MMDF Chapter Nine

A.D. 1500 - 1544

WILLIAM DANVERS OF CULWORTH

William Danvers, the third son of John Danvers of Dauntsey, and his wife, Anne Stradling, was born about the year 1495, and probably at Culworth, where we have some reason to believe his father was at the time living.

William was the first of the family who was emphatically ‘of Culworth’; for though the manor belonged to his grandfather, Richard, and to his uncle, Richard, they were ‘of Prestcote,’ and his father is always known to the genealogists as ‘John of Dauntsey.’  But William’s home was at Culworth; to Culworth he carried his bride, Elizabeth Fiennes; there his children were born, and there his descendants remained for many generations.

Marriage

Baker, in his History of Northamptonshire, states that William Danvers was married in the year 1522, and though he does not give authority for his statement, the date is a probable one; for William’s son and heir, John, was born in 1524-25, and authentic evidence exists that two or three years previously William was thinking—or his family were thinking for him—of getting a wife.  Aske, who made his pedigree of the Danvers family in the year 1520, mentions that William Danvers was not then married; but in the preceding year, in the Close Roll of 10 Henry VIII,9.1 may be found an indenture between Dame Anne Danvers, late wife of Sir John Danvers, and William Danvers, one of their sons, on the one part, and Thomas Danvers, son and heir of Sir John and Dame Anne, on the other.  The indenture refers to the deed appended to the will of Sir John, by which he makes Sir Richard Fowler, Sir Thomas Englefield, and others trustees of his Culworth Mandeville, Culworth Pynkeney, and Sulgrave manors, with their appurtenances—viz., fifty messuages, twelve cottages, fourteen tofts, five hundred acres of arable land, five hundred acres of meadow, five hundred acres of pasture, fifty acres of wood, and a water mill, which manors and lands were to pass to his second son, Richard, and failing him or his heirs male, to the use of Dame Anne for her life.  After her death, to William, his third son, and after his death, should he die without male issue, to the right heirs of Sir John.  And now Thomas, the eldest son of Sir John, for the sum of money which he had of Dame Anne, and also because of her request, and ‘for that she should be the better mother to him, and because of the singular good mind which he had to his younger brother William, and for his advancement towards marriage, and for the advancement of the blood of the said William,’ agrees that the trustees shall grant to Dame Anne for her life, and after her decease to the use of her son William, and of such wife, or of any wives, whom he shall hereafter marry, and to his heirs male.

Additional Charter (Culworth Series), No. 38879, dated May 18, 1526, is an indenture arranging for the use of the manors of Culworth and that of Sulgrave Pinkney by Ann Danvers, widow of Sir John Danvers, Knt., for her life, and after her death for that of her son William and his wife Elizabeth and their children.  Charter 38881, dated 23 November 1536, gives the reversion of the above manors and of that of Smythcote, Wilts, to William Danvers, but with the provision that if Sylvester Danvers makes over the Culworth and Sulgrave manors to William Danvers, the manor of Smythcote is to pass to him.  Charter 38882 of the year 1542 is an indenture made between Sylvester Danvers and William Danvers on the one part, and Thomas Nevell, of Holt upon the Hill, Leicester, and Edward Griffyn of Dyngley, Northampton, on the other, and provides for the entail of the manors to the heirs of the body of William Danvers.  Charter 38883 bears the Great Seal, and is dated at Westminster, 12 February 1542, and confirms to William Danvers the manors which had been made over to him by Thomas Nevell and Edward Griffyn, viz., the two manors of Culworth and that of Sulgrave Pinkney.  We have in our possession a deed which provides for the entail of the manors of Culworth Mandeville, Culworth Pinkney, and Sulgrave Pinkney.  The deed is dated January 1 of 34 Henry VIII (1542), and is between Sylvester Danvers, of Dauntsey, Esqre., and William Danvers, of Culworth, on the one part, and Thomas Nevell, of Holt upon the Hill, Leicester, Esquire, and Edward Gryffyn, of Dyngley, Northton, Esqre., on the other.  The deed is signed by Sylvester Danvers and William Danvers.  The seal of the former appears to bear a coat-of-arms, but the details are illegible; that of the latter is a device.  On the back of the deed, in the handwriting of the period, is written ‘The Intayle of Culworth.’

The deed appended to the will of Sir John is interesting, not only as the charter which established William and his descendants in Culworth, but because it gives us the extent of the Culworth estate, which was that of a country squire of good position.  William added to the estate, for in Fine No. 148 of 35 Henry VIII (1543) we find him buying of Robert Lovell of Culworth two messuages, thirty acres of arable land, twenty acres of pasture, and two acres of wood.  Moreover, his careful and loving mother stocked the home farm liberally for him, as we learn from her will, in which she gives him all the debts owing to her for sheep and other stuff at Prescote, and £20 for his son Thomas to find him an exhibition to school, and twelve score of wethers out of her stock at Culworth.  To him also she leaves the farm called Fulweke, beside Chippenam, which she had purchased of the late Abbot of Malmesbury, and gives him certain years yet to come in the parsonage of Culworth on condition that he finds corn sufficient for such as shall come into those parts for the performance of her last will.

Therefore we may conclude it was about the year 1522 that William Danvers wedded Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele of Broughton Castle.  But how came the Fiennes to be settled at Broughton, far away from their ancestral home at Herstmonceaux in Sussex? and whence did they get their new title? and why, if Barons Saye and Sele, is Elizabeth Danvers’ father called simply ‘Richard Fiennes’?  Now, in order to explain all this, we will for a time leave William Danvers and his bride and Culworth, and briefly trace the history of the Fiennes family.

FIENNES FAMILY

In Normandy

The Fiennes or Fienles family were of baronial rank, and came from Fiennes, a place not far from Calais.  Eustace, Baron of Fiennes, about the year 1020 married Adila, lady of Ardres, daughter of Everard de Furnés, and had by her a son, Conon de Fiennes, who founded Beaulieu Abbey, Boulogne, and had issue Conon, the father of Eustace, ancestor of the Barons de Fiennes.  The family was at a very early period seated in Kent, and held the office of hereditary Castellans of Dover Castle.  Such is the brief history of the origin of the family which is given in The Norman People, and it is supported by many ancient records.  The name appears in the Battle Abbey Roll, but in a curiously misspelt form, as Fleutz.9.3

Ingelram de Fiennes and Sybil de Tyngrie

The first of the family in England regarding whom more than a mere mention can be found in authentic ancient rolls is Ingelram de Fiennes, a famous warrior, Constable of Dover Castle, and Steward of the Household to Henry.9.3  Ingelram was a Crusader, and was slain at Acre in the Holy Land in the year 1190.  His wife was Sybil de Tyngrie, a lady of very ancient and illustrious descent, the daughter and heir of Faramus, Count of Boulogne.  Of her ancestry we might have known but little had not she and her father been benefactors to the great Norman Abbey of Bec (the abbey which gave Lanfranc and St Anselm to England), amongst the charters of which their good deeds, and their descent, are recorded.  Curiously enough, the genealogists of her family have fallen into the mistake of making Sybil, the great, or rather, great-great-granddaughter of Eustace III of Boulogne, who married Mary (the daughter of Malcolm of Scotland and his Queen the sainted Margaret), mother of Matilda the Queen of King Stephen.  But this Sybil could not have been, for, in the first place, Mary and Eustace III had but one child, Matilda, and further, it is barely possible that Sybil, whose husband was slain in the year 1190, can have been fourth in descent from Eustace III, who died about the year 1125.

Descent of Sybil de Tyngrie from Charlemagne

The charter of Sybil de Tyngrie is given at length in the Monasticon Anglicanum, and she is styled therein Domina de Clopham, and daughter of Faramus de Boulogne.  Her father’s charter is quoted in the same volume, and styles him son of William, son of Geoffrey, son of Eustace of Boulogne.  The names of the brothers of Eustace III, sons of Eustace II, are well known in history: they were Godfrey de Bouillon and Baldwin, the renowned Crusaders.  But Eustace I—Eustace ‘with the eye’—Count of Boulogne, who married Mahaut, the daughter of Lambert, ‘the bearded’ Count of Louvain (died about 1049), had several sons, and of these one was Geoffrey, who probably was the great-grandfather of Sybil de Tyngrie.  Willingly would one accept the descent of Sybil which Dugdale and others assume for her—that from Eustace III and Mary,9.4 the sister of Matilda, Queen of Henry I, children of the sainted Margaret, through whom the old kingly blood passed into the veins of the descendants of the Conqueror, whose fathers were the whole line of Saxon kings, and whose mothers’ kin went up to the Caesars who bore rule in Rome9.5—yet the descent of Eustace I is sufficiently illustrious, for it passed upwards through the Dukes of Ponthieu to Bertha, the daughter of Charlemagne.

Descent of the Harcourt Family from Charlemagne

Elizabeth Fiennes, who married William Danvers of Culworth, was grand-daughter of Anne Harcourt, who married Henry of Broughton.  Anne was seventh in descent from Sir William Harcourt, who married Hilaria, daughter of Henry Lord Hastings, whose wife Ada, through the Earls of Huntingdon, was descended from Malcolm III of Scotland and his wife St Margaret of Scotland.  Sir William Harcourt was a descendant of Henry I of France, and through him of Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne.  Therefore the Danvers family can claim both descents mentioned.

Herst and Monceaux

From Ingelram de Fiennes and his wife, Sybil de Tyngrie, descended many warrior-knights, of whom, John, fifth in descent from Ingelram, married Maude, the daughter and heiress of Sir John de Monceaux, of Herst-Monceaux, and with her brought into the family the blood and the estates of the ancient families of de Herst and Monceaux.  William, their son, married, in the reign of Edward III, another great heiress, of even more illustrious descent, Joane, sister and co-heiress of William de Saye, of whom more presently.  William Fiennes and Joane de Saye had a son, another William, who, by his wife, Elizabeth Battisford, had two sons, Roger and James.

Roger inherited the greater part of the family estates, and he it was who built at Herstmonceaux the castle, the ruins of which testify to its former magnificence.

MURDER OF JAMES FIENNES, LORD SAYE

James, the other son, fought valiantly in the wars of Henry V, and received from that King and from his son, Henry VI, much preferment.  He was created Lord Saye and Sele, and, amongst other posts, held those of Constable of the Tower and Lord Treasurer of England.  He was amongst the ministers whom the Earl of Suffolk chose to replace the great nobles who had hitherto been the advisers of the Crown, and on him fell a considerable part of the unpopularity which Suffolk’s measures roused amongst the people.

