THE HISTORY OF THE STANHOPE FAMILY
By Michael Stanhope
Dedicated to the memory of Philip Henry Stanhope, 1805-1875
INTRODUCTION
I commenced this history of the Stanhope family in 2005, many years from when my curiosity about the origin of my family name was first kindled. On rare occasions, when visiting my paternal grandmother’s very small cottage, I was amazed to see very large oil paintings of people dressed in ancient ways. There was also the puzzle of the sixteenth-century furniture, and the enormous horse brasses that so dominated the small hearth. More intriguing still was the little mentioned story of the great hall where these anomalies originated, and of my family’s connection to it.
However great my interest in the history of the Stanhope family, I must echo the words of an earlier Stanhope chronicler, and admit this to be a work of limited interest, intended only to appeal to the Stanhope and related families; that they might feel a sense of continuity in a changing world, and a sense of pride in their Northern roots. For it seems fitting for descendants of the Norman Race that the lineage and deeds of their forefathers would be of interest to them, and would always be kept in memory: Our children are taught all manner of foreign culture, without trouble taken to make them familiar with their own people.
What of these people? Dudo of Saint-Quentin, in the Historia Normannorum, tells of a dream supposedly had by Rollo, first ruler of the Norman state, which reflected the Normans’ view of their origins … ‘on top of the mountain, he saw about the base of it many thousands of birds of different kinds’. This metaphor is an acceptance of a mixed race of Scandinavian and Frankish allies, at the centre of which may have been a dominant core of Danish settlers.
I in no way wish to serve up a dry account, an arid and meaningless catalogue of unexplained events; one which simply states who begat who. The aim of any history, even a small one as this, should be to stir interest and appreciation, for without that all study of the past is dead and labour lost. Where possible, I will give information about people, both men and women, and their deeds and motives, so that those mentioned may leave a permanent mark in our mind. To this end, this account commences with a genealogical history of the Stanhope and associated families, then concludes by puting ‘flesh’ on these ‘dry bones’ in an additional notes section.
THE CRISPINS
1. Gilbert Crispin I., ‘who because of the shape of his hair was to be known as Crispin. For in his early youth he had hair that was brush-like and stiff and sticking out, and in a manner of speaking bristling like the needles of a pine tree. This gave him the name of Crispin, from ‘crispus pinus, ‘pine hair’. Gilbert Crispin I. was also noted by Milo Crispin as being ‘of renowned origin and nobility’ (Milo Crispin, How The Holy Virgin Appeared To William Crispin The Elder And On The Origin Of The Crispin Family, ed. Migne, cols. 735-744, 185). Duke Robert I. established Gilbert Crispin at Tillières to defend this important border castle for him.
2. Gilbert Crispin I. and Gunnor, had issue, cousins to the nobility of Normandy: 1. Gilbert Crispin II., Castellan of Tillières, who distinguished himself at the Battle of Hastings, jointly leading a large company with Henry de Ferrers. 2. William Crispin I., who died in Abbot Herluin’s time, before 1079, and was Vicomte of the Vexin (Milo Crispin, ibid.). 3. Robert Crispin, ‘the youngest brother, having left Normandy wandered through many provinces until he arrived at Constantinople where he was welcomed with honour by the Emperor and made a name for himself with all, and where also, as is said, died of poison due to the envy of the Greeks’ (ibid). Robert Crispin was a Norman mercenary. He was the leader of a band of his countrymen, stationed at Edessa, under the command of the Byzantine general, Isaac Komnenos, Duke of Antioch. He fought against the invading Seljuk Turks, and was poisoned shortly after the Battle of Manzikert (C. Gravett, and D. Nicolle, The Normans: Warrior Knights and their Castles, 2006). Robert did not choose a roving life – ‘Robert du Bec-Crespin, expulsé de la Normandie par Guillaume le Conquérant’ (A. T. Barabé, Recherches Historiques, p. 223, 1863). 4. Emma Crispin, who married Pierre de Condé. Emma’s descendants, who bore the name of Condie or Cundet, inherited ‘various estates in Lincolnshire’ (Memoirs Illustrative of the County and City of Lincolnshire, Archeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, p. 255, 1850). 5. Hesilia Crispin, the wife of William Malet.*
3. 1069: ‘In this year, before the Nativity of St. Mary (September 8), Harold and Cnut, sons of Suane, king of the Danes, and their uncle, earl Osbern, and their bishop, Christian, and earl Turkill, coming with two hundred and forty ships from Denmark, landed at the mouth of the river Humber. There they were met by Eadgar Atheling, Earl Walthev, and Marlesswein, and many others, with a fleet which they had provided. Earl Cospatric was there also, with the whole strength of the Northumbrians, who all assembled with one consent against the Normans. At the approach of all these, Aldred, archbishop of York, becoming very timid, fell into great weakness, and in the tenth year of his episcopate, on Friday, the third of the ides of September (11th Sept.), ended his life, as he had besought God, and was buried in the church of St. Peter. On the eighth day after this, namely on Saturday, the thirteenth of the kalends of October (September 19), the Normans who garrisoned the castles, fearing lest the houses which adjoined the castles might be of use to the Danes in filling up the moats, commenced setting them on fire. The conflagration increasing exceedingly, seized on the whole of the city, and with it consumed the monastery of St. Peter. But this was speedily and severely visited upon them by the divine vengeance. For before the whole city was burnt, the Danish fleet arrived on the Monday, and the Danes assailing the castles on one side, the Northumbrians on the other, they took them by storm the same day. And more than three thousand of the Normans being slaughtered, and *William Malet, who then held the office of sheriff, with his wife and two children, and Gilbert de Gand, and a very few others being preserved alive, the Danes returned to their ships with untold spoils, and the Northumbrians to their abodes’ (Simeon of Durham’s, History of the Kings).
4. Hesilia Crispin and William Malet had issue: 1. Robert Malet is mentioned in a charter of Henry, Duke of Normandy, and Comte Anjou, dated at Devizes in 1152, which granted to Ranulf, Earl of Chester, ‘totum honorem de Eia, sicut Robertus Malet avunculus matris suae melius et plenius unquam tenuit. Et foeudum Alani de Lincalia ei decli quit fuit avunculus matris suae, et foedum Ernisii de Burun sicut hereditatem.’ Alani de Lincalia, alias Alan of Lincoln, may have been the son of Hesilia Crispin by a second husband, being recognised as of the Crispin lineage (Rot. Magn. Scacc., 31 Hen. I.). 2. Gilbert Malet, whose son was William Malet II. (See: Two Cartularies of the Benedictine Abbeys of Muchelney and Athelney, ed. E. H. Bates, Somerset Rec. Soc. 14, 1899; Subsidiary Indices i., ii. 3. Beatrix Malet, who married William, Vicomte Arques, and had issue, Emma d’Arques, who married (1) Nigel de Monville; they founded Folkestone Priory. (2) Manasser, Count of Guines (Vivien Brown, Eye Priory Cartulary, p. 6, 1992).
5. Robert Malet founded the Priory of Eye in 1089, as a sister-house of the Abbey of Bernay. Bernay was a stronghold of the Crispin family, with Gibert Crispin I. witnessing the Abbey of Bernay’s foundation charter in 1025 (Fauroux, Recueil, no. 35). 4. Lucy Malet. She was the wife of Ivo de Tailbois. In a charter of her husband, dated 1085, she gave the church of Spalding to the Priory of St. Nicholas of Angers. Ivo de Tailbois, obit. 1114, was buried in the Priory Church of Spalding (Memoires Illustrative of the County and City of Lincoln, Arch. Inst. GB&I, 1848). ‘A strong confirmation of the consanguinity of Lucy to the house of Malet is the circumstances that the manor of Aulkborough, co. Lincoln, belonging to Ivo de Tailbois at the Domesday Survey, had previously belonged to William Malet; and the severance of it from the barony of his son can only be explained by a gift in frank-marriage by the father in his lifetime’ (J. Gough Nichols, The Topographer and Genealogist, p. 15, 1846). Lucy Malet and Ivo de Tailbois had issue: Beatrix de Tailbois, who married Ribald of Middleham, brother of Alan, Earl of Richmond. Matilda de Tailbois, wife of Hugh Fitz-Ranulph, brother of Ranulph, Earl of Chester. Lucy de Tailbois, Countess of Chester, who m. (1) Roger de Romara, (2) Ranulph, Earl of Chester. Issue by Roger de Romara: William, Earl of Lincoln. Issue by Ranulph, Earl of Chester: (1) Ranulph de Gernons, Earl of Chester, who in 1152, as aforementioned, obtained the inheritance of two ‘uncles of his mother’, namely Robert Malet and Alan de Lincoln. He was poisoned to death in the following year by William Peverell III., who had designs on the Earl’s wife The result was a forfeitsure of the Peverell estates to the Crown. William, Earl of Cambridge. (2) Alice, wife of Richard Fitz-Gilbert, descendant of Gilbert de Brionne, ancestor of the Clares, Earls of Gloucester and Hertford. (3) Agnes, the wife of Robert de Grentemesnil.
6. William Crispin I., the middle brother, was ‘of outstanding manners, the best known of all; with military fame he rose above almost all his contemporaries. His famous prowess made many envious. William, duke of the Normans, called William Crispin to the castle of Neaufles and gave him, and his son after him, the castle and the vicomte of the Vexin. There William established his home to ward off French invasions. He revisited, however, the land he held elsewhwere in Normandy in the district of Lisieux’ (Milo Crispin, ibid.).
7. ‘The Norman and French forces met at Mortemer (before Lent, February 6, 1054). The Normans were led by Count Robert of Eu, assisted by Hugh of Gournay, Hugh of Montfort, Walter Giffard, William Crispin, Roger of Mortemer … There at dawn battle was instantly joined and continued on both sides with bloodshed until noon. Finally, the defeated French took to flight including their standard-bearer, Odo, the King’s brother. In this battle, the greater part of the French nobility was slain; the remainder were kept in custody throughout various Norman villages’ (Excerpt from Obert, Count of Eu. By his wife, Countess Lescelina).
8. The military prowess of the Crispins was well esteemed: ‘And like the Fabii, or the Anicii or Manlii, carried the tokens of fame (insignia) among the Romans, so the Crispins knew even greater fame among the Normans and the French’ (Milo Crispin, ibid.). William Crispin I. had a wife named Eve de Montfort,* 1009-1099, ‘who suited him well on account of her origin and manners. Eve de Montfort bore him Gilbert, abbot of Westminster, William Crispin II., and many others’ (ibid.). Eve de Montfort died in a fire at Le Bec in 1099, and was buried there, next to her husband. It is recorded of her that she had to do penance for her love of lapdogs (Adolphe Porée, Histoire de L’Abbaye du Bec, 1901). Eve de Montfort was the sister of Norman frontier lord Simon de Montfort (W. Frolich, trsl., The Letters of Anselme of Canterbury, 1990-1994, nos. 22, 98, 118, and 147). They were the children of Amauri 1 de Montfort, obit. 1031, and Bertrade de Gometz. Amauri was the possible son of William de Hainault (Marjorie Chibnall, ed. & trans., The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, vol. iv., 1969-80). William de Hainault was contemporary to Regnier IV. de Hainault, who, in 985, recovered Mons and Hainault. and married. Hadwige, daughter of Hugh Capet, King of France; by whom he had issue Regnier V. who died in 1033, leaving by his wife, Maud of Lorrain, a dau., Richildis, heiress of Hainault, Brabant, Mons, and Valenciennes; which possessions she conveyed to the Counts of Flanders, marrying Count Baldwin V., brother of King William the Conqueror’s wife. Gilbert de Gand’s mother is stated to be Gisele, a sister of Otgiva, wife of Baldwin IV. count of Flanders (Europaische Stammtafeln (ES, 6:128, 1978). The same authority (ES 2:5, 1984) has 1012 for Otgiva’s marriage date, as does K. F. Werner’s ‘Die Nachkommen Karls des Grossen’, in Karl der Grosse, ed. W. Braunfels, vol. 4, 1967. Thus, given Gilbert de Gand’s estimated birthdate of 1040-2, there is a thirty year age difference between Gisele and Otgiva, and a relationship of niece/aunt would be more supportable, making Gilbert de Gand a second-cousin of both King William’s wife and Baldwin V., whose wife, as shown, was the granddau. of Regnier IV. de Hainault; who was likely closely related to William de Hainault, grandfather of William Crispin’s wife. This would be a typical example of the concept of ‘foedus inter consobinos heredes’ – inheritance passing down non-consanguineous lines of cousins, or kinfolk. At the time of the Conquest, marriages between those of close blood were disallowed. The later Middle Ages witnessed a complete reversal of this policy, and marriages between cousins and second-cousins were commonplace, leading to a ‘genetic’ collapse of many families.
9. William Crispin II. was an Anglo-Norman lord who held land in Yorkshire in Wetherby, Wheldrake, Coxwold, Goodmanham, Arnodestorp, Burnby, Clifton, Dunnington, Easthorpe in Londesborough, Elvington, Fyling, Grimston in Dunnington, Hayton, Hinderwell, Ianulfestrop, Kirkleatham, Kipling, Marshe-by-the-Sea, Nafferton, Pockthorpe, Scoreby, Sutton upon Derwent, and Warter (Domesday Book, folio 322). He also held land in Ancroft in Northumberland, as mesne-tenant of William de Percy. Goodmanham (Godmundin) is a small village situated 2 miles to the north-east of Market Weighton. It was the main pagan site of worship in the north of England, housing the Temple of Delgovine, the place of God’s image, dedicated to Odin. He also held land in Normandy: ‘William Crispin the younger gave the tithe of the mill and of his desmene which he had in Le Mesnil-Hubert, the church and tithe of Druicort, what Robert Malcovernant held of him, one house in Livarot with all its customs, half of the church and tithe of Bournainville’ (David Bates, ed., Regum Anglo-Normannorum, the Acta of William I, 1066-1087, 1998). Other Crispin holdings mentioned in the ‘Acta’ were situate in Damville, La Pavée, Le Theil-Nogent, St. Hillaire de Tillières, and Plainville.
10. According to Mathieu (Reserches Sur Les Premiers Comtes De Dammartin, 19, 60, 1996), a probable wife of William Crispin II. was Agnes Mauvoisin, daughter of Eustachia Dammartin, daughter of Manasses, Count of Dammartin, and Constance Capetien, daughter of Robert II., King of France. Eustachia married Raoul Mauvoisin, Seigneur of Rosny, and Viscount of Mantes. He was a part of the Hastings invasion force, before becoming a monk at Gassicourt, dying in 1074. An act of Agnes, daughter of Eustachia, daughter of Count Manasses, granted tithes at Rosny ‘for the souls of her mother and husband, William’.The association of Rosny and the name Manasser strongly suggests a connection with the Mauvoisins of Rosny. The Mauvoisins were the most powerful family in the marches of Francia, between Vernon and Mantes. Eustachia Dammartin’s brother, Hugh II. de Dammartin, married Rohesia de Clare, daughter of Richard FitzGilbert, and Rohese Giffard. Richard Fitzgilbert was a direct descendant of Gilbert de Brionne.
11. 1. Manasses de Dammartin, obit. December 15, 1037, married Constance of France. ‘Manasses épouse s’appelait Constance, et il y a de fortes chances qu’elle ait été une fille du roi Robert II et de Constance d’Arles’ (Paris et Ile-de-France; mémoires, vol. 47, issue 1, 1996). In support of this thesis, also given in Europäische Stammtafeln, vol. III, p. 676, the king and the queen are present in a donation by ‘Manasses comes’ (February 4, 1031), who, it is assumed, acquired the county of Dammartin as a result of his marriage. Furthermore, Robert and Constance had a daughter, Adèle de France, who married (1026), Richard III. duke of Normandy, and, secondly, Baudouin V. de Flandres, by who she was the mother of Mathilde, Queen of England. The close relationship between the ducal house and the Crispins may be seen as a reason for William II. Crispin’s marriage with a grandaughter of Manasses de Dammartin; a Norman/French ‘peace treaty’.
12. ‘Hilduin III, comte de Montdidier, d’Arcis-sur-Aube et de Rameru, mort en 1033. Suivant Du Cange, le P. Anselme et M. de Beauvillé, il n’aurait eu de son mariage avec Lesceline d’Harcourt,* veuve de Guillaume, comte d’Eu, que deux enfants: Hilduin IV, qui lui succéda, et Isabelle, mariée en premières noces à Bouchard II, comte de Corbeil, et en secondes noces, à Gui de Montlhéry, comte de Rochefort. Nous voyons par notre charte qu’il eut un second fils nommé Manassès’ (Histoire de Montdidier, par M. de Beauvillé, t. i., p. 53). *’La sœur d’Anquetil’ (Annales de Normandie, vol. 52, issues 1-3, p. 133, 2002). Lesceline – ‘Lezscelinam … filiam …Turchetilli’ (Willelmi Gemmetencis Historiæ (Du Chesne, 1619), Liber v., iii., p. 250), married William d’Eu, whose brother, Robert, was the father of William d’Eu, Lord of Hastings, s.l. 1095. He married (1) Beatrice de Busli, sister of the Domesday magnate, Roger de Busli, founder of Blythe Priory. (2) Helisende d’Avranches, daughter of Richard ‘le Goz’, Vicomte d’Avranches. Her marriage is referred to by Orderic Vitalis, who says that she was the sister of Hugh, Earl of Chester, but does not give her name (Orderic Vitalis (Chibnall), vol. iv, B. viii., p. 285), and of Judith d’Avranches, who married Richer de l’Aigle, Seigneur de l’Aigle, grandparents of Richer de l’Aigle, whose daughter, Juliana, obit. 1156, in Tilly-sur-Seulles, married Gilbert Crispin, Seigneur de Tillières (Véronique Gazeau, Normannia monastica, vol. 1).
13. 1.1. Hughes I de Dammartin, obit. c. 1100, married Rohais de Clair, dau of Richard fitz Gilbert, lord of Clair, (obit. May 1089), and Rohais Giffard, relict of Eudo Dapifer (Keats-Rohan, Family Trees and the Roots of Politics, pp. 430-431, 1997). 1.1.1. Eudes de Dammartin, of Norton and Mendlesham, Suffolk, obit. 1131, married Basilie, who paid sixty marks of silver for the possession of her dower in the 31st Henry I (1131). She might possibly, from her name, have been a daughter of Hugh de Gournay and Basilia Flaitel. Odo de Dammartin, her son, in the same year, rendered account of 100 marks of silver for his father’s lands. Manasses de Dammartin, mentioned in the Liber Niger in the passage quoted, was apparently another son of Basilia, and enfeoffed Walter de Gournay of the quarter of a knight’s fee. 1.1.1.1. Alberic, obit 1181, married … (1st wife), who was living in 1147. 1.1.2. Eustachie Dammartin, who married Raoul Mauvoisin, Seigneur of Rosny, and Viscount of Mantes. 1.1.2.1. Agnes Mauvoisin, married William Crispin II.
COXWOLD AND YEARSLEY
14. William Crispin 11. and Agnes de Mauvoison had six sons: (1) Philip de Colleville, from whom descended the Lords Colville of Scotland (E. A. Freeman, ‘The Norman People’, pp. 405-406, 1874). Philip de Colleville’s son, Philip de Colville, accepted an invitation of King Malcolm IV. to settle in Scotland, and founded the baronies of Culross and Ochiltree. He was witness to a general confirmation by King Malcolm IV. of all donations made by his predecessors to the monastery of Dunfermline before 1159. He was one of the hostages for the release of King William the Lion from captivity in 1174. The first possessions he obtained in Scotland were Heton and Oxenhame, in the county of Roxburgh. He also acquired lands in Ayrshire. His son, Thomas de Colville, constable of Dumfries Castle, was witness to several charters of King William the Lion between 1189 and 1199. In 1210, being unjustly suspected of a conspiracy against that monarch, he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, but was released in 6 months. By Amabilis, his wife, he had a son, William de Colville, who granted to the monks of Newbattle the lands that belonged to his father. He settled in Morham. He was the proprietor of the barony of Kinaird in Stirlingshire, as confirmed by a lease granted by him to the abbot and convent of Holyrood House, dated 1228. It would seem to have been his daughter, Eustacia, the wife of Sir Reginald Chene, who was, according to Nisbett’s Heraldry, ‘the heir of the principal house of Colvill’. Sir John de Colevyle, how nearly related we are not informed, held Oxnam (Oxenham) in Roxburghshire, and Uchiltree or Ochiltree in Ayrshire, in the time of Alexander III. (1249-1285); and his descendants were styled, first of the former, and afterwards of the latter place. In 1449, Sir Richard de Colville set upon James Auchinlech, with whom he had a private feud, and slew him and several of his retainers. Auchinlech had been ‘a near friend’ to the powerful Earl of Douglas, and the Earl solemnly swore to be revenged. Collecting his followers, he ravaged Colville’s lands, laid siege to his castle, captured and plundered it, and put all that it contained – its lord included – to the sword.
15. It is sometimes wrongly stated that the Colvilles who settled in Scotland were descended from Gilbert Crispin II. His family was primarily Norman, although holding lands in England, where his daughter, Eleanor Crispin, married Robert de Hatton of Cheshire. Gilbert’s great-great-grandson, Gilbert Crispin V., married Eleanor de Vitré, 1158-1232. He was her second husband, her first being William D’Evreux; her third being William Fitzpatrick, second Earl of Salisbury, grandson of Sybil de Chaworth, whose family are mentioned later in this account. Gilbert Crispin V. died during the Siege of Acre, Palestine. His daughter by Eleanor de Vitré was Joan Crispin, who married Thomas Malmains. Their son was Nicholas Malmains, Sheriff of Suffolk. Gilbert Crispin V. was probably the ancestor of the Colvilles of Carshalton, Surrey, where, temp. John I., Maud de Colville held land with her husband, William of Flanders. Gilbert Crispin I. confirmed to the abbey of St-Evroult, with his sons, and William de Breteuil, lands originally belonging to Raoul, Comte de Ivri, suggesting a relationship to this powerful lord. He donated the entire fief of Hauville to the monks of Jumieges for the salvation of the souls of ‘the great prince Richard I., of my glorious master William, duke of Normandy, of my father and my mother, my wife and children’ (Jackson and Macary, ‘Falaise Roll’, p. 137, 1994).
16. 1. Gilbert Crispin I. 1.1. Gilbert Crispin II., Seigneure de Tillières. 1.1.1. Gilbert Crispin III., married Hersende de Brezolles, kinswoman of Albert Ribaut, and became enfeoffed in Armentières. Albert Ribaud, gave the church of Brezolles (Eure-et-Loir, cant. Dreux) to the monastery of Saint-Pere of Chartres; the same monastery receiving donations from the Armentières family of Verneuil. ‘Deux chartes du cartulaire de Saint-Père font mention de Foulques et de Fulbert d’Armentières’ ( Charpillon, Anatole Caresme, ‘Dictionnaire historique’, p. 143, 1868).The Tillières branch of the Crispin family had a share in seigneurial revenues at Brezolles (Daniel Power, The Norman Frontier, pp. 246-247, 2005). 1.1.2. Ribaut. 1.1.3. Richard. 1.1.4. Landry. 1.1.4.1. Raoul de Tillières. He confirmed his father’s gift of land in Armentières to the Abbey of Bec. Richard FitzGilbert de Clare, son of Gilbert de Brionne, married Rohaise, dau. of Walter Giffard and Ermengarde Flaitel. ‘A daughter, whose name is unknown, married Raoul, seigneur de Tillières’ (Archaeologia Cambrensis, p. 12, 1859). As shown, another daughter of Richard FitzGilbert married Hugh II. Dammartin, uncle William Crispin’s wife. Richard FitzGilbert’s son, Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare, was the father of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare (obit. 1136), whose daus. were (1) Alice de Clare, who married William de Percy, Lord of Topcliffe, son of Alan de Percy and Emma de Gand, daughter of Gilbert de Gand (and Alice de Montfort-sur-Risle*), overlord of Whatton; (2) Rohese de Clare, who married Gilbert de Gand, Earl of Lincoln, grandson of the aforementioned Gilbert (Rot. de Dom., 9). *Her half-sister, Adeline de Montfort-sur-Risle, married William de Breteuil, Seigneur d’Ivry, son of William FitzOsbern, Earl of Hereford, a family closely associated with that of Crispin. Robert de d’Armentières, held Whatton of Gilbert de Gand. I have elsewhere made the case for Robert being a brother of William Crispin II. 1.2. William Crispin I. 1.2.1. William Crispin II. 1.2.1.1. William Crispin III.
17. Thomas de Colville, the aforementioned constable of Dumfries Castle, gave land in Galloway to Vaudey Abbey, to pray for the souls of dead Scottish Kings.The fact that a Lincolnshire Abbey received land in Galloway for the souls of Scottish Kings is only explicable because of the existence of an aristocratic family with members in both kingdoms (G. Barrow, The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History, 1980). The network of relations was vitally important, providing support in times of need, and promotion when influence permitted. The family of de Colville, although geographically dispersed, was a powerful political entity.
18. (2) William Crispin III., who, in 1119, nearly killed Henry 1. at the Battle of Bremule, striking him with his sword. ‘The French van, consisting of eighty men, led by Crispin, gallantly charged Henry’s footmen … Crispin, who bore the king a deadly personal hate, cut his way to him, and struck him a furious blow’ (Sir James Ramsey, The Scholar’s History of England, p. 287, 1898). ‘In those days the generals themselves always fought amongst the foremost.* William Crispin, a gallant knight, attacked King Henry personally, dealing him two strokes with the sword, which, though repelled by the temper of the royal helmet, yet beat the metal flat on his head by main force, and caused the blood to gush from nose and mouth’ (Sir Walter Scott, Waverley Novels, vol. 27, p. 139, 1839). *A requirement that should be re-instated. Roger FitzRichard de Clare struck William Crispin from his horse and on to the ground, took him prisoner, and then flung himself over William’s body to save him from the vengeance of Henry’s friends (see Reginald Allen Brown, ‘Proceedings’, p. 100, 1980).
19. Henry of Huntingdon calls Bremule the battle of Noyon, on account of this place being Henry’s head quarters. The central point of the battle appears to have been at the farm of Bremule, three leagues distant. Hence we read in the history of Ordericus Vitalis, that ‘the French having reached the neighbourhood of Noyon, set fire to a granary belonging to the monks of Boucheron, the smoke of which was visible to the English as it rose in the air. Near Mount Verclive there is an open ground and vast plain, called by the inhabitants of the country Bremule. King Henry descended to it with five hundred cavalry, the warlike hero having put on his armour and skilfully disposed his mailed troops. Of the Normans, there were Baldric de Brai, William Crispin, and some others in the ranks of the French army. All these assembled at Bremule, swelling with pride, and ready to encounter the Normans’. Duchesne’s text calls the place Brenneville; but the original manuscript gives the correct name as Brenmula.
20. William Crispin III. repeatedly fought against Henry I., alongside his cousin, Amaury de Montfort, in his sphere of influence around L’Aigle and Gisors – fortress areas near Neaufles. He also fought with his cousin against the French, who sought to usurp Amaury de Montfort’s lands. Milo Crispin noted that William Crispin III. admired his grandmother, Eve Crispin, ‘with fitting love’. He also records his death in French captivity, and the granting of his wish to be buried at Le Bec, situated between Le Havre and Rouen, in the Risle valley. He married Joanna de Trèves (Ctl. St. Aubin, ii, no. DCCCCXXXI, 1114). Their son, Joscelin Crispin, who held the guardianship of Emma Languetot, and her lands in Huntingdonshire, married Isabella de Dangu, daughter of Robert de Dangu (BN, ms. lat. 18369, pp. 55-57). They had issue: William Crispin IV., fl. 1223, Baron du Bec-Crespin, who married Eve de Harcourt, daughter of William de Harcourt (Le Prevost, 11, 6-8, 1862-1869). Their son was Maréchel Guillaume Crispin V., fl.1225, who married Amice de Roye (Actes de Philippe Auguste, iii.. no. 1376). Robert Crispin, who married Agnes de Rouvray. Eustachia Crispin. Emelina Crispin. Eve Crispin, who married Robert de Harcourt II., obit. 1208. Agnes Crispin, who married Geol de Baudemont.
21. (3) Amaury Crispin, Seigneur de Champtoceaux. He married the heiress Warmasia de Champtoceaux (Regest III, no. 729. Ctl. St. Aubin, i., no. cxiv.). (4) Simon Crispin. (5) Manasser Crispin. (6) Thomas de Colleville, the youngest son of this Anglo-Norman family, obtained, by gift of his father,Yearsley, also spelt Everley, Ifferley, and Yresley, a name deriving from Efor’s Leigh, meaning field of the wild boar, near York, where he granted lands to Byland Abbey: ‘In the reign of Stephen, Thomas de Colvyle gave pasture in the wood of Eversley (Yearsley) to Byland Abbey’ (Excerpt from The Yorkshire Archeological Journal, vol. xiv. See also Burton, Mon. Ebor., 72). He married Matilda d’Aubigny, who was third witness, after two canons, to a charter in which her husband granted lands to Newburgh Pryory, c.1150. She was probably a close relative of Roger de Mowbray, her husband’s lord, perhaps his cousin or half-sister, a sister of Sampson d’Aubigny (Institute of Historical Research, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1036-1300, vol. vi., pp. 87-89, 1999). A Pipe Roll, Henry II., c.1170, states that ‘Matilda de Colleville renders account of £ …. that her sons may secure the inheritance of their father’s lands, She has paid it into the treasury. And she is quit’. (For ‘Dominus Thomas de Colevyle’ – see Mowbray Charters nos. 202, 236, 302, 356).
22. Thomas de Colleville had two sons: Firstly, Philip de Colville, who was ancestor of the Colvilles of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and the Everlys of Yorkshire. He held land in Thimbleby and Sigston, Yorkshire. He was founder of the Nunnery of St. Stephens, Foukeholm, and of St. James Hospital, Northallerton (William Page, History of the County of York, p. 116, 1974). Philip de Colville also owned land in Lutton, Lincolnshire, Ancroft, Northumberland, and St. Helen Auckland, Durham, which is located quite near to Stanhope. Their son was William de Colville, who held one knights’ fee of Robert de Gand, in the honour of Bourne, Lincolnshire, and 14 others in the same county, who, temp. Richard I., gave land to Whitby Abbey (J. C. Atkinson, ed., Cartularium Abbathiae de Whiteby, 1879, 1881). He acquired land at Muston and Waddington, near Lincoln (F. R. Lees, Templars, pp. 105-110, 1869). He was also Lord of Bytham, which was near the site of Vaudey Abbey. In the next reign, he was in arms with the barons against the King, and excommunicated by the Pope; and in 1216 taken prisoner at Lincoln. ‘Whereupon Maud, his Wife, being sollicitous for his Redemption, obtain’d Letters of Safe-conduct to come to the King, for treating with him to that purpose; and thereby making his Composition, had the King’s Precept to William Earl of Albemarle, to render his Castle of Bitham, in Com. Lincoln, which had been seised for that Transgression’ (E. Kingsly, Baronial Wars, p. 112, 1804).
