Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
John Rogers the Martyr
1,127 views
Skip to first unread message
Bronwen Edwards
Apr 21, 2015, 5:02:49 PM4/21/15
to
I recently found a connection to John Rogers the Martyr (said to have been the first Protestant victim of Bloody Mary) by way of his presumed daughter, Susan-Elizabeth Rogers, wife of Thomas Eyre, Mayor of Salisbury. There are three questions I have to toss to you:
first, John Rogers, father of Susan-Elizabeth, was said in BLG to be "of Poole, Dorset". John Rogers the Martyr was born in Deritend, Warwickshire. Knowing how often Burke was wrong in his details, could this have actually been the same person. His wife, Adriana "Pratt" was actually a "de Weyden" from Antwerp (DNB). I have had Burke's John Rogers and Adriana Pratt in my files for some time but only recently found this might be the same person as the martyr. So the first question: have any of you looked at the Rogers-Eyre connection? Everyone needs someone in their family background who was burned at the stake.
Second, John Rogers the Martyr came from a humble but respectable background; his father, John Rogers/FitzRoger, was a lorimer, as I understand it, manufacturing bits and spurs. His mother, Margaret Wyatt, was the daughter of a tanner (DNB). A number of on-line pedigrees take a less humble approach and make her the daughter of "Sir Henry Wyatt" and the (aptly named?) Anne Skinner. I don't really know where tanners went to get their knighthoods, so once again wonder if anyone has looked at the ancestry of John Rogers' mother and found confirmation of our Sir Tanner and his Skinner wife, or, as I assume, different information about the father's identity and yet more on-line pedigrees of people who would like to have titled ancestors rather than metalsmiths and tanners.
Third, on-line pedigrees of John Rogers the Martyr have his paternal grandparents as one Thomas FitzRoger, 1480-1530, and his wife, Catherine de Courtenay. I don't know if there were tradesman-class Courtenays or not, but this seems as unlikely as the above. The pedigree in which this was found used Douglas Richardson's publications as the source, but these indicate that this couple had a single son, George (not Thomas).
Thank you in advance, Bronwen
first, John Rogers, father of Susan-Elizabeth, was said in BLG to be "of Poole, Dorset". John Rogers the Martyr was born in Deritend, Warwickshire. Knowing how often Burke was wrong in his details, could this have actually been the same person. His wife, Adriana "Pratt" was actually a "de Weyden" from Antwerp (DNB). I have had Burke's John Rogers and Adriana Pratt in my files for some time but only recently found this might be the same person as the martyr. So the first question: have any of you looked at the Rogers-Eyre connection? Everyone needs someone in their family background who was burned at the stake.
Second, John Rogers the Martyr came from a humble but respectable background; his father, John Rogers/FitzRoger, was a lorimer, as I understand it, manufacturing bits and spurs. His mother, Margaret Wyatt, was the daughter of a tanner (DNB). A number of on-line pedigrees take a less humble approach and make her the daughter of "Sir Henry Wyatt" and the (aptly named?) Anne Skinner. I don't really know where tanners went to get their knighthoods, so once again wonder if anyone has looked at the ancestry of John Rogers' mother and found confirmation of our Sir Tanner and his Skinner wife, or, as I assume, different information about the father's identity and yet more on-line pedigrees of people who would like to have titled ancestors rather than metalsmiths and tanners.
Third, on-line pedigrees of John Rogers the Martyr have his paternal grandparents as one Thomas FitzRoger, 1480-1530, and his wife, Catherine de Courtenay. I don't know if there were tradesman-class Courtenays or not, but this seems as unlikely as the above. The pedigree in which this was found used Douglas Richardson's publications as the source, but these indicate that this couple had a single son, George (not Thomas).
Thank you in advance, Bronwen
taf
Apr 21, 2015, 9:53:05 PM4/21/15
to
It looks to me like someone has connected the Warwickshire tradesmen with an unrelated Devonshire gentry family, based on nothing but the surname. The critical question for you is whether the Salisbury mayor married a relative of either, or if this is another groundless connection. It looks to me like all three are distinct families, although I can't exclude a connection between the Devon and Dorset lines.
Mayor Thomas Eyre appears in HOP, where it is said he married Elizabeth, daughter of (? John) Rogers of Poole and step-daughter of Giles Estcourt, M.P. His article says that Giles married Elizabeth, daughter of William Webb, M.P., of Salisbury, and widow of (? John) Rogers of Poole.
Following up on this last, in Abstracts of Somersetshire Wills, we find the will of Robert Rogers of Poole, 1555, which names "my brother in law William Webb, of Salisbury, to have the keeping of my daughters Elizabeth & Joan", and an admon. was granted in 1561 to Elizabeth Estcourt, als Rogers, relict of Robert Rogers, and to her husband Giles Estcourt. There are more related Webb, Escourt and Rogers names in wills on surrounding pages:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZCYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA13
I haven't looked through the entire thread, but these people were discussed here last December in a thread:
John Roger of Bridport & Bryanston (d 1441)
taf
Bronwen Edwards
Apr 22, 2015, 12:16:22 AM4/22/15
to
On Tuesday, April 21, 2015 at 2:02:49 PM UTC-7, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
Thank you. I'm probably more closely related to Bloody Mary than the martyr anyway! You've provided some leads to follow as well - many thanks for that. Bronwen
jhigg...@yahoo.com
Apr 22, 2015, 1:55:16 AM4/22/15
to
On Tuesday, April 21, 2015 at 2:02:49 PM UTC-7, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2014-12/1417997759
There are other pieces of the same thread later in the same month - somehow disconnected from the main thread.
Bronwen, you mention that DNB says the parents of John Rogers the martyr were JOhn Rogers of Deritend and Margaret [or Margery?] Wyatt. This must be the old DNB, since the online ODNB doesn't mention his parents at all. ODNB does cite a perhaps useful source: an 1861 work by Col. J. L. Chester titled "John Rogers, Compiler of the First English Bible". The work is available via Google Books, and here at the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28john%20rogers%2C%20the%20compiler%29
The book has a long discussion on the probable descendants of John Rogers, as well as alternative versions of his supposed ancestry. It notes that John Rogers did have daughters named Susan and Elizabeth and gives their husbands, but neither of them was married to Thomas Eyre, Mayor of Salisbury. It also discusses the purported connections to the families of Rogers/FitzRoger of Bryanston and Courtenay of Powderham, and how they probably originated. It doesn't explicitly say so, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that both of these connections were exercises in genealogical grafting. In other words, the Rogers family of Warwickshire is almost certainly distinct from the Rogers family of Dorset. The book is worth a look - start at page 210.