Shortly after Suffolk’s execution, the men of Kent, to whom Lord Saye was well known, rose in arms, and, under the leadership of Jack Cade, entered London.  There, in the Guildhall, a court of justice, of which Robert Danvers was made president, was formed, and before it Lord Saye was brought.  The excited crowd of insurgents would listen to no appeal from him for justice, or even for a hearing, and he was carried away, executed in Cheapside, and his head and that of his son-in-law, William Cromer, of Tunstall, Kent, at the time Sheriff of the county, were set upon two poles, carried about the streets, and were finally placed on London Bridge.9.6

As Pictured by Shakespeare in Henry VI

The scene is pictured by Shakespeare in the play of Henry VI, in which Lord Saye thus addresses Cade and his followers:

‘I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy;

Yet to recover them, would lose my life.

Justice with favour have I always done;

Prayers and tears have moved me, gifts could never. 

When have I aught exacted at your hands,

Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and you?

Large gifts have I bestowed on learned clerks,

Because my book preferr’d me to the king:

And—seeing ignorance is the curse of God,

Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven, -

Unless you be possess’d with devilish spirits,

You cannot but forbear to murder me. 

This tongue hath parley’d unto foreign kings

For your behoof . . . 

Tell me wherein I have offended most?

Have I affected wealth, or honour; speak?

Are my chests filled up with extorted gold?

Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?

Whom have I injured, that ye seek my death?

These hands are free from guiltless blood shedding,

This breast from harbouring foul, deceitful thoughts. 

O, let me live!

Ah, countrymen! if, when you make your prayers,

God should be so obdurate as yourselves,

How would it fare with your departed souls?

And therefore yet relent and save my life.’

Fiennes Family Descent from James Fiennes

Lord Saye was murdered on 4 July 1450, and was succeeded in his title and estates by William, his son by his wife Emmeline de Walsingham.9.7  William married Margaret, daughter and heiress of William Wykeham, the lady who brought to the Fiennes family Broughton Castle and other estates which her father inherited from his father, Sir Thomas Wykeham, great-nephew and heir of William of Wykeham.  William, second Lord Saye, served with the King in Guines, taking with him twenty men-at-arms and eighty archers, was made Constable of the castles of Porchester and Pevensey, was Vice-Admiral to Richard, Earl of Warwick, and died fighting valiantly for the King at the battle of Barnet in 1471.  Margaret, his wife, after his death married a certain John Harvey, and died on May 20, 17 Edward IV (1477).  Her inquisition,9.8 taken at Dadyngton, in Oxfordshire speaks of her as the heiress of William Wykeham, and as formerly wife of William Fenys, Dominus de Say.  In Oxfordshire she and her husband held of the King the manors of Broughton, North Newington, and Bloxham, and the fourth part of the manor of Stanlake.  This last they had settled upon their son Henry and his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Harcourt.  Margaret survived her son, and her heir was Richard, son of Henry and Anne, aged at the time of his grandmother’s death six years and more.

HARCOURT FAMILY

Henry Fiennes married, as just stated, Anne Harcourt, whose descent takes us back to the early history of the Cotentin, where, about the period of the Conquest, the Harcourts were the suzerains of the Danvers family.  Anne’s father was Sir Richard Harcourt of Witham, son of Sir Thomas Harcourt, who, again, was son of another Sir Thomas and his wife, Matilda, daughter of Lord Grey of Rotherfield.  Sir Thomas descended from the Sir Robert Harcourt who, at the time of the Conquest, married Matilda, daughter of William de Braose, lord of Bramber Castle.

FIENNES FAMILY

Henry Fiennes in right of his mother, was lord of Broughton Castle, but his lot fell in evil times, for twice he was made prisoner in the wars, and he was obliged to sell or mortgage almost the whole of his estates in order to pay his ransoms; and so it happened that, because of the loss of his estates, his son and grandson were not summoned to Parliament, and ‘were called only Fiennes.’

His inquisition, taken at Dadyngton in January (No.34) of 16 Edward IV (1476), shows the low estate to which his fortunes had fallen.  He is called ‘dominus de Say,’ but he held of the King in Oxfordshire only two acres of land and two tofts in Bloxham.  He died on August 1, 16 Edward IV, and his heir was his son, the child Richard, then two years of age.

Richard Fiennes and Richard Croft

Richard is mentioned in his grandmother’s inquisitions, in both of which he is described as son of Henry, son of William and Margaret.  With him the fortunes of the family revived, for he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Croft, receiving with her as dower the family estates of which Sir Richard had become possessed.  Thomas Brandon, esquire of the body to Henry VII, obtained wardship and custody of the land of Richard Fiennes, and sold these to Richard Croft of Chipping Norton, Oxforshire.9.9  Sir Richard was, it would seem, the Richard Croft who was Sheriff of Herefordshire in the year 1471.  He was the tutor under whom Edward, Earl of March, afterwards Edward IV, and his brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were brought up.9.10  We find the young earls complaining of their tutor’s severities; yet Sir Richard, faithful, though austere, retained his pupil’s favour after his accession to the throne.

Elizabeth Fiennes and William Danvers

Richard Fiennes died on 30 September 1501,9.11 leaving as his heir his son Edward, aged one year and more.  He left also three daughters, of whom Anne, the eldest, married John, Lord Zouch; another, Mary, became a nun of Godstowe; and the third, Elizabeth, married William Danvers of Culworth.

Edward Fiennes and Margaret Danvers

Edward Fiennes, son of Richard, married, about the year 1519, Margaret, daughter of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey and his wife, Dame Anne.  Edward Fiennes died on July 7, 1528,9.12 and was buried in Broughton Church, where his tomb remains.  His son and heir was Richard, aged, at the time of his father’s death, eight years.

As regards the subsequent history of the family of Fiennes, we need only add that the male line failing, the barony passed to the descendants of Sir John Twistleton, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of James, second Viscount Saye and Sele, great-grandson of the above-mentioned Richard Fiennes.

DE SAY FAMILY

There are still two lines of ancestry of the Fiennes, and therefore of the Danvers family, which deserve brief notice.  They are those of the families of de Saye and Wykeham.

As already noticed, William Fiennes, who died in 1360, married Joane de Say, descended from the Picot de Say who came to England at the time of the Conquest, and belonged to a baronial family of the name which, even at that early period, had been settled for many generations in the Cotentin.  His son, Engelram de Say, was one of Stephen’s most valiant partisans, and was with him taken prisoner in 1141 at the battle of Lincoln.  His son, William de Say, married Beatrice, sister to Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, a match which in its history forcibly illustrates the licence and disorder of those times.

Geoffrey de Mandeville

The grandfather of Geoffrey was the Geoffrey de Mandeville, who, fighting courageously by William’s side at Senlac, ‘hewed down his adversaries on every side,’ and was rewarded with the gift of many lordships taken from his slain or conquered foes, and amongst these were two—Culworth Mandeville and Thorpe Mandeville in Northampton—where, in after times, were seated his descendants, the Danvers family.  Another of Geoffrey’s manors was that of Wardene, in Essex, where he built the castle which became the chief seat of his immediate descendants.  He was succeeded by his son, William, who married Margaret de Rie, daughter and heiress of Eudo, Steward of Normandy.9.13  To him succeeded Geoffrey, who was by Stephen created Earl of Essex, and endowed with many privileges and estates.  But, in order to win this powerful noble to her side, Stephen’s rival, the Empress Matilda, offered and gave him charters, by which he was granted even greater privileges than Stephen was able to confer.  The Empress made him Constable of the Tower, Hereditary Sheriff of Middlesex, and promised, for herself and her heirs, that she would not, without his consent, make peace with his foes, the citizens of London.

But not long after Geoffrey fell into Stephen’s hands, who stripped him of his possessions, and taking from him his castles of Wardene and Plessy, left him a homeless man.  Geoffrey, however, was a man of resources, of lawless spirit, at this time, at any rate, not troubled with a tender conscience.  He had married his sister Beatrice to Hugh Talbot of Normandy; him he caused her to divorce, and married her to William de Say, ‘a stout and warlike man.’  These companions collected soldiers, and began to make reprisals upon the King, ravaging his private domains, and spoiling and pillaging in all directions.  Amongst other exploits, they seized Ramsey Abbey, turned out the monks, sold the vestments, plate, and furniture, and converted the Abbey into a fortress.  For this and other such exploits Geoffrey was excommunicated, but even excommunication did not check his career, in which he continued till, having in the day of battle taken off his helmet, he received an arrow-wound in the head, which was evidently a fatal one.  Whereupon with great contrition for his sins, and making what satisfaction he could, he lay helpless and dying.  As the Earl was drawing his last breath, some Knights Templars chanced to pass by and threw over him the habit of their order, that he might die with the cross upon his breast, and having thus done, carried his body with them to London.  Give him Christian burial they could not, for none but the Pope could absolve so great a sinner; but they placed the Earl’s body in a lead coffin, and hung it upon a gnarled tree in the Temple garden.  There for some time the body remained, till Geoffrey’s brother-in-law, William de Say, together with the Prior of Wardene, obtained from Pope Alexander III absolution for his soul and leave of Christian burial for his body.  But the Templars, hearing that the Earl’s friends were coming to remove the body, privately buried it in a nameless place in their new churchyard, where possibly the coffin and the bones of the Earl may still remain.

De Say, Beauchamp, and de Toeni

William de Say and Beatrice Mandeville had two sons and two daughters.  One only of the sons, Geoffrey, survived his father, and he gained great estates by his marriage with the daughter and heiress of Walter de Maminot.

Passing by the intervening members of the family of de Say, we may notice Maude, wife of Geoffrey de Say, and mother of the Joane who married William Fiennes.  Maude was the daughter of Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, one of the great baronial party which controlled, and finally deposed, Edward II.  The Earl married Alice, daughter of de Toeni, widow of Thomas de Leyborne, and Maude de Say was one of their children.  Guy died in the year 1315, and his will has been preserved.  It is a curious document if only as evidence of the articles which a great noble counted amongst the valuables of his personalty.  To Alice, his wife, he leaves part of his plate, a crystal cup, half his bedding, and all the vestments and books in his chapel.  The other half of his beds, rings, and jewels he leaves to his daughters, and to Maude a crystal cup.

WYKEHAM FAMILY

The other line of ancestry of the Fiennes family which we have to notice is that of the family of the famous Bishop, William of Wykeham, through the marriage of his heiress, Margaret Wykeham, with William Fiennes.  The descent opens the question—one hotly disputed in the latter part of the sixteenth century between Fiennes of Broughton Castle and the Wykehams of Swalecliffe —whether William of Wykeham was allied in blood to the latter family.