23. William Colville’s wife was Maud d’Albini, dau. of Ralph d’Albini (Brito). William held one night’s fee of Robert de Gand in Lincs., husband of Gunnora d’Albini, Maud’s sister. Ralph d’Albini was the uncle of William Albini I., who married Matilda, daughter of Odonel de Umframville (grandfather of Gilbert de Umframville), whose family armorial was gules, 3 cinque foils or. William Albini I. and Maud had issue: William de Albini II., obit. 1242, and Odenel d’Albini, ‘buried near the Chapter house in the Priory of Belvoir, near him his mother, Matildis de Umframville, both on the West side’ (Mon. Angl, vol. 1, p. 328, b.). At Domesday, Robert de Tosny, lord of Belvoir, held Duxford, ‘Gilbert the bearded’ being is tenant there (V.C.H. Cambs. i. 381). Belvoir passed through heiresses to the Albinis. The Colvilles were tenants by c. 1200 of the Belvoir estate of Temple manor, they also held land in Muston and Normanton, probably obtained through the marriage of William de Colville to Maud, the eldest dau. and eventual coheir of Ralph de Albini (Cf. Pipe R. 1194 (P.R.S. n.s. v), 118; 1202 (P.R.S. N.S. xv), 222–3; Feet of Fines, 7–8 Ric. I (Pipe R. Soc. xx), pp. 99–100). William de Colville died c. 1185, and was succeeded by his son, William (Pipe R. 1174 (P.R.S. xxi), 97; 1179 (P.R.S. xxviii), 50–1; cf. Lincs. Eyre, 1218–19 (Selden Soc. liii), 358–9), who died in 1230 (Ex. e Rot. Fin. (Rec. Com.), i. 199; Cur. Reg. R. xiv, pp. 95, 144–6).
24. William Colville and Maud d’Albini left issue: 1. William de Colville, son and heir, who married Beatrice de Stuteville,* one of the daughters of Roger de Stuteville, sheriff of Northumberland, her sister being Alice, widow of Roger de Merlay, son of Ralph de Merlay, Lord of Morpeth, Northumberland, and Juliana of Dunbar, dau. of Gospatric II. of Dunbar. Roger de Merlay and Alice de Stuteville had issue: Roger de Merlay, who married Margery de Umframville, granddaughter of Odonel de Umframville. Gospatrick II. of Dunbar was the brother of Waltheof of Dunbar. A sister of Juliana married Gillbride, 2nd Earl of Angus, their son being Gilchrist of Angus, who married Marjory of Scotland, daughter of Henry de Huntingdon, Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, and Ada de Warenne. Their dau. Beatrix of Angus,** married Sir Walter FitzAlan le Stewart, High Steward of Scotland. *Second cousin of Nicholas de Stuteville II., of Liddel, Cumberland, who married Devorguilla of Galloway, daughter of Roland of Galloway and Elena de Morville. **Gilbert de Umframville I. married her sister, Maud. 1.1. Roger de Colville, of Bytham Castle, Lincolnshire. 1.1.1 Walter de Colville,* born c. 1207, obit. 1277, married. Isabel d’ Albini, of Aubourn and Counthorpe, Lincs., dau. of Odonel d’ Albini Brito, son of William d’Albini I. and Matilda, dau of Odonel de Umframville. 1.1.1.1. Philip de Colville, s.l. 1268. married Engelisa, sister of Robert Ingram, whose family were feudatories of Adam de Brus. Philips father, William, held half a knight’s fee in Engleby juxta Arneciiffe (where twelve carucates made one knight’s fee) of Walter de Fauconberge, Lord of Skelton, given by the Conqueror to Robert de Brus, as parcel of the barony of Skelton, to hold of the King. 1.1.1.1.1. William de Colville, fl. 1270. 1.1.1.1.1.1. Robert de Colville, in 1302 he held land of the Brus fee in Heslerton, and was lord of Ancroft, in Northumberland. *I make the case elsewhere for Walter de Colville to be the grandfather of Walter FitzGilbert (de Hamilton), whose family bore the armorial of the Umframville family.
25.The younger son of William de Colville and Maud d’Albini was Robert de Colville, who held lands at Thimbleby and Arncliffe. His sons were Walter de Colville, and Thomas de Colville, who held land in Coxwold, Oulston, and Yearsley. Thomas de Colville’s desmesnes formed one knight’s fee of Roger de Mowbray II. He had two sons, William Colville, and Sir Robert Colville. A son of the former first styled himself Everleigh or Everly; progenitor of the Everlys of Yorkshire. A son of the latter, Sir Robert Colville, married Elizabeth Conyers, and was ancestor of the Colvilles of Yorkshire (Yorkshire Archeological Journal, vol. xiv., 1898. See also: C. E Heley, Early Yorkshire Assize Rolls, 1895).
26. ‘Robert de Colville of Thimbleby and Arncliffe, as his father, also sided with the barons, and had been sent by them, with Roger de Jarponville, to sue for peace with the King. He was taken prisoner by Fulk de Breant; and the next heir, Walter, of no less turbulent spirit, again rose in rebellion, and was imprisoned, as his father and grandfather had been before him. He was one of the fiery-spirited men that fought under the banner of Simon de Montfort; but surrendered at Kenilworth, and was allowed to compound for his lands. He died in 1276, and with him the vicissitudes of his family were brought to a close. His grandson, Edmund, acquired Weston-Colville in Cambridgeshire, through Margaret de Ufford, his wife; and his great grandson, Robert, who served in Edward III.’s French wars, was a baron by writ in 1342. This barony expired with Robert’s grandson, at whose death no nearer heirs were to be found to his estate than the descendants of Robert’s great aunts, the two sisters of Edmund de Colville. Elizabeth, the eldest, was represented by Ralph Basset; and Alice, by John Gernon.
27. Though the barony had thus come to an end, there was still a collateral branch of the house ‘of great antiquity in Cambridgeshire. Sir Henry de Colville was Sheriff of Hunts and Cambridge, 35 Henry III. ‘Philip de Colville defended the castle of Gloucester against that King’s son, and had a pardon the same year’ (Blomfield’s Norfolk). They had been early enfeoffed of Carlton Colville, in Suffolk; and Sir Henry’s son, Sir Roger, who first assumed the lion rampant since borne by the family, obtained a market and fair there in 1267. He had been Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk the preceding year. He was a person of tyrannical and arbitrary character. Upon the return of Edward I. from the Holy Land, he was charged with an undue exercise of his right of free-warren, raising a weir in the river, and appropriating it to his own use, extorting money, etc.. There is a charter extant which shows the vast estate possessed by this family in Carlton and its neighbourhood. Carlton Hall passed away from them early in the 14th. century, when they retired to estates obtained by marriage with the heiress of de Marisco in West Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. This Desiderata de Marisco was the wife of the next Sir Roger, styled ‘the rapacious knight’ of Caxton in Cambridgeshire, to whom she also brought Newton Colville in Norfolk, which became the principal residence of their descendants for nearly five hundred years. One of them was killed in France in the wars of Edward III.; another, a devoted loyalist in the Great Rebellion, was one of the intended knights of the Royal Oak. Like most Cavalier families, they probably suffered in purse what they gained in reputation. At last, in 1792, Robert Colville sold the old place in Norfolk that had been so long their homestead; and Newton Hall was pulled down. His son, Sir Charles, married a Derbyshire heiress, who brought him Duffield Hall and Lullington, near Burton-on-Trent’ (Duchess of Cleveland, née Stanhope, niece of Lady Hester Stanhope, The Battle Abbey Roll, vol. 1, p. 203, 1889).
28. Secondly, Richard de Ifferley, who is mentioned in the Boldon Book of 1183 as holding lands in Stanhope, Durham: ‘Richard de Ifferley holds 48 acres, and renders 8s. for his life, and his heir after him shall render 10s.’ Richard de Ifferley held lands at Stanhope from the See of Durham, with the office of Seneschal (E. A. Freeman, ibid.). He married Emma de Longvilliers, daughter of Eudo de Longvilliers I., Seneschal to the de Lacy family, and Agnes de Neville. E. A. Freeman, for whom genealogy was a distraction from his academic work, identified Richard de Ifferley’s son as Bernard de Ifferley, who may well have been the ‘Bernardus Magistratus’ often mentioned as witness to charters concerning land grants in Durham, c. 1220. He married Margaret de Chaworth. She was the sister of Ellen de Chaworth, who was married to Bernard’s cousin, John de Longvilliers I., obit. 1254. These family connections are later detailed.
29. Professor Freeman used court evidence (Rot. Orig. Cur. Scac. i. 86), to identify that a son of Bernard de Ifferley was called William de Stanhope. He made the assumption that Bernard’s grandson, Richard de Stanhope, was the son of this William. This does not agree with the lineage given by 5th. Earl Stanhope, better known as Lord Mahon, also an eminent historian, who, in 1835, was Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was interested in antiquities, being a trustee of the British Museum, and in 1869 founded the Historical Manuscripts Commission. His works continue to be of great importance on account of his unique access to antiquarian manuscripts. I have every faith in the accuracy of what he reports. He worked closely with his friend, the eminent academic and antiquary, Sir Henry Ellis. 5th. Earl Stanhope (Notices of The Stanhopes As Esquires And Knights and Until Their First Peerages In 1605 And 1616, 1855), quotes from The History of Durham by William Hutchinson, 1794, vol. iii. p. 295, to state that: ‘The first of the name Stanhope we find holding lands in Stanhope was Richard de Stanhope, the son of Walter de Stanhope, who died seised of a messuage of 22 acres of land in the fifth year of Bishop Bury, 1338-1339, charged with a mark yearly to Peter de Stanford. In the ninth year of Bishop Hatfield, 1354, one of this family, William, died seised of 24 acres of land and 15 acres he had acquired of Robert Featherstonhalgh, and left a daughter, Margaret de Stanhope, his heir, after which period we do not find any of the Stanhopes named in the records.’
30. The combined detection of Freeman and Mahon suggests that Bernard had two sons, Walter de Stanhope, and William de Stanhope. Walter de Stanhope married his second-cousin, Margaret de Longvilliers. Walter’s son was Richard de Stanhope, obit. 1338. He married Ellota de Longvilliers, who was obviously his mother’s kinswoman. They had issue: Sir Richard de Stanhope, 1300-1370; dates as inquis. post mortem, Robert de Stanhope, 1303-1349, who both fought against the Scots at Berwick in 1334 and 1335, and William de Stanhope, 1305-1354.
31. William de Stanhope may have been the father of John Stanhope: A charter made in London, February 12, 1372, shows a quitclaim by John de Stanhope son of John de Stanhope of Newcastle-on-Tyne to Thomas de Gildeford, of Castre, and Matilda his wife, of all the lands, tenements, chattels and goods in Castre, and elsewhere in “Naso Burg” which he had by grant from the same Thomas and Matilda.
32. That Walter de Stanhope was the progenitor of those decribed hereafter is affirmed in a letter from Charles, Lord Stanhope, to his sister, Lady Tollemache, dated October 12,1608. This letter was accompanied by an emblazoned pedigree of the Stanhopes, from Walter de Stanhope, father of Richard, who died in 1338, to James, first Lord Stanhope of Elvaston (Harl. MSS. no. 1555.
33. These Stanhopes and their descendants continued to bear the arms of Colville, viz. a cross, until the 15th. century, when the present modification was adopted. These were obviously not large landowners. ‘The conjecture of Stanhope being the possession of that family is not supported by any evidence come to our knowledge, save only the small portions of property after mentioned to be held by those of the name Stanhope’ (Hutchinson, vol. iii. p. 292).
34. The Bolden Book was a work commisioned by Bishop Hugh Pudsey, to whom Richard de Ifferley was Senechal. Hugh de Pudsey (Puiset) was a cousin of King Stephen, both being of the aforementioned family of de Blois. The celebrated Domesday Book had stopped short of the Tees, and the Boldon Book gives an invaluable insight into land ownership and life in the Palatinate in the late 12th century. We find cartloads of venison being transported between Stanhope and Durham. ‘Moreover, all the villans make at the great hunts a kitchen, and larder, and a kennel, and they find a settle in the hall, and in the chapel and in the chamber, and carry all the Bishops carrody from Wolsingham to the Lodges.’ Some of the personal names are fascinating. We find a Richard the ruddy holding 20 acres, and Ralph the crafty holding 12 acres ‘for as long as it pleases the Bishop.’
35. ‘In Stanhope are 20 villans, of whom each one holds one oxgang and renders 2s., and works 16 days with one man between Pentecost and the feast of St. Martin, and carries corn 4 days with one cart, and makes 4 precations, and mows the meadows 2 days with the Bishop’s corrody, and makes the hay and leads it, and when he leads hay each one has a loaf, and when he carries corn in like manner, and each one makes cartloads and horse-journeys between Stanhope and Wolsingham, and carries venison to Durham and Aukland. Moreover all the villans make at the great hunts a kitchen, and larder, and a kennel, and they find a settle in the hall, and in the chapel and in the chamber, and carry all the Bishop’s corrody from Wolsingham to the lodges. Richard de Ifferley holds 48 acres, and renders 8s. for his life, and his heir after him shall render 10s. The sons of Gamel de Rogerley hold 60 acres, and render 18s., and find one man in the forest 40 days in the fawn season, and 40 days in rutting time, and they go on errands. Bernulf de Pec 60 acres, and renders half a marc for his life, and his heir after him one marc, and he does forestservice as much as the sons of Gamel, and goes on errands. Richard, son of Turkil, and Gamel, son of Godric, hold in like manner 60 acres, and render one mark, and do forestservice as the sons of Gamel, and go on errands. Alan, Russell, and Thore 60 acres, and render 20s., and make 4 precations in autumn with all their men, except the housewives, and their own houses’ (Boldon Buke: A Survey of the Possessions of the See of Durham). Differing manuscript traditions of Boldon Book have ‘Ifferley’ as ‘Yrseley’.
36.This period of history was characterised by a high volume of serious crime. (What changes?) The justices who visited Lincoln in 1202 found 114 cases of homicide, 89 of robbery, usually with violence, 65 of wounding, 49 of rape, and a great many others. Moreover, most crimes never came before the court, for unwillingness to lay charges.
37. The place-name Stanhope comes from two Old English elements, stan or stone, and hop, or valley, thus it means the stone-sided valley. The name was originally given to the valley of the Stanhope Burn which enters the river Wear at this point, but then became transferred to the settlement which grew up at the junction. The place-name Stanhope is first mentioned about 1170 in a charter relating to the family of Bishop Hugh de Pudsey. Stanhope Park occurs in many medieval documents as one of the Bishop of Durham’s hunting preserves.
38. Sir Richard Stanhope, 1300-1370, son of Richard, and grandson of Walter, fixed his residence at Newcastle-upon Tyne. He possessed ‘ample’ estates in Northern England (MS. Veel, p. 973). He was chosen mayor of that town in 1364, and obtained, in 1350, a grant of the third part of the village and fishery of Paxton on the Tweed, in consideration for services against the Scots. Sir Richard married the heiress, Alice de Houghton. Houghton lies between Clumber and East Retford, and formed part of the domain of the Longvilliers, being initially called Houghton Longvilliers, and more recently called Haughton. They had two sons:
39. Firstly, Sir John Stanhope, M.P. for Newcastle in 1359, and its mayor in 1366. He was also Escheator for Notts. and Derbyshire in 1365, and Sheriff of Notts. and Derbyshire in 1373. He gained, post May 30,1369, Rampton, Notts., by marriage (1366) to the heiress Elizabeth Maulovel. In 1350, he is mentioned in a list of persons who had the King’s permission to travel to Rome: ‘Johannes de Stanhope, cum uno garcione et uno equo’ (Rymer’s Foedera, vol. v. p. 683, 1704-1735). Sir John Stanhope and Elizabeth Maulovel had issue: (1) Margaret Stanhope. (2) John Stanhope, 1367-1432. (3) Richard Stanhope, 1368-1436. (4) Stephen Stanhope. (5) Robert Stanhope. (6) Ralph Stanhope. John Stanhope first succeeded his father. He was twice married, firstly to Elizabeth de Cuily, daughter of Thomas de Cuily of Oxton; and, secondly, to Elizabeth Pierrepoint, daughter of Sir Edmund Pierrepoint of Holme Pierrepoint. He had no issue by either.
40. Secondly, Sir Richard Stanhope, 1330-1380, dates as inquis. post mortem, MP. for Newcastle-on Tyne, who Earl Stanhope, see ‘Notices’, makes out as Lord of Elstwyke (Northumberland), and Usworth (Durham), not his father. He married Alice de Moderby, heiress, through her brother and sister, of lands in Great and Little Usworth. He had a son, named John de Stanhope, aged 24 in 1380. His lands appear to have passed away to a son of his wife by another marriage (Robert Surtees, History of Durham, vol. ii. p.46. 1816-1840).
41. The second son of Sir John Stanhope and Elizabeth Maulovel, and his heir, on the decease of his elder brother, Sir Richard Stanhope, was Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry IV., 1399, and also M P. for Nottingham. He was also Sheriff of that county and of Derbyshire. He died on Easter Monday, 1436, seised of the manors of Rampton, Egmanton, Skegby, South Cotham; the third part of the manor of Tuxford, and the manor of Ansty, Warwick.
42. Sir Richard Stanhope had two wives: firstly, Johanna de Staly, 1370-1410, daughter of Robert de Staly: Inscript. Rampton Chuch, as recorded c. 1850: ‘Hic jacet Ric. Stanhop Miles et Johanna uxor ejus quae fuit filia Rob. de Staly qui obiit primo die Aprilis Anno Domini MCCCC … et predicta Johanna obiit … die Septembe Anno Domini Mccccx, quo …’
43. These Stalys had anciently been important Anglo Saxon thegns, and had regained their lands through a marriage between Adam de Staly and Alice de Percy, daughter of William de Percy of Kildale. Adam de Staly’s ancestor, Uctred, was a tenant of Roger de Mowbray, and, as such, would have been well known to Thomas de Colleville. The name of the family is given as Staley or Stalley in the Herald’s Visitation of Nottinghamshire, MS. Brit. Mus., 1614.
44. Sir Richard Stanhope and Johanna de Staly had issue: Sir Richard Stanhope, obit. March 2, 1432. (2) Robert Stanhope. He married Adela Markham, half-sister of Elizabeth Markham, see as follows. (3) Thomas Stanhope. (4) James Stanhope. (5) Elizabeth Stanhope. (6) Agnes Stanhope, who married Robert Strelley, son of Sir Nicholas, descendant of the family of Heriz.
45. He married, secondly, Maud, sister and heir to Ralph, Lord Cromwell, of Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire, Treasurer of England from 1433 to 1443, who had secured his inheritance of Heriz estates. By her he had one son, Henry, who died young, and two daughters, who, in right of their mother, held great fortunes. The elder, Joan Stanhope, obit.1481, not 1490, as is often wrongly stated, married, 1446, Humphrey Bourchier, 1425-1471, a cousin of Edward IV., and third son of Henry Bourchier, 1st. Earl of Essex, 1404-1483, and Isabella Plantagenet, 1409-1484. Isabella Plantagenet, born in Conisbrough Castle, was the daughter of Richard Plantagenet of Conisbrough, 1376-1415, who was beheaded for plotting against Henry V. He was the son of Edmund Plantagenet, 1341-1402, 1st. Duke of York, and Isabella of Castilla, 1355-1393. Edmund Plantagenet was the son of King Edward III., 1312-1377, and Phillippa of Hainault, 1311-1369.
46. The younger daughter of Sir Richard Stanhope and Maud Cromwell, Maud Stanhope, 1420-1497, married (1) Lord Willoughby de Eresby, that is, Robert Willoughby, 6th. baron. They had issue a sole daughter and heiress, Joan, who married Sir Richard Welles, son and heir apparent of Leo, Lord Welles. The Willoughby family had obtained Eresby through marriage to Alice, daughter of John Bec, Lord of Eresby. (2) Sir Thomas Neville, son of Sir Richard de Neville, 5th. Earl of Salisbury. (3) Gervase Clifton. She was buried in Tattershall Church.
47. A deed of gift, of January 4, 1412, reflects these relationships; being a gift of Ralph de Cromwell to Sir Thomas de Chaworth, Sir John Heron, and Benedict de Goteham, rector of Lambley, of all his manors and lands in co. Derbys. and Notts., viz: Dronfield, Bleasby, Caunton, Tuxford, and Markham; witnessed by Sir Ralph de Cromwell, ‘Sir Richard Stanhopp’, Sir ‘Nicholas Strellay’, William de Leek, esq., William Assurby, esq., et al. It may be of interest that this deed was written in Anglo-Norman.
48. Sir Richard Stanhope, who died before him, married Elizabeth Markham, daughter of Sir John Markham, the younger, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and Margaret Leeke, daughter and coheir of Simon Leeke of Cotham, Notts (Throsby’s edition of Thoroton’s History of Notts, vol. iii. pp. 226-233, 1797). Sir Richard Stanhope was buried in Tuxford Church.
49. The two manors of Markham, anciently written Marcham, both near Tuxford, West and East Markham, were the property of the above Sir John Markham. The Markham family were originally of the family of de Lizours. Roger de Lizours was a mesne-tenant of the great Norman magnate Roger de Busli, and was probably in some way related to him, witnessing many of his charters, and holding land of him in East Markham. He had gained this tenantship by marrying the heiress of a local Saxon thegn called Ulchel. Roger’s son was Fulc de Lizours. A charter of 1110 states that Fulc ‘gave to the monastery of St. Mary of Blithe and the monks there a toft’. He assumed the name of his place of residence, calling himself Fullc de Marcham. His son was Sir Alexander de Marcham, Castellan of Nottingham Castle.
50. The marriages between the families of Chaworth, Lexington, Longvilliers, Markham, Maulovel, and Stanhope are of a complex nature. A little understanding of them, however, throws much light on the kinship networks that permeated medieval society, which provided the connections that made advantageous marriages possible.
51. Sir Alexander de Marcham’s son, Sir William Markham, who inherited the estates of his father, married the heiress Cecilia de Lexington, one of six children of Richard de Lexington, and Matilda de Cauz. Their son, Robert Markham, married Sarah Snitterton, heiress of Jordan de Snitterton, in the county of Derby. Their daughter, Bertha Markham, married William de Longvilliers, 1250-1281, Lord of Gargrave, date as inquis. post mortem. The Longvilliers acquired a third part of Tuxford by this marriage with Bertha Markham, who had inherited it from her grandmother.
52. William de Longvilliers and Bertha Markham had issue, among which were: Ellota de Longvilliers, who married, as said, Richard de Stanhope, and Thomas de Longviliers, 1279-1349, Baron of the Realm, who married Maud de Creting. Their daughter was the Longvilliers heiress Petronilla Longvilliers, 1307-1341. Her name is given as Petronilla, not Elizabeth, in an inquisition of 1341, and also in the Subsidy Roll of 1327. She married Robert Maulovel, descendant of Nigelus of Rampton, mesne-tenant of Roger de Busli (Rev. Daniel Lysons, vol v. Magna Britannia, 1817). Their son was Stephen Maulovel, who married Frances de Mering, 1330-1360, dates as inquis. post mortem. Stephen Maulovel was cousin and heir of John Longvilliers V., who was the son of John Longviliers IV., the brother of Petronilla Longviliers.
53. Both Robert and Petronilla died while Stephen Maulovel was a minor, and so the estates were held by the King. Stephen was of age in 1346, and in that year did homage of the lord of Tickhill, paying one knight’s fee and one quarter knight’s fee. He was the father of Elizabeth Maulovel, wife, as shown, of Sir John Stanhope ‘the elder’.
54 1. Gilbert Crispin I. m. Gunnor …
2. William Crispin I. m. Eve de Montfort 1009-1099.
3. Wlliam Crispin II. m. Agnes Mauvoisin.
4. Thomas de Colleville m. Matilda d’Albini.
5. Richard de Ifferley m. Emma de Longvilliers.
6. Bernard de Ifferley m. Margaret de Chaworth.
7. Walter de Stanhope m. Margaret de Longvilliers.
8. Richard de Stanhope m. Ellota de Longvilliers.
9. Sir Richard de Stanhope m. Alice de Houghton.
10. Sir John Stanhope m. Elizabeth Maulovel.
11. Sir Richard Stanhope m. Johanna de Staly.
12. Sir Richard Stanhope m. Elizabeth Markham.
55. Eudo de Longvilliers I. m. Agnes de Neville.
Eudo de Longvilliers II. m. Clemencia Malhart.
John de Longvilliers I. m. Ellen de Chaworth.
John de Longvilliers II. m. Alice Pennington.
William de Longvilliers m. Bertha Markham.
56. Sir William Markham m. Cecilia de Lexington.
Robert Markham m. Sarah Snitterton.
Bertha Markham m. William de Longvilliers.
Thomas de Longvilliers m. Maud de Creting.
Petronilla Longvilliers m. Robert Maulovel.
Stephen Maulovel m. Frances de Mering.
Elizabeth Maulovel m. Sir John Stanhope.
57. Sir Richard Stanhope and Elizabeth Markham had three sons, Sir John Stanhope, Nicholas Stanhope, William Stanhope, and one daughter, Joan Stanhope. Sir John Stanhope, 1412-1473, dates as inquis. post mortem, not to be confused with his cousin so named, was many years M.P. for Notts., and thrice was the Sheriff of Nottingham and Derby. He succeeded his grandfather in 1436. In the civil wars of the time, he took part with the House of Lancaster. He married, firstly, Catherine, daughter of Richard Molineaux, and widow of Sir Robert Ratcliffe, by whom he had no issue. He married, secondly, Elizabeth Talbot, daughter of Sir Thomas Talbot, grandson of Sir Gilbert Talbot and Petronella Butler, of Bashall, in the county of York, parish Mitton Magna, and Alice Tempest, daughter of Sir John Tempest of Bracewell. See ‘Notices’. The ancestor of these Talbots first obtained the manor of Bashall in 1256, by grant from Edmund Lacy, Constable of Chester. They became extinct in the male line temp. Charles I. (Dr. Whitaker, History of Whalley, p. 402, 1801).
58. Earl Stanhope observed that Sir John Stanhope had erected ‘a tombstone on the south side of the chancel of Rampton church, to the memory of his wife’. It read: ‘Hic Jacet Elizebetha … filia Thos Talbot Milit de Bashall … Septemb. Anno Domini mccccli … Cujus animae propitietur Deus. Amen’. She was of the ancient family of Tailbois, tenants of William Malet in Normandy. Sir Thomas Talbot and Alice Tempest also had issue: Sir Thomas Talbot, and Edmund Talbot, implicated in the betrayal of Henry VI.
59. Sir John Stanhope is shown in a deed (May 4, 1467), of Sir William Chaworth, who grants Sir Robert Markham, ‘John Stanhap’, Gervase Clifton, et al. the manor of Medburne (Leics.), all lands in Weston on Welland, Sutton, Dyngley and Assheley (Northants.), a close called Great Edwode in the manor of Bulwick, and a part of the manor of Blatherwick, Northants.; the deed being witnessed by ‘Rob. Strilley’, ‘Henry Perpoynt’, and ‘Rich. Byngham’.
60. Sir John Stanhope and Elizabeth Talbot had issue: Henry Stanhope. Sir Thomas Stanhope. Randolph Stanhope. Robert Stanhope. William Stanhope. Elinore Stanhope. Elizabeth Stanhope. Margaret Stanhope. Anna Stanhope.
61. Henry Stanhope married Joan Rochford of Stoke Rochford, in the county of Lincoln. Their only son, Edmund, was buried in the chapel at Houghton, which was a burial-place of the Stanhopes while they lived at Rampton, although some of them are interred at Tuxford and at Rampton. Edmund’s daughter and heir, by Alice his wife, was Margaret Stanhope, obit. 1539, who married Thomas Skeffington, of Skeffington, Leicestershire. Their son and heir was William Skeffington, 1518-1571, who married Mary Cave, obit. 1558. On the decease of Margaret Stanhope, Thomas Skeffington inherited part of the manor of West Markham, and lands in Little Darlington, Ryton, and Stoke Rochford.
62. As late as 1850, according to Earl Stanhope’s account, the tomb of Joan Stanhope was preserved at Houghton Church. The gravestone has a large cross engraved upon it, with the words in large Gothic letters – ‘Jesu Mercye Lady Helpe’.
63. Sir John Stanhope’s son, Sir Thomas Stanhope, ob. ante 1493, of Rampton, was in 4 Edward IV., 1475, ‘retained by indenture to attend the king in person in his wars with France, with one man-at-arms and ten archers, receiving £20 19s. 6d. in band towards his wages on that account’ (Rymer’s Foedera, vol xi. p. 844, 1704-1735). It is only too easy to mention that so-and-so fought in such-and-such a battle, without pausing to consider what that really meant. The warfare between France and England, engaged in by Sir Thomas Stanhope, witnessed the increasing use of new weapons, which meant that the ruling classes were losing their traditional superiority on the field of battle. Time after time, armoured aristocrats, such as Sir Thomas Stanhope, were slaughtered by peasants and urban militia using longbows, crossbows, pikes, and gunpowder. Thomas was a brave man, then, whatever your view about the rights or wrongs of his cause. Stop and try to imagine the horrors he faced in battle. It is as almost impossible to do so as to imagine wars taking place if those who perpetrated them had to do the fighting themselves.
64. Sir Thomas married Mary Jerningham, daughter of John Jerningham of Somerleyton, in Suffolk. Their elder son, Sir Edward Stanhope, obit. 1511, of Rampton and Houghton, was a principal commander of the army that beat Simnel’s followers, at Stoke, in 1487. Ten years later, Sir Edward Stanhope fought against the Cornish rebels at Blackheath, and was knighted on the field of battle. In 1502, he was Steward of Wakefield and Constable of Sandale Castle, in the county of York. Like his predecessors, he was also Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. On the 4th. October, 1509, he ‘imparked 240 acres at Houghton by enclosing them with a paling for the purpose of rearing wild animals’ (Nottingham Enclosures Commission, 1517).
65. From John Stanhope, a younger brother of this Sir Edward Stanhope, are descended the Stanhopes of Horsforth, who became settled at Cannon Hall, Cawthorne, West Yorkshire. John Stanhope’s descendants were: (1) John Stanhope of Lancashire. (2) John Stanhope of Horsforth. (In 1565, a branch of the Stanhopes came from Lancashire into Yorkshire, and eventually settled at Horsforth, Low Hall, near Calverley Bridge). (3) Walter Stanhope of Horsforth. (4) John Stanhope of Horsforth. (5) John Stanhope of Horsforth. (6) John Stanhope of Horsforth, who married Margaret Lowther, daughter of Sir William Lowther of Swillington. (7) Walter Stanhope, of Horsforth, who married Anne Spencer, heiress of William Spencer of Cannon Hall, Barnsley, Yorks. They had an only son, Walter Spencer-Stanhope, 1749-1821, of Horsforth and Cannon Hall, who assumed, by sign manual, 1776, the additional surname and arms of Spencer, as heir to his uncle, John Spencer. John Spencer was a huntsman, a bold rider, a hard drinker with a violent temper and speech, but open and warm hearted, with good manners, and a paternalistic approach. He was scholarly and possessed a large library. He was never interested in politics, but became a racehorse owner and ran cockfights on Sunday in Cawthorne Park.