Bronwen Edwards
Apr 22, 2015, 2:15:32 AM4/22/15
to
Thank you. In looking at the archives, I see exciting (martyrless) bits - I looked at the archives before posting but asked the wrong question. The possible connection with Somerset Webbs is intriguing as my mother was a Webb with roots in Somerset. One of my brick walls is Hugh Webb, d. c. 1795. He is linked to Culverhayes, in or near Chard. Thanks, Bronwen
Richard Smith
Apr 22, 2015, 8:30:13 AM4/22/15
to
On 21/04/15 22:02, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
> Third, on-line pedigrees of John Rogers the Martyr have his paternal
> grandparents as one Thomas FitzRoger, 1480-1530, and his wife,
> Catherine de Courtenay. I don't know if there were tradesman-class
> Courtenays or not, but this seems as unlikely as the above. The
> pedigree in which this was found used Douglas Richardson's
> publications as the source, but these indicate that this couple had a
> single son, George (not Thomas).
A very timely post. I've done a lot of research debunking many of the
> Third, on-line pedigrees of John Rogers the Martyr have his paternal
> grandparents as one Thomas FitzRoger, 1480-1530, and his wife,
> Catherine de Courtenay. I don't know if there were tradesman-class
> Courtenays or not, but this seems as unlikely as the above. The
> pedigree in which this was found used Douglas Richardson's
> publications as the source, but these indicate that this couple had a
> single son, George (not Thomas).
links in the usual pedigrees (both online and in print) for John Rogers,
and have been meaning to write it up to post here. I'm not in front of
my notes today and have a hectic couple of days so may not get around to
responding in detail until next week. However to summarise:
1. The parentage of John Rogers of Deritend (the father of John "the
Martyr") is pretty speculative. From memory, there's evidence putting
the family in or around Sutton Valence, Kent; and there's evidence that
Thomas Rogers of Bradford-on-Avon had a son whose name escapes me that
moved to Sutton Valence. Pedigrees vary on whether John of Deritend is
made a son of Thomas of Bradford, or a grandson which seems marginally
more plausible to me. But either way, I am not aware of evidence firmly
linking the Deritend family to the Bradford family.
2. Almost all the commonly-given pedigrees conflate Thomas Rogers of
Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts, a sergeant-at-law, with the contemporary Thomas
Rogers of Lamborne, Berks. Although there are quite a few similarities
between the two, they are unquestionably different people, with
different coats of arms, different years of death, and differently named
heirs. (Thomas of Lamborne had a son and heir of the same name, and he
too sometimes gets confused with them.) If John the Martyr is descended
from either, it is from the Bradford family; the Lamborne family almost
certainly became extinct within two generations.
3. Thomas of Bradford seems to have come from relatively obscure
origins, in Bristol if memory serves correct. Thomas of Lamborne was a
scion of the more prestigious Rogers family of Bryanston. Almost all
the online pedigrees for John the Martyr follow the Bryanston line.
4. Thomas of Lamborne was the son of John of Benham Valence, Berks, who
in turn was a son of one of the Johns of Bryanston. However the early
part of the Rogers line in Bryanston is more confused than is normally
recognised. Some secondary sources make John of Benham Valence the same
person as the John Rogers who married Ann Echyngham. This doesn't work.
John of Benham Valence was certainly still alive after Ann's husband
died. I suspect there were two brothers who were both called John,
which is also the view expressed in several /History of Parliament/ pages.
5. The Bryanston family came from Bridport in the early 15th century,
with a John Roger who represented first the borough of Bridport and
later the county of Dorset in parliament. He seems to have been a
largely self-made merchant, and was probably the father for John of
Benham Valence.
6. John of Bridport (or a father of the same name) is sometimes said to
have married Elizabeth de Furneaux, heir to Simon de Furneaux, and
sometimes said to be the son of another John whom she married. This
seems to have been believed by the 17th century, as evidence by the
coats of arms (no longer extant) in the church at Bryanston, but if such
a marriage did occur, it seems unlikely that it resulted in children, as
it's hard to find a chronology that doesn't put Elizabeth in her 50s at
the time of the marriage. Possibly she a second wife, and step-mother
to the children.
7. The Roger line is usually said to go back to an Aaron Roger, Rogers
or FitzRoger. I have found no evidence whatsoever that someone of that
name ever existed, far less that he was an ancestor to the Bridport
family. The online pedigrees say he was born in Rome, moved to London,
and (in some variants) then to the South West. Aaron seems a pretty
unlikely name for someone in 13th century Italy (unless he was Jewish);
neither does the Fitz-style surname seem plausible. This Aaron is
generally made a male line descendent of Tancred, King of Sicily, and
therefore the de Hauteville family. This is abject nonsense. Someone
(probably John Cox Underwood in about 1911) made it up as a means of
giving himself a more prestigious ancestry.
8. Bonus points if you've found a pedigree that claims to trace the
Martyr's patrilineal descent from a named individual in 2nd century
Finland, as I once saw online.
Richard
Bronwen Edwards
Apr 22, 2015, 3:30:49 PM4/22/15
to
Thanks to all who responded. My way seems clear for the moment - remove all traces of Protestant martyrdom from my charts. It seems clear that my Rogers was from Poole (as BLG initially said)and look for traces of that family. I greatly appreciate the links and the resounding response from Richard. I look forward to seeing your larger post - it should be valuable not only regarding John Rogers but also in mapping out a few of the ways in which genealogies may go astray. I must give up the extra points; I did not find the "connection" to Finland although I did find the bizarre link to Hauteville. Bronwen
Richard Smith
Apr 26, 2015, 10:20:39 PM4/26/15
to
[This may seem an unnecessary long response to a relatively simple
question, but so much rubbish has been written on these Rogers families
that I wanted set down in one place not only how the families probably
do relate, and also why much of what is commonly encountered is wrong.]