Wykehams of Swalecliffe and Stoke

The Wykehams appear to have been seated at Swalecliffe, at Wykeham, and at Stoke from a very early period.  Their pedigree claims for them descent from a Robert,9.14 son of Walchelin, who is mentioned in Domesday, and the evidence for the descent is well founded, though apparently confused, owing to members of the family having take their appellations now from one, now from another, of the places in which they held lands.  It is beyond doubt that the Robert of Witham (Wicham) and Robert de Swalecliffe of the Rot. Hundredorum, 1278, are one and the same person, and that this Robert was the son of the man who in the Testa de Neville is called Richard de Stokes.  This is proved by an entry in the De Banco Roll of Michaelmas, 26 Henry III (Rot. 25), in which Robert de Wykham claims lands in Stoke as the son of Robert, son of ‘Ricus Stok.’  We shall not detail at length the pedigree of the Wykeham family, but may mention that amongst the charters which are recorded in the chartulary of Eynsham Abbey is one, placed next to that of Richard Danvers, already referred to (page NO TAG), which mentions Thomas Wykeham, son of Thomas,9.15 son of Robert Wykeham.  The Robert here mentioned was no doubt the Robert of the Rotul. Hundredorum, and it was his son, another Robert, who married Katherine de La Lee, mother or aunt to the Isabella de La Lee who married John, son of Simon Danvers.

WILLIAM WYKEHAM, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER

But to revert to William of Wykeham, the great prelate, statesman, architect, and builder, the founder of Winchester College and of New College.  Did he belong to the gentle race of Wykeham of Swalecliffe, or was he the son of the plebeian John Long of Wicham, as his biographer, Bishop Lowth, evidently considered him?  This much we know, that William Wykeham, or de Wykeham—for he signs himself in both ways—was born in the year 1324 at Wicham, in Hampshire, and that his father was commonly called John Long.  His mother, Sybill, was of gentle race, the daughter of Alice and William Bowade, and granddaughter of Amice and William Stratton, the son of the lord of Stratton, near Selborne.  John Long and Sybill had two children—William, the future Chancellor, and Agnes, who married William Champneys.  It seems probable that Agnes was twice married, and that the name of her other husband was Frye.  The evidence is a pedigree on the back of a document which was used in an action against Winchester College for the recovery of one of the College manors.9.16  Alice, daughter of William and Agnes, married William Perot, or Perrot,9.17 and their son, Thomas, changed his name, as did his brothers also, and became Sir Thomas Wykeham.  This step they took during the lifetime of their great-uncle, William of Wykeham, and clearly with his approval, or he would not have made them his heirs under their new name.

Sir Thomas Wykeham married Elizabeth, the daughter of William Wilkins, of Wylkesey, or Wilcote, and their son, William, married the daughter of Sir Reginald de Trumpington.  William Wykeham’s daughter and heir, Margaret, married Sir William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, from whom descended the Fenys or Fiennes of Broughton and the Danvers of Culworth.

This much prefaced, we pass on to the question of the Bishop’s origin—a question which has been much debated.  Here we can do little more than show how it was the question became so prominent, leaving, those who desire further information on the subject to seek it with the help of the references which are subjoined.9.18

Wykehams of Swalecliffe and Founder’s Kin

In the year 1569 Richard Fiennes was admitted to Winchester College as founder’s kin: for he was son of Sir Richard Fiennes of Broughton, who was great-great-grandson of Margaret, wife of William Lord Saye, daughter and heiress of William Wykeham of Broughton.  The success of Sir Richard Fiennes in obtaining admission for his son to Winchester seems to have stirred his neighbour, Humphrey Wykeham of Swalecliffe, to make a similar claim.  Humphrey affirmed that the founder of Winchester College belonged to the Wykeham family, and he appealed to Lord Burghley to support his claim.  Burghley referred the matter to Commissioners, of whom the principal was Glover, then Somerset Herald.  Somerset Herald reported that Sir Richard Fiennes was undoubtedly kin to the Bishop, being lineally descended from his sister Agnes, but that Humphrey Wykeham was not able to show by his pedigree that he was ab uno stipite with the Bishop, and that he relied for the proof of his kinship upon two arguments—identity of name and of arms.  But, says Somerset, the Bishop had his name from Wicham in Hampshire, the place where he was born, while a reliable pedigree makes him the son of John Long.  And as regards the similarity of arms, the Bishop had two coats.  At one time he sealed with a chevron between three roses, and subsequently with two chevrons between three roses, which would show that he had not a family coat-of-arms.  Further, though the Wykehams of Swalecliffe bore the two chevrons between three roses, these, says Sir Richard Fiennes, Humphrey’s adversary, are not their proper arms, which, as seen in the windows of Swalecliffe Church, are ermine a border gules replenished with mullets of gold; and, adds Somerset Herald, ‘Humphrey hath not made proof that his ancestors, before the time of the Bishop, used the chevron and mullets, while in divers books in our office the other coat appears as theirs.’  The cause was finally tried before the Lord Keeper, and was given against Humphrey Wykeham.  In 1633, and again in 1635-36, when the family pretensions were revived, the decisions were again adverse.

But more recently the claims of the Wykeham family to kinship with the great Bishop have been very ably raised and supported by C. Wykeham Martin, Esq., who throws doubts upon the use by the Bishop of coats-of-arms differing at two periods of his life, and thinks he has established the early use by the Wykehams of the arms which the Bishop used.  He shows, too, that many of the Bishop’s kin who were admitted to the college as such bore the name of Wykeham, that one of them was admitted to Winchester as founder’s kin during the Bishop’s lifetime, and another, Percival Wykeham of Swalecliffe, about thirty years after the Bishop’s death.  He also shows that the Bishop had many relatives named Wykeham, and adduces the fact that the Bishop was well known to the Swalecliffe family, that he bought Broughton, a part of their old possessions, and there settled his great-nephew, Sir Thomas Perot, who took the name of Wykeham, becoming Sir Thomas Wykeham.

Mr Martin contends that the name ‘Long,’ which the Bishop’s father bore, was a nickname only, having reference to his stature; and his argument for the identity of arms of the Bishop with those of the Wykehams of Swalecliffe is ably supported.  It is not, however, convincing, and, indeed, Mr Martin does not claim to have proved his case.  Moreover, two considerations seem to have been overlooked by those who have argued the matter: the first is that if William of Wykeham did change his name, taking the name of his birthplace instead of that of his father (whose was at the time a well-known name in Wiltshire), it is very likely that others of the family may have done the same, so accounting for the number of his relatives who bore the name Wykeham; and as regards his partiality to the neighbourhood of Swalecliffe, which is inferred from his purchase of Broughton Castle, we have to remember that a branch of the Perot family was settled in the neighbourhood, and that other interests which will presently be mentioned would draw his attention to Broughton at a time when he was looking for a suitable estate on which to seat his heir, Sir Thomas Perot, or Wykeham.

The adversaries of Humphrey Wykeham’s claim have always made one of their strong points the circumstance that the Bishop, in his will, calls Thomas Wykeham, son of Alice Perot, his cousin, and makes him his heir; whereas, though he mentions the other Thomas Wykeham—Thomas of Swalecliffe—he does not claim relationship with him.  And this consideration is materially strengthened by the fact that when the Bishop was arranging the succession to his Broughton property, which, in part if not wholly, once belonged to the Swalecliffe family, he makes no mention of them, though he goes very far afield in search of relatives to whom he may devise remainders to it.  These dispositions are contained in documents with which apparently Bishop Lowth was not acquainted: they are Oxon Fine No. 31 of 16 Richard II, which was printed in the Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica,9.19 and an entry in the De Banco Roll of the same year.9.20  We learn thence that the Bishop acquired from Thomas Cook and John de Keton the manors of Broughton, Northnewenton, Wyvelscote, Stanlake, and the advowsons of the churches of Broughton, Wyvelscote, and Stanlake.  Thomas and John concede to the Bishop the manors of Wyvelscote and Stanlake, and two-thirds of the manors of Broughton and Northnewenton, with the advowsons as above.  The third part of the manors of Broughton and Northnewenton was part of the inheritance of Thomas Cook, and had been given by him as dowry to Elizabeth, wife of Robert Chambre, and this third was not to revert to the Bishop until after the death of Robert and Elizabeth.  John Keton was precentor of the church of Southampton, and is mentioned in the Bishop’s will.  Robert Chambre was a confidential servant of the Bishop’s, and Thomas Cook was also connected in business matters with the Bishop;9.21 and this connection of Thomas, John, and Robert with the Bishop, together with the circumstance that the Perot family were seated in the neighbourhood, may be taken to account for the Bishop’s selection of this property, without resorting to the supposition that his choice was influenced by any relationship with the Wykehams of Swalecliffe whose ancestors at one time owned Broughton.

Disposition of the Bishop’s Estates

After the death of the Bishop the above-mentioned manors and advowsons were to pass to Thomas de Wykeham, son of William Perot and his wife Alice, kinswoman of the Bishop.  In case Thomas should leave no children, the estate was to pass to his brother, John de Wykeham; and failing him, to another brother, William de Wykeham.  If the three brothers, sons of William and Alice Perot, died leaving no children, then the deed provides for remainder in turn to the following individuals: William Ryngeborne and Edith his wife and their children, Thomas Warenner and Joan his wife and their children, Guido Aynho and Agnes his wife and their children, William Maviel and Isabel his wife and their children, John Beneyt de Bottele and his children, and failing all these to the right heirs of the Bishop.

Now, who are all these people whom the Bishop thus mentions? Thomas, John, and William Perot, who took the name of Wykeham, we know, and if we turn to the pedigree of the Bishop’s family, given in Bishop Lowth’s work, we shall find that the others were all relatives of the Bishop’s father, John Long.  Long’s sister Alice married John Akemore, and they had five daughters, Emma, Margery, Alice, Maud and Joan.  Alice married Robert Mavyell, and had a son, Robert Mavyell.  Margery married  . . . Rokle, and they had a son, John, and three daughters—Edith, who married William Ryngborne; Agnes, who married Guy Aynho; and Isabel, who married another member of the Mavyell family, William, and by him had a son, another William Mavyell, and a daughter, Edith, who married William Croyser.

Emma, sister to Margery Rokle, married . . . Carpenter, and had a son, William, and a daughter, Joan, who married Sir Thomas Warrener, or Warner.

To find John Beneyt de Bottele, we must go back to the Bishop’s grandmother, Alice Bowade, who had a sister, Gillian, married to Richard Bottele.  Gillian’s daughter, Emma, married Richard Beneyt, and their son, John Beneyt de Bottele, second cousin to the Bishop, is the individual mentioned in the Oxford Fine.