66. Walter Spencer-Stanhope inherited the Horsforth estates from his uncle John Stanhope, Esq., of Horsforth, barrister-at-law, familiarly known as ‘Lawyer Stanhope,’ obit. 1769. Walter Spencer-Stanhope was educated at Bradford Grammar School, the University College, Oxford, and studied law at the Middle Temple. He took an active part in politics, and. through his family connection with the Lowthers of Lowther Castle, and was elected Member for Carlisle in 1774. ‘He spoke frequently in the House, and with much humour’. He was a close supporter of William Pitt the Younger, and William Wilberforce, the Yorkshire anti-slavery campaigner. He was also the commanding officer of the local Volunteer Corps known as the ‘Staincross Volunteers’. He married, 1783, Mary Winifred Pulleine, obit.1850, of Carlton Hall, Richmond, Yorks; daughter of Thomas Babington Pulleine Esq., and his wife Winifred, daughter of Edward Collingwood, of Dissington Hall, Esq., by Mary his wife, daughter and co-heir of John Roddam Esq., of Roddam; from whence the family of Hilary Clinton.
67. By his second wife, Elizabeth Bourchier, daughter of Foulk Bourchier, Lord Fitz-Waren, and great-great granddaughter of King Edward III., Sir Edward Stanhope was father of Anne Stanhope, Duchess of Somerset, 1497-1587, the wife of Protector Somerset, 1500-1552. (Foulk Bourchier’s wife, Anne, was sole heir of Thomas Plantagenet of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, younger son of Edward III.). Elizabeth Bourchier married (2) Sir Richard Page of Beechwood, Hertfordshire, who ‘shared with Sir Michael Stanhope the supervision of the King’ (Stephen Alford, Kingship and Politics in the Reign of Edward VI., p. 89, 2002).
68. Sir Edward Stanhop’s first wife was Adelina Clifton, Mary Jerningham’s second-cousin, daughter of Sir Gervase Clifton, obit. 1491, of Rolleston, Nottinghamshire, esquire to King Edward IV. and Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of King Richard III, and Alice de Neville, widow of Richard Thurland; daughter of Thomas de Neville, 1405-1485, and (n.b.) Elizabeth Babington (Thoroton’s original History of Notts, p. 392, 1677). Sir Gervase Clifton was the son of Robert Clifton, obit. 1478, of Clifton, Notts., and Alice Booth. Robert Clifton’s brother, also called Gervase, was the father of Isabella Clifton, wife, as said, of John Jerningham. The ancestor of these Cliftons was Sir Robert Clifton, of Clifton, Notts., obit. 1327 (Esch. i. Edward III. nos. 33). He married Emma Moton, daughter of Sir William Moton (Herald’s Visitations of Nottinghamshire, MS. Brit. Mus., 1614.
69. Sir Edward Stanhope and Adelina Clifton had issue: (1) Richard Stanhope, obit. 1528, of Rampton, who died without male issue. He married Elizabeth Strelley, not her sister Anne (see Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vol. viii. pp. 264-273, 1843, which quotes from an epitaph in the old church of Kingston-upon-Soar, Nottinghamshire). Elizabeth Strelley was one of the four daughters and co-heirs of John Strelley. By this marriage, the Stanhope family became connected to the families of Somerville and Shipley. Richard Stanhope and Elizabeth Strelley had issue: Saunchia Stanhope, who married John Babington of Dethick. It is recorded that ‘the Stanhopes received the name of Saunchia by descent from the Strelleys, who had inherited it from the house of Willoughby’ (Collectanea, vol. viii. p. 343). Saunchia was born May 10th, 1513. Her father died on January 21st, 1528, when she was 15 years old, but before his death he had arranged for Saunchia’s wedding to John Babbington, a younger son of Anthony Babbington, of Kingston-on-Soar. This agreement was made on February 10th., 1520. She was then seven years old (Rev. H Chadwick, The History of the Manor of Rampton in Nottinghamshire, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 24, 1920. See also Harl. MS. 1180). By way of Saunchias marriage, Rampton passed out of Stanhope ownership. By way of amusement, it can be added that this branch of the Stanhopes appeared to be fond of unusual names, for Saunchia and her husband christened their eldest child, for here the name affords no clue as to gender, Original Babbington! He married … Galley. A sister married … Horsley. Another sister married … Legat (Thorot., vol. ii., p. 220). (2) John Stanhope. (3) Elizabeth Stanhope. (4) Marianne Stanhope. (5) Sir Michael Stanhope, born c. 1496.
70. Sir Michael Stanhope, obit. Feb. 26, 1552, succeeded to the family estates on the decease of his brother, and was placed on the Commission of Peace for Notts. in 1537. On the dissolution of the monasteries, that is, the forced taking and redistribution of the vast and valuable lands of the Catholic Church, Michael Stanhope was granted Shelford priory, rectory, and manor; and also the priory of Lenton, together with the rectories of Gedlyng, Burton Jorze, and North Muskham, in the county of Nottingham; Rouceby and Westburgh, in the county of Lincoln, and Elvaston and Okbrook in Derbyshire. As a child, I was taught, and did not question, that this redistribution of wealth sprang from Henry VIII. not being allowed to divorce by the Catholic Church. Behind all such propaganda lurks motives of naked greed. Any understanding of Henry VIII. and his courtiers shows them to be people not the least part troubled by moral concerns, and every way deeply concerned with how to acquire the land and wealth of others.
71. Sir Michael Stanhope’s widow, Anne Rawson, 1516-1587, was the daughter of Nicholas Rawson of Avely, more anciently written Alveley, a small village near Purfleet on the Thames. ‘Alured Rawson, citizen of London, and merchant of the Staple of Calais, was Lord of this Manor of Aveley in 1509. His son, Nicholas Rawson, of Giddy Hall, Romford, Essex, married Beatrix Cooke, obit. 1554, daughter of Philip Cooke, and Elizabeth Belnap, and left one daughter and heir, named Anne, who was married to Sir Michael Stanhope’ (The History of Essex, Rev. Philip Morant, pp. 76-78, 1768. See also Thoroton’s Notts., Throsby, vol. 1., p. 290). Alured, alias Avery, Rawson was the son of Richard Rawson, obit. 1484, citizen and mercer of London, and Sheriff of London in 1478 and 1483, and Isabella Craford, obit. 1497 (Wills Perogative Office). They were buried at St. Mary Magdalen’s, Old Fish Street. Richard Rawson was the son of Richard Rawson of Fryston and Cicely Paulden, alias Baldein. Richard Rawson of Fryston was the son of Robert Rawson of Fryston, who lived temp. Rich. II., and Agnes Mares, daughter of Thomas Mares. The origin of the family can very probably be traced to the Saxon Ravenchil, later Ravenchild, who held three carucates of land in Shipley The later Rawsons were strongly connected to Shipley (The Gentleman’s Magazine, p. 179, 1790).
72. Anne Stanhope was allowed to retain the priory of Shelford, during her life, for the judicial murder of her husband was not personal, but ‘business’. She was buried in Shelford Church. ‘Lady Anne Stanhope lived widow 35 years, in which time she brought up all her younger children in virtue and learning, In her life-time she kept continually a worshipful house, relieved the poor daily, spent the most time of her latter days in prayer and using the church where God’s word was preached. She died in the faith of Christ, in hope of a joyful resurrection’ (Inscription on the monument of Sir Michael Stanhope, elder of the name, in Shelford Church, as existing in 1841).
73. In Memoriam: Anne Rawson – ‘By Sir Michael she had these children: Sir Thomas Stanhope, of Shelford, in the county of Nottingham, Knight; Eleanor, married to Thomas Cowper, of Thurgarton, in the county of Notts, Esq.; Edward Stanhope, Esq., one of her Majesty’s counsel in the law in the north parts of England; Julian, married to John Hotham, of Scarborough, in the county of York Esq.; John Stanhope, Esq., one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber to our most dear sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth; and Jane, married to Sir Roger Townsend, of Rayham, in the county of Norfolk, Knight; Edward Stanhope, doctor of the civil law, one of the masters of her Majesty’s high court of Chancery; Michael Stanhope, Esq., one of the privy chamber to Queen Elizabeth; besides Margaret, Wytten, and Edward, who died in their infancy. The said Lady Anne Stanhope lived widow 35 years, in which time she brought up all her younger children in virtue and learning, whereby they were preferred to the marriage and calling before-written. In her life-time she kept continually a worshipful house, relieved the poor daily, gave good coun tenance and comfort to the preachers of God’s word, spent the most time of her latter days in prayer and using the church where God’s word was preached. She being … years old, died the 20th of February, 1587, in the 30th year of the Queen’s reign aforesaid, in the faith of Christ, in hope of a joyful resurrection’.
74. Her three daughters: 1. Eleanor Stanhope, who married Thomas Cowper of Thurgarton, mentioned in his father’s Will of 1550: ‘William Cowper. I bequeath gownes to twentte poor men and twetitie poore women in Thurgarton and there abouts, and that … shalbo given yerelye to twentle poore men twentye shillinge, and to xx poore women twentie shillinge oute of my lande of Thurgarton in the countie of Nottingham, and out of the parke there for ever. To William Cowper, second sonne, the copiehold in Upton in the said countie; and for lacke of issue to Richard Cowper and heires of bis bodye. To Richard Cowper my son my manor of Lawligau in the countie of Mongomerie in Wales, and for lacke of yssue to William my seconde sonne. To Richard my sonne all my … in the monetayns in Wales, one annuitie of l which 1 have yerely oute of the treasorers office of the cowrte of Agmentacions. To my eldest sonne Thomas all my lande in Thurgarton after the death of Cicele my wyf, and for lacka of issue male to William my sonne, and for lacke of issue male to Richard Conper, and for lacke heyrs to Olyfe Cowper my doughter, provided that if it fortune either William, Richarde, or Thomas to have issue female, … the landes do dyssend to Olyfe, then I will my doughter shall give to every of the said douters one hundred marke. Also 1 will that whero my wyfe Cycile ys joyned purchaser with me of all my landes in Thurgarton, that she shall have the same duringe her lyfe yf … and unmarried, she to give unto Thomas … ponnds by yere until he be maried, and then … marke, and to fynde his wyfe and chyldren, and he … kepe his lernynge, were my wife hath promysid faithfilly never to take husbande after my decease, and for the great payne she bath susteyned with me I will that she have the custodye of all my liousehold stuff at Thurgarton, and if my wyfe do fortune to marry, than I will my goodes shalbe devyded in three partes, and that my sonne Thomas shall have two partes and my wyfe the thirde parte. And I will that my wyf shall have the keping of all my plate of silver and two … of gold, and if she … to marrye the plate shalba devyded, my wyf to have one parte, my sonne Thomaa the second, and the tbirde to he devyded betwixt my sonnes Richard and William and my douter Olyfe … I make myne ext. Thomas Alen, parson, John Langloy of London, goldsmyth, and Sir Richard Sackevile and Sir Arthur Darcye, knightes, my supervisors’. Court of Wards – ‘The like to Arthur Darcy, knight, of an annuity of 5 marks from the 28 Nov. rent of 10 ac. wood in Thurgarton, Notts, and the custody and marriage of Thomas Cowper, son and heir of William Cowper, gentleman, deceased’. It is very likely that ‘Cicele my wyf’ was Arthur’s sister.
75. 2. Juliana Stanhope, unhapilly married to her mother’s ward, John Hotham of Scarborough, sheriff of Yorkshire in 1584. He and Juliana Stanhope had issue: Elizabeth Hotham, Jane Hotham, and Juliana Hotham.
76. 3. Jane Stanhope, 1536-1617, who married Sir Roger Townshend of Raynham in Norfolk; from them descended the Viscounts Townshend. Their son was John Townshend of Raynham. In 1596, he accompanied the Earl of Essex on his expedition against Spain, and was at the taking of Cadiz, where he was knighted by the earl. He and Sir Matthew Browne, who had also been knighted at Cadiz, fought a duel on Hounslow Heath. They both died, Sir Matthew on the spot, Sir John Townshend a liitle later, on August 2,1603. He had married Anne Bacon, obit. 1630, daughter and heiress of Sir Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey. They had issue: Sir Roger Townshend, created a Baronet in 1617, Stanhope Townshend, who died in London of a wound received in a duel in the Low-countries, and Anne Townshend, wife of John Spelman, Esq. (George John Gray, Athenae Cantab., p. 355, 1861).
77. Her five sons: (1) Sir Thomas Stanhope, 1532-1596, Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in 4 Eliz., and Nottingham alone in 16 Eliz.; who died at Stoke, and from whom the later peers of the Stanhope family are descended. Sir Thomas Stanhope was the eldest of eight surviving children. He was determined that his family would regain and then maintain their status. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in one of her stately progresses at Kenilworth Castle in 1575. A peerage from James I. ranked no higher, for she was ‘Queen Elizabeth of famous memorie, that ever carried a sparing hand in the bestowing of honour’ (Extract from the monument to Sir George Hart, in the Church at Lullingstone, in Kent). Sir Thomas Stanhope increased his wealth by purchasing the manors of Whatton, Bingham, and Toveton, and, significantly, by marrying the heiress Margaret Porte, 1542-1597, daughter of Sir John Porte of Etwall and Cubely, one of the Justices of the King’s Bench, and Dorothy Montgomery, second of three daughters and coheirs of Sir John Montgomery, obit 1513, of Cubely in Derbyshire. By this way, the Earls of Chesterfield became Lord of the Manor and patron of the Rectory of Cubley, the ancient seat of the Montgomery family. It was for a time the seat of the Stanhopes. Margaret Porte’s sisters, Elizabeth and Dorothy, were married respectively to Sir Thomas Gerard of Kingsley and Bryn, 1552-1601, Sheriff of Lancashire, and George Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, see anon (Rev. Daniel Lysons, Derbyshire, being vol. v. of Magna Britannia, London, 1817).
78. Sir Thomas Stanhope and Margaret Porte had issue: Firstly, Sir John Stanhope of Shelford. An Oxford University entry, Col. Magd., dated June 20, 1574, states ‘John Stanhopp arm. fil. in com. Not. nat. an. 15’. Secondly, Edward Stanhope, 1562-1630. The same entry states ‘Edwardus Stanhopp arm. fil. in com. Not. nat. an. 12’. Thirdly, Thomas Stanhope, 1564-1618. Fourthly, Anne Stanhope, 1576-1651, married to John Holles, 1st. Earl of Clare, 1564-1637. John Holles was the son of Danzell Holles and Anne Sheffield. He was raised to the peerage in 1616, as Baron Houghton, and, in 1624, paid £10,000 for the Earlship of Clare. He married Anne Stanhope, ‘beautiful in her fardingales and antiquarian headgear’ – much to the ire of the Shrewsburys of Worksop. He had been bespoken to one of their daughters. The ensuing hostilities are well worth reading about! According to the inquis. post mortem taken on the decease of her father, Margaret Porte was 14 years of age, in 1556, when she married Sir Thomas Stanhope. This was not an exceptionally young age at which to marry.
79. Sir Thomas Stanhope’s most hated enemy was Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. The earl’s wife claimed that Sir Thomas’s wickedness had caused him to become ‘more ugly in shape than the ugliest toad in the world’. She hoped that all ‘plagues and miseries’ would befall him and that he would ‘be damned perpetually in hell fire’. He did have a tender side, though, naturally not mentioned by his enemies, which is shown in a letter to Lord Burghley, addressed as his ‘cousin’, High Treasurer of England, dated July 15, 1590. He says of his daughter Anne: ‘I love her very well, and have given her education accordingly’. Sir Thomas was interred in Shelford Church on September 26, 1596.
80. (2) Sir Edward Stanhope, 1538-1603, the elder, represented successively Notts. and Yorkshire in Parliament, where his seats were Edlington and Grimston. He was treasurer of Gray’s Inn, recorder of Doncaster, and a member of the Council of the North. He was buried at Kirby Warffe in Yorkshire. He married, in 1578, Susan Coleshill, daughter of Thomas Coleshill, of Chigwell, in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, and had issue, four sons, and two daughters:
81. Firstly, Sir Edward Stanhope of Grimston, 1578-1655, who married Margaret Constable, 1590-1662, daughter of Sir Henry Constable, 1555-1607, of Burton Constable, Sheriff of Yorkshire, and Margaret Dormer, 1570-1637 (note later family connection). Sir Henry Constable was the son of Sir John Constable, 1526-1579, of Burton Constable, Holderness, and Kirkby Knowle, and Margaret Scrope, 1534-1572, daughter of John le Scrope, 1504-1549, Lord of Bolton. The Scropes had close family ties with the Percys and Nevilles. There were also strong ties between the family of Constable and the families of Hotham, Tempest, and Radcliffe. His marriage settlement, dated June 2, 1605, brought Sir Edward manors of and all property in Edlington, Stainton and Maltbye, rectories of Swinefleet and Readnesse; witnessed by Tho. Fairfax, Bry. Metcalfe, Willfr. Kettlewell, Tho. Kelde, John Sidgwicke, Wm. Marshall. A deed of April 6, 1608, shows him holding property in Sibthorpe, Hawksworth, Carcolston, Flyntham, East Stoke, Thorpe, Elston, Syerston and Kneeton, purchased by his father, Sir Edward Stanhope of Gray’s Inn, from Richard Whaley of Screveton, esq.
82. Secondly, Sir John Stanhope, 1580-1627, of Mellwood in the Isle of Axholme, who married Mary Halley, 1585-1650, daughter of William Halley of Stotfold, York; their daughters were Margaret Stanhope, who married Robert Dynely, see Harl. Soc., vol. xxxix, and Ursula Stanhope, obit. 1654. She married George Walker, obit. 1677. He died at Kilmore, N. Ireland, and is buried there. Their children, all born in England, were: (1) George Walker, Governor of Londonderry. He was the ‘hero of the Siege of Londonderry’. ‘About the tenth of April, information was received, by Rev. George Walker, that the Irish army were approaching Londonderry, and he immediately communicated this intelligence to Lundy. Mr. Walker was Rector of the parishes of Donoughmore and Erigal Keeroge, in the county of Tyrone, and, although at an advanced age, entered with true Christian zeal into the contest, and, girding on the sword, placed himself at the head of a regiment which he had raised’ (Edward Lutwyche Parker, History of Londonderry, p. 15, 1851). (2) Godfrey Walker. (3) Gervase Walker. (4) Margaret Walker. (5) Anne Walker.
83. In the reign of James I., High Melwood had become the property of Sir John Stanhope, of Stotfold, in the county of York. John Stanhope, the son of Sir John, and Darcy the grandson, seem to have resided principally at High Melwood, as they are both buried in Owston Church. John Stanhope, the son of Darcy, also resided here, and was buried in Owston Church in the twenty ninth year of his age. He married Elizabeth,* daughter of Mr. Robert Farmery of High Burnham, by whom he acquired that property. This Sir John Stanhope and his wife were buried in that part of the Church of Hooton Pagnel which is called the Stotfold Choir. Stotfold is a single house in the parish of Hooton, similar to High Melwood in the parish of Owston, a distinct lordship to itself, and one of the old gentle-hommeries of England. They left issue two daughters, Elizabeth and Isabella. Elizabeth married Mr. Richard Acklom, by which marriage High Melwood came into that family, and then into the family of Earl Spencer, who married the great-grandaughter of Mr. Acklom, and who sold High Melwood to the Rev. Thomas Skipworth, of Belton. The house was a large stone building, surrounded by a moat, pleasantly situated on the side of the hill, with a southwest aspect. Not a vestige of it remains. When the property came into the family of Acklom it was disparked, and converted into an arable farm. John Stanhope and Mary Halley also had issue: Thomas Stanhope, born 1616, buried at Hooten Pagnall. He married, secondly, Grace, daughter of Darcy Washington of Hampole. Their daughter, Elizabeth, married Dr. Edmund Yarborough of Doncaster. Darcy Stanhope had a sister, Elizabeth, married to John Pindar.
84. *’A Petition of Eliz. Stanhope, Widow and Administratrix of John Stanhope, late of Melwood Hall, in the County of Lincoln, Esquire, and Mother and Guardian of Elizaheth Stanhope and Isabella Stanhope, Infants, Daughters and Coheirs of the said John Stanhope, in behalf of the said Infants, was presented to the House, and. read; setting forth, that the said John Stanhope, besides a considerable Estate, settled on his Marriage with the Petitioner, died seised in Fee of certain Lands in Stockwith, of £.IOO per Annnm, and other Lands in Lincolnshirc, all which were liable to Mortgages, and lncumbrances, by him made for £.2,000 That his Daughters are Heirs at Law to the said Lands, and by reason of Taxes, and other Contingencies, the yearly Rent of Stockwith will not pay the growing Interest of the said Incumbrances; but, if sold, as it now stands, will pay off the same, and then the settled Estate, and other Fee simple Lands, will remain clear to the Family: And praying, that Leave be given to bring in a Bill, to sell the Lands at Stockwilh, for payment o the Debts of the said John Stanhope, and for preserving the Overplus of the Money (if any) for the Benefit of the said Infants’ (Journals of the House of Commons, volume 15, p. 64, 1705).
85. Thirdly, George Stanhope, 1582-1655, D.D, who was chaplain to King James 1 and King Charles 1. We are told that he underwent ‘grievous distresses’ for his loyalty to King Charles, being deprived of his living of the rectory of Wheldrake. His son, the Rev. Thomas Stanhope, 1620-1680, was Rector of Hartshorne, Derbyshire, and chaplain to his kinsman, the Earl of Chesterfield. He married Barbara Allestrye, daughter of George Allestrye, Esquire. Their son was George Stanhope, 1660-1728, the renowned theologian, and Dean of Canterbury. Fourthly, Thomas Stanhope, 1583-1600. Fifthly, Jane Stanhope, who married Sir Percival Hart. Sixthly, Frances Stanhope, who married Patrick Maule, 1585-1661, Sheriff of Forfar, Earl of Panmure (Joseph Hunter, John William Clay, Famillae Minoum Gentium, pp. 986-988, 1894).
86. (3) Sir John Stanhope, obit. 1621, 1st. Baron Stanhope of Harrington, in the county of Northampton. He fulfilled various offices for Queen Elizabeth, who conferred the honour of knighthood on him, and of whom he was a great favourite: ‘During Raleigh’s absence, Elizabeth turned the beams of her favour on Sir John Stanhope, who could not remain two days from court without being enquired for’ (James Augustus St. John, Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, 2005). He was raised to the peerage by King James I. in 1605. He was brought up at Shelford, and, on entering public life, was thrice returned to Parliament, for Marlborough, Truro, and Rochester. As Treasurer of the Chamber, he was instructed to pay a certain William Shakespeare and company the sum of 21s. for their services. He married (1) Joan Knollys, daughter of Wm. Knollys, by whom he had no issue; (2) Margaret MacWilliams, obit. 1611, daughter of Henry MacWilliams of Stanborne, by whom he had one surviving son – see Harleian MSS. 15891, f. 119 – Charles Stanhope, obit. 1675, inheritor of Edward the younger’s estate at Caldecott, who succeeded as second baron, but died without issue, when the title became extinct. He had also two daughters: Catherine Stanhope, obit. 1657, who married Robert Cholmondeley, obit. 1659, Viscount Cholmondeley, afterwards Earl of Leinster. Elizabeth Stanhope, obit. 1643, who married Sir Lionel Talmash, obit. 1640, ancestor of the Earls of Dysart. Sir John Stanhope, temp. Elizabeth I., leased, from Gilbert of Gaunt, the Manor and Rectory of Bridlington, on condition of paying a salary of £8 a year to a priest. He was also a signatory to the Proclamation of the Succession of King James I.
87. (4) Sir Edward Stanhope, M.A, LL.D, 1547-1608, the younger, one of the Queen’s Counsel in the High Court of York, who is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral, near the great north door; his epitaph being drawn up by William Camden, the antiquary. He was successively, from 1560 to 1569, scholar, minor fellow, and major fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He received, in 1600, together with his younger brother, Michael, a grant from the Crown of the Manor of Hucknall Torkard. He was knighted at Whitehall in 1603. He was Chancellor of the Diocese of London, Vicar-General of the Province of Canterbury; member of a commission to authorise what books could be legally printed, and Rector of Terrington in Norfolk, a post held under the patronage of his nephew, William Cowper. His will showed a strong affection for all his family, as well as bequeathing his large gold chain, weighing 37 ounces, and all his plate not gifted to his family, to Mrs. Elizabeth Blackwell, wife of the Registrar of the Court of Arches, and daughter of Thomas Wilford, Chamberlain of London.
88. (5) Sir Michael Stanhope, 1548-1625, of Sudbourne, near Woodbridge, in Suffolk, not Sudbury, as Collins and others make it. He was knighted in the first year of King James 1. He married Anne Read, daughter of Sir William Read of Osterley, Middlesex, and by her had three daughters, his co-heirs: Bridget Stanhope, married to George Fielding.* Jane Stanhope, who married Viscount Henry F. Fitzwater, son and heir of the Earl of Sussex. Elizabeth Stanhope, who married Lord George Berkley, of Berkley Castle, in the county of Gloucester; this George being the xxi. baron by descent.
89. ‘In 1614, George Lord Berkeley, obit.1658, son of Thomas de Berkeley and Elizabeth Carey and grandson and heir of Henry Lord Berkeley, married Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudbourne (Suff.), who died in 1621. Although he seems to have sold most of the lands of her inheritance, a few charters remain in Berkeley Castle. Most are concerned with the manor of Culpho, with its appurtenances in Tuddenham, Grundisburgh and Playford, which was the inheritance of the Wachesham family in the 13th and 14th centuries but which Stanhope had acquired by 1609; the rest are concerned with other lands which he acquired in Suffolk and with lands in Middlesex. Sir Michael was a younger son of Sir Michael Stanhope of Shelford (beheaded in 1552), and the younger brother of John, first Lord Stanhope of Harrington (d. 1621). Jane Stanhope, sister of John and Michael, had married Henry Lord Berkeley as his second wife; it was in the year following Henry’s death that his grandson and heir married Elizabeth Stanhope’ (GEC ii. 138-90). ‘George’s mother, Elizabeth Carey, had brought manors in Suffolk to the Berkeleys in 1603, but they passed to her daughter, Theophila Berkeley, and her husband, Sir Robert Coke, and Elizabeth Stanhope’s son George, the first earl, sold the Stanhope lands in Suffolk in 1669’ (Copinger, Suffolk, ii. 39, 105). ‘Sir Michael Stanhope acquired much other land in the south-east corner of Suffolk, between Culpho and the coast. A survey of his lands in the area was made by John Norden in 1609: it included lands in the parishes of Staverton, Eyke, Bromeswell, Wantisden, Chillesford, Sudbourne, Orford and Dunningworth; he also had the manor of Blythford In Middlesex, the manor of Heston had come to Sir Michael with his wife Anne, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Read, and was divided between their three daughters, while the manor of East Bedfont was granted to Sir Michael by Queen Elizabeth and passed to Elizabeth Berkeley’ (VCH Middx. iii. 109). ‘All three portions of Heston were sold to Sir William Waller in 1655. Sir Michael’s wife is also described as Anne daughter and heir of Sir William Reade of Osterley, Middx.’ (GEC ii. 139).
90. *George Fielding was created, in 1622, Lord Fielding of Lecaghe and Viscount Callan, in the peerage of Ireland, and also Earl of Desmond, after the death of Sir Richard Preston, then enjoying the latter dignity, which Richard, Earl of Desmond, was drowned on his passage from Dublin to England in 1628, and leaving only a daughter. Fielding, Lord Callan, succeeded to the earldom. His lordship married Bridget Stanhope, daughter and coheir of Sir Michael Stanhope, knt., by whom he had issue: (1) William Fielding, second Earl of Desmond, who inherited as third Earl of Denbigh. (2) George Fielding, of St. Edmundsbury, who married a daughter of Sir John Lee. (3) Sir Charles Fielding, an officer of rank in the army, and a privy councillor in Ireland. (4) John Fielding,* in holy orders, D.D., Canon of Salisbury and Chaplain to King William III., who married Dorothy Cockayne, daughter of Scipio Cockayne, esq., of the county of Somerset, and had three sons and three daughters, of whom the youngest son, Lieutenant-General Edmund Fielding, married, firstly, Sarah Gould, daughter of Sir Henry Gould, knt., and had, with other issue, Henry Fielding,** the celebrated author of Tom Jones.
91. *No record of John’s marriage has been found. It is certain however that his wife’s name was Dorothy Cockayne, and probable that she was the daughter of Scipio and Dorothy Cockayne, residing at Wendy cum Shingay, Cambridgeshire, only a few miles distant of Cockayne Hatley, Bedfordshire, which had been the principal seat of the family from as early as 1417. That her name was Dorothy is shown in the parish registers of Puddletown, Dorset, which identify her as the mother of Dorothy and Edmund Fielding, and from the records of the court of chancery (PRO CC. 41. 37. 406). That she was a member of the Cockayne family is clear from the Will of George Cockayne of the Cursitors office, Middlesex, gent, who mentions as his sisters, ‘Dorothy Feilding, Elizabeth Godwyn, Anne Rives and Katherine Bernard (PRO PCC. 1718).
92. His second son was George Fielding, obit. 1738, buried in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. He was Lt. Col. of the Royal Regiment of Blues, and Groom of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne and George I. He married Ann Sherman, 1682-1755, daughter of Bazaleel Sherman of Mitcham, Surrey, who dealt in coffee and other such luxury items, and Anne Norton. Their only child was Sarah Fielding, obit. 1795, who married, 1733, John Willis, the third son of the Right Reverend Richard Willis, Bishop of Gloucester (1714), Salisbury (1722), and Winchester (1723-24); baptized at Ribbesford, Worcestershire, on February 16, 1664, the son of William Willis, variously reported as a journeyman tanner and a maker of woollen caps, and his wife, Susanna. He was educated at Bewdley Free Grammar School, and matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, on December 5, 1684, where he graduated BA in 1688.
93. Their second son was Richard Willis,1739-1802, of Churchford Hall, Capel St Mary, Suffolk, who married Anne Barnham. Their eldest son was Richard Willis, 1766-1842, who married Anne Apperley, obit. 1853, daughter of Thomas Apperley and Esther Partridge. Their daughter was Sarah Anne Willis, born 1801, in Monmouth, Wales. She married John Joseph Kane, 1796-1876, of Lincolnshire, captain of the 4th. Regiment of Foot and the Monmouthshire Militia, eldest son of John Daniel Kane, Lt. Col., 4th. Regiment of Foot, of Dublin, and Louisa Phillips.
94. He served in the American war, of 1812, at the battle of New Orleans. His son was Edward Kane, who married Mora Bellini, their daughter being Blanche Irene Kane, who had a daughter, Blanche Elmo Kane, by an unknown father. Blanche married Francis Joseph Ryan. Their son was Francis Albert Ryan, who married Patricia Aikens; their son being John Francis Ryan, who married Anne Young. Their daughter is Kate Ryan, married to Jason Wingrove, to whom I am indebted for the above lineage, and specific information regarding Dorothy Cockayne.