On 21/04/15 22:02, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
John Rogers the Marian martyr had ten or eleven children. (J. L.
Chester gives a good account of this discrepancy of his biography of
Rogers, and builds a persuasive case for there being eleven. [1, pp
231-2]) His daughters included a Susan and an Elizabeth, but neither
married Thomas Eyre. According to the printed 1634 visitations of
Middlesex, Elizabeth married James Proctor, Chancellor of Salisbury [2,
p 84]; Chester's biography says that visitation of Warwickshire in Harl.
MS. 1563 states the same, and I infer that pedigree dates in part to the
1563 visitation.
James Proctor doesn't appear in the list of Chancellors of Salisbury,
but a residentiary canon of that name is listed 1561-84. [3, pp 10-11 &
93-105] Alum. Oxon. says he graduated BD in 1537 [4, part 1, vol 3, p
1215], and as BD is a higher degree, it's hard to see how he could have
been born after 1515. John Rogers only married in 1537, and the
Warwickshire and Middlesex pedigrees both put Elizabeth as the second
daughter of three. If Elizabeth married that James Proctor, then he
must have been at least 25 years her senior. That's not impossible, but
when coupled with the seemingly incorrect description of James as
Chancellor of Salisbury, to my mind it's enough to cast doubt on the
marriage.
Fast. Eccl. Angl. says James Proctor died 31 July 1584, [3] but I cannot
immediately find a will which might have contained a clue as to whether
he had indeed married Elizabeth Rogers.
Thomas Eyre, the Mayor of Salisbury, seemingly did marry an Elizabeth
Rogers. The Eyre pedigree in the printed 1623 visitation of Wiltshire
says he married "Elizab. da. of ... Rogers of Poole in com. Dorset."
[5, p 56] A memorial in St Thomas, Salisbury confirms that Thomas
Eyre's wife was named Elizabeth and died 24 Dec 1612, aged 63. [6, p 31]
There seems no reason to disbelieve this, which puts Elizabeth's birth
in 1549.
You will find some online genealogies that make Thomas's wife the
daughter of the Smithfield martyr [e.g. 7], and the dates do fit far
better than making her the husband of James Proctor. But there is ample
evidence that Thomas's wife was indeed born in Poole as the visitation
says, not related (or at most distantly related) to the Smithfield martyr.
The Poole register entries for the 1546-51 are very badly decayed with
only scraps surviving from some pages, but one of these scraps says
"Elsabeth Rogers dawghter of Robert Rogers was [----] the xvj day of
novembr godfather morgan Rede [----] & margery [Fr]ix[ben]". [8] The
year is unreadable, but it must be within a few years of 1549. This is
no doubt the Elizabeth that appears in the 1555 will of Robert Rogers of
Poole. [9] Robert mentions sons John, Robert and William, and daughters
Dorothy, Amy, Elizabeth and Jone. The children were all under age and
were assigned to various relatives to be brought up; in particular,
Elizabeth and her sister Jone were entrusted to the care of their
maternal uncle, William Webbe of Salisbury, making it easy to see how a
future marriage to a Salisbury man may have happened.
Further evidence comes from the splendidly detailed will of another
Robert Rogers, a leatherseller from London. The will [PROB 11/99/141],
dated 11 Sept 1601, leaves "to the towne of Poole in Dorset Shire where
I was borne five hundred markes to build an Almeshouse", and "to Fiftie
and three poore men that shall goe to the Church with the corps, soe
many gownes, for that I am of that age", meaning he was born in 1547-8
in Poole. He also mentions his "sister Elizabethe Ayer", proving that
Thomas Eyre's wife was indeed from the Poole family. [10]
Plenty of modern sources make Elizabeth Eyre of Salisbury and Robert
Rogers of London the children of a John Rogers. [e.g. 11] There seems
to be no evidence to support this, and the suggestion appears to
originate in Burke's Landed Gentry, [12, p 530] and embellished in an
unsourced article in Notes & Queries in 1905 [6, p 30] which says
"Thomas Eyre [...] mar. Elizabeth, dau. of John Rogers of Poole, of the
ancient family of Rogers of Brianston, Dorset, and sister of Robert
Rogers, who founded the almshouses in Cripplegate, London, and also left
large charities in Poole." So far as I can see, there was no John
Rogers in Poole early enough to have been Elizabeth and Robert's father,
and given Elizabeth's good marriage and Robert's large wealth, it's hard
to believe their father could have lived in Poole without record. All
in all, there seems little doubt that Robert is their father, and not
some unrecorded John.
Whether Elizabeth Eyre's father, Robert Rogers, was descended from the
Bryanston family is an open question. Robert married Elizabeth, the
daughter of William Webbe of Salisbury (the second of the three
consecutive generations of that name) [13]. Webbe seems to have been a
well-connected gentleman and a prosperous merchant; I cannot imagine he
married his daughter to anyone but another member of the local gentry,
and Robert's wealth (which exceeded £3000 in his will [9]) suggests he
was of the landed gentry. He mentioned a brother John Rogers in his
will, but with no indication of where he was from: not Poole, if the
local record is anything to go by. Bryanston is only 15 miles from
Poole, and the Bryanston family were the only ones noteworthy enough to
be recorded in the 1623 visitation of Dorset [14, p 79]. (Oddly, no
Rogers families were recorded in the 1565 visitation. [15])
It therefore seems plausible enough that the Poole family was a cadet
branch of the Bryanston family, but actual evidence is lacking. If
Thomas and Elizabeth Eyre's memorial stone at St Thomas, Salisbury
contains the Eyre arms impaling those of Rogers, this would be a clue as
the Bryanston arms were distinct to the various other Rogers families.
Robert was probably born in the 1510s, based on him having seven young
children in 1555, and his father-in-law having probably been born in the
1490s. If he is a member of the Bryanston family, that must make him a
grandson of Sir Henry Rogers (c1446-c1506), most likely a son of his
eldest son Sir John, but there is no evidence to support that. (Yes,
Sir John had a son called John, and Robert's will says he had a brother
John [9]: but probably so too did half the country.)