Thus, in this deed, we find the Bishop, in making provision for the disposal of his Broughton estate, confines himself to the descendants of his own, the Stratton, family, and goes far afield in order to include some of them.  Now, why should he have done this if he was near kin to his neighbours, the Wykehams of Swalecliffe, and why are they omitted in this deed, and as legatees in the Bishop’s will?  The only reasonable reply is that they were not related to the Bishop’s family.  Moreover, in this deed the Bishop was dealing with the Broughton property, in which the Wykehams of Swalecliffe were interested.  Another very similar deed to the above is printed in the appendix to Bishop Lowth’s Life of William of Wykeham.  It is one in which Wykeham made provision for the descent of the Wiltshire manors of Burnham and Brean, which he had acquired.  On the Bishop’s death these manors were to pass to his nephew, William Wykeham, who was about to marry Alice Uvedale, daughter to Wykeham’s friend, Sir John Uvedale.  The succession of the remainders varies slightly from that of the Oxfordshire property, as is shown in the appended table.

Demise of the Manors of Broughton, Burnham and Brean, with a Comparison of the Successive Remainders.

Broughton Burnham and Brean

On the Bishop’s death Broughton went to Sir Thomas Wykeham, who, with his wife, is buried beneath the fine altar-tomb, in the chancel of Broughton Church, which is prominent in one of our illustrations.  Sir Thomas’s son and heir was the William Wykeham whose daughter, Margaret, married William Fiennes.

BROUGHTON CASTLE

Broughton Castle and House

Broughton Castle is situated about three miles south-west of Banbury, in a valley formed by low, well-wooded hills.  Surrounding the castle is a broad moat, across which a bridge gives access, beneath a gateway tower, to the castle enclosure.  Close at hand is the parish church, standing amidst over-shadowing trees.  John de Broughton held the manor in capite by the serjeanty of mewing a goshawk for the King.9.23

The castle, as approached from the gateway, has the characters of a grand Elizabethan mansion; but only externally is it such, for the internal arrangements are still in the main those of the original fourteenth-century house.  The house was built in the time of Edward I by John de Broughton,9.24 who rests beneath the highly-decorated tomb in the wall of the south aisle of the neighbouring church.

In 1405 the building was added to by Sir Thomas Wykeham, who had license to crenellate his mansion of Broughton, and finally, in the year 1554, the Fiennes family modernised the castle, converting it to its present form.

The hall retains its ancient plan and proportions.  At its west end was placed the kitchen, but this was subsequently enlarged and converted into a dining-room.  At the south-east angle of the hall a doorway leads to a passage which gave entrance to the solar, other private apartments, and the chapel.  This passage led in one direction northwards, along the north end of the hall to a newel staircase, which communicates with the upper rooms, while westwards the passage leads to the staircase which gives access to the chapel.  To the north the passage opens into two groined rooms, of which the larger one is the small dining-room of the present mansion.  The chapel, to which a fine broad staircase leads, is lofty, occupying two stores of the house, but its proportions are small (17 feet 7 inches by 10 feet 9 inches), and it is probable that the worshippers of the household assembled in a large upper room which opens by a grating upon the chapel.  The chapel retains its ancient stone altar slab marked with the five crosses, and supported by stone brackets.  At this end of the house, in the upper story, is the room in which met Lord Saye and his son, Nathaniel, Hampden and Pym, St John and Lord Brook, to arrange their plans for resistance to the measures of the Crown.  South-east of the chapel is a small tower in which were the garderobes to the different stories.

Sir Thomas Wykeham, who succeeded to the estates on the death of his great-uncle, William of Wykeham, had leave to fortify his mansion.  He built the wall within the moat, of which only a part now remains; he also added another story to the gate-house, and built the offices which overhang the moat to the east of the gateway, and he added to the east end of the original castle the building in which are now the kitchen, with apartments above, and the guard-room, which opens from the roof.  In the year 1554 two bays were thrown out from the north face of the hall; the ancient kitchen was extended northwards, and became the present dining-room, with a drawing-room above; while the kitchen and offices were removed to the extreme east of the building.

Broughton Church

But though the building has been thus altered, the body of the hall remains as at the time when the guests assembled there for the marriage of Edward Fiennes and Margaret Danvers.  But we question if the marriage can have been solemnised in the ancient chapel; rather must it have been so in the neighbouring church, grand and solemn then, as it still is, and with features which happily have been preserved to the present day.  The beautiful Decorated south porch and gateway, the lovely Decorated windows of the south aisle, were there.  The fresco of the Last Judgement upon the north wall faced the bridal party as they entered the church; beneath the arch of the stone chancel-screen the bride and bridegroom passed to the altar.  On the right hand was the grand tomb of Sir Thomas Wykeham and his wife, and on the left, upon the north wall of the chancel, the fresco of the five joys of the Blessed Virgin looked down upon them.  Beneath the recess in the wall of the south aisle John de Broughton, stark and grim, looked out upon the assembled company, his tomb rich in colour and heraldry.  Now the bridegroom, Edward Fiennes, rests beneath the canopied altar-tomb which in part hides that of de Broughton.  To the north of it, the effigy of another de Broughton knight has been placed upon the raised tomb of Richard Fiennes, father of Edward; while again to the north, within the chancel, at the head of Sir Thomas Wykeham’s tomb, is another raised tomb, that of William Fiennes, great-great-grandson of Edward and Margaret.  This is the Viscount Saye and Sele who played so prominent a part in the troubled times of the seventeenth century.  It is recorded of him that though a leading member of the Puritan party, steering all their councils and designs, yet after the death of the King he turned from Cromwell with abhorrence, and took no further part in politics until the Restoration.

Our illustration shows some of the tombs in Broughton Church, and is copied from a drawing made by Skelton for his work, The Antiquities of Oxfordshire.  The drawing is in the possession of the Rev. C. F. Wyatt, Rector of Broughton, who kindly allowed us to make use of it.9.25  The tomb in the foreground is that of Sir Thomas Wykeham and his wife.  Since the drawing was made the mutilated effigy of the knight has been carefully restored.  The tomb of William, Viscount Saye and Sele was omitted by Skelton, probably with a view to showing the tombs in the south aisle.  The farthest off of these, that in a recess in the south wall, is the tomb of John de Broughton, probably the founder of the church, who died about the year 1306.  The tomb in front of this is that of Edward Fiennes, who married Margaret Danvers; he died in July of the year 1528.  The tomb may be compared with that, in a previous illustration, of Margaret’s mother in Dauntsey Church.  The tomb in front of that of Edward Fiennes is another Fiennes monument, and is probably that of Edward’s father, Richard Fiennes, who died in September of the year 1501.  The effigy of a ‘Broughton’ knight has been placed upon the tomb.  The following note regarding the alabaster effigies in the chancel is from the paper by the Rev. C. F. Wyatt, which is referred to previously: ‘They represent Sir Tho. Wykeham and Elizabeth, his wife.  Sir Thomas was really a Perrott, but took the name of Wykeham, as the great-nephew and heir of William of Wykeham.  He died in 1441, having married Elizabeth, daughter of William Wilkins, of Wilkesis, or Wilcote, of Northleigh, co. Oxon.  He had license to crenellate Broughton Castle in 1405, and it may have been his work rather than the Bishop’s to add the clerestory of the nave and the Perpendicular window of the aisle.  On the helmet the Wykeham crest, a buffalo’s head, is traceable, and the renovated portions of 1846 are distinctly noticeable.  Whether the mutilations were perpetrated designedly during the Civil War is uncertain.  One tradition imputes them to the Cromwellians, another to the Royalists, when Broughton Castle was besieged by them for one day by Prince Rupert and taken by him, but the more probable cause was the construction of vaults too near this monument, causing shafts, tracery, and effigies to collapse.  Five out of the six Viscounts Saye and Sele and many others have been buried near it in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so that it is pretty well undermined.  The male effigy is doubtless meant for a likeness, but the frontal corrugations are hardly natural.  With regard to the collars, it must be considered remarkable that man and wife should respectively wear the livery collars of the opposing factions of York and Lancaster, the knight having the yorkist collar of Suns and Roses, the lady that of SS fastened with three trefoils, with a lozenge for pendant.’

WILLIAM DANVERS AND ELIZABETH FIENNES

Some three or four years after the marriage of Edward Fiennes and Margaret Danvers a great company of kindred and friends would assemble in the old hall at Broughton to witness the marriage of William Danvers and Elizabeth Fiennes.  There, as host and hostess, were the young couple Edward Fiennes and his wife, the sister of the bridegroom, and with them their new-born heir, Richard, and his grandmother, the ‘lady of Dauntesey.’  There, too, no doubt, was Thomas Danvers, the elder brother of William, and with him his wife, Margaret Courtenay, and their heir, the boy Silvester.  And there, too, were the sisters of the bride—Anne, and her husband, John Lord Zouch, from Haringworth, and Mary, the nun, from Godstow.  There also would be John, the younger brother of the bridegroom, and his sisters—Dorothy and her husband John Fettiplace, and Susan and her husband, Walter Hungerford of Down Ampney, and Constance Staveley and her husband, and Anne Lovett and her husband Sir Thomas of Astwell.  From Upton would come William Danvers, cousin to the bridegroom; and no doubt his sister, Alianor, the widow of his elder brother, Thomas, would be present from Calthorpe; while from Waterstock would come another cousin; Elizabeth Cave, and her husband, Sir Thomas; and from Tew Magna Alice Raynsford and her husband, whose granddaughter will hereafter marry the son and heir of William and Margaret.  And many neighbours would be there—Wykeham, from Swalecliffe, Doyley, from Adderbury, and Cope, from Hanwell—with many others who were assembled to make merry with the bridal party, and to take part in the gay procession to the church hard by where the marriage was to be celebrated.

And from Broughton in due time the bride and bridegroom journeyed to Culworth, which henceforth was to be their home, and occupied there the manor-house in which John of Dauntsey and his wife had lived in their younger days—the house which probably made way before the end of William’s life for the house the shell of which has lasted till the present time.

CONTEMPORARY EVENTS

But before we pass to Culworth and its history in connection with that of the Danvers family, let us pause for a moment to note the circumstances of the times, and the changes in Church and State and in the social life of the people which had been recently accomplished, or were threatening accomplishment.

To the industrial classes, the later years of the reign of Henry VII had been a period of peace and prosperity.  The nation was growing rich, for trade and commerce were encouraged, the prices of the necessaries of life were low, while the numbers of the labouring classes were below the increasing requirements of the land, and wages in consequence were high.  The King, by his parsimony and by his exactions—which latter, however, had almost entirely affected the wealthy classes—had amassed a huge sum of money, said to amount at his death to about £1,800,000—wealth which he loved for its own sake, and because it enabled him to carry on his schemes of government without the interference of Parliament.  Circumstances had combined to make the monarchy an absolute one, for the old nobility had been destroyed by the Wars of the Roses; the Church, which in former times had exercised a controlling authority over the Crown greater even than that of the nobility, was alarmed for its own safety; while the industrial classes had not as yet attained to the numbers or wealth, the intelligence and unity of purpose, which in the next century enabled them to defy, and finally to overawe, the Crown.