95. **’Henry Fielding, the Cervantes of England’, resided occasionally during the last mournful year of his life at Fordhook, situated on the Uxbridge road, at the distance of about a mile from the village of Acton, at the eastern extremity of Ealing. Fielding, whose pen had been the source of so much heartfelt mirth, was now oppressed by a complication of disorders which threw a cloud over his fancy, and would have subjugated the whole powers of a mind less vivacious and elastic. As a last and forlorn hope, he was advised to seek the mild climate of Lisbon. He passed the night before the commence- ment of his voyage at his country retirement near Ealing, in the society of his children; and the feelings of such a man, in so touching an. hour as that of a departure from his family, demand the topographer’s attention, while pausing over the spot on which the trial of fortitude occurred. The following are his own words, proceeding warmly from the closest recess of his bosom, as he slowly sailed towards the port whence he was never to return: — Wednesday, June 26, 1754. — ‘On this day the most melancholy sun I had ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook; by the light of this sun, I was in my own opinion last to behold, and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school, where I had learnt to bear pains and to despise death. In this situation, as I could not conquor nature I submitted entirely to her ; and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever, under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me in to suffer the company of my little ones during eight hours; and I doubt not whether, in that time, I did not undergo more than in all my distemper’ (Thomas Faulkner, Hist. Brentford, Ealing, and Chiswick, p. 266, 1845).
96. Earl Stanhope, see ‘Notices’, remarked of Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudbourne: ‘There was once a magnificent monument to him in Sudbourne church, the more magnificent, perhaps, because it was erected in his own lifetime by himself’. (It did not mention his daughter Bridget. He had disinherited and disowned her as a result of a dispute over land she had inherited from her mother. Here is its text: ‘Here resteth, in assured hope to rise in Christ, Sir Michael Stanhope, Knight, who served at the feet of Queen Elizabeth of most happy and famous memory, in her privy chamber xx. years, and of our sovereign King James, in the same place, the rest of his days, who married Anne, daughter to Sir William Read, of Osterley in the county of Mddlesex, Knight, by whom he had 2 daughters, Jane married to Henry Viscount F. Fitzwater, sonn and heire-apparent to the Earle of Sussex; and Elizabeth, married to Lord George Berkley Mowbray Seagrave and Bruce, of Berkley Castle, in the county of Gloucester, this George being the xxi Baron by descent. All honor, glory, praise, and thanks be unto thee, O glorious Trinitie. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. 1 Tim. i. 15. Thou has redeemed me , O Lord God of Truth. Psalm xxxi. 5. I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. Phil. i. 23. Death is to me advantage. Phil i. 21. I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon ye name of the Lord. Psalm cxvi. 13. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. 1 Cor. i. 31’.
97. As shown, Sir Thomas Stanhope was the father of Sir John Stanhope, 1559-1611, dates as inquis post mortem, who on meeting King James in his way to Belvoir castle, on his first coming into England, had the honour of knighthood granted him, on the payment of £10,000! He was twice married. By his first wife, Cordelia Alington, he had one son, Sir Philip Stanhope, born 1584, his successor. He had other children by Cordelia Alington, none of whom survived, as shown in this example – Thomas Stanhope, born 1584, twin of Philip. An Oxford University entry, dated 1598, states ‘Thomas Stanhope equitis fil. aetatis 14’.
98. Cordelia Alington was the granddaughter of Sir Giles Alington, and Ursula Drury, who was the daughter of Sir Ralph Drury, and Ann Jerningham, cousin of Sir Edward Stanhope, being the daughter of Edward Jerningham, of Somerleyton, who was the brother of Mary Jerningham, wife of Sir Thomas Stanhope. Cordelia Alington was the daughter and co-heir of Richard Alington, and Jane Cordell, obit. 1602, daughter of John Cordell, and sister of Sir William Cordell, Master of the Rolls. The Alington family obtained the Manor of Wymondeley near Hitchin, from the Argentines, by the marriage of Sir William Alington, 1392-1450, of Botisham, Cambridgeshire, with Elizabeth de Argentine, 1401-1463, eldest sister and co-heir of Sir John de Argentine. Their descendant, Richard Alington, as shown, married Jane Cordell. By this lady he had three daughters, of whom, the second, Cordelia, married Sir John Stanhope. The Argentines were a very ancient and eminent family. They held the lordship of Wymondeley by Grand Serjeanty, that is to say, it came with the duty of serving the monarch with ‘their first cup upon the day of solemn Coronation’ (Clutterbuck’s History of Hertfordshire, vol. ii., p. 542, 1821).
EARLS HARRINGTON
99. (Sir John Stanhope’s second wife was Catherine Trentham, daughter of Thomas Trentham of Roseter, Staffordshire. For the Trentham pedigree, see Harl. MSS., 1,077, f. 15b, and 1,173, f.14b. By her he had a large family of sons and daughters, the latter being: (1) Cordelia Stanhope, who married, firstly, Sir Roger Aston, and, secondly, John, Baron Mohun of Okehampton, obit. 1641. ‘Sir William Mohun, Knight, married first Joan Horsey, and after her death Anne, relict of Sir John Trelawney – his heir, Reginald Mohun, of Boconnoc, esq. was created a baronet by James I. At the time of Carew’s Survey, he was ‘a widower of two wifes’, the first a daughter of Sir Henry Killigrew, the second, Philippa, daughter of John Hele, esq., Serjeant at law. Sir Reginald was one of the deputy Lieutenants of Cornwall, a justice of peace, and commanded six companies of local forces of one hundred men each. He was succeeded by his son, Sir John Mohun, second baronet of his family, who was elevated to the peerage, by patent bearing date April 15, 1628, by the title of Baron Mohun of Okehampton. His lordship, who became one of the chief cavalier commanders in the west, and did essential service to the royal cause, married Cordelia Stanhope, relict of Sir Roger Ashton, by whom he had issue; John, who succeeded to the title and estates; Warwick, heir to his brother; Sir Charles Mohun, and three daughters. John, second Lord Mohun, died without issue, and was succeeded by his brother Warwick, third baron; this nobleman married Catherine Willes, of Brember, in the county of Southampton, and dying in 1665, was succeeded by Charles, fourth Baron Mohun of Okehampton ; who espoused the Lady Philippa, one of the six daughters of Arthur Annesley, first Earl of Anglesea, at that time Lord Privy Seal, and had issue a son of his own name, who inherited the title on his death, sometime before 1682. Charles Mohun, fifth and last lord, was of a vehement and passionate temper, which led him into many excesses in his youth, and subjected him to be twice arraigned for murder, but he was on both occasions honorably acquitted. Having had a dispute with James, Duke of Brandon and Hamilton, — regarding an estate (Sandon Hall), left him by the Earl of Macclesfield, whose niece Lord Mohun had married, he challenged that nobleman, and a duel ensued in Hyde Park on the 15th Nov. 1712, wherein both the combatants were slain.* His lordship married, first, Charlotte the daughter of — Mainwaring, Esq., by Lady Charlotte Gerard, sister of Charles, Earl of Macclesfield ; and secondly, Elizabeth Lawrence, widow of Colonel Griffeth, but had no issue, in consequence of which the Barony of IMohun of Okehampton, at his decease, became extinct. *Lord Mohun fell by the duke’s fire, the death of Hamilton was attributed by some to treachery on the part of General MaCartney, lord Mohun’s second’ (William Bridges, et al. ‘Okehampton’, p. 87, 1889′). (2) Anne Stanhope. (3) Lady Catherine Stanhope, 1592-1694, who became the second wife of the close friend of King Charles I., Sir Thomas Hutchinson of Owthorpe, and step-mother of the famous Colonel John Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham for Cromwell’s Parliament. Lady Catherine survived to the great age of 102, and was buried, as was her husband, at St. Paul’s, Covent-Garden. The Rev. Julius Hutchinson, one of her descendants, and editor of her memoirs, 1808, writes, in his preface, that during her later years ‘this lady dwelt in splendour in Nottingham’. (4) Dorothy Stanhope. (5) Jane Stanhope, who married, firstly, Sir Peter Courtenay, and, secondly, Sir Francis Annesley, Viscount of Valentia, and Baron Mountnorris, of Mountnorris, in the county of Armagh. He was the son of Robert Annesley and Beatrice Cornwall of Moor Park. Robert Annesley was the son George Annesley, Esq., of Newport Pagnell, and Elizabeth Dove. George Annesley was the son of Robert Annesley of Newport Pagnell, and Joan Cloville of Coldhall, Essex. The family of Annesley were very closely connected to the families of Babington and Clifton. (6) Frances Stanhope.
100. Of seven sons of this marriage, five died young, the exceptions being: (1) William Stanhope, who left three sons, who all died without issue. (2) Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston, ancestor of the Earls of Harrington. Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston, 1586-1638, the eldest surviving of Sir John Stanhope’s sons by Catherine Trentham, married: firstly Olivia Beresford, of the Beresfords of Bentley: Thomas Beresford, a younger son of the family of that name in Staffordshire, married the heiress of Hassall in Cheshire, and settled at Bentley in the 15th. century. The elder line of this branch became extinct in the reign of James I. by the death of Thomas Beresford, whose heiress married the representative of the Staffordshire branch; the heiress of this elder branch married Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston, by whom she had a daughter and heir married to Charles Cotton. Hugh, a younger son of Thomas Beresford, who first settled at Bentley, seated himself at Newton-Grange, in the parish of Ashborne, at which place they had resided for five generations, in 1611. The Newton-Grange estate was sold by Richard Beresford, father of John Beresford, Esq., of Compton, near Ashborne.
101. Sir John Stanhope married secondly Mary Radclyffe, 1605-1675, daughter of Sir John Radclyffe of Orsdal. Sir John Stanhope was knighted in 1607; elected Knight of the Shire of Derbyshire temp. 18 James I., and also in the first parliament of Charles I. He was Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1629. His daughter, Anne Stanhope, married Thomas Ellys. Bart., of Wyham, Lincolnshire.
102. His son was John Stanhope, the elder, of Elvaston, 1620-1662, who married Jane Curzon, 1625-1652, daughter of Sir John Curzon, 1st. Bart. of Keddlestone. Their son was John Stanhope, the younger, of Elvaston, 1642-1684, who married Dorothy Agard, 1657-1705, daughter of Charles Agard of Foston. Their third son was William Stanhope, 1681-1756, who, in 1729, was created Lord Harrington, Co. Northampton, and, in 1742, 1st. Earl of Harrington, and Viscount Petersham, County Surrey. He married Anne Griffith, 1695-1719, daughter of Col. Edward Griffith. William Stanhope was a British statesman and diplomat. Educated at Eton, he joined the army and served in Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession. When peace was made between England and Spain, in 1720, Stanhope became British ambassador to the latter country. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1747 to 1751.
103. His son, General William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington, 1719–1779, was an English politician and soldier. He took up a military career, joining the Foot Guards in 1741. He was wounded at the Battle of Fontenoy, and shortly after was appointed Colonel of the Second Troop of the Grenadier Guards, an appointment he held for the remainder of his life. In 1747, he became MP. for Bury St Edmunds, and, in 1755, was promoted to major-general. He succeeded to the Earldom in 1756, and was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1758, and general in 1770. He married Lady Caroline FitzRoy, 1722–1784, daughter of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, on August 11, 1746. They had seven children:
104. (1) Lady Caroline Stanhope, 1747-1767, who married Kenneth Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Seaforth. (2) Lady Isabella Stanhope, 1748–1819, who married Charles Molyneux, 1st Earl of Sefton. (3) Lady Amelia Stanhope, 1749-1780. She married Richard Barry, 6th Earl of Barrymore. (4) Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington, 1753–1829.
105. Abridged from The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 146, pp. 365-368, 1829: ‘Sept. 15. At Brighton, aged 76, the Right Hon. Charles Stanhope, third Earl of Harrington, Viscount Petersham, and Baron Harrington, co. Northampton, a Knight Grand Cross of the illustrious Guelphic Order, a Privy Councillor in England and Ireland, a General in the Army, Colonel of the 1st regiment of Life-Guards, and Constable of Windsor Castle, a Member of the Consolidated Board of General Officers, and a Commissioner of the Royal Military College, and of the Royal Military Asylum, and F.S.A.
106. The Earl of Harrington was born March 20, 1753, the elder son of Charles the second Earl (who was also a General in the Army, and Colonel of the 2d Horse Guards, by the Right Hon. Lady Caroline Fitzroy, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Grafton, K. G. His Lordship entered the army as Ensign in the Coldstream Guards, with the rank of Lieutenant, Nov. 3, 1769. He obtained a company in the 29 foot in 1773, and, having joined that regiment on its return from America at the close of that year, bad the command of the light company.
107. In 1774, Lord Petersham was returned to Parliament to a vacancy for the borough of Thetford, but the Parliament was dissolved immediately after. In 1776, Lord Petersham was elected for Westminster. He was raised to the House of Peers April 1,1779. In 1776, Lord Petersham exchanged his light company for the grenadier company of the 29th, which regiment embarked for Quebec in February of that year; and, on their arrival, were immediately ordered to land, which they effected, though cannonaded from the battery erected by the Americans on Point Levy. During this active campaign, Lord Petersham acted as an Aide-de-Camp to Gen. Burgoyne. After tbe disastrous issue of the campaign, Lord Petersham was sent to England with Gen. Burgoyne’s dispatches, by the way of New York.His Lordship married Jane, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Fleming, of Brompton Park, co. Middlesex, Bart.
108. It being evident that the French meditated an attack on our West India possessions, letters of service were issued to raise a number of new regiments, one of which was given to his Lordship, who soon completed it as the 85th, and shortly after embarked with it for Jamaica, as Lieut.-Colonel Commandant. The great mortality which prevails more or less in the West indies, particularly in the time of war, soon reduced the gallant corps sent from England to a small number. The 80th, one of the finest ever landed on any of our tropical islands, suffered severely; and his Lordship’s health, from his great military exertions, being injured, he returned to England, accompanied by Lady Harrington, who had voluntarily insisted on sharing the fortunes of her husband amidst the dangers of the sea, the perils of war, and the unhealthiness of the West Indies. On Lord Harrington’s return to England he met with a most gracious reception from his Majesty, who was pleased to nominate him, Nov. 1782, one of his Aids-de-Camps, which gave him the rank of Colonel in the army.
109. Lord Harrington was appointed, March 13, 1783, to the command of the 65th. regiment, which he immediately joined, and embarked with it for Ireland. In January, 1788, Lieut.-Gen. Tryon, Colonel of the 39th reg. died, the first notice of which his Lordship received by an express from Sir George Yonge, Secretary-at-War, notifying that his Majesty had been pleased to appoint him (Jan. 38, 1788,) Colonel of tbe 39th, as he knew it was what his Lordship much wished for. This very flattering attention of his Royal master originated from Lord Harrington having asked for the 39th some years before, on the death of its then Colonel, Lieut.-Gen. Evelyn.
110. A few weeks after his appointment his Lordship went down to Worcester to see bis regiment, which had returned from America in the November preceding. The joyful reception he experienced from his old friends on that occasion was equally pleasing and honourable to him. During the period of Lord Harrington’s command of this regiment the nation was at peace; and it continued for three years together in garrison at Windsor; a circumstance which contributed to the continuance and increase of that notice with which the noble Colonel had been honoured by the Royal family. In tbe summer of 1793 a camp was formed on Bagshot heath, consisting of the 3rd,14th, and 39th regiments of infantry, a detachment of artillery, and two regiments of light dragoons. The infantry was formed into two brigades, tbe first commanded bv Lord Harrington, and the second by Colonel (afterwards General) Fox; both these officers had tbe temporary rank of Brigadier-General. Gen. The Duke of Richmond commanded the whole.
111. The 5th of December, 1793, his Majesty was pleased to confer an additional mark of his regard on tbe Earl of Harrington, by appointing him Colonel of the 1st regiment of Life Guards. The 13th of Oct. 1793, his Lordship received the brevet of Major-General.
112. In the spring of 1806, the Earl of Harrington was sent to the Court of Berlin immediately after Lord Harrowby, and both returned nearly at the same time re infecta, his Prussian Majesty having evinced a determination to adopt the politics of St. Cloud. Soon after, in the same year, the Earl was sent to Ireland as Commander-in-Chief of the forces in that part of the empire, of which his grandfather had been twice Viceroy, in 1747 and 1749.
113. Lord Harrington was 11th in lineal descent from George Duke of Clarence, brother to King Edward IV. through the honourable and distinguished houses of Pole Lord Montacute, Hastings Earl of Huntingdon, Somerset Duke of Beaufort, and Fitzroy Duke of Grafton. But Lord Harrington was one of the last men who stood in need of borrowing merit from the dead. In every relation of life, public as well as private, he stood forward unexceptionable as pre-eminent. As a Lord of Parliament, a Privy Councillor, and a General Officer, he was zealous as efficient in the discbarge of every important duty which be owed to his king and country; nor was he deficient in the milder virtues of the Christian, the husband, the parent, and the friend. He lived honoured with the cordial personal intimacy of his two successive sovereigns, whilst his society was eagerly sought after and highly prized by all that there was of noble, of great, of good among his equals. His charities were widely spread, liberally dispensed, and unostentatiously secret.
114. His death was a splendid instance of euthanasia. Nine of his children surrounded his couch, and in affectionate anguish watched bis last-drawn breath. He was attended to the grave by his seven sons, and a numerous tenantry to whom he had ever stood in loco parentis. As his memory will be embalmed, may his example be copied by bis successors, and long, very long, At Elvaston may British bounty stand, And Justice linger ere she quit the land’.
115. (5) Capt. Hon. Henry Fitzroy Stanhope, 1754-1828, who married Elizabeth Falconer. (6) Lady Henrietta Stanhope, 1756-1781, the wife of Thomas Foley, 2nd Baron Foley. (7) Lady Anna Maria Stanhope, 1760-1834, who married, firstly, Thomas Pelham-Clinton, 3rd Duke of Newcastle, and, secondly, Gen. Sir Charles Crawford.
116. Charles Stanhope, 3rd. Earl of Harrington, and Jane Fleming, 1760-1820, daughter of Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet Fleming, had issue ten children: (1) Charlotte Augusta Stanhope, 1777-1859, who married Augustus Frederick FitzGerald, 3rd Duke of Leinster. They were parents to Charles William FitzGerald, 4th Duke of Leinster, and another three children. (2) Caroline Anne Stanhope, 1778-1853, wife of Edward Ayshford Sanford. (3) Charles Stanhope, 4th Earl of Harrington, 1780–1851, who married Maria Foote, 1792-1867, a celebrated actress, daughter of Samuel Foote. He was better known throughout the Regency period as Lord Petersham, as he did not succeed to the earldom until 1829. Tall and handsome in appearance, he was a popular character in society. Renowned as an eccentric – he dressed like the French King Henry IV., and had other personal peculiarities – dandy, connoisseur of snuff and tea, he was also a liberal patron of the opera and theatre. He designed the Petersham overcoat. When he died without leaving a male heir, the title went to his brother, see below. (4) Lincoln Edwin Robert Stanhope, 1781-1840. (5) Anna Maria Stanhope, Duchess of Bedford, 1783-1857, the originator of the afternoon tea ritual in England. She married Francis Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford. (6) Leicester FitzGerald Charles Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington, 1784-1862. He married Elizabeth Green, 1805-1898, daughter of William Green and Ann Rose Hall. His parents-in-law were residents of Jamaica. He was a soldier and politician who held radical views. He worked with Lord Byron in the cause of Greek independence, though often at odds with his friend. He wrote A Sketch of the History and Influence of the Press in British India and Greece, in 1823, drawing attention to propaganda disguised as impartial news reporting. His son was Sydney Seymour Hyde, 6th Earl of Harrington, 1845-1866, who died unmarried, the title passing to his cousin, see below. (7) FitzRoy Henry Richard Stanhope, 1787-1864, Dean of St Buryan, Cornwall, and Anglican Rector of Catton, and of Wressle in Yorkshire. He married Caroline Wyndham, 1793-1876, illegitimate daughter of the Hon. Charles Wyndham. They were parents of Charles Wyndham Stanhope, 7th Earl of Harrington, and of several other children. (8) Sir Francis Charles Stanhope, 1788-1862. He had three children by Hannah Wilson, 1797-1863, daughter of James Wilson of Parsonstown Manor, County Meath. (9) Henry William Stanhope, 1790-1872, Anglican Rector of Gawsworth. (10) Augustus Stanhope, 1794–1831, MP.
117. Charles Wyndam Stanhope, 1809-1881, married Elizabeth Still de Pearsall, daughter of Robert Lucas de Pearsall. They had issue: Charles Augustus Stanhope, 8th Earl of Harrington, 1844-1917, who married Hon. Eva Elizabeth Carrington Smith, daughter of Robert John Carrington, 2nd Baron Carrington of Upton and Hon. Charlotte Augusta Annabella Drummond-Willoughby. He held the office of Deputy Lieutenant of Derbyshire, and was Aide-de-Camp to HM. King Edward VII. between 1907 and 1910. He died without issue.
118. Dudley Henry Eden Stanhope, 9th Earl of Harrington, 1859-1928. was a younger son of Charles Wyndham Stanhope and Elizabeth Still de Pearsall. He married Kathleen Wood, daughter of Joseph Carter Wood. Their son, Charles Joseph Leicester Stanhope, 10th Earl of Harrington, 1887-1929, married Margaret Trelawney Seaton, daughter of Major H. H. D. Seaton. He gained the ranks of Captain in the service of the 15th Hussars, Reserve of Officers, and of Brevet Major. He was decorated with the award of Military Cross. His son, William Henry Leicester Stanhope, 11th Earl of Harrington, married, firstly, Eileen Foley Grey, daughter of Sir John Foley Grey, 8th Bt. and Jean Jessie May de Sales la Terrière. He was educated at Eton College. He fought in the Second World War and gained the rank of Captain in the service of the 15th/19th King’s Royal Hussar (Royal Armoured Corps). Charles Henry Leicester Stanhope, 12th Earl of Harrington, his son by his first marriage, married, firstly, Virginia Alleyne Freeman-Jackson, daughter of Captain Harry Freeman-Jackson and Dorothy Alleyne d’Aubigny d’Engelbronner. Their daughter was Hon. Serena Alleyne Stanhope, who married David Albert Charles Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley, son of Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon and Margaret Rose Windsor, Princess Margaret).
119. As said, Sir John Stanhope was the father of Philip Stanhope, 1584-1656, created, in 1628, first Earl of Chesterfield, who died as a prisoner of Cromwell’s Parliament. In the Civil War, he and his family supported the King. As a result, his estates were sequestered, and, in 1645, he petitioned the House of Lords for maintenance. He was granted £5 per week, and fined £8,698 for having chosen the wrong side. He died in London on the 12th. September, and was buried in the church of Saint-Giles-In-The-Fields. He married, firstly, his second cousin, Catherine Hastings, 1586-1636, daughter of Francis Hastings, Lord Hastings, obit.1595, of Huntingdon, Berwick, and Sarah Harington, of Exton, Rutlandshire. Francis Hastings was the eldest son of George Hastings, obit. 1604, 4th. Earl of Huntingdon, and Dorothy Porte, obit. 1607, sister of Margaret Porte, who was the wife of the aforementioned Sir Thomas Stanhope. Sarah Harington was the daughter of James Harington, and Lucy Sidney, of Penshurst, Kent. The above is the old spelling of Harrington.
120. 13. Sir John Stanhope m. Elizabeth Talbot.
14. Thomas Stanhope m. Mary Jerningham.
15. Sir Edward Stanhope m. Adelina Clifton.
16. Michael Stanhope m. Anne Rawson.
17. Sir Thomas Stanhope m. Margaret Porte.
18. Sir John Stanhope m. (1) Cordelia Alington.
19. Sir Philip Stanhope m. (1) Catherine Hastings.
121. 18. Sir John Stanhope m (2) Catherine Trentham.
19. Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston m. (2) Mary Radclyffe.
20. John Stanhope of Elvaston m. Jane Curzon.
21. John Stanhope of Elvaston m. Dorothy Agard.
22. William Stanhope m. Anne Griffith.
23. William Stanhope m. Caroline FitzRoy.
24. Charles Stanhope m. Jane Fleming.
25. Charles Stanhope m. Maria Foote.
THE FIRST EARL’S FAMILY
122. Philip Stanhope and Catherine Hastings had issue: (1) John Stanhope. (2) Henry Lord Stanhope. He was knighted in 1626, and was MP. for Notts. and East Retford. Henry Stanhope married, 1628, Katherine Wotton, obit. 1660, governess to Princess Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I.; created Countess of Chesterfield for life by Charles II., daughter of Thomas Wotton, obit. 1630, 2nd Baron Wotton of Marley, and Mary Throckmorton, obit. 1658. They had issue: Wotten Stanhope. Mary Stanhope. Elizabeth Stanhope. Catherine Stanhope, obit. 1662. Catherine Stanhope married William Alington, 3rd Baron Alington of Killard, son of William Alington, 1st Baron Alington of Killard, and Elizabeth Tollemache. She died in childbirth. She was buried on December 4,, 1662, in Horseheath, Cambridgeshire. Philip Stanhope, 1634-1713, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield. (3) Charles Stanhope. He married, but died without issue. (4) Edward Stanhope. (5) William Stanhope. (6) Thomas Stanhope. (7) Michael Stanhope. (8) George Stanhope. (9) Ferdinando Stanhope, obit. 1643. He was MP. for Tamworth in 1640. He was also colonel of horse in the army of King Charles 1. He was killed, in 1643, at the Battle of Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, where he fought on the Royalist side, ‘while doing a charitable office … in quenching an house there on fire’. He married his step-sister, Lettice Ferrers, daughter of Sir Humphrey Ferrers of Tamworth, and Anne Pakington. Their daughter was Anne Stanhope. (10) Hon. Philip Stanhope, obit. 1645, who was killed while commanding the garrison at Shelford. The defences were stormed by Parliamentary forces. Colonel Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham, wrote a letter to him to persuade him to surrender on honourable terms. ‘Stanhope returned a very scornful, huffing reply, in which one of his expressions was that he should lay Nottingham Castle as flat as a pancake’ (Mrs. Hutchinson’s Memoirs, 1794). (11) Colonel Michael Stanhope, 1624-1648. Colonel Michael Stanhope was one of three Stanhope brothers killed in the war. His body his buried in the north aisle of Willoughby Church, as recorded on a small brass plate reading: ‘Here lyes the body of Collonell Michael Stanhope who was slayne in Willoughby Feild in the Month of Iuly 1648 in the 24th Yeare of his age being a souldier for King Charles the first’. Tradition as it that his armour was brought to Shelford Church after the Battle of Willoughby Field. (12) Arthur Stanhope. He was the youngest son of the first marriage, and MP. for Notts in the first Parliament of King Charles 11. He was the ancestor of Philip, 5th. Earl of Chesterfield. He married Anne Salisbury, daughter of Sir Henry Salisbury, 1st. Baronet Llewenny, and Elizabeth Vaughan of Golden Grove, Caermarthinshire. Their children were: Philip Stanhope. Henry Stanhope. Charles Stanhope,* 1655-1712. Catherine Stanhope.
123. Philip Stanhope and Catherine Hastings also had issue two daughters: Lady Sarah Stanhope, obit. 1699, who married Sir Richard Houghton, 3rd. Bart., and Lady Elizabeth Stanhope, who married Edward d’Arcy of Newhall. Lady Sarah Stanhope and Sir Richard Hoghton had issue: (1) Sir Charles Hoghton, who married Hon. Mary Skeffington, their issue being: Sir Henry Hoghton. Cordelia Hoghton, obit. 1768, who married Robert Davis of York. Margaret Hoghton, obit. 1775, who married Samuel Watson. Lucy Hoghton, obit. 1780, who married, 1705, Thomas Lutwidge, obit. 1747, of Whitehaven. Elizabeth Hoghton, who married, 1715, Thomas Fenton of Hunslet, co. Yorks. Philip Hoghton, who married, firstly, Elizabeth Slater, obit. 1731, and, secondly, Margaret Rigby, obit. 1795. (2) Lucy Hoghton, obit. 1689, who married Tellstone Bruen, of Bruen, Stapleford, Cheshire. Their daughter was Sarah Bruen, who married, 1695, Ralph Assheton of Downham and Coverdale, Lancs. Their son was Ralph Assheton, who married, 1716, Mary Lister, obit. 1728. They had issue: Ralph Assheton, who married, 1750, Rebecca Hulls, obit. 1812. Rev. Richard Assheton, D.D., Rector of Middleton, Warden of Manchester, who married Mary Hulls. Ralph Assheton and Rebecca Hulls had issue: William Assheton, who married, 1784, Lettice Brooke, obit. 1834. Elizabeth Assheton, who married, 1784, Sir James Whalley-Smythe-Gardiner, Bart., 1768-1805. Rebecca Assheton, who married Francis Penyston of Cornwall. Ann Assheton, who married Rt. Rev. William Cleaver, D.D., Bishop of Chester.
124. Lady Elizabeth Stanhope and Edward d’Arcy had issue: Katherine d’Arcy, who married, 1660, Sir Erasmus Phillipps, 3rd. Bart., of Picton. They had issue: Sir John Phillipps, 4th. Bart., 1662-1737, who married Mary Smith. They had issue: Sir Erasmus Phillipps, 5th. Bart. Sir John Phillipps, 6th. Bart., who married, 1725, Elizabeth Sheppard. Their son was Sir Richard Phillipps, 7th. Bart., Lord Milford, 1743-1803. Bulkely Phillipps of Abercover, who married Philippa Adams, Their daughter, Mary Philippa Artemisia Phillipps, married James Child of Bigelly House, Pembroke. Elizabeth Phillipps, who married John Sholter of Bybrook, Kent. Their daughters being: Catherine Shorter, who married, 1700, Robert Walpole, 1676-1745, 1st. Earl Orford, and Charlotte Shorter, obit. 1734, who married, 1718, Francis, 1st. Lord Conway, 1679-1732.
125. Charles Stanhope married Frances Toppe, daughter of Sir Francis Toppe. Their issue were: (1) Francis Stanhope, who died unmarried. (2) Reverend Michael Stanhope, 1681-1738, Canon of Windsor, who married Penelope Lovell, daughter of Sir Salathiel Lovell. (3) Henry Stanhope. He was married to a Miss Jackson of Nottingham. Their daughter was Charlotte Stanhope. (4) Toppe Stanhope, who died young. (5) Charles Stanhope, 1693-1759, ancestor of the 9th. Earl of Chesterfield: ‘Charles Stanhope, esq, married Cecilia, daughter of Dutton Stede, esq. of Stede Hill, in the county of Kent: and dying in 1759, left an only son, Edwin Francis Stanhope, esq. This gentleman married Catherine, widow of William-Berkeley Lyon, esq. and eldest daughter and co-heiress of John Brydges, Marquees of Caernarvon (son of James, first duke of Chandos), by whom he left, at his decease, in 1807, a daughter, Catherine Stanhope, who married Sir Hungerford Hoskyns*, and a son, Henry-Edwin Stanhope, esq. who, having distinguished himself as a naval officer, and attained the rank of admiral of the blue, was created a baronet on 13th November, 1807. Sir Henry married Margaret, daughter of Francis Malbone, esq. of Newport, Rhode Island, by whom he left issue: Edwin-Francis Stanhope. Catherine Stanhope. Anne-Eliza Stanhope, obit. 1819. (6) Gertrude Stanhope. (7) Mary Theophilia Stanhope. (8) Catherine Stanhope, who married a Mr. Wogan of Wales. (9) Elizabeth Stanhope, who married a Mr. Aspinwall of Lancashire.