> There are three questions I have to toss to you:
>
> first, John Rogers, father of Susan-Elizabeth, was said in BLG to be
> "of Poole, Dorset". John Rogers the Martyr was born in Deritend,
> Warwickshire. Knowing how often Burke was wrong in his details, could
> this have actually been the same person. His wife, Adriana "Pratt"
> was actually a "de Weyden" from Antwerp (DNB). I have had Burke's
> John Rogers and Adriana Pratt in my files for some time but only
> recently found this might be the same person as the martyr. So the
> first question: have any of you looked at the Rogers-Eyre connection?
> Everyone needs someone in their family background who was burned at
> the stake.
On what grounds you're referring to her as Susan-Elizabeth? I've only
ever seen Thomas Eyre's wife referred to as Elizabeth. In any case, as
explained above, Burke is mistaken in saying Elizabeth Eyre née Roger's
father was John Rogers of Poole. But nor is it correct that Elizabeth
Eyre was the child of John Rogers, the Smithfield martyr.
It's not certain that John the Martyr was born in Deritend, in the
parish of Aston, Warwickshire. His father, John of Deritend, seems to
have been established in Deritend a decade after his birth, as he (or
someone of that name) was Master for the Gild of St John the Baptist in
1513. However, John the Martyr was probably born 1500-05 (some sources
say 1507 or 1509, but I share Chester's view that these make him
implausibly young when he graduated [1, p 221]), and as one theory is
that the family had recently moved from Sutton Valence in Kent (c.f. the
Middlesex visitation pedigree [2, p 84]), it's possible that he was born
somewhere far from than Deritend.
> Second, John Rogers the Martyr came from a humble but respectable
> background; his father, John Rogers/FitzRoger, was a lorimer, as I
> understand it, manufacturing bits and spurs. His mother, Margaret
> Wyatt, was the daughter of a tanner (DNB). A number of on-line
> pedigrees take a less humble approach and make her the daughter of
> "Sir Henry Wyatt" and the (aptly named?) Anne Skinner. I don't really
> know where tanners went to get their knighthoods, so once again
> wonder if anyone has looked at the ancestry of John Rogers' mother
> and found confirmation of our Sir Tanner and his Skinner wife, or, as
> I assume, different information about the father's identity and yet
> more on-line pedigrees of people who would like to have titled
> ancestors rather than metalsmiths and tanners.
First, as an aside, use of the surname FitzRoger at this time for the
family, though commonly seen online, is anachronistic nonsense. It
originates from an absurd attempt by John Cox Underwood, a Lieutenant
Governor of Kentucky and an amateur genealogist, to make the Martyr a
patrilineal descendant of the de Hauteville family of Normandy, and in
particular Roger I "the Great Count" of Sicily. [17] I am aware of no
contemporary source that gives the surname FitzRoger to any member of
these Rogers families in the 15th or 16th century.
To address the question of whether a lorimer might marry the daughter of
a knight, there's a danger here of judging this late mediaeval / early
Tudor period by modern standards. In the towns, the master tradesmen
often were the gentry, and could become wealthy in a trade where the
guilds effectively operated a legal cartel. Consider Robert Rogers, the
founder of the Cripplegate almshouses mentioned above. He was a leather
seller, yet he died worth many thousands of pounds. [10]
John Rogers of Deritend was armigerous (or at least, so his descendants
claimed in the Warwickshire and Middlesex visitations [2, p 84]), and he
was evidently able to support his sons education. If he was a lorimer,
then he was a reasonably wealthy one, and as such I see no intrinsic
difficulty with him marrying the daughter of a knight. However I don't
know what contemporary source says he was a lorimer. The DNB cites a
paper "John Rogers of Deritand" by R K Dent, Trans. Birm. Arch. Sect.
xxii (1896) pp 1-10, which I have yet to locate. [18]
The name of John of Deritend's wife, Margaret or Margery Wyatt, comes
from the visitations, which do not name her father or place of origin.
[2, p 84] Nor does Chester elaborate in his biography of the martyr,
[1] nor is further detail given in the DNB. [18] (I think you're
mistaken in saying the DNB says Margaret was a tanner's daughter.) The
detail appears to come from another source I've yet to locate, a book by
Joseph Hill entitled "Bookmakers of Old Birmingham" privately published
in 1907, cited in a biographical register of Christ's College,
Cambridge. In an entry on John Wyatt, an early Fellow of Christ's, it
says Wyatt "was grandson of a John Wyatt, tanner of Deritend,
Birmingham, whose daughter Margaret married John Rogers of Deritend, and
was mother of John Rogers the first martyr under Mary." It also gives
the useful detail that John Rogers of Deritend made a will dated 1540
making his wife's nephew John Wyatt executor (presumably because his son
was effectively exiled in Wittenberg). [19, p 10]
Hill's book is old enough that it's out of copyright, but evidently with
on 250 copies printed none are in libraries that Google or the Internet
Archive have yet scanned, and the Cambridge University Library (one of
the UK copyright libraries) appears not to have a copy. However it
would be good to locate a copy, as a 2006 query on a RootsWeb mailing
list suggests it may include a transcript of the 1540 will of John
Rogers of Deritend in which he requests to be buried in Aston, "in such
place where the bones of my kynne do rest." [20]
If this is an accurate quote, then it tends to counter the theory that
John of Deritend's father was from Sutton Valence in Kent. The phrasing
seems to imply more than one person buried in Aston. With more solid
evidence of a Kent connection, one might reconcile this quote by
supposing that it was John of Deritend's father (rather than John
himself) that moved north: perhaps his parents, maybe a few siblings,
even a niece or nephew or a young child of his own constituted the "kin"
buried there.
The evidence for the Sutton Valence connection is not strong. John of
Deritend was presumably born in the 1470s or 80s, and the only source
for this is the visitation of Middlesex in 1634, which gives John of
Deritend's father as "... Rogers of Sutton Vallens [sic] in Kent". [2, p
v & 84] It is hard not to be suspicious of a detail of the earliest
generation not found in the rather earlier Warwickshire visitation of
1563 (according to Chester [1, p 223]), but present in a visitation made
150 years after the event.