And in the year 1522 Henry VIII was in the zenith of his power, not having as yet, by cruelty and tyranny, forfeited the love of his subjects.  Of Englishmen he was an Englishman.  The people loved to hear of his strength and beauty, of his profusion and magnificence, and even of his unthrift.  They were proud of the position which he had won for England amongst foreigners; of his successful wars in France and Scotland; and even forced loans and benevolences had something of sweetness in them, for if they burdened the people, they sustained the power of a King whose alliance was courted by Emperors, Pope, and Kings.

CULWORTH

Culworth Village

To return to Culworth—Culeorde of the Domesday Book, Coleworth of less ancient records.  The parish at the time of the great Survey embraced two manors, one of which was held by Osborn, of Geoffrey de Mandeville, and the other (afterwards the Pinkeney manor) was held by Ghilo, the ancestor of the Pinkeney family.  In the time of Henry II, William de Coleworth held the Pinkeney manor, and with his descendants it remained till the year 1266, when Richard de Coleworth, on the death of his brother William, gave the manor to Sir Robert de Pinkeney.  Such is the account Baker gives of the transference; but an entry in the Close Roll of 50 Henry III (1265), M.33, leads one to question the gift, for we find there that Erneburg, who was the wife of Richard de Coleworth, an ‘enemy of the King’s,’ has granted to her for her sustentation the manor of Evesham, in the place of her husband’s lands in Coleworth and Sulgrave.  Probably, therefore, it was the King who gave the manor in question to Sir Robert Pinkeney.  Sir Henry, brother and heir of Sir Robert, sold the manor to Roger de Mussenden, who already held the other Culworth manor, that of Mandeville.9.26  With the Mussendens both manors remained till the year 1362, when Hugh de Mussenden died, leaving a widow, Agnes, and two daughters—Alice, aged 16, and Felicia, aged 11.  Alice married (1) John de Beaumond, carrying to him the Pinkeney manor, and (2) Nicholas Gunwardby; while her sister Felicia was given in marriage by her mother Agnes, now married to Thomas de Brancestre, to Walter Burnham, to whom she carried the Mandeville manor.  Then, according to Baker, the manors were sold to the trustees of Alice Perrers, mistress of Edward III.  On the death of the King and the attainder of Alice, the manors were confiscated, but were subsequently, in the year 1379, restored to her husband, Sir William Windsor.

Manors and Estates of Alice Perrers

Additional Charter 38810, one of the newly-acquired Culworth series, a royal charter of 3 Richard II (1379), sets forth that:

. . . Alice de Pereres, now wife of our beloved and faithful William de Wyndesore, when single (sola) acquired tenements in the city of London, a tenement in Bermundeseye, then manors of Gonyldesbury and Pallyngeswyk, certain lands called Northbrokes in Fulham, lands and tenements called Suthcote in Rislip, and in Harwe, Colnbrook, Stanewell, and Horton, a tenement in Braynford in Middlesex, the manor of Bournehalle, and land, etc., in Bussheye, Watford, Herteshead, and Crokleygrene in Hertford, two parts of the manor of Westneulond, the reversion of the manor of Upmynstre, lands and tenements in Harveryng-atte-Boure in Essex, the manor of Colworth, three carucates of land, forty acres meadow, and sixty shillings of rent, with the advowson9.27 of the church of Colworth, the manor of Farnden near Byfield, a tenement in Northampton, in Northamptonshire, the manor of Compton Murdak (after the decease of Alice, widow of Sir John Murdak), the manor of Keyngham, tenements and lands in the city and county of Oxford, the manor of Esthanney, the manor of Drayton, lands and tenements in Abyngdon, Sutton, Drayton in Berks, the manor of Menestoke in Southampton, the manor of Lytton and Pouerstok in Dorset, the manor of Knolle and Luddeford in Somerset, the third of three manors in the town of Fennysutton in Wilts, the manor of Stoke Maundeville near Wendover in Bucks, lands and tenements in Burton Noveray in Leicester, in Burghwell in Kent, the manor of Rodeston in Northampton, of Bixe in Oxon, the manor of Morton in Northampton.  And because of a judgement against Alice Pereres in our Parliament these manors, lands, etc., had returned to our hands, we, of our special grace, and for the good service of William de Wyndesore, who, on account of an indenture between us, is to aid us with two hundred men-at-arms and two hundred archers in Britany and in France, we give and grant to the said William de Wyndesore all the said manors, lands, tenements, etc., etc., to have and to hold for himself and his heirs, excepting the manors of Rodestone, Bixe, and Morton, which are to be held by him only during the continuance of certain lives.  Given at Westminster, March 15, 3 Richard II.

Now, as regards the Culworth estate mentioned in the above charter,9.28 it is spoken of as the manor of Colworth, and the land attached to it is but a small part of the land pertaining to both manors.  Hence we should infer that only one of the manors came into the possession of Lord Wyndesore, and this one that of Pinkeney, and that this was so we learn from the fact that Sir Robert Danvers bought the Pinkeney manor from Alice Corve, to whose husband it came from John Maclyn, who bought it from the Wyndesore family,9.29 but the Mandeville manor Sir Robert bought after a lapse of fourteen years from John Burnham, son of Walter (not Nicholas, as Baker has it) Burnham and Felicia his wife, who was one of the daughters and heiresses of Agnes, widow of Hugh de Mussenden (refer Chapter Four).

Situation at Culworth

Culworth—that ancient village—stands seven and a half miles north-east of Banbury, in the hilly country which owes its configuration to the presence and to the denudation of the ‘Northampton Sands.’  The village stands upon a ridge of these sands, which, in their turn, rest upon the ‘Upper Lias clays,’ which north and south and east surround the Culworth ridge.  Very different would have been the contour of the district had it not been that the relative softness of the Northampton Sands allowed of their being easily cut into by the denuding waters;9.30 while, had the denudation not stopped where it did, instead of high ridge-shaped hills, covered with dry arable soil, and many brooks flowing in the valleys, and many villages scattered along the crests of the ridges, there would have been a tame, flat country with a heavy clay soil, fit only for pastures; and, in consequence of a lack of good water, few villages would have been found in the district.  As it is, owing to the position of the sands upon an impermeable clay, water accumulates therein for the supply of the village wells, and flowing gently from the base of the sands provides the fertilising streams which run in the valleys.  Thus, in each of the valleys north and south of the Culworth ridge, we find a streamlet, which, meeting with another feeder of the Cherwell coming from the north, form the stream that turns the Culworth mill.

The highest point of the Culworth ridge is 556 feet above sea-level, and on it stands the village church.  To the south the level falls steeply some 150 feet to the valley which intervenes between the villages of Culworth and Thorpe Mandeville.  The church of this latter village is about a mile and half south of that of Culworth, and stands at an elevation of 550 feet.  A mile and a half east and a little north of Thorpe Mandeville is the village of Sulgrave, also standing upon a ridge.  The three villages stand, in fact, upon three offshoots from a main ridge, which has a direction east-north-east, and upon which runs the Banbury road.

History of Culworth

Culworth must have been a village of note from a very early period in the history of our isle, for through it, or close to it ran two of the main roads of that part of the country.  Of them, one was the ancient trackway which, under the name of ‘Banbury Lane,’ ran for twenty miles between that town and Northampton.  Upon this road, in the neighbourhood of Culworth, were two of the tumuli which occur on eminences along the trackways, and served probably as beacons or signal-posts; one of them is Arberry Hill, on which are remains of a British camp, and the other Barrow Hill, between Culworth and Sulgrave.

Banbury Lane is crossed by the postway which, running from north to south, passed through or near Eydon, Culworth, Arberry Hill, and Thenford towards Aynho.  And probably because of its proximity to these ancient ways, and the more modern roads which succeeded them, Culworth has frequently formed the resting-place of contending armies.  Through it bands of Danes poured on their excursions westwards from their headquarters at Northampton.  Thus Florence of Worcester chronicles that in the year 914, after Easter, an army of the pagans from Northampton and Leicester plundered the county of Oxford, and killed many people in Hooknorton and other towns; and in these forays, writes Beesley,9.31 the Danes passed from Northampton along Banbury Lane, which continued on past Banbury to Hooknorton.  Close to Culworth, at Danesmoor, tradition and the name of the place witness that a great battle was fought between the Saxons and the Danes; and not long prior to the Conquest this part of the country was largely inhabited by Danish settlers, one of whom, Osmund the Dane, at the Conquest held the freehold of Thorp Mandeville.

Later on, in the troubled times that followed upon the death of Henry I, the country about Culworth again suffered.  To this the two castles which were built, probably by one of the Mandevilles, at Culworth and at Sulgrave, testify; for wherever such existed, the wretched men of the land were cruelly oppressed.

In the year 1469 Danesmoor was again the site of a great battle, on this occasion between the northern insurgents, under Neville and Latimer, with Sir John Conyers as their general, and the royal forces, mainly Welshmen, under the Earl of Pembroke.  The armies met on the plain of Danesmoor, which lies between the hills of Chipping Warden, Edgcot, Culworth, and Thorp, the insurgents occupying Culworth, with its hill, as well as the Thorp and Edgcot hills.  The first the battle, mainly owing to the valour of the Earl’s brother Sir Richard Herbert, went in favour of the royal forces; but later on the Welshmen, alarmed by the appearance upon Culworth side of a body of men whom they took to be the Earl of Warwick ‘with all his puyssance, sodaynlye as men amased fledde,’ whom the northern men pursued and slew without mercy for the cruelty that they had showed to the Lord Latimer’s son.  The Earl of Pembroke, with his brother and many other gentlemen, were taken, and were the next day beheaded at Banbury.

Again, in the Civil War, Culworth and its neighbourhood became a battlefield, and there, on May 6, 1643, the Earl of Northampton discovered the rebels, and, drawing them from their position, defeated them with considerable loss at the neighbouring village of Middleton Cheney.  Through Culworth the King, with his army, passed on his march from Oxford to Banbury, and there, on the night of June 27, 1644, he rested at the house of Sir Samuel Danvers.