126. *Catherine Stanhope and Sir Hungerford Hoskyns were the parents of Maria Jane Hoskyns, who married George Compton Reade. Their son was John Stanhope Reade, who married Lovica Walton, who was born in New York. They were married in 1836, and settled in Michigan, U.S.A. Their daughter, Catherine Reade, born in 1841 in Canada, married John Askworth, born in 1825 in England. Their daughter, Emma Louisa Asquith, born in 1864 in the U.S.A., married William Barrett; their son being John Stanhope Reade Barrett, grandfather of Sylvia Horning, to whom I am indebted for this lineage.
127. Sir Hungerford Hoskyns, Bart., and Catherine, daughter of Edwin Francis Stanhope, Esq., and the Rt. Hon. Lady Catherine Stanhope, were married at Stanwell, December, 14th, 1774. Sir Hungerford Hoskyn’s lineage being:
1.. John Hoskyns, Esq., serjeant-at-law, youngest son of John Hoskyns, esq., M.P. for the city of Hereford, married Benedicta, dau. of Robert Moyle, Esq. of Buckwell, co. Kent, by whom he had one son and a daughter. Mr. Serjeant Hoskyns was at one time committed to the Tower for alluding, in his place in parliament, to mercenary or Scottish favourites. He was a man of sarcastic wit, considerable talents, and much humour. The learned serjeant was succeeded in his estates by his only son:
2. Bennet Hoskyns, Esq., M.P. for the co. Hereford, who was created a Baronet on Dec. 18, 1676, and married Anne, dau. of Sir John Bingley, of Temple Combe, co. Somerset, by whom he had two sons, John and William, and was succeeded by the elder:
3. Sir John Hoskyns, M.P. for Hereford, and one of the Masters in Chancery, who was knighted in the lifetime of his father. He married Jane, dau. of Sir Gabriel Low (who was maternally descended from Walter, Lord Hungerford, a knight of the Garter in the reign of Henry VI.), and had issue, his two immediate successors, and two other children. He was succeeded by his eldest son:
4. Sir Bennet Hoskyns, who married Gertrude, dau. of Lord Arundel of Trerice, but died without issue, when the title devolved upon his brother: 1.1.1.1.1. Sir Hungersord Hoskyns, M.P. for Hereford; who married Mary, dau. of Theophilus Leigh, Esq. of Addlestrop, co. Gloucester, and niece, maternally, of the Duke of Chandos, by whom he had two sons and two daus. He died in 1766, and was succeeded by his elder son:
5. Sir Chandos Hoskyns, who married Rebecca, dau. of Joseph May, Esq. of London; and dying in 1773, left (with a dau. Jane, wife of Sir John Reade, Bart.), a son:
6. Sir Hungerford Hoskins, sheriff of Herefordshire in the 26th year of George III.; who married, in 1774, Catherine, sister of Sir Edwyn-Francis Stanhope, Bart. of Stanwell House, co. Middlesex, and had issue:
7a. Sir Hungerford Hoskyns, 7th Bart.
7b. Catharine Hoskyns, who married, 1809, George Reade, esq. brother of Sir John-Chandos Reade, and died 1857.
7c. Caroline Rebecca Hoskyns.
7d. Chandos Hoskyns, who married, 1837, Theodosia Anna Martha, daughter of Christopher Robert Wren, of Wroxhall Abbey, co. Warwick, esq. and thereupon took the surname and arms of Wren in addition, and in virtue of a royal sign manual dated 15th of the same month.
7e. Bennet Hoskyns, in holy orders, who married, 1815, Amelia, daughter of Admiral Chamberlain, of Crickhowell.
7f. John Hoskyns.
7g. Maria Jane Hoskyns, who married, 1809, her cousin, George Compton Reade, esq., who was the son of Sir John Reade, 6th Baronet of Barton, and brother of Sir John Chandos Reade, 7th Baronet. Due to the lack of subsequent children in the lineage of John Chandos, George Compton Reade’s grandson, Chandos Stanhope Reade, eventually inherited the title. George Compton Reade died on Christmas Eve 1866, aged 78, having had issue:
7g1. John Stanhope Reade, obit. 1883, who married Lovica Walton; they being the ancestors of Sylvia Horning.
128. Reverend Michael Stanhope and Penelope Lovell had issue: (1) Arthur Charles Stanhope, 1715-1770. (2) Sir Thomas Stanhope, 1717-1770, Col. of Marines. (3) Ferdinand Stanhope, 1719-1790, buried in Beverley Minster, ancestor of the 8th. Earl of Chesterfield. (4) Lovell Stanhope, 1721-1783, so named from the old Maulovels, who was Under Secretary of State. He died unmarried.
129. Arthur Charles Stanhope* married, 1740, firstly, Mary Thornaugh, obit. 1748, daughter of Sir Andrew Thornaugh, of Obberton, Notts. They had no issue. Secondly, Margaret Headlam, 1730-1764, daughter of Charles Headlam of Kerby, Yorkshire, esq. They had issue: (1) Margaret Stanhope, 1754-1811, who married, 1776, the Rev. William Smelt. He was the son of William Smelt and Ursula Hankin; son of William Smelt of Leases and Miss Cayley, the sister of the Recorder of Hull, and sister to the Russian Consul at Petersburg in the time of the Empress Catherine, with whom he was a great favourite. Their daughter married Count Pooggenpohl, and their daughter married the Rev. John Courtney. William Smelt of Leases and Miss Cayley were also the parents of Ann Smelt, who married William Metcalf, esq., Cornelius Smelt, who was Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man; he married Miss Offley; Mary Smelt, who married J. Courtney of Beverley, and Dorothy Smelt, who married Sir Thomas Frankland, Bart., of Thirkleby Park, in Yorkshire (Notes and Queries, vol. vii., p. 154, 1859). (2) Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield, 1755-1815. *Arthur Charles Stanhope married, thirdly, Frances Broade, who survived him, and re-married the Rev. Thomas Bigsby.
130. The 1st Earl Chesterfield married, secondly, Anne Pakington, who had firstly married Sir Humphrey Ferrers. Their only son, Alexander Stanhope, married Catherine Burghill. Their son, General James Stanhope, became 1st. Earl Stanhope in 1718. The title became extinct upon the death of the 7th. Earl in 1967. The Earls Stanhope bore the subsiduary titles of Viscount Stanhope, and Baron Stanhope.With the extinction of the Earldom, these titles passed to the Earl of Harrington.
THE EARLS STANHOPE
131. James Stanhope was commander-in chief of British forces in Spain in 1708, and was an advocate of offensive tacticts. Perhaps as a result of this prediliction, he was captured, and was a prisoner in Spain for a year. On his return, in 1712, he abandoned the army for politics, and played a major role in establishing the House of Hanover on the throne. He masterminded the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. He was principal minister of King George I. He married Lucy Pitt, daughter of Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras. Their eldest son, Philip Stanhope, 2nd. Earl Stanhope, was a mathematician and a fellow of the Royal Society. He married Grizel Hamilton, sister of Thomas Hamilton, 7th Earl Haddington, and daughter of Charles Hamilton, lord Binning, and Rachel Baillie, daughter of George Baillie of Jerviswood. Their son, Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope, 1753-1816, married (2) Louisa Grenville, daughter and sole heiress of the Hon. Henry Grenville, Governor of Barbados. He was educated at Eton and the University of Geneva, where he devoted himself to the study of mathematics, and acquired from Switzerland an intense love of liberty. He is sometimes confused with a contemporary of his, the 3rd Earl of Harrington. He was a supporter William Pitt the Younger, whose sister, Lady Hester Pitt, he married on December 19, 1774. He was the chairman of the Revolution Society, whose members expressed their sympathy with the aims of the French Revolution. Indeed, Earl Stanhope referred to himself as ‘Citizen Stanhope!’. In 1795, he introduced into the Lords a motion opposing any interference with the internal affairs of France. He was in a “minority of one” – a sobriquet which stuck to him throughout life. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1772, and spent much of his income conducting experiments in science. He invented a method of securing buildings from fire, a printing press, the lens which bears his name, and two calculating machines. By his first wife, he had three daughters, one of whom was Lady Hester Stanhope. It is said of her that when she arrived in Athens, the poet, Lord Byron, dived into the sea to greet her!
132. Substance of Earl Stanhope’s Speech: ‘Delivered from the Chair, at a Meeting of Citizens, at the Crown and Anchor, on the 4th of February 1795. To Celebrate the Happy Event of the Late Trials, for Supposed High Treason … Together with an Appendix, by Earl Stanhope, Respecting the Trial by Jury’ – “Citizens, Notwithstanding the haughty self-importance of certain Aristocrats in this Country, I solemnly declare, that I would rather Undergo a long and close Imprisonment, similar to that of the worthy Citizens, who lately have been tried; and suffer all the hardships they have experienced: I would rather also, bear all the obloquy, which Malice, and a spirit of Calumny, and slander have heaped upon them: in short, I would much rather be one of those honest and ” acquitted Felons”, and enjoy their quiet Conscience, and their tranquil Peace of Mind: than, for one single, dismal hour, be tormented with the unquiet, and disturbed Reflections of some of their Accusers. Citizens, Would you really believe, that one of their supposed Offences was stated to have been, that, when those Men happened to address each other, they were (even) so abominably wicked., as to call one another “Citizen?”. It was seriously termed a kind of Indication of an EVIL Intent!’. He removed the Stanhope coat-of-arms from the gates of Chevening, Kent, which he renamed ‘Democracy Hall’.
133. ‘Dec. 15, 1816. Died, at Chevening, Kent, in his 64th year, Charles Stanhope, Earl Stanhope. Though we did not coincide with the political principles of this distinguished Nobleman, we admired his talents, and hesitate not to admit the eulogy of a partial friend. His death is justly considered as a public Ioss. He had indeed eccentricities in public, and peculiarities in private life; but his claims on public gratitude on the score of services are, perhaps, as rare, as those powers of intellect with which he was unquestionably endowed. He uniformly and zealously promoted the extension of human knowledge, by devoting a large portion of his ample fortune, and a yet larger portion of his time and thoughts, to experiments in Science and Philosophy. He maintained, daring a long political life, those principles of freedom which be had imbibed from his education, and inherited from his paternal and maternal ancestors, without the slightest desire of office, emolument, or dignity, or the most distant imputation of any interested motive; and yet, with an ardour which is now but seldom excited, unless by the personal passions of ambition, avarice, pride, or resentment. If his objects in public were sometime impracticable, they were neither sordid nor selfish. If he occasionally resorted to unusual methods for rendering others subservient to his views, those views, were at least directed exclusively to some end, which was, in his judgment, beneficial to his fellow-citizens, and useful to mankind. His public speeches were full of matter, ingenious in argument, perspicuous in arrangement aud language; and if his delivery was not graceful, and his illustrations not elegant, they were not deficient in force, spirit, or effect, it is true they were neither persuasive nor judicious. It was often more difficult to answer, than easy to agree with them; for he seldom adapted his views to the state of public opinions or parties, and the forms of his reasoning were in themselves more scholastic and subtle than practical or convincing. When, however, questions arose which required a practical-knowledge of the exact sciences and their application, he was, if not the only, at leant the foremost and ablest man in our Legislature, to expound, discuss, aad decide them. On such occasions lie acted with judgment; on all, his conduct was regulated by a strict sense of public duty , and it may be questioned whether he has left behind him a man more sincerely atttached to the principles of popular government, or more deeply imbued with hatred of every thing that savours of tyranny or superstition. It cannot be forgotten, also, that though from connexion he was one of the earliest friends of Mr. Pitt, when he conceived he had discovered that the system adopted by that Minister would be ruinous to the Country, he ever after as strenuously opposed the system, as he at first supported the man.
134. His loss will, on many accounts, make a chasm in public life, which will not be easily supplied. The great and useful work, for which he was peculiarly qualified, and to which he had for a long time applied the most earnest attention, will, we fear, now fall to the ground: we allude to a Digest of all the Statutes — a work of such stupendous labour, as well as information, that few persons can be expected to set about it with vigour, unless, like Lord Stanhope, they had acquired a sort of parental fondness for the subject, by brooding over it for years.
135. The various mechanic inventions and improvements which he brought forth or countenanced, have justly raised his name as a man of genius and a patriot: he not only cultivated the amelioration of the useful arts, as Architecture, Navigation, and Printing, but suggested some improvements in the more refined and elagant science of Musick. His plain, unaffected, aud amiable manners conciliated as much affection, as his extensive and unimpeachable integrity commanded a spect from all who knew and observed him. He was a kind landlord; and a liberal benefactor to the poor.
136. His Lordsliip was born Aug. 3, 1753; and received his education at Geneva, which gave, it is supposed, its tincture to his politics; succeeded his father Philip, the late Earl, March 7, 1786; and married, in Dec. 1774, Hester Pitt, eldest daughter of William, first Earl of Chatham, sister of the present Earl and of the late Right Hon. William Pitt; by whom he had issue: Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope*, March 12, 1776-June 23, 1839. Griselda Stanhope, married to John Tickell, esq. of Hambledon, Hants; and Lucy Rachael, married to Thomas Taylor, esq. of Sevenoaks, Kent, since dead. His Lordship married, secondly, in 1791, Louisa, only daughter of Henry Grenville, esq. late Governor of Barbados, and uncle to George, first Marquis of Buckingham, by whom he had issue Philip Henry Stanhope, 4th. Earl Stanhope’ (The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 86, pt. 2, p. 563, 1816).
137. Philip Henry Stanhope, 4th Earl Stanhope, married Catherine Lucy Smith, 1785-1843, daughter of Lord Carrington. They were the parents of Philip Henry Stanhope, 5th. Earl Stanhope, 1805-1875, who married Emily Harriet Kerrison, 1815-1873. He was the eminent historian, researcher, and writer of the ‘Notices’, to whom this account is dedicated.
138. *She had been hostess to her uncle, British Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger; ‘Lady Hester was doomed to witness the rapid decline of Mr. Pitt’s health, and finally to sustain the dreadful shock of his loss, which carried with it the utter reverse and extinction of all her comforts, prospects, and aspirations in thii world. Such a prostration of all her hopes and expectations, at an early period of her life, may be received as reasonably accounting for the eccentricities of her subsequent conduct’ (The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 166 p. 442, 1839). Thus, the Establishment explained her independence of mind as resulting from financial uncertainty, rather than a rejection of the accepted role of women in society, in the same way as her father had been dubbed ‘eccentric’ for challenging other norms of society. Eventually, she settled in the Lebanon, where she lived out the remainder of her life’ (ibid.).
THE EARLS STANHOPE
139. 19. Philip Stanhope m. (2) Anne Pakington.
20. Alexander Stanhope m. Catherine Burghill.
21. James Stanhope m. Lucy Pitt.
22. Philip Stanhope m. Grizel Hamilton.
23. Charles Stanhope m. [2] Louisa Grenville.
24. Philip Henry Stanhope m. Catherine Lucy Smith.
25. Philip Henry Stanhope m. Emily Harriet Kerrison.
140. Philip Stanhope, 2nd. Earl of Chesterfield, inherited the title of Earl of Chesterfield upon his grandfather’s death in 1656, and enjoyed royal patronage, for his family supporting the monarchy, after its restoration in 1660. Chesterfield and something of a rogue; notorious for drinking, gambling and an exceeding wild nature. We learn, from the memoir prefixed to his Printed Correspondence, that he fought three duels, disarming and wounding his first and second antagonists, and killing the third. The name of the unfortunate gentleman who fell on this occasion was Woolly. Lord Chesterfield, absconding, went to Breda, where he obtained the royal pardon from Charles II. He had been committed to the Tower for two weeks for an earlier duel, which were illegal. He acted a busy part in the eventful times in which he lived, and was remarkable for his steady adherence to the Stuarts.
141. Before proceeding, it may be worth inserting the following quote, so as to gain a sense of the flavour of the post-restoration times, which obviously contrasted sharply with the austere regime of Cromwell. These times were: ‘A strange effeminate age when men strive to imitate women in their apparel, viz, long periwigs, patches in their faces, short wide breeches like petticoats, muffs, and their clothes highly scented, bedecked with ribbons of all colours’ (Anthony Wood, 1663). Philip Stanhope’s first marriage, perhaps dressed as above, was to Lady Anne Percy, daughter of Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland. A son of this marriage, Algernon Stanhope, died in his infancy. Following her death, a marriage had been arranged between him and Mary, daughter of Lord Fairfax. Despite the fact the banns had been read twice, Mary jilted Chesterfield for the Duke of Buckingham. Chesterfield subsequently married Elizabeth Butler, daughter of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, and Elizabeth Preston, Baroness Dingwall.
142. According to Pepys, he neglected this second wife, and banished her to Derbyshire, so she should be removed from the Duke of York’s attentions. Nevertheless, Philip Stanhope and Elizabeth Butler had a daughter, Lady Elizabeth Stanhope, 1665-1723.
143. Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield, married, thirdly, Lady Elizabeth Dormer, eldest daughter of Charles, the second Earl of Carnarvon. Their children were: (1) Lady Elizabeth Stanhope, 1663-1723, who married John, 4th. Earl of Strathmore, 1665-1712. (2) Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield, 1672-1726. (3) Lady Mary Stanhope, who married the Rt. Hon. Thomas Coke, of Melbourne, Derbyshire. Their daughter was Mary Coke, who married, 1729, Thomas, Lord Southwell, 1698-1766, their son being Thomas, 1st. Viscount Southwell, 1723-1780, who married, 1741, Margaret Hamilton, 1722-1802. Their son was Thomas Arthur, Viscount Southwell, 1742-1796, who married Countess Maria Josepha Walsh de Serrant, 1757- 1796. They had issue: Hon. Margaret Southwell, who married, 1794, Jenico, 12th. Viscount Gormanston. Thomas Anthony, 3rd. Viscount Southwell, who married, 1794, Jane Berkeley, obit. 1853. Hon. Paulina Southwell, who married, 1806, Richard O’Farrall-Caddell, of Harbourstown. Hon. Arthur Francis Southwell, who married, 1834, Anne Agnes Dillon, obit. 1851. (4) Lady Catherine Stanhope, obit. 1728, who married Godfrey Clarke of Chilcot, Derbyshire. (5) Charles Stanhope, who inherited the estate of the Wottons, took on that name; married Jane Thacker of Repton, obit. 1744, but died without issue. Jane Thacker married (2) Thomas Stanhope, elder brother to Charles, father of William, Earl of Harrington.
144. *Lady Elizabeth Stanhope is a direct ancestor of the present Royal Family of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. She married, 1691, John Lyon, 4th Earl of Strathmore 1663-1712. He was the son of Patrick Lyon, 3rd Earl of Strathmore, and Helen Middleton.
145. Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield, married Lady Elizabeth Saville, daughter of George Saville, 1st Viscount Halifax, and Lady Dorothy Spencer. They had issue: (1) Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, 1694-1773, who was known as Lord Stanhope until his father’s death in 1726, was a British statesman and man of letters. He was educated at Cambridge and then went on the Grand Tour of the Continent. He acquired a competent knowledge in Geometry and Architecture, a field of interest of many later Stanhopes. His relative, James Stanhope, the favourite minister of George I., procured him the position of gentleman of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. In 1715, he entered the House of Commons as Lord Stanhope of Shelford. A noted wit and orator, his long public career included an ambassadorship to The Hague, 1728-32, and a tenure as lord lieutenant of Ireland 1745-46. According to Horace Walpole, Philip Dormer Stanhope, as Embassador to Holland, ‘courted the good opinion of that economical people by losing immense sums at play’.
146. His literary fame rests upon his letters to his illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope, first published in 1774, designed for the education of a young man. Here is an excerpt from this work, which shows his keen insight into human nature: ‘As kings are begotten and born like other men, it is to be presumed that they are of the human species; and perhaps, had they the same education, they might prove like other men. But, flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their heads are turned, so that they seem to be a species by themselves …. Flattery cannot be too strong for them; drunk with it from their infancy, like old drinkers, they require dreams’.
147. Chesterfield was writing from first-hand acquaintance with George I. and II. This small quote does not give full justice to the remarkably penerative insights offered by Philip Dormer Stanhope. His work is more than worth reading, though, at the time of publication, it caused quite a moral outrage. For the record, Chesterfield’s illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope, secretly married an illigitimate daughter of an Irish gentleman, Eugenia Peters, who was described as ‘plain’ but accomplished. They had two sons, provided for in Chesterfield’s Will. It was Eugenia Stanhope, not so provided for, who published Chesterfield’s letters.
148. Chesterfield’s letters are more worthy than his treatment of family heirlooms, which he treated with contempt. Towards the year 1750, as Horace Walpole tells us, he had ‘placed among the portraits of his ancestors two old heads, inscribed Adam de Stanhope and Eve de Stanhope’.
149. Philip Dormer Stanhope died without leaving a male heir. When his son, also named Philip Stanhope, died prematurely in 1768, his title went to his kinsman and godson, Philip Stanhope, 1755-1815, 5th Earl of Chesterfield, who was the direct descendant of the first Earl of Chesterfield’s youngest son, Arthur Stanhope, aforementioned. He had already publicly declared he would treat his godson as a grandchild, and always took an active interest in his upbringing, although he was not an orphan.
150. (2) Gertrude Stanhope, obit. 1775. She married Sir Charles Hotham, of Scarborough, 5th. Bart. Their son was Sir Charles Hotham, 6th. Bart. (3) Elizabeth Stanhope, obit. 1727, who married Samuel Hill Esq., of Shenstone, Stafford.
(5) Sir William Stanhope, 1702-1772, Knight of the Bath. He married, 1721, Susanna Rudge, 1699-1740. Their daughter was Elizabeth Stanhope, 1724-1761, who died in Tylney Hall, Hampshire; who married, 1747, Welbore Ellis Esq., 1713-1802, afterwards created Lord Mendip. (6) John Stanhope, 1704-1748. He was a Lord of the Admiralty. (7) Charles Stanhope, 1708-1736.
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151. 19. Sir Philip Stanhope m. (1) Catherine Hastings.
20. Sir Henry Stanhope m. Catherine Wotton.
21. Philip Stanhope m. Lady Elizabeth Dormer.
22. Philip Stanhope m. Lady Elizabeth Saville.
23. Philip Dormer Stanhope 4th Earl of Chesterfield.
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152. 19. Sir Philip Stanhope m. (1) Catherine Hastings.
20. Arthur Stanhope m. Anne Salisbury.
21. Charles Stanhope m. Frances Toppe.
22. Reverend Michael Stanhope m. Penelope Lovel.
23. Arthur Charles Stanhope m. Margaret Headlam.
24. Philip Stanhope m. Lady Henrietta Thynne.
25. George Augustus Frederick Stanhope m. Elizabeth Weld-Forester.
26. George Philip Cecil Arthur Stanhope.
153. After succeeding to the title, Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield, was made ambassador to Madrid in 1784, but never took up the post, resigning in 1787; he was also appointed to the Privy Council in 1784, and held the positions of Master of the Mint and Master of the Horse. He lived at Bretby Hall. Bretby Hall, Derbyshire. The name Bretby means ‘dwelling place of Britons’. The fifth Earl demolished the mansion and built the present Hall to a design by Sir Jeffry Wyatville. He also followed the lamentable trend set by his celebrated predecessor, and removed all the older family pictures. To this can be added the disregard for old family records. In this he did little more, perhaps, than follow the common taste of his time. Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl of Chesterfield, married firstly, 1777, Anne Thistlewayte, daughter of Reverend Robert Thistlewayte D.D., of Norman Court, Hants. They had issue, Harriet Stanhope, 1788-1803. He married, secondly, 1799, Lady Henrietta Thynne, 1783-1813, daughter of Sir Thomas Thynne, 1st Marquiss of Bath, and Lady Elizabeth Cavendish-Bentinck, eldest daughter of William Bentinck, 2nd.Duke of Portland, and sister of William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd. Duke of Portland (British Prime Minister); great-great-great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II.
154. They had issue: (1) Elizabeth Stanhope, 1802-1821. (2) Lady Georgiana Stanhope, 1802-1824, who married, 1820, Frederick West Esq., only son of Frederick, son of John, second Earl de la Warr. (3) George Augustus Frederick Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield, 1805-1866. The sixth Earl, known as the ‘Racing Earl’, loved cricket and shooting; he built a cricket pitch and raised game birds on his estate at Bretby. His politics were Tory, though he was a consistent supporter of Catholic emancipation. Between 1828 and 1830, he held the post of Lord of the Bedchamber. He was known as being a man of fashion and extravagance. Having succeeded to his fortune during his minority, he managed to lose nearly half of it. He married Elizabeth Weld Forester, 1802-1885, daughter of Cecil Weld Forester, 1st. Baron Forester of Willey Park, and Lady Katherine Mary Manners, daughter of Charles Manners, 4th. Duke of Rutland. Their son was George Philip Cecil Arthur Stanhope, 7th Earl of Chesterfield, 1831-1871, about whom it can be mentioned that he had the distinction of making a top score in first class cricket of 65. He was the last Earl of his line.
155. The Earldom went to the descendants of the previously mentioned Ferdinand Stanhope, son of the Reverend Michael Stanhope. Ferdinand Stanhope, 1718-1790, married, 1742, Mary Phillips, 1720-1785. They had issue: (1) John Stanhope, 1744-1800, Rear Admiral of the Blue; buried in the Parish Church of St. Thomas in Salisbury. (2) Charles Stanhope, 1745-1767, an officer in the army. (3) Mary Stanhope, b. March 1746. (4) Thomas Stanhope, b. 1748, died in infancy. (5) Michael Stanhope, 1750-1790. (6) Arthur Stanhope, b. October 1752. (7) John Stanhope, married, 1784, Caroline Dent, 1755-1830, daughter of Digby Dent, of naval fame. Their children were: Philip Stanhope, 1786-1830. Lt. Colonel. Henry Stanhope, 1790-1865. Captain Charles George Stanhope, 1789-1833, who married Jane Galbraith, 1800-1873, daughter of Sir James Galbraith, Bart. Caroline Stanhope, 1790-1866, who married, 1807, Jonathon Stackhouse Rashleigh. Eliza Stanhope, 1792-1855, who married Maj. Gen. Hassel Richard Moor. The son of Charles George Stanhope was George Philip Stanhope, 8th Earl of Chesterfield, 1822-1883, who was the last Earl of his line. He obtained the rank of Ensign in 1841, in the service of the 29th. Foot, and in the following year was promoted to lieutenant. On his decease, the Earldom was conferred on a descendant of a brother of the Reverend Michael Stanhope, the previously mentioned Charles Stanhope. This line and the title of Earl of Chesterfield ended in 1967.
156. 1871-1872. The Chesterfield title: Two letters from Henry Scudamore Stanhope, a relative on his mother’s side, at 18 Sumner Place, Onslow Square and Holme Lacy to ‘dear Mr Shirley’ subsequent to letters from General Stanhope and T. Stanhope at Penrhyn Castle, Bangor, to Henry, all written in December 1871, on the death without issue of the 7th Earl of Chesterfield, the disreputable life of his heir, a cousin, George Philip Stanhope, and the fear of a local false claimant. Bretby Hall and the estate have now been separated from the title. Complete Peerage states that George Philip Stanhope was admitted to the Peerage in 1873. In April 1872, Mary Stanhope wrote to Mrs Shirley to inform her that G.P.S. was to receive £2000 p.a. from the Dowager Countess of Chesterfield and Lady Carnarvon for life.
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157. 20. Arthur Stanhope m. Anne Salisbury.
21. Charles Stanhope m. Frances Toppe.
22. Reverend Michael Stanhope m. Penelope Lovel.
23. Ferdinand Stanhope m. Mary Phillips.
24. John Stanhope m. Caroline Dent.
25. Charles George Stanhope m. Jane Galbraith.
26. George Philip Stanhope.
158. Here this partial genealogical account of the Stanhope and related families ends. It may seem that it has been a chronicle of the rich and powerful, yet, when Richard de Ifferley held 48 acres in Stanhope, this was not the case. It was the old story – younger sons of the rich were successively left less and less land. There had to be some spark of indignation in his descendants, fueled by a knowledge of their family history, that made them fashion out a new dynasty for themselves. They advanced through meticulous planning of marriages, bravery in battle, and the intelligence to to survive in dangerous times.
159. This account has served some personal purpose, as most accounts of genealogy do. My son, Adam Stanhope, grandson, Dylan Stanhope, and grandaughter, Charlotte Ada Stanhope, will now have a clearer notion of their ancestry. They will see that my account ends with the death of George Philip Stanhope, 8th Earl of Chesterfield, who, according to my paternal grandmother, and papers once in the possession of an uncle, was the father of a natural son, her husband, George Stanhope. His story was not remarkable by the standards of his time: As little wanted as the illigitimate son of Philip Dormer Stanhope, he was registered as the son of an earlier ‘natural’ Stanhope, and was raised as a member of his family. His inheritance amounted to those items mentioned in my introduction, and a substantial amount of gold coinage. His more lasting inheritance was a sense of bitterness against a system he saw as profoundly unfair, a trait he unfortunately shared with my own father, Henry Stanhope.
160 But more than this being a personal history, I have attempted to give a sense of pride in their ancestry to all those Stanhope and associated families, that they might feel a sense of continuity in a changing world; that they may look back on the deeds of their ancestors, those great people from whom we sprang, and by this gain the strength to combat the battles of their own age, for battles there will surely be. If I have left even a small mark upon the mind of any reader, and a sense of lasting admiration for those mentioned, then labour has not been lost.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
161. The Crispins held large tracts of land around Livarot and Drucort and from the earlist of times were associated with the familly of Ferrers: ‘Les Crespin étaient d’origine normande, peut-être des environs de Livarot où ils avaient d’immenses domaines; ils tenaient ce surnom de leur chevelure crépue et hérissée comme un pin, crispus pinus, si différente des longs cheveux plats des autres Normands’ (Adolphe André Porée, Histoire de l’abbaye du Bec, p. 178, 1901). ‘Dans le xi. siècle, Drucourt faisant partie du vaste domaine possédé par la famille Crespin dont Livarot était le point central. Vers 1070, Guillaume Crespin II. du nom, héritier de l’affection de son père en vers l’abbaye du Bec, lui céda à Drucort l’église avec la dîme, le patronage et autres appartenances; il y joignit ce que tenait de lui Robert Malconvenant’ (Charpillon, Dictionnaire historique, vol. 1, p .955, 1868). ‘Il convient en conséquence d’identifier Ferrières avec Ferrières-Saint-Hilaire (Eure, canton de Broglie). A proximité de cette localité, on rencontre Drucourt (Eure, canton de Thiberville), qui était désigné au moyen âge sous la forme Drocourt’ (Mémoires de la Socité historique et archéologique de l’arrondissement de Pontoise et du Vexin, vols. 40-43, p. 183, 1930).
162. Gilbert Crispin I. may have married a niece of Osbern de Crepon, which would answer M. le Prevost’s statement that there was an apparent association between the Crispin and FitzOsborn families, distinct from the one mentioned herein, without the basis of that association being known. ‘Nous ignorons à quel titre Gislebert Crespin etait appele à ratifier cette donation; mais nous supposons que ce pouvait être à raison de quelque alliance avec la famille d’Ivri, dont le souvenir est perdu (‘Ordericus Vitalis’, ed. le Prevost et. al., p. 398, 1840). The wife of Gilbert Crispin I. is given as a daughter of Baudry Le Teuton and a niece de Gilbert de Brionne. Thus, she is identified as a sister of Fulk d’Aunou, so named from his fief of Aunou le Faucon, arrondissement of Argentan. I suggest she has been confounded with a sister of Fulk d’Anet.