It is certainly true that the Deritend family had virtually identical
arms to the Rogers family of Sutton Valence, as documented in the 1574
visitation of Kent, [21, p 25] and the minor differences that existed
could easily be put down to artistic licence. The link is apparently
further affirmed by fact that both arms were recorded as including a
crescent cadency mark, typically signifying a second son, that was not
found in Rogers families. But many families descend from a second son,
and it is quite plausible that two very distant branches of the family
independently added a crescent to distinguish themselves as descending
from a second son.
The principle difficulty with the Sutton Valence link is how John of
Deritend can be accommodated in the Sutton Valence genealogy, as given
in the Kent visitation. Like most visitation pedigrees, the Kent one
has no dates. [21, p 25] In the fourth generation is Richard Rogers,
the Bishop of Dover, who graduated Batchelor of Divinity from Cambridge
in 1562, and Alum. Cantab. says he was born c1533, son of Ralph of
Sutton Valence. [22, p 478] (A BD is a higher degree, taken some time
after an BA, and Richard had fled the country during Queen Mary's reign,
[23, p 273] which explains his age.) According to the visitation, the
bishop was a third son, so his father Ralph was probably born in around
1500, making him roughly the same age as the Martyr, and Ralph's father
John was presumably the same age as John of Deritend.
I can envisage three strategies for fitting John of Deritend into the
Kent pedigree:
1) Is it possible that John of Deritend, and Ralph's father John
are the same person? Perhaps he married the unidentified sister of
William Copynger, the Lord Mayor of London (1512-13), and had a son
Ralph, as per the Kent visitation; [21, p 25] then moved to Deritend,
married Margaret Wyatt, and had the five children identified in the
Middlesex and Warwickshire visitations [2, p 84].
2) An alternative way of grafting John of Deritend into the Kent
family is to assume that he is the brother of Ralph's father John.
Families with two brothers of the same name did exist, so the
possibility cannot be dismissed; indeed, the later 1592 visitation of
Kent does give Ralph's father John an elder brother called John, though
he is said (incorrectly) to be the ancestor of Sir Edward Rogers. [21, p
143]
3) The final possibility is that John of Deritend is Ralph's
grandfather who was also named John in the Kent visitations. This need
not make John of Deritend especially old when John the Martyr was born,
as the Kent generations are compressed. In this scenario, John of
Deritend was probably in his 40s and early 50s when the Deritend
children were born.
The case for the Sutton Valence link is weak, but not, in my view, so
weak that it should be dismissed out of hand. He heraldic evidence
provides circumstantial confirmation to the Middlesex visitation
pedigree -- unless, of course, the Sutton Valence link was made up by
the herald as a result of the heraldic coincidence of the crescent
cadency marks.
In contrast, the case for Margaret Wyatt being the daughter of Sir Henry
Wyatt is practically non-existent, or at least entirely undocumented.
So far as I can determine, it was first suggested by Underwood who says
"he met Margaret, or 'Margary,' Wyatt, the alleged dau. of Sir Henry
Wyatt of Abington [sic] Castle -- near Maidstone; and they were m.
1505-6". [17, p 22] It is unclear whether "alleged daughter" means that
Underwood made it up, that he only had a circumstantial source, or that
she was illegitimate and only allegedly Sir Henry's. Certainly she is
not mentioned Sir Henry's will (but then the only relative mentioned,
besides his dead wife Anne, is his son Thomas). [24]
If John Rogers of Deritend really does come from Sutton Valence, it is
not wholly impossible that Sir Henry might be his father-in-law, as
Allington Castle is a mere eight miles from Sutton Valence. But if Sir
Henry is Margaret Wyatt's father, Anne Skinner is almost certainly not
her mother, as Sir Henry and Anne's eldest son Thomas was born in 1503,
[25, vol 5, p 411] and Margaret Wyatt must have been born in the 1480s,
or earlier. Conceivably she is a much older illegitimate daughter of
Sir Henry's; much more likely, she is the tanner's daughter from Deritend.
> Third, on-line pedigrees of John Rogers the Martyr have his paternal
> grandparents as one Thomas FitzRoger, 1480-1530, and his wife,
> Catherine de Courtenay. I don't know if there were tradesman-class
> Courtenays or not, but this seems as unlikely as the above. The
> pedigree in which this was found used Douglas Richardson's
> publications as the source, but these indicate that this couple had a
> single son, George (not Thomas).
Ignoring the anachronistic "FitzRoger", John the Martyr, who was almost
certainly born in 1500-1505 (and just conceivably as late as 1509),
could not have had a grandfather born in 1480. Normally, one would
expect his grandfather to be born sometime between the 1440s and 1460s.
In saying John the Martyr's grandparents were Thomas Rogers and
Catherine Courtenay, you seem to be following the third of the possible
ways enumerated above of grafting John of Deritend into the Sutton
Valence genealogy -- namely by identifying him with John, the
grandfather of Ralph Rogers. This is effectively the approach Underwood
adopts. [17, pp 17-22] Chester adds an additional generation, [1, pp
233-34] following the first or second strategy outline above. But it
appears neither Underwood nor Chester were aware of the Kent pedigrees.
The 1592 visitation of Kent makes the John of Sutton Valence (Ralph's
grandfather, and according to Underwood, John of Deritend) the son of
Thomas Rogers of Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire and his second wife
Catherine Courtenay. [21, p 143] In doing so, it is consistent with the
1623 visitation of Gloucestershire [26, p 141], and to an extent with
the 1565 visitation of Wiltshire which simply gives Thomas a son "...
Rogers of Kent" by his second wife. [27, p 38]
While John of Sutton Valence may have been the son of Thomas of
Bradford, it seems clear he was not the son of Catherine Courtenay.
Thomas's inquisition post mortem was taken in 18 Ed IV (1478-79), [28, p
388] and Catherine subsequently married William Huddesfield. [25, p 426]
After William's death, Catherine left a will dated 21 Nov 2 Hen VIII
(1510) in which she pays for a mass at Bradford for "Thomas Rogers
somtyme my hosband sergeant at lawe", gives a silver cup to "William
Rogers of Bradforde aforseid, gentleman, sonne to the seid Thomas", and
another cup "to his brother John Rogers". [29] All of the visitation
pedigrees make William the son of Thomas's first wife, William Besill's
daughter; and as Catherine refers to John as William's brother, rather
than her son, it seems that John is descended from the Besill marriage too.