Culworth Manor-House

Culworth street runs for about half a mile along the brow of the ridge, the level rapidly falling away to the north and south and at the western extremity of the village.  About the centre of the street is the village green, with the remains of the village cross.  The cross was erected in the year 1264, and might have weathered wind and rain and have stood till now, had it been left only to the mercy of the elements.  But it was not probable that the Puritanism which was so rampant in the neighbourhood, and destroyed the cross at Banbury, would suffer the cross of Culworth to stand, and only a portion of the platform on which the cross stood now remains.  To the north of the green is the ancient manor-house of the Danvers family.  The house was probably built about the middle of the sixteenth century, on the site of an older house, whose position was no doubt determined by the spring of water which the house encloses.  The house is one of the long, low, two-storied buildings of the period, built of the gray stone of the neighbourhood diversified by horizontal bands of a darker stone.  It consists of the main building, running north and south, eighty-five feet in length.  From the northern end and from the centre of this two wings project backwards, and with an eastern limb form a square of fifty-five feet external measurement, which encloses a small court.  The recess between the back of the southern end of the main building and the southern wing is occupied by a garden enclosed by a low wall, through which the main entrance to the house was formerly reached.  The ancient doorway is now blocked, and the entrance to the house is from the green through a door in the south end of the building which opens into a room, once the parlour.  Above the parlour is the bedroom in which King Charles slept.  Beyond the parlour was the hall, which occupied a part of the main building, and probably the whole of the southern wing.  From the west end of the hall a fine oak staircase led to the upper floor of the house, of which the village tradition says that it was sufficiently broad to allow eight people abreast to ascend.  But the staircase, with all else within the house that was worth removing, disappeared not long after the death of Miss Meriel Danvers about 1795.  Staircase, panelling, chimney-pieces, cupboards, and even the lead from the roof, were torn away, and the house, excepting a portion which has been converted into cottages, remains the mere shell of the former manor-house of the Danvers family.  In its prime the house was one but of medium size, larger than that of Sulgrave, smaller than that of Thorpe Mandeville; for while the hearth tax gives the latter seventeen hearths, it gives Culworth but twelve.  Canons Ashby manor-house had twenty-three hearths, but then that is, and was, a large house; even Broughton Castle was credited with only twenty-seven hearths.

Externally the picturesqueness of the Culworth house has been greatly lessened by the addition of a new roof and chimneys and by other repairs which were needful to prevent the fabric becoming a ruin.

CULWORTH CHURCH

Eastwards from the manor-house stands the church, dedicated to St Mary, consisting of a chancel, with vestry to the north, nave of four bays, north and south aisles, south porch, and tower, which rises above the west end of the nave.  The stone used in the buildings is mainly that taken locally from the Northampton Sands, and owes its tawny colour to the presence of iron, the characteristic ingredient of the formation.

The church was restored in the year 1840, and four years later the present chancel was built, during the period which Dean Spence has aptly called ‘the age of enthusiastic restoration,’ during which ‘much that was beautiful and inimitable was ruthlessly swept away through ignorance and misplaced zeal.  Now well-nigh every village has its neat and pretty church, many of them homes of prayer built in the days of the Plantagenet Kings; each church with its Early English or Perpendicular windows, apparently dating from the last ten or fifteen years; its white-pillared aisles; its wooden benches, more or less skilfully carved; its little chancel, with new and glistening tiles; its reverently-adorned holy table—all telling the story of many earnest and devout worshippers, though not always of wise or learned archaeologists.’ 9.32  Such is Culworth church of the present day.

History of Culworth

The ground plan of the older church appears to be unaltered, excepting that there was formerly an aisle adjoining the chancel, probably on the north side, where the vestry now is.  This aisle was pulled down by Sir John Danvers about the year 1552-53.

The former chancel was mainly, if not entirely, Perpendicular work of the fifteenth century, and probably replaced a still older chancel, which, with the nave and aisles, was of late twelfth or early thirteenth century (Decorated) work.  Possibly the first church had a tower, but more probably a bell-turret only.  The south aisle was probably replaced in the thirteenth century by a more ornate one; parts of it, however—viz., the south porch, the monumental arch, the south wall, with the ambry, and piscina to the east of it, and parts of the original wall and windows—remaining.9.33

Probably in the fourteenth century a new north aisle was erected, or the windows were altered.  The north wall of this aisle was formerly covered with frescoes.  The lower part of the tower appears to be fourteenth century work; the upper part of fifteenth century work, of the same age as the clerestory, the porch, and the late chancel.  The date of the font is 1662.

The advowson of the rectory was given to Canons Ashby Priory by Robert de Culworth between 1199 and 1216.  Probably the south aisle was built in the time of Thomas, who succeeded his brother, Robert de Coleworth, and the monumental arch in the south aisle may mark the grave of one of the brothers.  The Richard, ‘the enemy of the King,’ was grandson to Robert.  After the dissolution of the monasteries, the rectory and advowson of Culworth were (1544) granted to Richard Andrews, who the following year had leave to sell to John Danvers, who presented in 1546.  From John Danvers they descended to Miss Meriel Danvers, who presented in the year 1781.  Subsequently Miss Danvers annexed the impropriate rectory to the vicarage, and sold the advowson of the vicarage.

Neither in the church nor the churchyard do any very ancient monuments remain, excepting the arch in the south wall.  In the church the oldest post-Reformation monument is a stone in the aisle to the memory of Mrs Lettice Trist, wife of William Trist.  She died in the year 1621.  Another stone is to the memory of Thomas Trist, one of the Masters of the Bench of the Middle Temple.  He died in the year 1630, aged fifty-seven.

The oldest decipherable inscription in the churchyard is on a stone to the memory of Robert Kenning, buried April 28, 1660, and to his wife Christian.  Thanks to the thoughtful care of the rector (incumbent about 1890), the Rev. Charles Hill, the whole of the tombstones have been numbered, and the inscriptions upon them have been copied.

To the north of the churchyard the site of Culworth Castle may still be identified.  The castle was most probably built by one of the Mandevilles during the reign of Stephen.  The earthworks still remain, and measure 43 by 35 yards in extent, besides the surrounding fosse, and a small circular earthwork on the east side.

In 1264 Richard de Coleworth obtained the grant of a weekly market to be held on Saturdays, and an annual fair on September 7, 8, and 9.  The market was confirmed by King Edward III in 1374, but the fair was removed to July 31 and August 1 and 2.  Both have been long discontinued.

Bells at Culworth

Culworth Church 34 has a priest’s bell and five other bells inscribed as follows:

Inscription Diameter

1 SR IOHN DANVERS, John Lole and Christopher Cooke, C.W. William Bagley made mee. 1712. 32 inches

2 Thomas Kemble Prestidge, Andrew Wigson, C.W. Edward Hemis fecit December ye 23, 1747 34 inches

3 J. Paget, W. Upson, C.W. John Briant, Hertford, fecit 1806. 36 inches

4 Be yt knowne to all that doth mee see that Newcombe, of Leicester made mee, 1612. 42 inches

5 By my voice the people may know to come to hear the word of God. Henry Bagley made mee, 1636. 50 inches

In the year 1713 the upper part of the tower was rebuilt at a cost of £30.  The pancake bell is rung occasionally on Shrove Tuesday, but the custom is dying out.  The gleaning bell is rung during harvest at 8 a.m.  The tenor bell is tolled in case of fire.  The third bell is sounded after a celebration of Holy Communion as the communications are leaving the church.  At the death-knell three tolls are given for a man, two for a woman.  The bells are always rung for an hour about 5 a.m. on the four Mondays in Advent, to remind the listeners that ‘now it is high time to awake out of sleep.’

The ringing of the Shrive bell, now called the ‘pancake bell,’ is still continued in many Northampton parishes.  On Shrovetide, or Confession Tuesday, confession was made in the open church, where the priest sat in an open chair, and the bell was rung to remind the people of their duty.

On Shrove Tuesday, preparatory to Lent, in order to use up all the grease, lard, dripping, etc., these were made into pancakes, and the apprentices and others in the house were summoned to the meal by the pancake bell.

As regards the church goods of Culworth, we find that in 6 Edward VI an indent9.35 was made at Culworth on October 7, between John Coope, Knight, Thomas Lovet and William Chauncey, Esquires, Commissioners, and John Danvers, gent, and Ubert Watts, when the commissioners put in charge of John and Ubert the following goods which were present in the church: Imprimis a challis of silver pccell gilt weighing 12 ounces and one pennyweight.  Item iiii. bells in ye Steeple and a sanctus bell.  Item one coope and a vestment, of crimson velvet both.  Item a coop of whyt damask.

The challis of silver has disappeared; possibly it formed a part of the great butt, filled with plate and money, which, in October of the year 1642, went to London from Banbury and the neighbourhood for the Parliament’s assistance.  The oldest piece of plate now belonging to the church is a silver chalice, weighing seven and a half ounces, bearing the date 1681-82.

It is interesting to compare the payments for the casting of the bells as we find them in the accounts.  The fourth bell, 42 inches in diameter, was made by Newcombe, of Leicester, in the year 1612, and we find in or about that year that £10 was paid to the bell-founder for it.  Two shillings and sixpence was paid for taking it down, and for hanging the bell 4s. 6d.  The accounts for the year 1636, when the fifth bell was made by Bagley, are wanting.  North gives the date of the first bell, cast by Bagley, as 1712; but in the rubbing of the inscription on the bell, the last figure of the date is more like a 5 than a 2, and the charges for the bell appear in the parish accounts for the year 1715.  The first and second bells were then recast at a cost of £10 10s., and the churchwardens received £6 6s. for 168 lb. of metal by which the new bells were lighter than the old.  Also they received 7s. 6d. for old wood that did belong to the bells.  One of the churchwardens, Christopher Cooke, whose name is on the bell, received £1 for his expenses in carrying the bells to and from Northampton, and 7s. for the cost of loading the bells.  Six shillings was paid for taking down the bells; £4. 12s. to Richard Mason, bell-hanger, for thirty-seven days’ work at 2s. 6d. a day; and 15s. to John Lole for thirteen days’ work at 14d. per day.  Timber and boards for the bells, £1. 2s.

The second bell was recast by Edward Hemis in 1741, when the following charges appear in the accounts: For casting the bell and half a hundredweight of metal, £10; timber for the bell frame, £2, 19s. 6d; Richard Wright, for work at the bells, £2. 15s. 6d.; the plumbers’ bill, 12s.; and eating and drinking for the plumbers, 3s. 8d.; carriage of the bell to Bicester, £1. 15s.; charges at Bicester on two occasions, £2. 13s.’ bell-founder’s diet and other expenses, £1. 4s.

The third bell was made by John Briant in 1807, and the charge for recasting is £19.  At the same time £10 was paid to Mr Briant for re-hanging the tenor bell, turning it that the clapper might strike in a new place, for a new wheel for the bell, and for clipping the edge of the fourth bell to put it in a higher key.  There are many other charges at the time in connection with work on these bells, but they are apparently mixed up with charges for other work, from which they cannot now be disentangled.