163. Why did the descendants of Gilbert Crispin I. have little or no connection, whether tenurial or otherwise, with their supposed cousins? Conversley, they had a very close relationship with the families connected to that of d’Anet.
164. 1.1.1. Osborn de Crepon. Guillaume of Jumièges records that a sister married Osmund de Conteville, their son being Foulques d’Anet, the uncle of (mentioned in a charter of 1060 as brothers), William de Reviers, Richard de Reviers, and Baldwin de Reviers, the latter being father of Richard de Reviers, obit. 1107 (Robert Bearman, Charters of the Redvers Family and the Earldom of Devon 1090–1217, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, 1994, pp. 1-2). 1.1.1.1. William FitzOsborn. To repeat, in a charter concerning land at Guernanville, ‘Foulques the elder, tainted by corruption, lifted his heart (toward God) and withdrew to Ouche, where he assumed monk’s robes, and gave to St. Evroult the church of Guernanville and its tithes, and other land that Hugh, bishop of Bayeux, had given him in the same place, which he had held a long time under William, son of Osborn, nephew of the prelate. William, son and heir of Foulques confirmed these donations on the altar of Sancti Petri, and accepted in recognition an ounce of gold (which was) given as charity to the monks. This donation was confirmed by Guillaume de Breteuil, Gilbert Crespin I. and his two sons, in the presence of Roger de Clare …’ We see here that Count Rodolph’s son, Bishop Hugh, gave lands centred around Guernanville to William FitzOsborn, his nephew, and Gilbert Crespin the elder; their subtenant being Foulques de Guernanville, whose gift of his enfeoffment was confirmed by Foulque’s son, with the permission of Guillaume de Breteuil, William FitzOsborn’s son, Gilbert Crespin I., and his sons, Gibert Crespin II. and William Crespin I.; and Roger de Bienfaite (Clair),
165. 1.1.2. … de Crepon. Guillaume of Jumièges records that a sister married Osmund de Conteville. 1.1.2.1. Foulques d’Anet. 1.1.2.2. Albreda d’Anet. 1.1.2.3. Foulkes d’Anet and his sister Albreda were among the early benefactors to the abbey of Bec-Hellouin: ‘Ex dono Fulconis de Aneto et homimim suorum manerium de Mesnillo Simonis cum ecclesia et omnibus ecclesiae et manerii pertinentiis. Ex dono Albredae sororis ejusdem Fulconis assensu et voluntate ipsius terram anno 1047. Groselers quae est juxta landam sita cum omnibus pertinentis suis’. Foulques d’Anet made a gift of the manor of Mesnil Simon, with its church and all churches and manors pertaining to it. Albreda made a gift of the land of Groselers near Landan. The manor of Conteville, its church, and all manors pertaining to it, were granted by William Malet, husband of Hesilia Crispin, daughter of Gilbert Crispin I. 1.1.2.4. … d’Anet, one of the ‘plures filia’ of Osmund de Conteville, married, I suggest, Gilbert Crispin I. 1.1.2.4.1. Gilbert Crispin II., who led a charge at Hastings with Henry de Ferrers. 1.1.2.4.2. William Crispin I., ‘had a wife named Eve de Montfort who suited him well on account of her origin and manners. Eve de Montfort bore him Gilbert, abbot of Westminster, William Crispin II., and many others’ (Milo Crispin, ibid.).
166. Gilbert Crispin I. was the supposed brother of Ralph de Bec, Herliuin de Bec, Odo de Bec, and Roger de Bec; yet neither Gilbert Crispin I. nor Ralph de Bec could have been brothers of Herluin, Eudes, and Roger, who received their mother’s dower lands: ‘Ansgot et Héloïse eurent trois autres enfants, savoir: Eudes, Roger et une fille mariée à Balderic de Servaville; ils paraissent leur avoir laissé en héritage, outre le fief de Bonneville, le Petit-Quevilly, le Pré, près de Rouen, Surcy-en-Vexin, Cernay, et un manoir à Malleville (Charpillon, Dict. Hist. vol. i., 1868). Herluin founded Bec in partnership with his mother, Heloise, on whose dower lands the abbey was instituted; ‘his mother, Heloise, is said, on what authority it is not very clear, to have been a near kinswoman of the reigning house of Flanders’ (Edward Augustus Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest, p. 215, 1870). ‘Au commencement du onzième siècle, Bonneville appartenait à un chevalier de race normande, nommé Ansgot, vassal de Gislebert, comte de Brionne, et allié, par sa femme Hellois, aux puissants comtes de Flandres’* (Alfred Canel, Essai historique, archéologique et statistique sur l’arrondissement de Pont-Audemer, p. 314, 1834). *Will. Gem. vi. 9. ‘Mater proximam Ducum Morinorum, quosmoderni Flandros cognominant, consanguinitatem attigit’.
167. In a charter, Herluin, after describing himself as ‘Herluinus filius Ansgoti’, adds, ‘adstantibus et laudantibus fratibus meis Odone et Rogero.’ These brothers gave concessions of paternal inheritance to Le Bec, in lieu of which Roger received a horse worth 100 shillings, and Odo placed his son in le Bec (G. R. Evans, The works of Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of Westminster, p. 190, 1986). Herluin de Bec founded the Abbey of Bec toward the 37th. year of his life, in 1034. ‘Son père tirait son origine de ces Danois qui les premiers conquirent la Normandie, et sa mère était liée de proche parenté avec les ducs de la Gaule Belgique, que les modernes appellent le pays de Flandre. Son père s’appelait Ansgot, et sa mère Héloïse. Gilbert, comte de Brionne, petit-fils de Richard I., duc de Normandie, par son fils le prince Godefroi, fit élever Herluin auprès de lui, et le chérissait particulièrement entre tous les seigneurs de sa cour’ (Francois Guizot, Collection des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, p. 146, 1826). A feasible scenario is for Heloise to have been a sister of Gilbert de Brionne. The proposition that she was the mother of children that were not included in her dower gifts is obviously flawed.
168. 1. Richard: ‘Vers 980, Richard I, dit le vieux, duc de Normandie, donna à l’un de ses enfants naturels nommé Godefroy, Brionne avec la suzeraineté des domaines voisins … Nous savons que Bonneville et le territoire du Bec dépendaient de ce nouveau Comté … Après la mort de Richard-le-Vieux, un frère de Godefroy, né comme lui d’une concubine, Guillaume, comte d’Exmes, que nous verrons par la suite devenir comte de Brionne, se révolta contre son frère aîné, le duc Richard II, et voulut se rendre indépendant. Raoul d’Ivry, oncle des deux princes, fut chargé de mettre le rebelle à la raison; il l’assiégea dans Exmes, le fit prisonnier et le ramena à Rouen, où il fut enfermé dans une tour et confié à la garde do Turquetil, seigneur très puissant à cotte’ (Charpillon, Dict. Hist., vol. i., p. 584, 1868). Thus, Godefroy als Geoffroy d’Eu held ‘la baronnye de Bonneville-sur-le-Bec’. 1.1. Godefroy, alias Geoffroy d’Eu, held Bonneville; cousin of Emma d’Ivri, wife of Osborn de Crepon. 1.1.1. Heloise, married Ansgot. Heloise received Bonneville as dower. 1.1.1.1. Herluin de Bec. Educated in the household of Gilbert de Brionne. 1.1.2. Gilbert de Brionne.
169. One of the most erroneus and repeated myths of Norman genealogy makes Gilbert Crispin I. synonomous with Gilbert, Count of Brionne. Prévost, in his commentaries on Rom. de Rou, t. ii., in MSAN, 1828-1829, gives the source of this misconception, which should not be necessary if the slightest attention is given to the unlikely event of a governor of the castle of Tillières being also the Count of Brionne.
170. Regarding the colonisation of Normandy by any distinct group; on the principle that language adheres to the soil, it is claimed that Scandinavian words are frequently found in Normandy place-names, with affixes indicating settlement, such as ‘bye’ (Danish), proving this. In that we can not be certain of the primitive form of words claimed as Scandinavian, they may also be representatives of the Belgic, Anglian, or Saxon dialects; the latter being spoken by the Otlingua-Saxonica* of the Bessin, who had established themselves on the channel coast centuries before the arrival of Rollo. ‘Scandinavianism’ occurs more probably in proper names, compounds of the name and a French noun, as in Toufreville; yet, again, many of these can not be assigned to a distinctly Scandinavian origin. Given the paucity of tenth-century charters, early spelling is absent, and names appearing in later charters are latinised and influenced by local vernacular. It may be added that the total number of place-names containing the elements ‘bye’ in Normandy is neglgible when compared to the number of them in England. It is questionable reasoning to explain this in terms of Normandy not being settled by ‘ordinary’ Scandinavians, who formed settlements, but by ‘aristocratic’ ones that did not. A less contorted explanation is that Normandy was colonised by Rollo’s ‘birds of many colours’, not by a Scandinavian hegemony. When Dudo (De moribus et actis, iv. 63), tells of William Longsword’s son, Richard, being sent to Bayeux to learn his ancestral language, it is nothing more than an assumption that this language was Danish, despite the fact that toponymic study of the Bessin shows it to have been lightly settled by Scandinavians.
171. *This Saxon settlement dates from the third-century. In this neighbourhood we find Sassetot (Saxons field), Hermanville, Etreham, or Ouistreham (Westerham), Hambye, Le Ham,* Le Hamelet, Cottun (cows’ yard), Ethainus, Heuland (hayland), Plumetot (Blomfield or Flowerfield), and Douvres (the shore). Charlemagne transported into France a vast multitude of Saxons – ‘multitudinem Saxonorum cum mulieribus et infantibus’. After another Saxon conquest he transplanted every third man – tertium hominem – of the vanquished people. Many of the German names in France may be due to these forced emigrations. The area and intensity of this German colonization may conveniently be traced by means of the patronymic village names, of which there are more than 1100 in France. *Herfast, as follows, gave to St Pere de Chartres the villa of ‘Le Ham’.
172. In addition to these names, about five hundred words were introduced into the French language by the German conquerors. Most of them are names of weapons and military terms, such as gonfanon, or guerre, from werra, war.The other words are chiefly the names of articles of dress, of beasts of the chase, and terms belonging to the feudal system. To these must be added the points of the compass, nord, sud, est. German was spoken in France more or less for some 400 years after the Teutonic conquest. So late as the year 812, A.D., the Council of Tours ordained that every bishop should be able to preach both in the Romance and Teutonic languages.
173.Thus, it is impossible to distinguish between early Saxon settlers and later ones, and it may have been the case that the Saxons of Bayeux joined with later colonisers in a anti-French coalitions.
174. I would propose that a significant part of the early Norman aristocracy were not Danes or Norwegians, either in appearance, custom or manner. They were beardless, short of stature, and dark of skin. The Dane was large of frame, blond, and bearded. The Irish term for the Norman invaders of their country was ‘dark haired Normans’. That a significant part of the early Norman aristocracy were of this ‘dark’ Saxon genotype was suggested by Knopf (The Racial Basis of Civilization: A critique of the Nordic doctrine, 1931), who claimed that ‘the inhabitants of the German Tyrol, who have been declared to represent the true type of the primeval Teuton, have dark or black hair. In short, the most genuine sons of this (Teutonic) race may be black-haired’. ‘Danes certainly came to Normandy: Bernard the Dane was a companion of Count William Longsword in the early 940s. However, the fact that Bernard’s origins were remarked upon may mean that he belonged to a minority group’ (David Crouch, The Normans: The History of a Dynasty, app. 1., 2006).
175. ‘In nomine Domini. Ego Arefastus notum esse volo omnibus christianis, quia res hereditatis meae Sancto Petro concedo Carnotensi cœnobio, pro salute mea et antecessorum meorum nec non et pro salute comitis Richardi et matris sua Gonnoridis’ … Herfast, ante 1028, gave to St Pere de Chartres the villa of ‘Le Ham’ and a mill at ‘Barneville’, as well as a third of ‘Torgis Villa, identified as Teurteville-Hague, canton Octeville, by M. Guerard, ed., Cartulaire de I’abbaye de Saint-Pere de Chartres, pp. 108-15, 1840. It is possible that the term used to describe his gift, res hereditas meae, means freehold, and that Herfast acquired the lands from his brother-in-law, Duke Richard. M. Guerard’s interpretation of Torgis Villa is uncertain. Knut Gjerson (History of the Norwegian People, vol. 1, p. 151, 1915) claimed that Teurteville was a newer form of Torquetelvilla. André de Mandach (ed. Naissance et développement de la chanson de geste en Europe, vol. 5, 1987, p. 78), claimed ‘le nom normand de Turgis ou Torgis …origine du norrois thor-geirr, la lance de Thor’.
176. The invaders of Normandy were referred to as ‘Marchmen’, describing an origin between the Elbe and Eyder, that is, of ‘the march’, the boundary between Germany and Denmark. A term for the invaders was Nordalbingian (Adam of Bremen), which meant a person from beyond the Elbe. ‘These Norsemen, now Normans, were Teutons, and spoke a Teutonic dialect; but, when they settled in France, they learned in course of time to speak French’ (John Miller Dow Meiklejohn, The English Language, p. 466, 1920). The name of the first leader of the Normans, Rollo* or Rou, is a derivative of Rudolf, a Germanic name, as were the names of the early ‘dukes’ of Normandy. When it is claimed that the Scandinavian element of the Norman Aristocracy adopted names of Germanic origin, it is done so on the a priori assumption that the Norman Aristocracy were not largely of Germanic origin. *Rollo is the latinised form of Roul, the OFr. version of Rolf. ‘Roul remonte au nom germanique Hrodulf (H. Jacobsson, Études d’anthroponymie lorraine: les bans de Tréfonds … p. 120, 1955). Hrodulf (Rudolf) was the name given to Duke Richard’s uterine half-brother, ‘Rodolphus uterinus frater ducis’, who may have been named after his grandfather.
177. That a distinct Danish or Norwegian ancestry is claimed for the Normans rests on twin pillars of deception, the first being accounts influenced by Nationalistic propaganda (either Danish or Norwegian); the second being a belief in these accounts based on a need to give certainty to genealogies when none can exist.
178. The Danish side of ‘the march’ was controlled by the family of Gorm the Old, a king in southern Denmark, that is, Jutland. He was the son of someone identified by Adam of Bremen as ‘Hardegon filius Suein’, that is, Harthaknutr, son of Svein. There were intermarriages between the leading families of both sides of ‘the march’ by way of peace treaties, as recorded since the time of Wittikind. Some of the colonisers of Normandy were of this mixed blood, from which Herfast probably came; a group within the thousands of birds in Rollo’s dream.
179. Much of the nineteenth-century ‘construction’ of the Bec-Crespin family stemmed from the writings of such as Mr. Grimaldi, who borrowed from an utterly discredited earlier source. The aim of most genealogists contemporary to him was to show clear ties of blood between the Norman elite; clear and unbroken lines of descent stemming from the earliest recorded luminary, such as Rollo or Anslech. They glossed over reality by adopting the same technique as the first chroniclers of the Norman dynastic system; that lineage can be accurately ascertained through tenurial inheritance. To some degree this does give insight into family relationships, for land would have ‘stayed in the family’; adjoining neighbours were most likely to be related; and, in another sphere, those donating to a religious foundation were certainly in some way related to its founder; the right to donate was a jealously guarded privilege, and the sequence in which people appear in charters can be suggestive of their closeness to the founder’s family. The term in some way sums up the problem facing pedigree-makers, for a person who held land may have done so as a nephew, cousin, or son-in-law of the previous holder; the person donating to a foundation may have been a daughter-in-law’s cousin, etc. That is, a wide-range of relationships defined the kinship network, and an association of blood can not always be inferred from succession to land.
180. It became the custom of Norman landowners to change their name to that of the new lands they acquired. It was not always a case of a complete change of name, though, for, in many cases, families simply acquired an additional name. In fact, many poweful families had a stock of names, and would use any one of them at the same time. This was even more confusing after The Norman Conquest, when families used both their Norman and English names to signify their various landholdings. We have already mentioned that the Crispin family were entrusted with the fortresses of Tillières and Neaufles. They soon gained substantial property in surrounding lands, including the border castle of Damville, and land in Colleville-sur-Mer, situated close to Graville-Sainte-Honorine, the centre of Malet power in Normandy. This latter acquisition being granted to them after the Battle of Mortemer, 1054. They held Colleville as tenants of William Malet, Sire de Graville, who came from Graville-Sainte-Honorine, between Le Havre and Harfleur.
181. The Malet Castle at Graville-Sainte-Honorine had an important strategic location, at the mouth of the Seine. The territorial associations in Normandy, between various families and the Malets, were continued in England after the Conquest. The Suffolk tenements which Gilbert Crispin held of Robert Malet, his nephew, are still called Carlton Colville and Weston Colville. Gilbert Crispin II. and William Crispin I. acquired the name Colleville (Colville) from their Norman tenantship of Colleville. In the lists published of the Companions of Duke William, the brothers Gilbert and William are sometimes surnamed Crispin, sometimes de Colleville, and sometimes appear under both surnames on the same list. It can be noted that the tenurial relationship between the Crispins and the Malets was not one sided – Robert Malet held land of Gilbert Crispin in Normandy at Le Mesnil-Josselin.
182. Other tenants of William Malet also accompanied him to England (David C. Douglas, William the Conqueror: The Norman Impact upon England, 1967), one such being Walter Claville, who seems to have acquired holdings in Suffolk and Devon under William’s son, Robert Malet. His home domain in Normandy was at Claville-en-Caux, in the Seine-Maritime region. It is important to make the distinction between people who took their name from Colleville and those whose name can be traced to other communes of Rouen. Colleville is situated in the canton of Valmont. It is distinct from other such communes as Cléville, canton Fauville-en-Caux, Cleuville, canton Ourville-en-Caux, Claville, canton Cleres, Cailleville, canton Caux, and Cauville, canton Montvilliers. It is often wrongly stated that people whose names derive from these communes originated in Colleville, with scribes simply misspelling Colleville in a multitude of ways. Walter Claville would have certainly known the Crispin brothers, but it is equally certain that he and others from communes other than Colleville were not of their direct family, as other examples may illustrate: The family which held lands at Cleuville were the Tailbois (Talebot), ancestors of the Talbot family. Hugh and Richard Talebot received much land in Herefordshire, and other parts of England and Wales, after 1066 (G. Andrews Moriarty, Royal Descent of a New England Settler, 1925). Thus, any family who settled in England, after 1066, with the name Cleuville, were either a branch of the Talebot family, or a family who were their tenants in Cleuville. Likewise, the family of du Hommet, hereditary Constables of Normandy, held land at Cléville, as mesne tenants of Roger de Beaumont, Lord of Hommet, and a branch of that family, or a family who were their tenants, settled in Devon after the Conquest, calling themselves Cleville, or some near variation, after the land they held in the Seine-Maritime region. The Essex Review, An Illustrated Quarterly Record of Everything of Permanent Interest in the County, various eds., p. 118, 1957, strongly makes the point that the Clovilles of Essex were synonomous with the family of Cleville. Early charters record a William de Cleville holding land in the county in 1115. He would appear to have been the son or grandson of ‘un Sire de Cléville’ who fought at Hastings (Joseph Prudent Bunel, Géographie du départment de la Seine-Inférieure, p. 169, 1857). Cailleville was held by the family of de Harcourt (Sir Maurice Powicke, The Loss of Normandy 1189-1204: Studies in the History of the Angevin Empire, 1913).
183. On another subject requiring clarifcation, the origin of the name Colleville is often wrongly given. In the tenth-century, it was known as Koli Villa, signifying that it was a settlement of a Danish chieftain named Koli. His name also survives in places such as Kolby in Denmark, Colby in Cumbria, England, and Coleby in Lincolnshire, England (The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Ed. Richard Stillwell, 1976).
184. William Crispin I., alias William de Colleville, was primarily a mercenary who fought for Duke William at the Battle of Hastings in return for promises of land. In the sense that William de Colleville and his fellow nobles were mercenaries, they were not vassals of the Conqueror, in fact he was as much their vassal as they were his. They were a very formidable economic and military force whose interests had to be taken into account. All subsequent Kings and Queens of England were subject to the interests of this elite, rather like a present-day mafia boss who has to keep enough of his most powerful captains on his side so as not to risk being usurped. Monarchs did not make any decisions in their own right. They were the most public face of a ruling elite. If William Malet was a captain in this scheme of things, then his tenant in his Yorkshire desmesnes, William de Colleville, was a leutenant, much involved in the enforcement of the new order. Future centuries witnessed monarchs and Parliament as smoke-screens for the rule of factions of nobles. William de Colleville’s son, William Crispin II., lived in a harsh world. He was, as said, Lord of Colleville, held from Ranulph of Chester, Bishop of Bayeux, the ‘Conqueror’s’ half-brother.
185. William the Conqueror’s original intention had been to govern England by giving a prominant role to the Anglo-Saxon nobility. Indeed, immediately after the Conquest, there had not been a mass confiscation of land. William’s charters of 1068/1069 show there to have been many English landowners, churchmen and royal officials. This policy was thwarted by the actions of those William had tried to help. The English nobility allied themselves with Irish, Welsh, Scots; assortments of Scandinavians, disaffected Normans and French, in a series of revolts, as in the above mentioned assault on York.
186. The Norman response was the ‘The Harrying of the North’, which supposedly had a devastating effect upon the inhabitants north of the Humber. Simon of Durham wrote: ‘It was shocking to see the houses, the streets, and highways, human carcases swarming with worms, disolving in putridity and emitting a most horrid stench; nor were there any left alive to cover them with earth, all having perished by sword or famine, or stimulated by hunger had abandoned their native land. During the space of nine years the country lay totally uncultivated. Between York and Durham not a home was inhabited, all was a lonely wilderness, the retreat of wild beasts and robbers and the terror of travelers’.
187. The above account is the received version of history. That the Domesday Book (1086) described much of the land north of the Humber as ‘waste’ is to do with large areas of that region not being under secure Norman control. Norman scribes simply gave an account more pallatable to their masters by describing the North as ‘waste’ as a result of Norman power. English chroniclers, for their part, describing events after 1066, naturally sought to vilify the Normans. These northern regions had been settled by Scandinavian invaders for centuries, who had escaped the tyrannies of their former homelands, and were not easily subjected to any new ones. That the Norman invaders were fiercely resisted is shown by the imposition of the Murdrum tax, which levied a fine on an entire community if a Norman was found murdered within their boundary. We can know little of the personality of William Crispin II., other than it must have been to some degree as harsh as the world he lived in. He was, as his father and grandfather before him, a defender of Norman frontier lands, and would of necessity have been accomplished in warfare and maintaining stern discipline among his vassals.
188. William the Conqueror finally abandoned his policy of including the English aristocracy in government in 1075. He had given the earldom of Northumbria to Waltheof in 1072, but, three years later, Waltheof plotted with two of William’s barons to overthrow him. William was so disappointed that he had Waltheof executed. This was a painful decision, for William, despite what propagandists of later years said, was opposed in principle to capital punishment. The abandonment of William’s policy of inclusion meant that there was not much integration between races at the highest level. With the exception of when it was in their interest to marry a Saxon heiress, the Norman elite continued to marry into their own circle. This was as true for a Colville in England as it was for a Brus in Scotland. That Hollywood paints a picture of clearly defined nation states taking each other on in battle is also not the stuff of history. Kings of Scotland appeared ‘French in race, manners, language, and culture’ (Barnwell Abbey Chronicle, 13th. Century).
189. It would be idle to pretend that the English folk were happy under the regime of William the Conqueror. He caused great misery by turning large tracts of cultivated land into hunting forests. His code of punishments were barbarously cruel. Yet, it would be equally false to say that the plight of the ordinary Saxon was any worse than what they had been used to. William did not introduce what has been called feudalism to England, a term which was invented by historians to describe a hierarchy of land ownership and associated obligations, and which did not appear in print until 1614. Under this system, the king was at the head as the owner of all the land. He granted large estates to nobles and barons, who were called tenants-in-chief, who were bound by these grants to fight for the king. The tenants-in-chief, in their turn, granted part of their estates to their followers, who were then called mesne-tenants, i.e. intermediate tenants, who were bound in their turn to obey the tenants-in-chief. Mesne-tenants could regrant part of their estates. And below these classes of free tenants were vast numbers of serfs, who had very small holdings, and had in return for this to work upon the lord’s land. Thus, although particulars change, a universal constant of history is the subservient relationship of the many to the few; not such a remarkable fact when considered against the brutal suppression of popular uprisings, and the tendency of many to believe a slice of bread is preferable to none. In its simplest format, feudalism was regular; in practice it was confused and disorderly, for men owed all sorts of duties to many different persons. For example, the same man might hold some land from the king, some from the church, and some from a baron.
190. English society, pre-1066, was also based on a sort of pyramid; from king to slave. Life at the very bottom of the Anglo-Saxon pyramid suggests that the pre-Conquest period was not some golden age of liberty, for, unlike the Normans, the English ruling class engaged in the slave trade. One example of this was them selling their female servants, when pregnant by them, either to public prostitution or to foreign slavery.
191. William invaded England at the head of a European army, which, with Pope Hildebrand’s blessing, sought to reimpose the tax paid to his church – called Peter’s Pence. He fought under a papal banner, and carried into battle a string of papal relics round his neck. However, when becoming King, he refused to give the Pope fealty. To chronicle history is to lay bare human nature.
192. The conquered Anglo-Saxons were not a nation unified against a foreign foe. Archbishop Wulfstan’s ‘Sermon of the Wolf’, 1014, tells the story of “wavering loyalties among men”. He said that “too often a kinsman does not protect a kinsman any more than a stranger”; that there was “a heedless acceptance of alien modes of conduct”. Wulfstan’s comments concerned the Danish occupancy of much of England and the payment of Danegeld to them, £48,000 in 1012, to not encroach any further. “But all the insults we often suffer we repay with honouring those who insult us; we pay them continually and they humiliate us daily”.
193. Harold Godwinson did not command the support of the majority of the English nobility. The haste in which he acted after ‘the Confessor’ died in claiming the throne indicates the weakness of his position. Other Ealdormen, apart from his brothers, did not attend his coronation. He married the sister of the two most important absentees, Edwin and Morcar, but this did not influence them enough to fight with him. Like Duke William, the men he led at Senlac were almost all mercenaries. Ties of kinship counted nought when pitted against a very small likelihood of success.
194. ‘Soon after the Conquest the family of Colville was seated in Coxwold. ‘The Colvilles are enumerated among the benefactors to Newburgh Priory, and also to Byland Abbey; and from them was descended the Fifeshire family of the same name. We are not aware either how or when their connection with Coxwold was severed, but their old hall remains, though vastly changed since they left it’ (Excerpt from Bulmers Directory, 1890).
195. ‘Lord Thomas de Colvyle gave to God and the monks all the land which is between the pool of their mill and Thorpe.* He gave also all Bersclyve and Bertoft, and the appertenances of the vill of Cuckwald (Coxwold), lying to the north toward Whitaker, to do there with whatsoever they would for ever’ (Excerpt from Foundations of Bylands Abbey, Gentleman’s Magazine, 1843). *Thorpe le Willows (Thorpe Grange).
196. The land held by Roger de Mowbray, and his mesne-tenant, Thomas de Colville, centred around Coxwold, was in the centre of a hostile wappentake, a name given to Viking districts. For example, the village of Sadberge, between Stockton and Darlington, was once the capital or Wappentake of the Viking area north of the Tees known as the Earldom of Sadberge, which stretched from Hartlepool to Teesdale. Wappentakes were found in those parts of England settled by Scandinavian settlers, and continued to be important administrative centres in medieval times.Coxwold was situated in the Wappentake of Northallerton, in North Yorkshire. The word wappentake literally means Weapon Taking, and refers to the way in which land was held in return for military service to a chief.
197. Thomas de Colville, as his father, lived in a harsh world. William the Conqueror’s son, Henry 1, died in 1135 without legitimate male issue, his only legitimate son drowned in 1120. With the death of Henry I., a civil war erupted over the question of who would succeed to the throne. Their were two claimants: Firstly, Matilda, daughter of Henry I., and designated heiress; her husband was Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou; their son was Henry Plantagenet, destined to become Henry II. This Geoffrey is the direct descendant of Eve de Montfort’s niece, Bertrade de Montfort. She was assisted in her campaign by Robert of Gloucester, her half-brother, eldest bastard son of Henry I., and her uncle, David of Scotland. Secondly, Stephen of Blois, Count of Boulogne and Mortain, and son of William the Conqueror’s daughter, Adela. The result was supposed anarchy between 1139 and 1153. The disputants bid for the loyalty of the barons, and many of the barons shifted allegiance as it suited their family interests.
198. The Peterborough version of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes a dreadful period of chaos: ‘The land was left untilled, and the impliments of husbandry abandoned. Torture, murder, pillage, fire, slavery, were the weapons the fired soldiery fought with, and the castles were the homes of licensed robbers. Abbeys were converted into fortresses, and the soldiery, secure within their moats, set all law and justice aside’.
199. This was almost certainly a great distortion of events, one which has been taught to generations of schoolchildren, and cited as an example of what happens when government breaks down. Peterborough was one of the few areas where government had ceased to be effective. Somewhat paradoxically, after the description of chaos is a lengthy account of how prosperous Peterborough Abbey was during this period! The fact is that what little fighting took place in the ‘civil war’ was in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, in the middle of Stephen’s reign. It was not that the English had experienced anarchy, but rather that they had come too close to it for comfort. Future historians engaged in re-writing history to suit the purposes of governments who could cite a dreadful example of an alternative to their rule. Again, little changes, except the mediums of propaganda.
200. More factually, King David of Scotland’s army invaded England in 1138. David’s forces were defeated at the Battle of the Standard, in Northalerton, by the levies of Yorkshire, inspired by a wagon that bore on its mast the standards of theYorkshire saints – St. Peter of York, St. Wilfred of Ripon, St. John of Beverley, and St.Cuthbert of Durham. Thomas de Colville and Roger de Mowbray were a part of this victorious army. Roger was noted as having performed with valour (Aelred of Rievaulx). Two miles on the road to Darlington a stone obelisk once marked the site of the battle.
201. Home-life was also troublesome. In this period, the centre of life in castles and manors was the great hall, a large chamber safely built upon the second floor. These halls were poorly lit, due to the need for massive walls, with small windows for defense from attack. There were no chimneys, and the fireplace was in the middle of the hall. Smoke escaped by the way of louvres in the roof.
202. There were compensations. The upper class enjoyed a varied diet. Meat, fish, pastries, and all manner of vegetables were common, as well as fresh bread, cheese, and fruit. Spitted boar, roast swan, or peacock might be added at a feast. Weak ale was the most common drink, as water was often the source of disease, and was drunk soon after brewing. Meat was cut with daggers, and all eating was done with the fingers from trenchers, or hollowed out husks of bread. One trencher was used by two people, and one drinking cup. (Communicable diseases were rife, but acts of God, of course). Scraps were thrown on the floor for the dogs to finish.