Catherine's will goes on to give the bulk of her property to "George
Rogers my sonne" and his children, Edward and Elizabeth. [29] This
strongly suggests George is her only son by Thomas, as Richardson says.
[25, vol 4, p 426]. This is consistent with the 1623 Somerset
visitation which omits John and shows William from the first marriage
and George from the second. [30, p 128] George's family is described
in some detail in an article in Notes & Queries, which gives the arms
for that branch of the family as including a mullet (a five-pointed
star) for difference. [31, p 339] This is the usual cadency mark for a
third son, and fits neatly with suggestion that William, the first son,
stayed in Bradford and used the undifferentiated arms; John, the second
son, moved to Sutton Valence, Kent and differentiated his arms with a
crescent; and George, the third son, moved to Lopit, Devon and
differentiated his arms with a mullet.
In any case, if John the Martyr's family originates from Sutton Valence,
then it seems much more likely that he descends from Thomas of
Bradford's first wife, William Besill's daughter (whom the VCH names
Cecily [33, pp 4-51]), than from the more prestigious Courtenay line.
Thomas of Bradford is usually said to descend from the Rogers family of
Bryanston. Two variants of this descent are commonly found.
1) Chester says that Thomas of Bradford was the son of Sir Henry
Rogers of Bryanston. [1, p 233] This fails on chronological grounds.
Thomas's first marriage must have been in the 1460s (if not earlier), as
it resulted in two sons; and his second wife's first husband (Sir
Seintcleir Pomeroy) died 1471, [25, vol 4, p 426] and she must have
married Thomas shortly thereafter. Sir Henry Rogers was born in the
late 1440s. [34] Sir Henry could not therefore have been Thomas's father.
2) Underwood says that Thomas of Bradford was the son of Thomas of
Benham Valence. [17, pp 15-17] (The Benham Valence certainly are
descended from the Bryanston family.) It's not entirely clear which of
the two generation of Thomases of Benham Valence Underwood means, and
probably he is unaware that there are two. The relationship between the
Benham Valence Rogers is best set out in the inquisition post mortem of
John Colyngruge, 15 Nov 15 Hen VII (1499), which sets out four
generations of the family: "John Roger, lately style John Roger of
Benham", his son and heir Thomas, his son Thomas, and his daughter
Elizabeth wife of William Essex. [35, vol 2, p 206, no 318] Thomas the
younger seems to have died in 1488 when his daughter Elizabeth was "aged
13 and more" (i.e. born in or before 1475). [35, vol 1, p 194, no 460]
If Elizabeth was born in about 1475, Thomas the younger was probably
born in or a bit before 1450, around the same age as Thomas of Bradford.
If Thomas of Bradford is a son of Thomas the elder of Benham, this
gives the improbable situation of two sons called Thomas; or if as
Underwood appears to suggest, Thomas of Bradford was brother of
Elizabeth Essex, it fails to explain why Elizabeth was Thomas the
younger's heir. Underwood's explanation that Thomas of Bradford chose
to forgo his inheritance makes no sense, especially when coupled with
the fact that Thomas of Bradford's arms were entirely unlike those of
the Benham Valence family (as preserved as a quartering in the Essex
arms in Lambourne [36, p 8]).
Chester's variant of the descent can be ruled out, and Underwood's seems
barely more plausible. More likely, Thomas was not descended from the
Bryanston family. Possibly he descended from the Bryanston family's
forebears in Bridport, but quite probably his was an unrelated family.
Richard
SOURCES
[1] Chester, Joseph Lemuel. /John Rogers: the compiler of the first
authorised English Bible/. London, 1861.
<https://archive.org/details/johnrogerscompi00unkngoog>
[2] Armytage, Sir George John, ed. /Middlesex Pedigrees: as collected
by Richard Munday: Harleian MS 1551/. London, 1914.
<https://archive.org/details/middlesexpedigre65mund>
[3] Horn, Joyce M, ed.. /Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume
6, Salisbury Diocese/. London, 1986.
<http://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol6>
[4] Foster, Joseph. /Alumni oxonienses; the members of the University
of Oxford, 1500-1714/, vol 3. Oxford, 1891.
<https://archive.org/details/alumnioxoniensi01oxfogoog>
[5] Marshall, George W, ed. /The Visitation of Wiltshire, 1623/.
London, 1882. <https://archive.org/details/visitationofwilt00sainrich>
[6] Hartigan, A S. "Eyre of Wilts" in /Wiltshire Notes and Queries/, vol
5 (1905-7), pp 27-31.
<https://archive.org/details/wiltshirenotesqu5119unse>
[7] Larson, Bryan S. "Thomas Eyre, Sr." (I40387) on /Our Family
Histories/ <http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/getperson.php?personID=I40387>
[8] Dorset History Centre. Poole parish registers, christenings
1550-1558. [PE-PL/RE/1/1A]
[9] The National Archives. "Will of Roberte Rogers of Poole, Dorset."
1555. [PROB 11/37/513] In records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
[10] The National Archives. "Will of Robert Rogers, Leather Seller of
London." 1601. [PROB 11/99/141]. In records of the Prerogative Court
of Canterbury.
[11] Hasler, P W, ed. "EYRE, Thomas (d.1628), of Salisbury, Wilts." in
/The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603/. Boydell &
Brewer, 1981.
<http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/eyre-thomas-1628>
[12] Burke, Sir Bernard. /A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the
Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland/, 6th ed., vol 1. London,
1879. <https://archive.org/details/genealogicalhera01byuburk>
[13] Bindoff, S T, ed. "WEBBE, William II (by 1499-1554), of Salisbury,
Wilts." in /The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558/.
Boydell & Brewer, 1982.
<http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/webbe-william-ii-1499-1554>
[14] Rylands, John Paul, ed. /The visitation of the county of Dorset,
taken in the year 1623/. London, 1885.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationofcound00stge>
[15] Metcalfe, Walter C, ed. /The visitation of Dorsetshire, A.D.
1565/. Exeter, 1887.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationofdors00harvuoft>
[16] Birmingham Archives and Heritage. Catalogue description for MS
3369/Acc 1961-9/107. "Lease for 70 years". 1513.