Culworth Rectors and Vicars

Date Rector Patron

      Elias William de Coleworth

1267     Thomas, son of William de Coleworth       Prior Alexander, of Canons Ashby

      Nicholas de Turre Prior of Canons Ashby

1270     William de Bouere       Prior of Canons Ashby

1273-73 Thomas de Blaolsle     Prior of Canons Ashby
    Richard de Evesham

1334 William Prior of Canons Ashby

1356 Sir John Huggys Prior of Canons Ashby

1386 John Walsche, of Warden Prior of Canons Ashby

1375 Richard Sley, of Melton Mowbray Prior of Canons Ashby

1376 Richard Wryghte John Bole, of Scaldwell Prior of Canons Ashby

1409 William Stafford Prior of Canons Ashby

1416 John Reynold Prior of Canons Ashby

1421 John Waryn Prior of Canons Ashby
    Henry Watford

1437 William Coleworth, on resignation of Prior of Canons Ashby
  Aug. 20     Henry Watford

? William Peg   Prior of Canons Ashby

1473-74 William Hancock, on death of William Peg Prior of Canons Ashby

1489-90 Richard Lytche Prior of Canons Ashby

1489-90 John Gardner Prior of Canons Ashby

1529 Thomas Langton Prior of Canons Ashby

1546 Sir John Stavebridge John Danvers

1561 Ralph Greenhill Dorothy Danvers

1583 Andrew Knight Samuel Danvers

1590 Edmund Rudierd

1605 John Trelawney John Danvers

1629 Sampson Gaydge, Rector of Edgcote Sir John Danvers

1657 William Gilbert (?)

1694 John Yorke Sir Pope Danvers

1717 John Plomer, Rector of Belton, Warwick, Sir John Danvers
    and Master of Rugby School

1731 Daniel Rushworth Sir John Danvers

1735 Robert Pemberton Sir John Danvers

1758 John Hutchins Sir Michael Danvers

1765 Richard Hutchins Sir Michael Danvers

1781 Thomas Biker, Rector and Vicar Mrs. Meriel Danvers

1804 William Greenwood, Rector and Vicar (?)

1805 Thomas Hind, Rector and Vicar William Greenwood

1815 Henry Salmon, Rector and Vicar Grace, widow of above

1829 John Spence, Rector and Vicar Sawyer Spence

1852 Joseph Webb, Rector and Vicar

1854 Charles Hill, M.A., Rector and Vicar William Wilson, Esq., Whitacre House, Warwick

Miss Meriel Danvers gave the rectorial tithes to the living and twenty-four acres of land.  Therefore, after her time the incumbents were styled rectors and vicars.  The above list is from Baker’s History of Northampton, corrected and completed by reference to the original Institutions of the Bishops of Lincoln and Peterborough, and by MS. of the present Rector.

The church registers begin with the baptisms of the year 1562; the entries of burials begin in the year 1610, and those of marriages in the year 1620.  Many Lay Subsidy Rolls of Culworth are extant, and will be found at the Public Record Office.  The earliest9.36 is not dated, but is of the reign of Edward III, and the name which heads the list is that of Roger de Mussenden, who pays 12s. 8d.; he is followed by Geoffrey le Bur, Henry Scot, John Mulle, Richard Pere, and others.  The first roll in which the name of Danvers appears is that of the year 1534.9.37  Mr William Danvers heads the list, and is followed by Symon Gardyner, Robert Watts, and others.  In the year 1543 we have another full roll of the Culworth taxpayers, headed as before by Mr William Danvers, and this list we give in full.  In the year 1545 John Danvers takes his father’s place in the roll.9.38

RESIDENTS OF CULWORTH A.D. 1543

Exchequer Lay Subsidy, 35 Henry VIII. (156/183) Cullworth

Mr Willum Davers in lands xxxli-xxxs.

Symone Gardener in goods xviijli.

Wyberd Watts in goods xvjli.

Willum coliar in goods ixli.

george Dodford in goods xli.

Nicolas Person in goods xli.

Thomas Kymbell in goods viijli.

Wm geffs in goods xli.

Symon Hadams in goods xli.

Thomas whiste in goods vjli.

John gardener in goods vli.

Thomas ffranklyn in goods vli.

Edmu bull in goods vli.

Agnes pereson in goods vli.

Henry Stone in goods iiijli.

Robd Herne i goods iiijli.

Thomas Harris i goods iijli.

Thomas gybbys in goods iijli.

John coper in guds xxs.

Lawrens Ewards in goods xxs.

Willum Edwards in goods xxs.

robard Hoby in goods xxs.

robard ffoster in goods xxs.

Wm Ebden in goods xxs.

Willum poll in goods xxs.

Richard Hyll in goods xxs.

John gardener in goods iijli.

Elizabeth Langton in goods xxs.

Agnes Langton in goods xxs.

John Langton in goods xxs.

Thomas gardener in goods viijli.

John Langton in goods iijli.

Henry Whyte in goods iijli.

Thomas Maygote in goods iijli.

Thomas Wycame i goods xls.

Elyzabeth grante in goods iijli.

John Fayre in goods xls.

Randoll Jeynkynson in goods xls.

Milles in goods xls.

John Daylle in goods xls.

Richard playsto in goods xxs.

John Nycolles in goods xxs.

Willum Kyng in goods xxs.

Richard bayly in goods xxs.

Richard Hall in goods xxs.

Robard Lowell in goods xxs.

Willum crompe in goods xxs.

Thomas rew in goods xxs.

John stevens in goods xxs.

butler in goods xxs.

Robard barley in goods xxs.

John rouffe in goods xls.

my carter in goods xxs.

Of the preceding names, five only now (1893) remain in the village: they are Watts, White, Bull, Franklin, Lovell.  The name of Watts appears in the Subsidy Rolls from the time of Henry VII, and in that of 1625 Richard Watts is the third name on the roll.  Doubtless this was the individual who, in the year 1624, at Horley, married Mary, daughter of Daniel Danvers, and the family now living in the village are very probably descended from that couple.

WILLIAM DANVERS

William Danvers died on June 20, 1544, when about fifty years of age.  Of his life since his marriage the only notices that we have been able to gather are those of the death of his child in 1533, and of his purchase of land in Culworth, ten years later.  It is probable that he built the present manor-house, or a part of it, in the later years of his life, for the style of house is such as the period produced, a period during which the country gentry were, and with very good reason, improving both their houses and their mode of living.  Erasmus, in one of his letters,9.39 written about the year 1519, gives a very unpleasant account of an English house, of its want of comfort and decency, and of the habits of the people, to the filthiness of which he attributes, and probably with good reason, the prevalence of infectious diseases in the country.

Erasmus on English Houses

‘We read of a city being delivered from a pestilence which had long ravaged it by the destruction and renewal of its buildings . . .  Either I am greatly deceived, or by some such plan must England be delivered.  In the first place, they never think whether their doors and windows face north, south, east or west; and in the second place the rooms are generally so constructed that, contrary to Galen’s rule, no thorough draft can be sent through them.  Then they have a large part of the wall fitted with sheets of glass, which admit the light but keep out the air, and yet there are chinks through which they admit that filtered air which is all the more pestilential because it has been lying there for a long time.  Then the floors are generally strewed with clay, and that covered with rushes, which are now and then renewed, but so as not to disturb the foundation, which sometimes remains for twenty years nursing a collection of spittle, vomits, excrement of dogs and human beings, spilt beer and fishes’ bones, and other filth that I need not mention.’ . . . ‘I should have confidence in the island becoming more healthy if the use of rushes could be abolished, and the bedrooms so built as to be open to the sky on two or three sides; and if all the glass windows were so much as to open or shut all at once, and shut so fast as to leave no chinks through which noxious winds could force a passage.’

Neighbours of the Danvers Family at Culworth

As to the daily life and occupations of the squire of Culworth, he had to manage his own estate, to which he succeeded on the death of his mother in the year 1539; he may have managed, also, his nephew’s estate at Prescote; business would frequently carry him to Northampton and Banbury, and often he would be called upon to show hospitality to travellers passing from Banbury and Oxford to Northampton and Leicester, while in the villages around he had many neighbours, some of whom it may not be without interest to know.  At Sulgrave were an old-established family, the Sottesburys, and there in the year 1538-39 came Lawrence Washington, who at the dissolution obtained a grant of one of the manors in the village which had belonged to the church and monks of St Andrew’s, Northampton.  At Thorpe Mandeville were the Kirtons, who subsequently bought the manor from the Freebodys, in whose hands it was during the lifetime of William Danvers.  At Edgcote was Sir Edmund Bray, who, however, in the year 1535, sold the estate to secretary Thomas Cromwell.  On Cromwell’s execution, in the year 1540, Edgcote escheated to the Crown, and was given in dower to Ann of Cleves, who devised the estate, in the year 1543, to Sir William Chauncy.  At Eydon Sir John Cope, of Canons Ashby, appears to have been the chief proprietor, and at Aston-le-Walls were the Suttons, who had been seated there since the time of Henry III.  At Fawsley were the very ancient family of Cnichtel, or Knightley, who have been there from before the Conquest, and are of the very few families which from the Conquest till the present day have maintained themselves in unbroken line in the ancient seat of their ancestors.  At Byfield, Alice, had still a half-fief, and in two of the Lay Subsidy Rolls of the period we find at the same place, amongst the principal inhabitants, John Spuryer, whose name points to his own or his forefathers’ trade.  At Canons Ashby was the Priory, while the principal landowner was Sir John Cope, son of William Cope, of Banbury, cofferer to King Henry VII.  Sir John Cope, by his first wife, Bridgett Rawleigh, a family allied to that of Danvers, had a large family, of whom the eldest son, Erasmus, married Mary, daughter of John Heneage, while his sister Elizabeth married John Dryden, and with her nephew, Edward Cope, succeeded on her father’s death to his estates.

Family of William Danvers and Elizabeth Fiennes

Two sons and three daughters survived William Danvers, of whom John, the eldest son, followed him at Culworth.  Thomas, the younger son, was mentioned in his grandmother’s will, and is mentioned also in the will of his brother John.  William appears to have had another son, William of Thorpe Mandeville, who had four children, Thomas, bap. January 13, 1563; John, bap. March 6, 1564; Elizabeth, bap. March 2, 1566; William, bap. September 4, 1571.  William, the father of these children, was buried at Thorpe Mandeville in 1574.

Mary, William’s eldest daughter, married Robert Barker, of Culworth, son of William Barker, of Stokesley, York, and brother of Sir Christopher Barker, Garter King of Arms.  This is the account of the match given by Sir Thomas Phillips in his edition of the Visitations of Berkshire and it is corroborated and supplemented by Noble.  Noble in his History of Heralds’ College, tells us that Sir Christopher was son of William of Stokesley and Joan, daughter of Sir William Carhill, and sister of William Carhill, Norroy King of Arms.