203. Wives of noble status supervised officials, who, in turn, directed the rest of the staff. In this period, however, the influence of the Church and its teaching led to women being considered more or less the source of physical temptation. The relevailles ceremony, a religious ceremony in which a priest blesses a woman after childbirth, is very revealing in this respect, as it shows that the woman alone was considered to be tainted.
204. By contrast to the nobleman and his lady, peasant families lived in rough huts on dirt floors, with no chimneys or windows. Often, one end of the hut was given over to storing livestock. Furnishings were sparse; three legged stools, a trestle table, beds on the floor, softened with straw or leaves. The peasant diet was mainly porridge, cheese, black bread, and a few home-grown vegetables. This diet may now have been replaced by the cheapest offers at the local supermarket, but the central issue is the demarcation between rich and poor.
205. The Stanhopes lived through one of the most turbulent times of English history. In 1349, a devastating plague called the Black Death arrived in England from the Continent. It began with a swelling in the armpits, high fever, violent spasms, and vomiting of blood. Black spots broke out over the body. Death was almost inevitable. One third of the entire population died. Whole villages stood empty. To say that labour was scarce is far below the mark. In places it was not to be had for love or money. The rate of wages soared. The very existence of the class that Sir Richard Stanhope represented was threatened. They passed a law – the Labourers’ Statute – stating that wages must remain at pre-plague rates. They might as well have tried to stop the wind from blowing. England was in a revolutionary condition. Priests in the pulpit took the people’s side. One in particular, a priest of Kent, John Ball, preached a theory of a new and startling kind: ‘All men were equal. Society as it stood was rotten. That the rich man should parade in his velvet and his ermine, while the poor man shivered in his frieze, was against the laws nature, justice, and God’. (In more modern times, John Ball would have been vilified in the press owned by those he critisised).
206. The Black Death had followed hard on the heels of what has been called a little Ice Age. There were great floods between 1315 and 1317. Temperatures plunged. There were sheep and cattle plagues. Crops failed. We are told in the Annals of Bermondsey that in 1348 the poor ate dogs, cats, the dung of doves, and their own children.
207. The train was ready for the great explosion. It needed now but some sudden spark to fire it. In 1377, a poll tax was levied to pay for the costly wars with France. Three years later, this unpopular levy was repeated – a shilling per head from every family in England. A shilling was equivalent to a weeks wages. The people’s blood was up, and in a moment they were up in arms. Essex was first; Kent followed, and Canterbury was overrun with revolutionary mobs. Risings in the north and west were slow, but the home counties were soon in a blaze. There was no standing army, no regular police, and the upper classes were forced to take refuge in the woods. (A thought difficult to contemplate in a modern context – Old Etonians hiding in Epping Forest!). Halls were burnt and looted, and monasteries attacked. In London, a mob attacked the Savoy Palace, home to John of Gaunt, uncle to the King, and the best hated man in all the land. Prisons were attacked, and prisoners released. The mob surrounded the Tower, where the young King and his court took refuge.That the rebels leader, Wat Tyler, was slain as he addressed the Royal Court the following day at Smithfield Market, and that the rebels were made false promises of reform by the young king, is well known. What is not is that orders were given for a terrible revenge. Peasants were everywhere arrested, tried, hung, quartered, disemboweled by dozens at a time. Hollywood never made a film of this, and, tellingly, never will.
208. What can we know of Elizabeth Markham and the life of the other medieval ladies herein mentioned? Why should we know of them? I repeat what was said by way of introduction: The aim of any history, even a small one as this, should be to stir interest and appreciation, for without that all study of the past is dead and labour lost.
209. We often picture a medieval woman as young and beautiful, who was charming to men, and waited for her knight to rescue her from the tower. This could not be further from the truth. In medieval society, women gained their status through advantageous marriages. Women from wealthy families were normally engaged to be married by their fathers while they were still in their cradles. A girl was held capable of consenting to marriage at the age of seven, and could have her first child by the age of thirteen.
210. The girl’s father was the sole person who selected a suitable husband. If he died before she was married, he would have made sure to have left her a suitable dowry, to either wed her or put her into a nunnery. Many girls of wealthy families were educated by being sent to nunneries. Young girls were taught to read and write, tell stories, read romances, and learn of ladies fashion and of manners.
211. Such girls were also sent to the households of great ladies; this way they could learn the etiquette of refined society. Some fathers thought it was more important for a girl to be better equipped with proper manners than intellect. A woman of high status could be a land owner. The woman who owned land was considered a person of importance. When such woman married, everything she owned became her husbands for the duration of her marriage. After the death of a husband, she could claim one third of her properties, and, if she chose to re-marry, they would remain hers.
212. Wives had to be able to take their husbands places at all times. This was very hard work. She had to be capable of taking her husband’s place during his absences. She had to look after the manor, collect rents, and supervise the farming. She had to know about law, in case her lord’s rights were ever violated. She had to be able to plan expenses wisely. In a very large manor, several small rooms were set up to accommodate the making of consumable goods. Ale was brewed in the brew-house. Bread was baked in the bake house. Butter and cheese were made in the dairy.
213. The lady of the manor’s duties also included governing the house at all times. She monitored daily duties and distributed functions, only going into town herself to buy the finest fish, best wines, and exotic spices from local merchants; thus she also had to know how to bargain. She had to have knowledge of gardening, and be able to hire help to assist her. She could draw up wills and make contracts. She could sue or be sued.
214. Henry VIII’s confiscation of Catholic lands was no easy gain. When heads of monastic houses refused bribes of pensions to give up their estates, they were often imprisoned, tortured, or hanged. This was the basis of Sir Michael Stanhope’s wealth. He was a courtier and parasite of the king, one of those who surrounded him, like vultures, gorging themselves on the fallen carcase of the Catholic Church. The result of such redistribution of wealth was mass poverty and homelessness, for many relied on the monastries for their living. The new land-grabbing Protestant aristocracy were hated. Riots, especially in the North, severely threatened the power of the regime, whose response was drastic. Defeated rioters were hanged and disemboweled, their bodies being left to hang as crow-bait in their villages as a warning to others.
215. The rioters hatred did not abate, for such as Sir Michael Stanhope were the allies of one of the most despotic rulers that ever lived. To merely disagree with Henry VIII. was to invite unpleasant death. Sir Walter Raleigh said: ‘If all the patterns of a mercilless tyrant had been lost to the world, they might have been found in this prince’. He was the first King of England that brought women to the block, and caused them to be tortured and burned. He was the only king who sought consolation for the imagined offences of his wives by plundering their relatives of their money. Not content with this, as any true tyrant, he sought to control opinions. He declared that the Bible should not be read in public, and could only be read in private by people of noble or gentle birth. It was to this regime that many owed their ascendency. This is not to pass judgement. There is always the case that people should be judged by the standard of their times, and, in this sense, many believed in a natural order in society: ‘In London the rich disdaineth the poor. The courtier the citizen. One occupation disdaineth another. The merchant the retailer. The retailer the craftsman. The better sort of craftsman the baser. The shoemaker the cobler’ (Thomas Nashe, 16th. century poet). To succeed by the demise of others is the easiest and basest form of survival.
216. Michael Stanhope’s career had begun in the household of Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland, and he became, after two years in the royal stables, esquire to Henry VIII. Soon after the accession of Edward VI., Michael Stanhope was knighted, serving in Parliament as one of the knights of the county of Nottingham; appointed Lieutenant of Hull, keeper of the royal parks in Nottinghamshire, Suffolk, and Surrey; chief gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and deputy to his brother-in-law, Edward Seymour, the Protector Somerset, in the guardianship of the king. The young king, Edward VI., was the son of Henry VIII., and his third wife, Jane Seymour, Edward Seymour’s sister, and was like a shuttlecock in a game of rival courtiers. Thomas Seymour, Edward’s younger brother, cited precedent for dividing power more equally between the leading men of the kingdom when the monarch was not of age to rule alone. For this, and encouraging senior courtiers to intercede on his behalf, he was beheaded. Kindred counted nought.
217. Michael Stanhope was the link between Edward Seymour and the court. He controlled the royal purse. He also controlled access to the king: Michael Stanhope had ‘issued a commaundment that if eny man shuld knock at the dore (of the king’s chambers) thei shuld call hym up and waken hym before thei did open the dore’ (Cecil Papers. Hatfield House Library). He did this on the command of his brother-in-law. He also, in 1547 and 1548, took items from the king’s rooms in Whitehall Palace, and sent them to the chambers and houses of Edward and Anne Seymour.
218. All such power was lost on the Protector’s fall. On the 16th of October, 1551, Somerset was arrested, and on the following day, Sir Michael Stanhope and other adherents were sent to the Tower, on a charge of conspiring against the life of Dudley, Earl of Warwick.
219. Again, it is important to look behind the official reasons given for this charge. Dispite the acquisition of Church lands, the treasury was empty. The currency had been debased, and all over the country, especially in the Eastern and Midland counties, there was seething discontent on the issue of enclosures. Not content with stealing land, and attracted by the profits to be made by the sale of wool, the aristocracy were turning ploughland into pasture; and as sheep needed less labour than tillage, there was an army of unemployed, some of whom took up the trade of brigandage. Riots followed. The most serious of these was in the Eastern counties, where a squire named Robert Ket took the lead of a mob which pulled down enclosures and tried unpopular landlords. Somerset hesitated to move against them, resulting in the rebellion becoming more dangerous. This made him the enemy of very powerful people. The rebellion was only dispersed through the ruthless action of Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Somerset’s chief rival in the Council. An example of how worried the ruling class were at this time is given in a sermon preached in all English Churches in 1547:
220. ‘ALmighty God hath created and appointed all things in heaven, earth, and waters, in a most excellent and perfect order. In heaven he hath appointed distinct or several orders and slates of archangels and angels. In earth he hath aligned and appointed kings, princes, with other governors under thern, in all good and necessary order. The water above is kept and raineth down in due time an season. The sun, moon, stars, rainbow, thunder, lightning, clouds, and all birds of the air, do keep their order. The earth, trees, seeds, plants, herbs, corn, grass, and all manner of beasts, keep themselves in their order: all the parts of the whole year, as winter, summer, months, nights, and days, continue in their order: all kinds of fish in the sea, rivers, and waters, with all fountains, springs, yea, the seas themselves, keep their comely curfew and order: and man himself also hath all his parts both within and without, as soul, heart, mind, memory, understanding, reason, speech, with all and singular corporal members of his body, in a profiltable, necessary, and pleasant order: every degree of people in their vocation, calling, and office, hath appointed to them their duty and order: some are in high degree, some inlow, some kings and princes, some inferiors and subjectgs, priests and laymen, masters and servants, fathers and children, husands and wives, rich and poor; and every one hath need of other; so that in all things is to be lauded and praised the goodly order of God, without the which no house, no city, no commonwealth can continue and endure, or last. For where there is no right order, there reigneth all abuse, carnal liberty, enormity, sin, and Babylonical confusion. Take away kings, princes, rulers, magistrates, judges and such estates of God’s order, no man shall ride or go by the highway unrobbed, no man shall sleap in his own house or bed unkilled, no man shall keep his wife, children, and possessions in quietness, all things shall be common; and there must needs follow all mlschief and utter destruction both of souls, bodies, goods, and commonwealth’ (An Exhortation Concerning Good Order, and Obedience to Rulers and Magistrates). It may be asked, to what level of the human condition does the directive to be as orderly as a beast appeal to?
221. Sir Michael was tried on a charge of felony, condemned at a mock trial, and sentenced to be hanged, and on the commutation of this sentence, in a act of supreme mercy, he was beheaded on Tower Hill, murdered with three other knights, Sir Thomas Arundel, Sir Miles Partridge, and Sir Ralph Vane. The warrant for his execution was dated February 25, 1552 (Rymer’s Collection, vol. xv., 1704-1735). He was beheaded the next day, strongly protesting his innocence. In modern terms, he was the victim of a mafia family power struggle. Both Somerset and Dudley were ruthless and grasping people. Somerset ruled through a group of carefully chosen administrators, of lesser social standing, including his brother-in law, Sir Michael Stanhope. Somerset was ‘looked down upon by everybody as a dry, sour, opinionated man’ (Van der Delft, Dutch Embassador, 1547). Dudley’s ascendency cost him dearly, and readily condemned Michael Stanhope, his all too enthusiastic supporter, with him.
222. Dudley’s ascendency was, however, short-lived. He realised his position was insecure. To make it safe, he contrived to have a sovereign under his influence. For that purpose, he chose Lady Jane Grey to be the successor of her cousin, Edward VI. He married her to his son, Guildford Dudley. The young king was persuaded to make a Will in her favour, and this was scarcely made when Edward died, it is assumed of natural causes. Lady Jane, a gentle and learned girl of 16, was declared queen on July 10th., 1553. Her father-in-law and other members of the Protestant nobility were, however, shocked to discover that Mary, a staunchly Catholic daughter of Henry VIII., had the support of both the old Catholic nobility and that of the new Protestant nobility who feared Dudley. Mary marched to London with an army to claim the throne; Lady Jane was deposed without a struggle, and imprisoned on July 19th. Dudley and many of his kind renounced Protestantism. This did not save Dudley from the scaffold. Protestant Bishops, such as Hooper, Ridley, Cramner, and Latimer, were burnt at the stake, “lighting that day,” as Latimer bravely said, “a candle that would not be put out”. Three hundred humbler victims were also murdered in the fires of Smithfield. The story of these people was enshrined in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 1563, which became a common possession of the English people, and made ‘Bloody Mary’ an unforgettable name.
223. Lady Jane was also murdered at about 10 o’clock on the morning of February 12th., 1554, Jane watched from her window in the Tower as her husband was led on his way to Tower Hill. She was still watching when his body was brought back into the Tower, his head wrapped in bandage at his side. Those in her company reported later that she wept openly at the sight, and was heard to utter his name.
224. Jane then made her way to the scaffold. Yeoman of the Guard surrounded the wooden structure that had been built the day before. At the scaffold, Jane was joined by several Tower chaplains. She said to one of them: “God grant you all your desires and accept my own hearty thanks for all your attention to me. Although indeed, those attentions have tried me more than death can now terrify me”. She then climbed the stairs, ‘nothing at all abashed …. neither her eyes moistened with tears, although her two gentlewomen … wonderfully wept’.
225. She recited the fifty-first psalm in English. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions …”. She then gave her gloves and handkerchief to her lady-in-waiting, Mrs Ellen, who helped her to remove her headdress and neckerchief, and dispense with her heavy outer garment. The executioner then knelt and asked for Jane’s forgiveness, which she gave “most willingly”. There followed a five minute silence, whereby officials awaited a last-minute reprieve from Mary.
226. The executioner then told Jane where to stand. She replied, “I pray you despatch me quickly”. She began to kneel, then hesitated and said, “Will you take it off before I lay me down?” The executioner answered, “No madame”. Jane then tied the handkerchief around her eyes. Unable to locate the block, she became anxious, asking in a faltering voice “Where is it? What shall I do? Where is it”? Those who stood upon the scaffold seemed unsure of what to do. Someone climbed the scaffold and helped her to the block. Her last words were, “Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit”. According to tradition, her head was then held aloft with the words, “So perish all the Queen’s enemies. Behold, the head of a traitor”.
227. Michael Stanhope’s half-sister, Anne Duchess of Somerset, was kept a prisoner in the tower until July, 1553, not being released until the accession of Queen Mary, her great friend. She died Easter-day, April 16, 1587. Earl Stanhope, in his ‘Notices’, wrote: ‘Anne of Somerset is said by some writers to have had much pride and arrogance of temper; which may the rather be believed, since it appears that, during the Protectorate of the Duke, she was engaged in some dispute for precedence with the Queen Dowager, Katherine Parr. Something of the same spirit might be imputed to the first line of her epitaph: ‘A Princess descended of noble lignage’. She married, secondly, Francis Newdigate of Hanworth, steward of her late husband (Hampton Court Rolls, 1583).
228. This brief account of the careers of of Sir Michael Stanhope’s sons shows them to be, as him, servants of the Establishment, but whereas previous generations of Stanhope men had carried out this service in battle, they, as him, confined their fighting to the law courts. Whether sitting on commissions that decided what books could legally be published, or feigning admiration for Queen Elizabeth, the evident aim of these men was to enrich themselves through unquestioning and flattering service to their overlords in the social order. Many years ago, whilst sitting behind a small wooden desk, listening to history being dispensed by ‘gods’ in the guise of teachers, I was told about the golden days of Elizabethan England. The tales were full of heroes who fought the Spanish and robbed them of their gold. These heroes were the stuff of Hollywood films, and were all, or so it seemed, played by Erol Flynn wearing tights. Evidently, my teachers had not consulted the archives of the Tower, the State Paper Office; the journals of the Lords and Commons; the rolls of Parliament, and the mass of original letters that survived, when forming their opinions. They taught history as if it were a romantic story. The historian Lingard gives an all too different account:
229. ‘The nation was divided into opposite parties – the oppressors and the oppressed. Many ancient and honourable families had been ground to the dust; new families had sprung up in their places; and these, as they shared the plunder, naturally eulogised the system to which they owed their wealth and their ascendancy. But their prosperity was not the prosperity of the nation, it was that of one half obtained at the expense of the other’ (J. Lingard, A History of England from the First Invasion of The Romans to the Accession of William and Mary, 1855).
230. Without going into detail, the Elizabethan Council had used religion as an excuse to enrich its members and their followers, who professed to be Protestant, by appropriating the property of rich Catholics. Catholic martyrs went to their death in Elizabethan times for sheltering Catholic priests, who were seen as potential traitors during a time of hostility between England and ‘Catholic’ Spain.
231. Divisions in Elizabethan society were, however, not solely decided by religious allegiance. There was only a small proportion of Protestant society who could afford to wear the starched ruffs, padded doublets, and farthingales – framed hoops worn under the skirt – as featured in Hollywood history. Violence was part of everyday life. Armed gangs were as common as murders.
232. Sir Edward Stanhope, obit. 1608. A comment on the arms that Edward Stanhope bore, abridged from the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. 3, p. 262, 1866: ‘The first coat, Quarterly ermine and gules, is presumed to have been the ancient arms of the family of Stanhope of Northumberland; and is stated by Collins to be found in an old MS. roll of the time of Edward III. with the name John de Stanhope. I have not, however, been able to find it in any printed roll of arms. It is remarkable, however, that in the armorial roll formerly in the possession of Sir Richard St. George, and lately edited by Mr. Perceval for the Archaeologia, the following coat is attributed to ‘Robert de Stanhowe’, Quarterly ermine with gules fretty or (Archaeologia, vol. xxxix. p 434). That the name of Stanhope might well appear under this form is shown by the fact that in the same roll the arms of Cantelupe are given as those of George de Cantelow. The arms so blazoned evidently exhibit a community of origin with those of Despenser,* and may possibly be the ancient form of the present coat of Stanhope. This ancient form of arms had been disused by the family in the 15th century, a grant of Sir Richard Stanhope made in the fourth year of Henry V. being sealed with the single coat of a bend between six cross crosslets, the third quartering in the present escocheon, and the same arms having been placed on the monument of his son Richard Stanhope, Esquire, who died in the 10th year of Henry VI., and was buried at Tuxford in Nottinghamshire. Thoroton observes that the coat of Longvilers ‘was most constantly used by this family whilst they continued lords of Rampton for their paternal coat, perhaps sometimes counterchanging the colours, notwithstanding in a window of the church of Tuxford there is on the surcoat of John Stanhope, Azure, a cross moline or’,** and that he ‘had not seen the arms of the present earl of Chesterfield borne by any but the posterity of Sir Michael Stanhope’ (Thoroton’s History of Notts, vol. iii. p. 245, ed. 1797). *Through the Stanhope connection to the Chaworths. **Thus, little differenced from that of ‘Colvyles of Ochiltry’, Scotland.
233. ‘The second coat in the quarterly shield, Vert, three wolves passant or, is attributed to the ancient family of Maulovel. It was in consequence of their alliance with the heiress of this family, about the middle of the 14th century, that the Stanhopes were transplanted from the remote North to the richer regions of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, in which they became so eminent for their wealth and influence.
234. Some account of the family of Maulovel, commencing as early as the reign of Richard I., may be found in Thoroton’s ‘Nottinghamshire’. I cannot discover any mention of the arms with the wolves in any of the early published rolls of arms. In the Return of Lords of Manors, 1316, known as Nomina Villarum, the heir of Stephen Maulovel is certified to be lord or lady of the town of Rampton in Nottinghamshire; and it is shown by ancient records cited by Dugdale and Thoroton, that John de Stanhope, living in the time of Edward III. and who in 1373 was denominated as of Rampton, co. Notts, son of Sir Richard Stanhope of Northumberland, married Elizabeth daughter and heir of Stephen Maulovel. It was by the same marriage, which thus appears to have immediately brought increased wealth to the Stanhopes, that they became in the next generation the representatives of the families of Longvilliers, Markham, and Lexinton.
235. The third coat quartered by Sir Michael Stanhope is that of the family of Longvilliers, Sable, a bend between six cross-crosslets argent. This coat of arms is found in the roll known as that of Boroughbridge, 1321, of ‘le Sire Thomas de Longwilers’. In the 22nd year of Richard II. Richard Stanhope was found ‘cousin’ and heir to Agnes, wife of Sir Reginald de Everingham, knight, which Agnes was daughter and heir to Sir John de Longvilliers, whose sister Elizabeth was mother of Stephen Maulovel, father of Elizabeth, mother of the said Richard Stanhope. This Agnes de Everingham was probably the same as Agnes who, in 1374, was sister and heir of Thomas de Longvilliers, and wife of Robert de Cromwell.
236. The last coat which is quartered with that of Stanhope, Argent, three saltires engrailed sable, is attributed to the family of Lexinton, from which the family of Longvilers derived their manor of Tuxford, which passed to the Stanhopes upon the death of Agnes de Everingham and her husband Sir Reginald. This family was of great importance in the reign of Henry III., when Sir John de Lexinton, a baron of the realm, who died in 1257, was keeper of the Great Seal of England, and his brother and heir Henry de Lexinton was Bishop of Lincoln. The bishop appears to have died in the year following the death of his brother, leaving the descendants of two sisters his co-heirs. One sister, Cecily, was married to William de Markham, the other, Alice, to Roland de Sutton; and it was through the Markhams that the representation of one branch of this baronial family passed to Longvilers, and so ultimately to Stanhope’.
237. What of the life of these Stanhopes? Hunting was a favorite pastime for rich people. Queen Elizabeth loved to hunt. The hunt allowed the rich nobles to show off their fine horses, hawks, clothing, and weapons. The most popular Elizabethan entertainment for all classes was the theatre. The public theatre came to London around 1576. The earliest theatres resembled the innyards from which they had evolved. The theatres were built around courtyards, with three-story galleries facing the stage. People from every social class, from workers to aristocrats, attended the theatre. The aristocrats sat in the galleries, while the commoners stood on the ground around the stage, with a few young men often sitting on the stage. Elizabethans also loved to listen to music. For the most part, people made their own music. Labourers and craftsmen often sang while they worked; common people sang after a meal, and the well-bred people of society often played or sang a piece by rote during recitals.
238. Dancing, another popular activity, provided a great opportunity for interaction between unmarried people. The preferred type of dancing varied according to social class, with those of higher social position favoring the courtly dances, imported from Italy and other European countries, and the ordinary people preferring ‘country’ dances. The European courtly dances were mostly performed by couples and involved intricate and subtle footwork, while the English country dances were danced by couples in round, square, or rectangular sets, with much simpler form and footwork. Queen Elizabeth herself encouraged country dances among the aristocracy.
239. Too often history recounts the deeds of men without explaining how the deeds of women were curtailed by prevailing attitudes. Because women were thought to be man’s inferior in intellect and virtue, women were held to be subordinate and inferior to their husbands, who were considered to be superior partners in marriage. Common law vested control of property in the man, though dower, inheritance, and settlements, gave many wives in the propertied classes some safeguards. A good deal of mutual affection existed in most marriages, with wives occupying a separate but subordinate sphere in the family economy. Though marriage was an unequal partnership, it was less unequal than we might imagine.
240. Attitudes toward women varied, of course, but the more extreme Protestant views enjoyed popular support: ‘Women degenerate from the use they were framed unto, by leading a proud, lazie, and idle life, to the great hinderance of their poor husbands … For commonly women are the most part of the forenoon painting themselves, and frizzing their hairs, and prying in their glass like Apes, to pranck up themselves in their gawdies, like Poppets, or like the Spider which weaves a fine web to hang the fly’ (Joseph Swetnam, The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Forward, and Unconstant Women, 1615). ‘Nature, I say, doth paint them forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish, and experience hath declared them to be unconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment. And these notable faults have men in all ages espied in that kind, for the which not only they have removed women from rule and auhority, but also some have thought that men subject to the counsel or empire of their wives were unworthy of all public office’ (John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, 1558).
241. The more learned and enlightened classes countered such views: see Sir Thomas Elyot, The Defence of Good Women,1545; Thomas Bentley, The Monument of Matronness, 1572.
242. For what cause had Philip Stanhope and three of his sons faired so ill? As ever, the chief cause concerned money. Of course, it is true that other reasons could be cited, but men tend to put up with a great deal if their pockets are full and someone is not trying to empty them. King James was such a pick-pocket. He was continually short of money. He wished to raise the rate of customs duty, payable to himself, but was thwarted by a Parliament whose members had a strong merchant interest. He suspended Parliament in 1611 and used people who had bought titles from him to run the country. Sir John Stanhope, who had bought his knighthood for £10,000, was one of those new class of men who held wealth and power under the direct patronage of the monarch. This caused great offence and jealousy. Such as Sir John Stanhope had allied themselves with a monarch who showed delusions of grandeur:
243. ‘Kings are justly called gods for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth. For if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God has power to create, or destroy, make, or unmake at his pleasure, to give life, or send death, to judge all, and to be judged nor accountable to none; to raise low things, and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both soul and body due. And the like power have kings. They make and unmake their subjects; they have power of raising and casting down, of life and of death; judges over all their subjects, and in all cases, and yet accountable to none but God only. They have power to exalt low things and abase high things, and make of their subjects like men at the chess: a pawn to take a bishop or a knight, and to cry up or down any of their subjects, as they do their money. And to the king is due both the affection of the soul and the service of the body of his subjects’ (King James I, A speech to the Lords and Commons of the Parliament at Whitehall, Mach 21, 1610). Charles I. had witnessed the relationship between his father and Parliament, and considered that Parliament was entirely at fault. He also found it difficult to believe that a king could be wrong. His conceit and arrogance were eventually to lead to his execution.
245. From 1625 to 1629, Charles argued with parliament over most issues, but money was the most common cause of argument. In 1629, Charles copied his father. He refused to let Parliament meet. Members of Parliament arrived at Westminster to find that the doors had been locked with large chains and padlocks. They were locked out for eleven years – a period they called the Eleven Years Tyranny.
246. Charles ruled by using the Court of Star Chamber. To raise money for the king, the Court heavily fined those brought before it. Rich men were persuaded to buy titles. This was how the Earldom of Chesterfield came about. If they refused to do so, they were fined the same sum of money it would have cost for a title!
247. In 1635, Charles ordered that everyone in the country should pay Ship Money – historically a tax paid by coastal towns and villages to pay for the upkeep of the navy. His proposals further enraged those whose commercial interests he threatened. They would plan his downfall, and with it those, such as the Stanhopes, whose patronage and wealth they envied. This envy was inflamed by the the despotic way in which Charles and his officials acted. They repressed all opposition. The pamphleteer, William Prynne, had his ears cut off in 1634, and was put in the pillory, for a book that seemed to reflect badly on the queen. The regime became offensive to many of the lesser nobility and merchants. Their anger was ignited by the new taxes levied on them and the worsening economic climate, and the result was the ensuing Civil War. This was not a war between the rich and the poor – it was a war between the rich and the not quite so rich, who could both afford to support an army of followers drawn from the lower social orders. The radical ideas for changing society that some of these foot-soldiers held were hated by all people of property.
THE EARLY CRISPINS
248. 1. It is not known, and will never be known, who was the father of Harfast de Crepon. Conjecture on this subject is, in equal measures, both understandable and futile.
1.1. Harfast, brother of Gunnor, Duke Richard’s wife. Dudo of Saint-Quentin claimed she was of noble Danish* origin, without specifying whether this was a paternal association. *Not literally meaning ‘Danish’, the connotation being ‘Scandinavian’. Herfast, ante 1028, gave to St Pere de Chartres the villa of ‘Le Ham’ and a mill at ‘Barneville’, as well as a third of ‘Torgis Villa, identified as Teurteville-Hague, canton Octeville by M. Guerard, ed., Cartulaire de I’abbaye de Saint-Pere de Chartres, ed., pp. 108-15, 1840. Herfast, would have been granted land in Normandy by his brother-in-law, Duke Richard, a fief of which was named Crepon or Crespon; the family did not originate from there. A clue as to their place of origin is given in the orthgography of Herfast; which is a form of Haerfest (OE), Herbist (OHG); Herfst (Dutch).These are Saxon terms meaning harvest, and are seen in the statements ‘god sumer’, ‘god harfest’. They represent a distinctly Saxon form of harvest, being distinguishable from the Scandinavian forms Haust (ON), Hdst (OSw.); Host (OD). It is therefore likely that the family of Herfast were of Saxon association. Nothing is known of the contrary, in that three of Herfast’s sisters are solely known by their adopted Frankish names: Sainsfrida. Wevia and Duvelina. His other sister, Gunnor, was also known by her adopted Frankish name of Albereda (Auberie).
1.1.1. Osborn de Crepon. Guillaume of Jumièges records that a sister married Osmund de Conteville, their son being Foulques d’Anet. The manor of Conteville, its church, and all manors pertaining to it, were granted to the Abbey of Bec by William Malet, husband of Hesilia Crispin, dau. of Gilbert Crispin I. (See Collectanea Archaeologica, p. 283, 1862). The most reasonable suggestion for this gift is that Conteville was Hesilia’s dower lands.
1.1.1.1. William FitzOsborn. Count Rodolph’s son, Bishop Hugh, gave lands centred around Guernanville to William FitzOsborn, his nephew, and Gilbert CrIspin I.; their subtenant being Foulques de Guernanville, whose gift of his enfeoffment was confirmed by Foulque’s son, with the permission of Guillaume de Breteuil, William FitzOsborn’s son, Gilbert Crespin I., and his sons, Gibert Crespin II. and William Crespin I., and Roger de Clare, son of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare. William FitzOsborn m. Alice, dau. of Roger de Tosny I. Alice de Tosni was the cousin of Adeliza de Tosni, heiress of Belvoir, dau. of Robert de Tosni I. and Eve de Montfort’s niece, Isabel de Montfort. Eve de Montfort being the wife of William Crispin I., as follows. Adeliza de Tosni m. Roger Bigod, earl of East Anglia. Their daughter, Cecily, obit. 1135, married William d’ Albini Brito, of Saint-Aubin-d’Aubigné, Bretagne. The Armenters, Clare, Crispin (de Colville), and Gand families continuously intermarried into the Albini kinship network, as I document elsewhere.
249. 1.1.2. … de Crepon, m. Osmund de Conteville.