[17] Underwood, John Cox. /Lineage of the Rogers Family, England —
Embracing John Rogers the Martyr/. New York, 1911.
[18] Lee, Sidney. "Rogers, John (1500?-1555)" in /Dictonary of National
Biography/, vol 49. London, 1897.
<http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rogers,_John_%281500%3F-1555%29_%28DNB00%29>
[19] Peile, John. /Biographical Register of Christ's College,
1505-1905/, vol 1. Cambridge, 1910.
<https://archive.org/details/biographicalregi01peil>
[20] Helm, Richard. "John Rogers of Deritend", post on ROGERS RootsWeb
mailing list, 6 Apr 2006.
<http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ROGERS/2006-04/1144366754>
[21] Bannerman, W Bruce, ed. /The Visitations of Kent taken in the
years 1574 and 1592 by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux/, part 2. London, 1924.
[22] Venn, John & Venn, J. A. /Alumni Cantabrigienses/, part 1, vol 3.
Cambridge, 1924. <https://archive.org/details/p1alumnicantabri03univuoft>
[23] Garrett, Christina Hallowell. /The Marian Exiles: A Study in the
Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism/. Cambridge, 2010.
[24] The National Archives. "Will of Sir Henry Wyatte or Wyatt of
Allington, Kent". 1538. [PROB 11/26/130]. In records of the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
[25] Richardson, Douglas. /Royal Ancestry/. Salt Lake City, 2013.
[26] Maclean, Sir John, ed. /The Visitation of the County of
Gloucester, taken in the year 1623/. London, 1885.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationofcoun00inchit>
[27] Metcalfe, Walter C, ed. /The Visitation of Wiltshire, 1565/.
Exeter, 1897. <https://archive.org/details/visitationofwilt00harvrich>
[28] Caley, John & Bayley J, eds. /Calendarium Inquisitionum post
mortem sive Escaetarum/, vol 4. London, 1828.
[29] The National Archives. "Will of Dame Kateryn Lady Huddesfeld,
Widow". 1510. [PROB 11/18/20] In records of the Prerogative Court of
Canterbury.
[30] Colby, Frederick Thomas, ed. /The Visitation of the County of
Somerset in the year 1623/. London, 1876.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationcount05britgoog>
[31] Rogers, W H H. /Rogers-Courtenay-Huddesfield, of Bradford-on-Avon,
Wilts; Cannington, Somerset; and Shillingford, Devon/ in /Wiltshire
Notes and Queries/, vol 3 (1899-1901), pp p 337-345.
<https://archive.org/details/wiltshirenotesqu03deviuoft>
[33] Chettle, H F, et al. /The Victoria History of Wiltshire/, vol 7.
London, 1953. <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol7>
[34] Harrison, George. "Rogers Genealogy" in /Miscellanea Genealogica
et Heraldica/, vol 1 (1868), pp 258-65.
[35] H M Stationary Office. /Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem: Hen
VII/. London, 1915. vol 2:
<http://www.archive.org/details/calendarofinquis02grea>
[36] Metcalfe, Walter C, ed. /The Visitation of Berkshire in 1566/.
Exeter, 1885. <https://archive.org/details/visitationberks00hervgoog>
question, but so much rubbish has been written on these Rogers families
that I wanted set down in one place not only how the families probably
do relate, and also why much of what is commonly encountered is wrong.]
On 21/04/15 22:02, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
> I recently found a connection to John Rogers the Martyr (said to have
> been the first Protestant victim of Bloody Mary) by way of his
> presumed daughter, Susan-Elizabeth Rogers, wife of Thomas Eyre, Mayor
> of Salisbury.
As others have mentioned, this seems horribly confused.
> been the first Protestant victim of Bloody Mary) by way of his
> presumed daughter, Susan-Elizabeth Rogers, wife of Thomas Eyre, Mayor
> of Salisbury.
John Rogers the Marian martyr had ten or eleven children. (J. L.
Chester gives a good account of this discrepancy of his biography of
Rogers, and builds a persuasive case for there being eleven. [1, pp
231-2]) His daughters included a Susan and an Elizabeth, but neither
married Thomas Eyre. According to the printed 1634 visitations of
Middlesex, Elizabeth married James Proctor, Chancellor of Salisbury [2,
p 84]; Chester's biography says that visitation of Warwickshire in Harl.
MS. 1563 states the same, and I infer that pedigree dates in part to the
1563 visitation.
James Proctor doesn't appear in the list of Chancellors of Salisbury,
but a residentiary canon of that name is listed 1561-84. [3, pp 10-11 &
93-105] Alum. Oxon. says he graduated BD in 1537 [4, part 1, vol 3, p
1215], and as BD is a higher degree, it's hard to see how he could have
been born after 1515. John Rogers only married in 1537, and the
Warwickshire and Middlesex pedigrees both put Elizabeth as the second
daughter of three. If Elizabeth married that James Proctor, then he
must have been at least 25 years her senior. That's not impossible, but
when coupled with the seemingly incorrect description of James as
Chancellor of Salisbury, to my mind it's enough to cast doubt on the
marriage.
Fast. Eccl. Angl. says James Proctor died 31 July 1584, [3] but I cannot
immediately find a will which might have contained a clue as to whether
he had indeed married Elizabeth Rogers.
Thomas Eyre, the Mayor of Salisbury, seemingly did marry an Elizabeth
Rogers. The Eyre pedigree in the printed 1623 visitation of Wiltshire
says he married "Elizab. da. of ... Rogers of Poole in com. Dorset."
[5, p 56] A memorial in St Thomas, Salisbury confirms that Thomas
Eyre's wife was named Elizabeth and died 24 Dec 1612, aged 63. [6, p 31]
There seems no reason to disbelieve this, which puts Elizabeth's birth
in 1549.
You will find some online genealogies that make Thomas's wife the
daughter of the Smithfield martyr [e.g. 7], and the dates do fit far
better than making her the husband of James Proctor. But there is ample
evidence that Thomas's wife was indeed born in Poole as the visitation
says, not related (or at most distantly related) to the Smithfield martyr.