Robert Barker and Mary Danvers had four sons, one of whom, Robert, B.C.L., (New College) Oxford, married Mary, daughter of William Smith, D.C.L., of Great Horwood, Buckinghamshire.  Their son, Hugh Barker, MD, of Newbury, Berkshire (ob. 1617, aged 78), was twice married, and has numerous descendants.9.40

Susan Saccheverel marries John Danvers of Swithland

The second daughter of William Danvers,9.41 Dorothy, married Henry Saccheverel, of Sadington and Knibworth, and their granddaughter Susan married John Danvers, younger son of Francis Danvers, of Swithland, Leicester.  One of the sons of Henry and Dorothy, settled at Tadmarton, Oxfordshire.9.42

Anne, the third daughter of William Danvers, married George Blount, of Wiggenton, Oxfordshire.9.43

We learn from the post-mortem inquisition of William Danvers9.44 that he died on June 20, 1544, and that his son and heir, John Danvers was at the time aged nineteen years and forty-nine weeks.  The inquisition quotes the deed of his father, John Danvers, by which he devised the manors of Culworth and Sulgrave to his younger sons.  The inquisition makes no mention of William’s wife, and it is probable that she predeceased him.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER NINE

De Banco Roll, No. 530, No. 114 (Oxon).

Preceptum fuit vic’ quod distr’ Rogerum Chambre et Elizabeth uxorem ejus per omnes terras etc.  Et quod de exit’ etc.  Et quod haberet corpore eorum hic ad hinc diem scilicet in Octab’ Sc’e Trinitatis ad cognoscend’ quid Juris clam in tercia parte Maneriorum de Broghton t’ Northnewton cum pertin quam Thomas Coukes Clericus et Johannes de Keten’ Clericus in Curia Regis his concesserunt Willo de Wykeham Episcopo Wynton per finem inde inter eos levatum.  Et modo veñ tam predictus Epus per Joh’em Sutton attorñ suum quam predicti Rogerus et Elizabeth in propriis personis suis.  Et super hoc iidem Rogerus et Elizabeth pet’ auditum brevis predicti.  Et eis legitur etc. pet’ eciam auditum note unde idem breve emanavit.  Et eis legitur in hec verba.  Inter Willm de Wykeham Episcopum Wynton quer’ et Thomas Coukes Clericum et Joh’em de Keten Clericum deforc’ de Maneriis de Broghton Northnewenton Wyvelscote et Stanlake cum pertiñ et de advocationibus Ecclesiarum de Broghton Stanlake et Wyvelscote unde placitum conventiones sum fuit inter eos etc.  Scilicet quod predictus Epus recogñ predicta Maneria cum pertiñ et advocaciones predictas esse Jus ipsius Thome.  Et pro hac recogñ fine etc. iidem Thomas t’ Joh’es concesserunt predicto Epo pred’ca Maneria de Wyvelcote et Stanlake et duas partes predictorum Maneriorum de Broghton et Northnewenton cum pertiñ et advocaciones predictas.  Et illa ei reddiderunt etc.  Habend’ et tenend’ eidem Epo de capit’ dominis feodi illius per servicia que ad illa Maneria duas partes et advocaciones pertinent tota vita ipsius Epi.  Et preterea iidem Thomas t’ Joh’es concesserunt pro se et heredibus ipsius Thome quod tercia pars predictorum Maneriorum de Broghton et Northnewenton cum pertiñ quam Rogerus Chambre et Elizabeth uxor ejus tenuerunt in dotem ipsius Elizabeth de hereditate predicte Thome de quo hec concordia facta fuit.  Et que post decessum ipsius Elizabeth ad predictos Thomam et Joh’em et heredes ipsius Thome debuit reverti post decessum ipsius Elizabeth integre remaueat predicto Epo tenend’ simul cum predictis Maneriis duabz partibus et advocacionibus que ei per finem istum remanent de capit’ dominis feodi illius per servicia que ad illam terciam partem pertinent tota vita ipsius Epi.  Et post decessum ipsius Epi predicta Maneria cum pertiñ et advocaciones predicte integre remanebunt Thome de Wykeham fil Willi Perot t’ Alicie uxoris ejus consauguineo predicti Epi. . . . Oxoñ ff D’ Cras’ Ascens’ Auno r’ R’ Regis Angl’ et ffranc xv Dies dat’ est eis de cap Cyr’ su in Oct’ Mich’ quibus auditis pet’ quod predc’i Rogerus t’ Elizabeth ei inde attornent etc.  Et super hoc iidem Rogerus t’ Elizabeth ei hic in Cur’ inde attornar’ et cogñ t’ fecerunt et fidelitatem etc.  Ideo finis inde ingrossetur.

NOTES TO CHAPTER NINE

9.1 Close Roll of 10 Henry VIII (1519), No. 23 in margin.

9.2 Battle Abbey Roll by the Duchess of Cleveland, vol. ii, p. 19.

9.3 Dugdale’s Baronage of England, vol. ii, p. 243; and vol. i, p. 513; Lipscomb’s Bucks, vol. ii, p. 470; and Chauncy’s Herts, p. 172.

9.4 Edition of 1682, vol. i, pp. 573, 583.

9.5 Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest, vol. iv, p. 508, et seq.

9.6 Halsted, History of Kent, vol. ii, p. 575.  See also Shakespeare’s Second Part of King Henry VI, Act iv, scene vii.  William Cromer’s wife, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir James Fiennes, subsequently married Alexander Iden, who slew Cade, murderer of her first husband.  She married a third time, Lawrence Raynsford.  Harleian Society’s vol. v, p. 213.

9.7 See Nichols, who, in Bib. Topogr. Britan., vol. i, p. 22 controverts the assertion that Lord Saye married Emmeline Cromer [Walsingham perhaps? -Ed.].  The Oxfordshire Visitation merely states that he married Emelyn, d. of . . .

9.8 PM Inquis. No. 45 of 17 Edward IV (1478).

9.9 Dugdale, in his Baronage of England, vol. ii, p. 246.

9.10 Cf. Sir James Ramsay’s Lancaster and York. Oxford, 1892.

9.11 PM Inquis. No. 47 of 16 Henry VII (1501).  The inquisition mentions William Fenys and Margaret his wife, and Henry Fenys and Anne his wife.

9.12 PM Inquis. No. 91 of 21 Henry VIII (1530).  The inquisition mentions Margaret, wife of Edward.

9.13 See History of Geoffrey de Mandeville, by J. H. Round, Esq., London, 1892.

9.14 Charter No. 104, in the Registrum Antiquissimum of Lincoln Cathedral, is one of Robert, son of Walquelin, granting all his tithes of Wickeham.  Both in the muniments of the Cathedral and Bishop of Lincoln are many notices of the Wykhams of Swalecliffe.

9.15 Agnes de Wicham, daughter of Robert, and sister to Thomas, by deeds dated April 1, 5 Richard II (1382), and February 20, 5 Richard II (1382), released to William de Wicham, Bishop of Winchester, the advowson of Swalecliffe Church and land in the parish.  De Banco Roll, 5 Richard II (1582), Easter, m. 456.

9.16 Cf. T. F. Kirby’s Annals of Winchester College, p. 17.

9.17 Perot’s ancestry is uncertain, but his arms and crest were those of the family of Perrot of Drayton, Oxfordshire, who were a younger branch of the ancient family of Perrot of Pembrokeshire.  Compare Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vol. ii, p. 379; and Harleian Society, vol. v, p. 128.

9.18 T. F. Kirby’s Annals of Winchester College, p. 93; Lowth’s Life of William of Wykeham, 3rd edit; Nichols’ Topographer and Genealogist, vol. iii, p. 49; Herald and Genealogist, vol. v, p.225; Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vols. ii and iii; Moberly’s Life of William of Wykeham, 2nd edit.

9.19 Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica, vol. ii, p. 368.

9.20 De Banco Roll, No. 530, M. 114.

9.21 See Rev. J. C. Blomfield’s History of the Deanery of Bicester, part vi, p. 14, purchase of Heyford manor by Wykeham.

9.22 Provided the espousals of William and Alice are celebrated not later than Michaelmas following.

9.23 Cf. Turner’s Domestic Architecture.

9.24 Plac. Coron., 13 Edward I (1285), Rot. 50 dors, Oxon.

9.25 Cf. paper by the Rev. C. F. Wyatt, M.A., Rector of Broughton, in the Archaelogical Journal, vol. xlv, p. 443.

9.26 Additional Charters, Culworth series, Nos. 38817, 38824, 38827, 38828, 38830, 38832, 38833, 38836.

9.27 For the sale of Culworth Manors, see Northton Fines 115 and 116, 48 Edward III (1375).

9.28 The advowson of the vicarage, which was distinct from that of the rectory.  See inquisition of Samuel Danvers, jun., page NO TAG.

9.29 In the year 1893 the British Museum bought 119 Culworth and Danvers Charters, which have been numbered ‘Additional Charters 38793- 38910.’  The earliest of these deeds concerns the Mussenden family, and is dated 1257; the latest deed, dated 1763, is the record of a gaol delivery during the Shrievalty of Sir Michael Danvers.  The deeds evidently formed, at one time, the main portion of the contents of the Culworth manor-house muniment-chest, and are the deeds upon which Baker’s history of the manor is mainly based.  Many of the deeds, of any importance, written during and since the lifetime of Sir Samuel Danvers, the first baronet, are wanting to the series, and in 1895 were in the possession of the lord of the manor of Culworth.  Others of the period, and some of earlier date which were required to complete the series which Baker used, have also passed into private hands.

9.30 See memoirs of Geological Survey, Northampton.

9.31 Beesley’s History of Banbury, p.53, et seq.

9.32 Good Words, January, 1892, p. 15.

9.33 These details were obtained from the notes of Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., on the parish and church of Culworth.

9.34 North’s Bells of Northamptonshire.  Leicester, 1878.

9.35 Record Office, Q.R. Church Goods 7/2, 6 Edward VI (1553).

9.36 Lay Subsidy Rolls of Culworth, marked 155/31.

9.37 Lay Subsidy Rolls of Culworth, marked 156/172

9.38 In 1895 a portion of the Culworth Manor Court Roll was discovered.  It was then in private hands.  Macnamara hoped that it would eventually find its way to the National Collection, to be placed there amongst the other Culworth deeds.  -Ed.

9.39 Letter No. 432.  Drummond’s Life of Erasmus, vol. i, p. 386.  London 1873.

9.40 Amongst them George Edward Cockayne, Esq., M.A., Clarencieux King of Arms, for whose kind help the writer [Macnamara] is under many obligations.

9.41 Nichol’s Leicester, vol. iii, p. 220; and Harleian Society, vol. xii.  Erasmus Sacheverell, a grandson of Dorothy’s was, in 1624, a scholar of Winchester College.

9.42 Lay Subsidy Rolls, Oxon, 164/493 and 164/507.

9.43 Visitation of Northampton, Harleian Society, vol. xii.

9.44 PM Inquis. No 89 of William Danvers, 36 Henry VIII (1544).

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Digital edition first published: 1 Mar 2020             Updated: 12 Jul 2023                garydanvers@gmail.com