such large meetings and, from Bedingfield’s subsequent silence on the point, it seems that the order was obeyed.
Sir Henry Bedingfield also informed the Council of a meeting at Woodstock, Oxfordshire, between Francis Verney and a servant of the late Duke of Suffolk and cited Sir Leonard Chamberlain’s judgement that “if there be any practice of ill within all England, this Verney is privy to it”. Bedingfield apologised to the Council for the fact that he was being ‘enforced, by the importunate desires of this great lady, to trouble your lordships with more letters than be contentful to mine own opinion’. In Apr 1555 Henry Bedingfield, escort Elizabeth to Hampton Court, where she met the Queen. A weeks later ended a period of close restraint for the Princess, which had lasted just over fifteen months. It would probably be difficult to say whether prisoner or jailer was the more relieved.
On Elizabeth’s accession he retired to Oxborough and was called upon in a letter, in which the Queen addressed him as “trusty and well-behaved”, to furnish a horse and man armed, as his contribution to the defence of the country against an expected invasion of the French.
When, however, the penal laws against Catholics were enforced with extreme severity, Sir Henry Bedingfield was not spared. He was required to pay heavy monthly fines for non-attendance at the parish church, while his house was searched for priests and church-furniture, and his servants dismissed for refusing to comform to the new state religion. Together with his fellow-Catholics, he was a prisoner within five miles of his own house and might pass that boundary only by a written authorization of the Privy Council.
In his will of 24 Jul 1561 Sir Richard Southwell bequeathed over 10,000 sheep to members of his family and left his personal armour to his ‘cousin and friend’ Sir Henry Bedingfield.
He died 22 Aug 1583, and was buried in the Bedingfeld chantry at Oxborurgh.
Family and Education
b. by 1509, 1st s. of Sir Edmund Bedingfield of Oxborough by Grace, da. of Henry Marney, 1st Baron Marny. educ. L. Inn, adm. 1528. m. by 1535, Catherine, da. of Sir Roger Townshend of Raynham, Norf., 5s. 5da. Kntd. by July 1551; suc. fa. June 1553.1
J.p. Norf. 1538-53, q. 1554-58/59, q. Suff. 1554-58/59; commr. relief, Norf. 1550; other commissions Norf., Suff. 1534-60 PC Aug. 1553-Nov. 1558; lt. Tower Oct. 1555-c.Sept. 1556; v.-chamberlain of the Household and capt. of the guard Dec. 1557-Nov. 1558.2
Henry Bedingfield came from an old Suffolk family with extensive estates in East Anglia. After his marriage to the daughter of one of the most favoured crown officials in the region he was named to the Norfolk bench; however, while his father lived he was not outstanding in either national or county affairs, although in 1544 he led a troop of his tenants to the army at Boulogne. In 1549 he helped the Marquess of Northampton to put down Ket’s rebellion, but was himself captured and only released after its suppression. Bedingfield seems to have supported or at least acquiesced in the Duke of Northumberland’s rise to power, for he was recommended by the Council as knight of the shire for Suffolk to the second Parliament of Edward VI’s reign. Although noted by Cecil on a list of those thought to be sympathetic to Lady Jane Grey he was one of the first to rally to Mary. His decisiveness during the succession crisis earned for him the trust of the Queen and a place on her Council. As one close to her and a major landowner in his own right following his father’s death he was elected one of the knights of the shire for Norfolk to the first Parliament of the new reign and re-elected to its successor early in 1554. When after Wyatt’s rebellion the Queen sought a stricter guardian for her sister, she found in Bedingfield the qualities necessary—honesty, loyalty, obedience and perhaps a certain lack of initiative. Possibly she realized the touch of irony in her setting as guard over Elizabeth the son of the man who had been her own mother’s custodian. Bedingfield remained at Woodstock as guardian of the princess from May 1554 to April 1555. His correspondence with the Council and Queen concerning his duties hardly bears out Foxe’s accusation of cruel treatment of his charge. It shows, rather, a severe and rigid man of limited imagination and lacking in humour, but by no means cruel; it also indicates that he had much to endure from Elizabeth’s temper and her constant importunity.3
In June 1556 Bedingfield surrendered an annuity of £100 (granted to him for his services in July 1553), together with two Yorkshire manors, receiving in return the manor of Uphall and the reversion of numerous other lands in Norfolk. His promotion at court in December 1557 marked a further stage in the growth of his power and influence, and preceded his re-election for a third and final time as a knight of the shire for Norfolk. There seemed no obvious limit to his career when the death of Mary and the accession of his former charge brought his career to an abrupt close. He asked Elizabeth’s forgiveness for his treatment of her at Woodstock; the Queen showed no malice but hinted that she would prefer not to see him at court. In 1569 he refused to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity, and had to enter into a bond for his good behaviour. Nine years later he was accused of refusing to attend services and giving refuge to papists, and bound over in £500 to remain at Norwich: not long afterwards he was summoned to London but excused on account of ill-health. The last years of his life were troubled by similar actions against him, but he was fortunate in having at court a son-in-law, Henry Seckford, who in December 1581 obtained permission to take the old man into his own home ‘until he may pass over the remembrance of the lady his wife, lately deceased’. Bedingfield made his will on 16 Aug. 1583. He had previously settled some of his lands on his younger sons and he divided his goods between them and his daughters, apart from some heirlooms which were to descend with Oxborough manor. Bedingfield died on 22 Aug. and was buried at Oxborough.4
Ref Volumes: 1509-1558Author: Roger Virgoe
Henry Bedingfield (1509 – 1583)
is my 13th great grandfather
Edmund Bedingfield (1534 – 1585)
son of Henry Bedingfield
Nazareth Bedingfeld (1561 – 1622)
daughter of Edmund Bedingfield
Elishua Miller Yelverton (1592 – 1688)
daughter of Nazareth Bedingfeld
Yelverton Crowell (1621 – 1683)
son of Elishua Miller Yelverton
Elishua Crowell (1643 – 1708)
daughter of Yelverton Crowell
Yelverton Gifford (1676 – 1772)
son of Elishua Crowell
Ann Gifford (1715 – 1795)
daughter of Yelverton Gifford
Frances Congdon (1738 – 1755)
daughter of Ann Gifford
Thomas Sweet (1759 – 1844)
son of Frances Congdon
Valentine Sweet (1791 – 1858)
son of Thomas Sweet
Sarah LaVina Sweet (1840 – 1923)
daughter of Valentine Sweet
Jason A Morse (1862 – 1932)
son of Sarah LaVina Sweet
Ernest Abner Morse (1890 – 1965)
son of Jason A Morse
Richard Arden Morse (1920 – 2004)
son of Ernest Abner Morse
Pamela Morse
I am the daughter of Richard Arden Morse
mermaidcamp 