A Staresmore-Cresset Connection?
paganus
I live in Leicestershire, England, and am researching the Staresmores
of Frolesworth, Leics., and (later) of Deene, Northants. They came
originally from Staffordshire, acquired the manor of Frolesworth [1],
and descendants are said to include US President Thomas Jefferson. But
my query here relates specifically to the ancestry of William
Staresmore (d.1509), and I wonder if anyone can shed any light on an
problem which may consist, in large part, on the interpretation of
heraldic evidence?
Briefly stated, the Visitation of Leicester 1619 reports that
Staresmore (‘Will’m Staresmore obijt 1509’) married ‘[blank] Da. of
Sir Robert Cresses [sic] de Comitat Salop.’[2] There is, however, no
corroboration for this in the 1623 visitation pedigree of Cressett of
Shropshire, which does not include any Staresmore marriage for the
daughters of Sir Robert Cresset and ‘Xpiana [i.e. Christiana]’ dau.
and heir of John ‘Stepleton’ of ‘Stepleton’, Kt. [3] Apart from the
fact that the Staresmore visitation pedigree is accurate (in those
elements that I have been able to check from primary sources),[4] and
what may be limited onomastic evidence (one of William’s grandaughters
was named Christian, a name not previously encountered in the
pedigree) which may at least lend some credibility to such a marriage,
the pedigrees do not help settle this contradiction. And the situation
is made worse by the fact that Sir Robert Cresset’s will is no longer
extant.
My instinct then was that the 1619 visitation was probably right, and
that one of Cresset’s daughters may perhaps have remarried. A week or
so ago, however, I came across the following reference, to a memorial
inscription which was once (1622) in Frolesworth Church, but was lost
to sight long ago:
‘Upon another flat stone, Staresmore, impailed with "Argent, a Lion
ram-
pant queue fursh sable, Cressy”. Hic jacet Willimus Staresmore Armiger
et Eli-
zabetha uxor ejus, qui Willimus, obiit, 1509’ [5].
This adds two new facts: 1) the Christian name of Staremore’s wife
(though he may have married more than once), and 2) the impaled arms,
which I looked up in Burke’s A General Armory. (I realize Burke’s
publications can be suspect, but I am not an expert in heraldry so was
looking for any help I could get!) Among the thoughts that sprang to
mind were:
A) Although the arms as given almost exactly agree with one Cressy
family listed by Burke, I could find no pedigree or other evidence of
a Cressy-Staresmore match (which doesn’t mean, of course, that such a
match didn’t take place).
B) The arms are very much like some of the Stapleton ones. (This is
made clear by the description of the Cresset arms at the head of their
1623 Shropshire pedigree which incorporate Ar., a Lion rampant sa.,
presumably for Stapleton) And, finally
C) If so, could Staresmore have married Cresset’s dau. Elizabeth (who
is stated in the 1623 Cresset pedigree to have m. one ‘[blank]
Botterell’) as her second husband? [6]
On balance, it does now seem most likely that the arms are those of a
Cressy family (even though I take the positive ID of the MI arms with
Cressy to be the work of Burton in 1622, rather than explicitly stated
on the monument), but I would welcome any comments.
Ian Payne
References
[1] The Visitation of the County of Leicester… 1619, ed. Featherstone,
London 1870, p. 5.
[2] The Visitation of Shropshire… 1623, Pt I, ed. Grazebrook and
Rylands, London 1889, p. 157.
[3] See G.F. Farnham, ‘Frolesworth: the descent of the manor’,
Transactions of the Leics. Archaeological Society, 12 (1921/2), pp.
189-95.
[4] Some pedigrees in the Leicester Visitation volume (e.g. Ashby of
Loseby, Nevile of Holt) are confused and unreliable, the more so the
earlier one goes; but others I have worked on (including Staresmore)
are much more reliable, especially for the generations nearest to
1619.
[5] William Burton, A Description of Leicestershire (1622); 1777 edn.,
sub Frolesworth, p. 102.
[6] The Boterell pedigree in the 1623 Shropshire visitation (p. 62)
identifies the marriage, but names Boterell’s bride as
‘Jocosa’ (=Joyce) and her father as Thomas Cresset (?presumably Sir
Robert’s son). This may be a generation too early, but if she is named
correctly this raises the possibility that Robert Cresset’s daughter,
Elizabeth, is left unaccounted for.
paganus
transposed before sending. The order should read:
text note [1] should refer to footnote item 3, [2] to 1, and [3] to 2.
Apologies!
IP