1.1.2.1. Foulques d’Anet.
1.1.2.2. … d’Anet, m., I suggest, Gilbert Crispin I. The descendants of Gilbert Crispin I. had little or no connection, whether tenurial or otherwise, with their supposed d’Anou cousins. Conversley, they had a very close relationship with the families connected to that of d’Anet; the mistake made in the construction of Crispin affiliations seems obvious.
1.1.2.2.1. Gilbert Crispin II. (de Colville), castelan of Tillieres.
1.1.2.2.1.1. Gilbert Crispin III., m. Hersende de Brezolles, kinswoman of Albert Ribaut, and became enfeoffed in Armentières. Albert Ribaud, gave the church of Brezolles (Eure-et-Loir, cant. Dreux) to the monastery of Saint-Pere of Chartres; the same monastery receiving donations from the Armentières family of Verneuil. ‘Deux chartes du cartulaire de Saint-Père font mention de Foulques et de Fulbert d’Armentières’ (Charpillon, Anatole Caresme, ‘Dictionnaire historique’, p. 143, 1868).The Tillières branch of the Crispin family had a share in seigneurial revenues at Brezolles (Daniel Power, The Norman Frontier, pp. 246-247, 2005).
1.1.2.2.1.2. Raoul de Tillieres, m. a dau. of Richard FitzGilbert de Clare, son of Gilbert de Brionne, and Rohaise, dau. of Walter Giffard and Ermengarde Flaitel. ‘A daughter, whose name is unknown, married Raoul, seigneur de Tillières’ (see Archaeologia Cambrensis, p. 12, 1859; Dictionnaire de la noblesse, p. 583, 1772).
1.1.2.2.2. William Crispin I. (de Colville). He m. Eve de Montfort, a sister of Simon I de Montfort L’Amaury (W. Frolich, trsl., The Letters of Anselme of Canterbury, 1990-1994, nos. 22, 98, 118, and 147). They were the children of Amauri de Montfort, obit. 1031, and Bertrade de Gometz. According to Orderic (OV. vii., vol. 4), Amauri was the son of William de Hainault (Marjorie Chibnall, ed. & trans., The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, vol. iv., 1969-80). ‘Eve de Montfort bore him Gilbert, abbot of Westminster, William Crispin II., and many others’ (Milo Crispin, How The Holy Virgin Appeared To William Crispin The Elder And On The Origin Of The Crispin Family, ed. Migne, cols. 735-744, 185. It is not certain whether William de Hainault had any connection to the counts of Hainaut, yet, CP. 7, 708, note (f), suggests that Amauri’s grandson may have rejected his wife, a dau. of the Count of Hainault, because of consanguinity. William de Hainault was contemporary to Regnier IV. de Hainault, who, in 985, recovered Mons and Hainault. and m. Hadwige, dau. of Hugh Capet, King of France; by whom he had issue Regnier V. who died in 1033, leaving by his wife, Maud of Lorrain, a dau., Richildis, heiress of Hainault, Brabant, Mons, and Valenciennes; which possessions she conveyed to the Counts of Flanders, marrying Count Baldwin V., brother of King William the Conqueror’s wife. Gilbert de Gand’s mother is stated to be Gisele, a sister of Otgiva, wife of Baldwin IV. count of Flanders (Europaische Stammtafeln (ES, 6:128, 1978). The same authority (ES 2:5, 1984) has 1012 for Otgiva’s marriage date, as does K. F. Werner’s ‘Die Nachkommen Karls des Grossen’, in Karl der Grosse, ed. W. Braunfels, vol. 4, 1967. Thus, given Gilbert de Gand’s estimated birthdate of 1040-2, there is a thirty year age difference between Gisele and Otgiva, and a relationship of niece/aunt would be more supportable, making Gilbert de Gand a second-cousin of both King William’s wife and Baldwin V., whose wife, as shown, was the granddau. of Regnier IV. de Hainault; who was likely closely related to William de Hainault, grandfather of William Crispin’s wife. This would be a typical example of the concept of ‘foedus inter consobinos heredes’.
1.1.2.2.2.1. William Crispin II. According to Mathieu (Reserches Sur Les Premiers Comtes De Dammartin, 19, 60, 1996), a probable wife of William Crispin II. was Agnes Mauvoisin, daughter of Eustachia Dammartin, daughter of Manasses, Count of Dammartin, and Constance Capetien, dau. of Robert II., King of France.
1.1.2.2.2.1.1. Thomas de Colville, m. Matilda d’Aubigny.
THE DESCENDANTS OF THOMAS DE COLVILLE
250. 1. Richard de Ifferley, m. Emma de Longvilliers, dau. of Eudo de Longvilliers I., Seneschal to the de Lacy family, and Agnes de Neville.
2. Bernard de Ifferley, m. Margaret de Chaworth, sister of Ellen de Chaworth, who was married to Bernard’s cousin, John de Longvilliers I., obit. 1254.
3. Walter de Stanhope, m. Margaret de Longvilliers.
4. Richard de Stanhope, m. Ellota de Longvilliers.
5. Sir Richard de Stanhope, m. Alice de Houghton. Houghton lies between Clumber and East Retford, and formed part of the domain of the Longvilliers.
6. Sir John Stanhope, m. Elizabeth Maulovel, of the closely intermarried Chaworth, Longvilliers, Markam, Maulovel, and Lexington kinship group.
7. Sir Richard Stanhope, m. Johanna de Staly, descended from an important family of Anglo Saxon thegns, who had intermarried with the Percys of Kildale.
8. Sir Richard Stanhope, m. Elizabeth Markham, dau. of Sir John Markham, the younger, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and Margaret Leeke, daughter and coheir of Simon Leeke of Cotham, Notts
9. Sir John Stanhope, m. Elizabeth Talbot, dau. of Sir Thomas Talbot, grandson of Sir Gilbert Talbot and Petronella Butler, of Bashall, York.
10. Thomas Stanhope, m. Mary Jerningham, dau. of John Jerningham of Somerleyton, in Suffolk.
251.11. Sir Edward Stanhope, married Adelina Clifton, Mary Jerningham’s second-cousin, dau. of Sir Gervase Clifton, of Rolleston, Nottinghamshire, esquire to King Edward IV. and Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of King Richard III, and Alice de Neville, dau. of Thomas de Neville, 1405-1485, and Elizabeth Babington. By his second wife, Elizabeth Bourchier, daughter of Foulk Bourchier, Lord Fitz-Waren, and great-great granddaughter of King Edward III., Sir Edward Stanhope was father of Anne Stanhope, Duchess of Somerset, 1497-1587, the wife of Protector Somerset, 1500-1552. Foulk Bourchier’s wife, Anne, was sole heir of Thomas Plantagenet of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, younger son of Edward III. From John Stanhope, a younger brother of this Sir Edward Stanhope, are descended the Stanhopes of Horsforth, who became settled at Cannon Hall, Cawthorne, West Yorkshire.
12. Michael Stanhope, m. Anne Rawson, the dau. of Nicholas Rawson of Avely, a small village near Purfleet on the Thames. ‘Alured Rawson, citizen of London, and merchant of the Staple of Calais, was Lord of this Manor of Aveley in 1509. His son, Nicholas Rawson, of Giddy Hall, Romford, Essex, m. Beatrix Cooke, obit. 1554, dau. of Philip Cooke, and Elizabeth Belnap, and left one dau.r and heir, named Anne, who was married to Sir Michael Stanhope.
13. Sir Thomas Stanhope m. Margaret Porte, dau. of Sir John Porte of Etwall and Cubely, one of the Justices of the King’s Bench, and Dorothy Montgomery, second of three daughters and coheirs of Sir John Montgomery, obit 1513, of Cubely in Derbyshire. Sir Thomas Stanhope was the brother of Sir Edward Stanhope, 1538-1603, the elder, who represented successively Notts. and Yorkshire in Parliament, where his seats were Edlington and Grimston. He was treasurer of Gray’s Inn, recorder of Doncaster, and a member of the Council of the North. He m., in 1578, Susan Coleshill, dau. of Thomas Coleshill, of Chigwell, in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire. Their son was Sir John Stanhope, 1580-1627, of Mellwood in the Isle of Axholme, who m. Mary Halley, 1585-1650, dau. of William Halley of Stotfold, York; their dau., Ursula Stanhope, obit. 1654. m. George Walker, obit. 1677, who died at Kilmore, N. Ireland. His son was George Walker, Governor of Londonderry, known as the ‘hero of the Siege of Londonderry’. Another brother of Sir Thomas Stanhope was Sir Michael Stanhope, 1548-1625, of Sudbourne, near Woodbridge, in Suffolk. He m. Anne Read, dau. of Sir William Read of Osterley, Middlesex, and had issue including Bridget Stanhope, m. to George Fielding, Lord Fielding of Lecaghe and Viscount Callan. Their son, John Fielding, in holy orders, D.D., Canon of Salisbury and Chaplain to King William III., m. Dorothy Cockayne, dau, of Scipio Cockayne, esq., of the county of Somerset. Their second son was George Fielding, obit. 1738, buried in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. He was Lt. Col. of the Royal Regiment of Blues, and Groom of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne and George I. He m. Ann Sherman, 1682-1755, dau. of Bazaleel Sherman of Mitcham, Surrey, who dealt in coffee and other such luxury items, and Anne Norton. Their only child was Sarah Fielding, obit. 1795, who m., 1733, John Willis, the third son of the Right Reverend Richard Willis, Bishop of Gloucester (1714), Salisbury (1722), and Winchester (1723-24); baptized at Ribbesford, Worcestershire, on February 16, 1664, the son of William Willis, variously reported as a journeyman tanner and a maker of woollen caps, and his wife, Susanna. Their second son was Richard Willis,1739-1802, of Churchford Hall, Capel St Mary, Suffolk, who m. Anne Barnham. Their eldest son was Richard Willis, 1766-1842, who m. Anne Apperley, obit. 1853, dau. of Thomas Apperley and Esther Partridge. Their dau. was Sarah Anne Willis, born 1801, in Monmouth, Wales, who m. John Joseph Kane, 1796-1876, of Lincolnshire, captain of the 4th. Regiment of Foot and the Monmouthshire Militia, eldest son of John Daniel Kane, Lt. Col., 4th. Regiment of Foot, of Dublin, and Louisa Phillips. He was the ancestor, as decribed herein, of Kate Ryan, to whom I am indebted for the above lineage, and specific information regarding Dorothy Cockayne.
252. 14. Sir John Stanhope m. (1) Cordelia Alington, granddau. of Sir Giles Alington, and Ursula Drury, dau. of Sir Ralph Drury, and Ann Jerningham, cousin of Sir Edward Stanhope, being the dau. of Edward Jerningham, of Somerleyton, who was the brother of Mary Jerningham, wife of Sir Thomas Stanhope. Cordelia Alington was the dau. and co-heir of Richard Alington, and Jane Cordell, obit. 1602, dau. of John Cordell, and sister of Sir William Cordell, Master of the Rolls. The Alington family obtained the Manor of Wymondeley near Hitchin, from the Argentines, by the marriage of Sir William Alington, 1392-1450, of Botisham, Cambridgeshire, with Elizabeth de Argentine, 1401-1463, eldest sister and co-heir of Sir John de Argentine.
15. Sir Philip Stanhope m. (1) Catherine Hastings , 1586-1636, his second cousin, dau. of Francis Hastings, Lord Hastings, obit.1595, of Huntingdon, Berwick, and Sarah Harington, of Exton, Rutlandshire. Francis Hastings was the eldest son of George Hastings, obit. 1604, 4th. Earl Huntingdon, and Dorothy Porte, obit. 1607, sister of Margaret Porte, who was the wife of the aforementioned Sir Thomas Stanhope. Sarah Harington was the dau. of James Harington, and Lucy Sidney, of Penshurst, Kent. This is the old spelling of Harrington.
16. Sir Henry Stanhope, m. Catherine Wotten, obit. 1660, governess to Princess Mary, eldest dau. of Charles I.; created Countess of Chesterfield for life by Charles II., dau. of Thomas Wotton, obit. 1630, 2nd Baron Wotton of Marley, and Mary Throckmorton, obit. 1658.
17. Philip Stanhope, m. Lady Elizabeth Dormer.
18. Philip Stanhope, m. Lady Elizabeth Saville.
19. Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield. His timelessly apt insight into royalty bears mention: ‘George the first was an honest, dull, German gentleman, as unfit as unwilling to act the part of a king, which is to shine and to oppress. Lazy and inactive even in his pleasures, which were therefore lowly sensual. He was coolly intrepid, and indolently benevolent. He was diffident of his own parts, which made him speak little in public, and prefer in his social, which were his favourite, hours the company of wags and buffoons. Even his mistress, the duchess of Kendal, with whom he passed most of his time, and who had all influence over him, was very little above an idiot’.
253. 14. Sir John Stanhope, m (2) Catherine Trentham, dau. of Thomas Trentham of Roseter, Staffordshire.
15. Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston, m. (2) Mary Radclyffe, dau. of Sir John Radclyffe of Orsdal.
16. John Stanhope of Elvaston, m. Jane Curzon, 1625-1652, dau. of Sir John Curzon, 1st. Bart. of Keddlestone.
17. John Stanhope of Elvaston, m. Dorothy Agard, 1657-1705, dau. of Charles Agard of Foston.
18. William Stanhope, 1st Earl Harrington, m. Anne Griffith, 1695-1719, dau. of Col. Edward Griffith. William Stanhope was a British statesman and diplomat. Educated at Eton, he joined the army and served in Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession.
19. William Stanhope, 2nd Earl Harrington, m. Caroline FitzRoy, 1722–1784, dau. of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton.
20. Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Harrington, m. Jane Fleming, 1760-1820, dau. of Sir John Fleming, 1st Baronet Fleming.
21. Charles Stanhope, 4th Earl Harrington, m. Maria Foote, a celebrated actress, dau. of Samuel Foote. Charles Stanhope was renowned as an eccentric – he dressed like the French King Henry IV. Charles Stanhope was the br. of (1) Anna Maria Stanhope, Duchess of Bedford, 1783-1857, the originator of the afternoon tea ritual in England. She married Francis Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford. (2) Leicester FitzGerald Charles Stanhope, 5th Earl of Harrington, 1784-1862, who m. Elizabeth Green, 1805-1898, dau. of William Green and Ann Rose Hall. He was a soldier and politician who held radical views. He worked with Lord Byron in the cause of Greek independence, though often at odds with his friend. He wrote A Sketch of the History and Influence of the Press in British India and Greece, in 1823, drawing attention to propaganda disguised as impartial news reporting. His son was Sydney Seymour Hyde Stanhope, 6th Earl of Harrington, 1845-1866, who died unmarried, the title passing to his cousin, Charles Wyndham Stanhope, 7th Earl of Harrington, son of FitzRoy Henry Richard Stanhope, 1787-1864, Dean of St Buryan, Cornwall, and Anglican Rector of Catton, and of Wressle in Yorkshire, Caroline Wyndham, 1793-1876, illegitimate dau, of the Hon. Charles Wyndham. Charles Wyndam Stanhope was the ancestor of Charles Henry Leicester Stanhope, 12th Earl of Harrington, who m., firstly, Virginia Alleyne Freeman-Jackson, dau. of Captain Harry Freeman-Jackson and Dorothy Alleyne d’Aubigny d’Engelbronner. Their dau., Hon. Serena Alleyne Stanhope, m. David Albert Charles Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley, son of Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon and Margaret Rose Windsor, Princess Margaret.
254. 15. Sir Philip Stanhope, m. (1) Catherine Hastings.
16. Arthur Stanhope, ancestor of Philip, 5th. Earl of Chesterfield, m. Anne Salisbury, dau. of Sir Henry Salisbury, 1st. Baronet Llewenny, and Elizabeth Vaughan of Golden Grove, Caermarthinshire.
17. Charles Stanhope, m. Frances Toppe, dau. of Sir Francis Toppe.
18. Reverend Michael Stanhope, m. Penelope Lovel, dau. of Sir Salathiel Lovell. Reverend Michael Stanhope’s br. was Charles Stanhope, 1693-1759, ancestor of the 9th. Earl of Chesterfield: ‘Charles Stanhope, esq, m. Cecilia, daughter of Dutton Stede, esq. of Stede Hill, in the county of Kent: and dying in 1759, left an only son, Edwin Francis Stanhope, esq. This gentleman m. Catherine, widow of William-Berkeley Lyon, esq. and eldest dau. and co-heiress of John Brydges, Marquees of Caernarvon (son of James, first duke of Chandos), by whom he left, at his decease, in 1807, a dau., Catherine Stanhope, who m. Sir Hungerford Hoskyns, sheriff of herefordshire in the 26th year of George III. Their dau. was Maria Jane Hoskyns, who m. George Compton Reade. Their son, John Stanhope Reade, m. Lovica Walton, who was born in New York. They were married in 1836, and settled in Michigan, U.S.A. The 1880 U.S census indicated their two oldest children were born in Canada. Their dau., Catherine Reade, m. John Askworth. Their dau., Emma Louisa Asquith, m. William Barrett; their son being John Stanhope Reade Barrett, grandfather of Sylvia Horning, to whom I am indebted for this lineage.
19. Arthur Charles Stanhope, m. Margaret Headlam.
20. Philip Stanhope, m. (as his second wife, May 2, 1799), Lady Henrietta Thynne, 3rd dau. of Thomas, 1st Marquis of Bath.
21. George Augustus Frederick Stanhope, 6th Earl Chesterfield, m. Elizabeth Weld-Forester, eldest daughter of Cecil-Weld, 1st Lord Forester
22. George Philip Cecil Arthur Stanhope, 7th Earl Chesterfield. MP. for Nottinghamshire South. First President of Derbyshire Cricket Club. Achieved a top score in first-class cricket of 65.
18. Reverend Michael Stanhope, m. Penelope Lovel, dau. of Sir Salathiel Lovel, one of the barons of the Exchequer.
19. Ferdinand Stanhope, m. Mary Phillips, of Chippenham, Wiltshire.
20. John Stanhope, Rear-Admiral, baptised at St. Peter’s Church, Nottingham, m. Caroline Dent, dau. of Digby Dent: ‘The said John died on or about the seventh day of December 1800, having been married on or about the twenty-seventh day of September 1784 to Caroline, daughter of Digby Dent, Esquire, by whom he had issue male three sons, Philip John his eldest son, and Henry, both of whom died without issue, and Charles George Your Petitioner’s father’ (Journals of the House of Lords, vol. 104, p. 554, 1872).
21. Charles George Stanhope, m. (November 4, 1820), Jane Galbraith, dau. of Sir James Galbraith, who was created a Baronet in 1813, and Rebecca-Dorothea, dau. and co-heir of John Hamilton, esq. of Castlefin, by Jane Hamilton, of Brown Hall, in the county of Donegal.
22. George Philip Stanhope, November 29, 1822-October 19, 1883, 8th Earl of Chesterfield. He m. (1) Marianne Roche, dau. of William Roche, on April 8, 1856. (2) Catherine Jane Jarvis Bond, dau. of John Hildebrand Bond, on March 7, 1877. (3) Agnes Payne, dau. of James Payne, on December 7, 1882. In 1841, he gained the rank of Ensign in the 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot, and was promoted Lieutenant in April 1842. He succeeded to his title on July 7, 1873, after the death of his third-cousin. He came to live at Rockwood, Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland, and died at Killendarragh, Lifford, County Donegal, leaving an estate of less than £4,500, and no legitimate issue.
255. 15. Sir Philip Stanhope, m. (2) Anne Pakington , relict of Sir Humphrey Ferrers.
16. Alexander Stanhope, m. Catherine Burghill. He was gentleman usher to Catherine of Portugal, queen to Charles II., and sent by king William to Spain as envoy extraordinary; thence he went to the States General in the same capacity, in which he was continued by queen Anne, until recalled by his own desire, in November, 1706. Mr. Stanhope died in England, September 20th, 1767. By Catherine, dau. of Arnold Burghill, of King-hill-parva, in Herefordshire, esq., he had a gallant progeny, who were deservedly dear to England.
17. James Stanhope, Ist Earl Stanhope, m. Lucy Pitt, dau. of Thomas Pitt, Governor of Madras. Lucy Pitt was half the age of her hard-drinking husband.
18. Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl Stanhope, m. Grizel Hamilton. He was a mathematician and a fellow of the Royal Society.
19. Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope. He was educated at Eton and the University of Geneva, where he devoted himself to the study of mathematics, and acquired from Switzerland an intense love of liberty. He is sometimes confused with a contemporary of his, the 3rd Earl of Harrington. He was a supporter William Pitt the Younger, whose sister, Lady Hester Pitt, he m. on December 19, 1774. He was the chairman of the Revolution Society, whose members expressed their sympathy with the aims of the French Revolution. Indeed, Earl Stanhope referred to himself as ‘Citizen Stanhope’. In 1795, he introduced into the Lords a motion opposing any interference with the internal affairs of France. He was in a “minority of one” – a sobriquet which stuck to him throughout life. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1772, and spent much of his income conducting experiments in science. He invented a method of securing buildings from fire, a printing press, the lens which bears his name, and two calculating machines. By his first wife, he had three daus., one of whom was Lady Hester Stanhope. It is said of her that when she arrived in Athens, the poet, Lord Byron, dived into the sea to greet her! He m. (2) Louisa Grenville, dau. and sole heiress of the Hon. Henry Grenville, Governor of Barbados.
20. Philip Henry Stanhope, m. (November 19, 1803), Catherine Lucy Smith (obit. October 1, 1843), 2nd dau. of Robert Smith, 1st Baron Carrington, by his wife Anne Boldero-Barnard, 1st dau. of Lewyns Boldero-Barnard, of Cave Castle, co. York. Philip Henry Stanhope was the br. of (1) Maj. Hon. Charles Banks Stanhope (b. June 3, 1785; d. at the Battle of Corunna, January 16, 1809. (2) Lt. Col. Hon. James Hamilton Stanhope (September 7, 1788 – March 5, 1825), who m. (July 9, 1820), Lady Frederica Louisa Murray (obit. September 14, 1823), 1st dau. of David William Murray, 3rd Earl of Mansfield, and had issue: James Banks Stanhope (May 13, 1821 – January 18, 1904), of Revesby Abbey, co. Lincoln, MP. for North Lincolnshire, 1851-68.
21. Philip Henry Stanhope, the eminent historian, researcher, and writer of the ‘Notices’, to whom this account is dedicated. He m. Emily Harriet Kerrison (September 10, 1815 – December 31, 1873), 2nd dau. of Gen Sir Edward Kerrison, 1st Bt. GCH KCB, by his wife Mary Ellice, dau. of Alexander Ellice, of Pittencrieff, co. Fife. Philip Henry Stanhope was the br. of (1) Hon. George Joseph Stanhope (March 17, 1806 – November 25, 1828). (2) Lady Catherine Lucy Wilhelmina Stanhope (June 1, 1819 – May 18, 1901), who m. firstly (September 20, 1843), Hon. Archibald Primrose MP, styled Lord Dalmeny, 1st son and heir by his first wife of Archibald John Primrose, 4th Earl of Rosebery; and secondly (August 2, 1854), Harry George Vane, later Powlett, 4th Duke of Cleveland, and had issue by her first husband. The Duchess of Cleveland is remembered as the author of The Battle Abbey Roll, 1889, an account of Norman lineages.
256. 22. Arthur Philip Stanhope, 6th Earl Stanhope (September 13, 1838 – April 10, 1905), m. (March 2, 1869), Evelyn Henrietta Pennefather (obit. December 8, 1923), only dau. of Richard Pennefather, of Knockeevan, co. Tipperary, by his wife Lady Emily Arabella Georgiana Butler, 3rd dau. of Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Glengall. Arthur Philip Stanhope was the br. of (1) Lady Mary Catherine Stanhope, obit. June 30, 1876, who m. (February 18, 1868), Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp, son of General Henry Beauchamp Lygon, 4th Earl Beauchamp and Lady Susan Caroline Eliot. According to Lady St. Helier, she was “a remarkable woman, clever, accomplished, well educated, with a great deal of her father’s gift of conversation, and love of Society”. (2) Hon. Henry Augustus Stanhope (December 4, 1845 – June 17, 1933), m. (November 2, 1878), Hon. Mildred Venables-Vernon, dau. of Augustus Henry Venables-Vernon, 6th Baron Vernon and Lady Harriet Frances Maria Anson. He lived at Ashe Warren, Overton, Hampshire. (3) Philip James Stanhope, 1st Baron (December 8, 1847 – March 1, 1923), m. Alexandra Kankrin, dau. of Count … Kankrin and a dau. of … von Stael Holstein. He was commissioned in 1861 with the rank of Naval Cadet in the Royal Navy. He held the office of M.P. (Liberal) for Burnley between 1893 and 1900, and Leicestershire, Harborough Division, between 1904 and 1905. He was president of the Inter-Parliament Union in 1906. He was created 1st Baron Weardale of Stanhope, co. Durham on January 10, 1906.
23. Captain Hon. Richard Philip Stanhope, m. (May 18, 1914), Lady Beryl Franziska Kathleen Bianca Le Poer Trench, dau. of William Frederick Le Poer Trench, 5th Earl of Clancarty and Maude Penrice Bilton. He died on September 15, 1916, killed in action.
23. Hon. James Richard Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope (November 11, 1880 – August 15, 1967), m. Lady Eileen Agatha Browne, dau. of George Ulick Browne, 6th Marquess of Sligo and Agatha Stewart Hodgson. He succeeded to the titles of 7th Baron Stanhope of Elvaston, co. Derby, 7th Viscount Stanhope of Mahon, and 7th Earl Stanhope on April 19, 1905. He joined Grenadier Guards 1901, in South African War 1902, Lieut. 1904, ADC to General Officer commanding London District 1906-08, Capt 1908, Maj 1909; Member of LCC for Lewisham 1910-13; served in World War I, 1914-18, Capt. 1914-15, Maj. and temp Lt. Col. 1916; MC 1916; DSO 1917; Parliamentary Secretary to the War Office 1918-19; Civil Lord of the Admiralty 1924-29; Privy Councillor 1929; Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery 1930; Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty 1931; Under-Secretary of State for War and Vice President of the Army Council 1931-34; Knight of the Garter 1934; Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1934-36; Member of the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster 1935-37; First Commissioner of Works 1936-37; President of the Board of Education 1937-38; First Lord of the Admiralty 1938-39; Leader of the House of Lords 1938-40; Lord President of the Council 1939-40; suc. On the death of the 7th Earl Stanhope the Earldoms of Stanhope and Chesterfield and the Barony of Stanhope, previously held by the Earls of Chesterfield, became extinct. The Viscountcy of Stanhope of Mahon and the Barony of Stanhope of Elvaston, which had previously been held by the Earls Stanhope, passed in accordance with their special remainders to his kinsman, William Henry Leicester Stanhope, 11th Earl of Harrington.
THE GILBERTINES
1. Rollo, one Scandinavian leader among several who vied for outright control of the relatively small amount of territory ceded to them, around Rouen, by Charles III., King of France, in return for providing protection against fellow Scandinavian raiders, and giving feudal allegiance to the king. Although history tends to be written as if evolves around the actions of individuals, making it easy for people to identify with and understand, these leaders would have had the essential support of other powerful men.
1.1. William Longsword. ‘William first appears as the leader of the Normans in the year 933 [‘Willelmus, princeps Nordmannorum, eidem regi se committit; cui etiam rex dat terram Brittonum in ora maritima sitam].’ Flodoard, Annales, s.a. 933, 55; van Houts [2000, 45], having succeeded his father Rollo sometime in or after 928 [Rollo’s last known appearance in the records, see Flodoard, Annales, s.a. 928, 41; ibid.]In (probably) 942, he was treacherously killed at the instigation of Arnulf I of Flanders [‘Arnulfus comes Willelmum, Nordmannorum principem, ad colloquium evocatum dolo perimi fecit.” Flodoard, Annales, s.a. 943, 86; supra, 47]. Shortly thereafter, an anonymous poet wrote the Planctus, a poem lamenting his death’ (Stewart Baldwin). Flodoard states that William’s mother was a ‘concubina Brittanna’, which, in the context of the Planctus, which states his mother was from ‘overseas’, might mean Britain, and, specifically, the Irish Sea (Hibernian) region associated with Viking piracy.
1.1.1. Richard I., ‘duke’ of Normandy, born 933, died November 20, 996.
1.1.1.1. Goisfred, born circa 958, died 1010, assassinated.
1.1.1.1.1. Gilbert de Brionne. He was named as ‘Gislebertus Brionensis Comes primi Ricardi Normannorum ducis nepos, ex filio Consule Godefrido’, in the foundation charter of Bec, circa 1034. He was born circa 980, and most modern historians state that he was assassinated in 1040 or 1041, after he had become tutor of the young Duke William.
1.1.1.1.1.1. Richard FitzGilbert (de Bienfait), s.l. 1088, from the town (St. Martin de Bienfait) of that name near Liseux, the caput of the Crispin family. A popular fallacy is that he was born circa 1035, this being based on an incorrect date being given for the death of his father, i.e. 1035. His son, Roger, was a justicar of England in 1075.
1.1.1.1.1.2. Glbert Crispin I. His sobriquet derives from OFr crespin, a derivative of crespe ‘curly’ – he had ‘capillos crispos et rigidos, atque sursum erectos, et ut ita dicam, rebursos ad modum pini ramorum, qui sepe tendunt sursum’. Hence the name of ‘Crispinus, quasi crispus pinus’ (Milo Crispin, How The Holy Virgin Appeared To William Crispin The Elder And On The Origin Of The Crispin Family, ed. Migne, cols. 735-744, 185). The same source notes that he was ‘of renowned origin and nobility’, without revealing detail! He was also known as ‘Gilbertus de Teuleriis’, Castellan (1041) of Tillieres, arrondissement of Evreux, and was probably a son of a concubine. That he was not the same person as Gilbert de Brionne has been recognised in academic sources for nearly 200 years – Aug. Le Provost, Rom. Rou, t. II, p. 232 and 238; Mem. League of Antiqe de Normandy,1828-1829, p. 419; Mabillon ‘Life of St. Hellouin’, Gall. Christ., vol. xi. – as detailed in MSAN, pp. 110-112, 1837. Unfortunately, the beam of knowledge has not illuminated many ‘internet histories’, which have an ageing Gilbert, Count of Brionne, being a commander of a border fort, presumably in between his tutoring duties. Gilbert Crispin 1. was also given command of Damville, dioc. d’Evreux, another fort on the ‘frontière normande’. Gilbert’s son, also Gilbert, inherited the command of Tillieres, his brother, William, was given the command of Neaufles, another important border fort. The Crispin brothers were to become known as ‘de Colville’, the name of another fort and land (at Colleville-sur-Mer), they were given by Duke William prior to the Conquest.
1.1.1.1.1.3. William Crispin 1., ancestor of the Stanhope family.
1.1.1.1.1.2.1. Gilbert Crispin II. He donated a moiety of Damville to Bec in 1070, a gift witnessed by Richard FitzGilbert (de Bienfait), ‘Ricardi filii Gisleberti comitis’. The heir of this line continued to be called Gilbert for several more generations; Gilbert VI. died at Acre before March 25, 1191.
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Walter FitzGilbert de Hamilton 
Love your work.
My wife and I are both in different Stanhope lines.
Hers the Ellens back and mine from the Dudleys back.
we are here in New Zealand.
Clive and Vicki.
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