The Poole register entries for the 1546-51 are very badly decayed with
only scraps surviving from some pages, but one of these scraps says
"Elsabeth Rogers dawghter of Robert Rogers was [----] the xvj day of
novembr godfather morgan Rede [----] & margery [Fr]ix[ben]". [8] The
year is unreadable, but it must be within a few years of 1549. This is
no doubt the Elizabeth that appears in the 1555 will of Robert Rogers of
Poole. [9] Robert mentions sons John, Robert and William, and daughters
Dorothy, Amy, Elizabeth and Jone. The children were all under age and
were assigned to various relatives to be brought up; in particular,
Elizabeth and her sister Jone were entrusted to the care of their
maternal uncle, William Webbe of Salisbury, making it easy to see how a
future marriage to a Salisbury man may have happened.
Further evidence comes from the splendidly detailed will of another
Robert Rogers, a leatherseller from London. The will [PROB 11/99/141],
dated 11 Sept 1601, leaves "to the towne of Poole in Dorset Shire where
I was borne five hundred markes to build an Almeshouse", and "to Fiftie
and three poore men that shall goe to the Church with the corps, soe
many gownes, for that I am of that age", meaning he was born in 1547-8
in Poole. He also mentions his "sister Elizabethe Ayer", proving that
Thomas Eyre's wife was indeed from the Poole family. [10]
Plenty of modern sources make Elizabeth Eyre of Salisbury and Robert
Rogers of London the children of a John Rogers. [e.g. 11] There seems
to be no evidence to support this, and the suggestion appears to
originate in Burke's Landed Gentry, [12, p 530] and embellished in an
unsourced article in Notes & Queries in 1905 [6, p 30] which says
"Thomas Eyre [...] mar. Elizabeth, dau. of John Rogers of Poole, of the
ancient family of Rogers of Brianston, Dorset, and sister of Robert
Rogers, who founded the almshouses in Cripplegate, London, and also left
large charities in Poole." So far as I can see, there was no John
Rogers in Poole early enough to have been Elizabeth and Robert's father,
and given Elizabeth's good marriage and Robert's large wealth, it's hard
to believe their father could have lived in Poole without record. All
in all, there seems little doubt that Robert is their father, and not
some unrecorded John.
Whether Elizabeth Eyre's father, Robert Rogers, was descended from the
Bryanston family is an open question. Robert married Elizabeth, the
daughter of William Webbe of Salisbury (the second of the three
consecutive generations of that name) [13]. Webbe seems to have been a
well-connected gentleman and a prosperous merchant; I cannot imagine he
married his daughter to anyone but another member of the local gentry,
and Robert's wealth (which exceeded £3000 in his will [9]) suggests he
was of the landed gentry. He mentioned a brother John Rogers in his
will, but with no indication of where he was from: not Poole, if the
local record is anything to go by. Bryanston is only 15 miles from
Poole, and the Bryanston family were the only ones noteworthy enough to
be recorded in the 1623 visitation of Dorset [14, p 79]. (Oddly, no
Rogers families were recorded in the 1565 visitation. [15])
It therefore seems plausible enough that the Poole family was a cadet
branch of the Bryanston family, but actual evidence is lacking. If
Thomas and Elizabeth Eyre's memorial stone at St Thomas, Salisbury
contains the Eyre arms impaling those of Rogers, this would be a clue as
the Bryanston arms were distinct to the various other Rogers families.
Robert was probably born in the 1510s, based on him having seven young
children in 1555, and his father-in-law having probably been born in the
1490s. If he is a member of the Bryanston family, that must make him a
grandson of Sir Henry Rogers (c1446-c1506), most likely a son of his
eldest son Sir John, but there is no evidence to support that. (Yes,
Sir John had a son called John, and Robert's will says he had a brother
John [9]: but probably so too did half the country.)
> There are three questions I have to toss to you:
>
> first, John Rogers, father of Susan-Elizabeth, was said in BLG to be
> "of Poole, Dorset". John Rogers the Martyr was born in Deritend,
> Warwickshire. Knowing how often Burke was wrong in his details, could
> this have actually been the same person. His wife, Adriana "Pratt"
> was actually a "de Weyden" from Antwerp (DNB). I have had Burke's
> John Rogers and Adriana Pratt in my files for some time but only
> recently found this might be the same person as the martyr. So the
> first question: have any of you looked at the Rogers-Eyre connection?
> Everyone needs someone in their family background who was burned at
> the stake.
ever seen Thomas Eyre's wife referred to as Elizabeth. In any case, as
explained above, Burke is mistaken in saying Elizabeth Eyre née Roger's
father was John Rogers of Poole. But nor is it correct that Elizabeth
Eyre was the child of John Rogers, the Smithfield martyr.
It's not certain that John the Martyr was born in Deritend, in the
parish of Aston, Warwickshire. His father, John of Deritend, seems to
have been established in Deritend a decade after his birth, as he (or
someone of that name) was Master for the Gild of St John the Baptist in
1513. However, John the Martyr was probably born 1500-05 (some sources
say 1507 or 1509, but I share Chester's view that these make him
implausibly young when he graduated [1, p 221]), and as one theory is
that the family had recently moved from Sutton Valence in Kent (c.f. the
Middlesex visitation pedigree [2, p 84]), it's possible that he was born
somewhere far from than Deritend.
> Second, John Rogers the Martyr came from a humble but respectable
> background; his father, John Rogers/FitzRoger, was a lorimer, as I
> understand it, manufacturing bits and spurs. His mother, Margaret
> Wyatt, was the daughter of a tanner (DNB). A number of on-line
> pedigrees take a less humble approach and make her the daughter of
> "Sir Henry Wyatt" and the (aptly named?) Anne Skinner. I don't really
> know where tanners went to get their knighthoods, so once again
> wonder if anyone has looked at the ancestry of John Rogers' mother
> and found confirmation of our Sir Tanner and his Skinner wife, or, as
> I assume, different information about the father's identity and yet
> more on-line pedigrees of people who would like to have titled
> ancestors rather than metalsmiths and tanners.
family, though commonly seen online, is anachronistic nonsense. It
originates from an absurd attempt by John Cox Underwood, a Lieutenant
Governor of Kentucky and an amateur genealogist, to make the Martyr a
patrilineal descendant of the de Hauteville family of Normandy, and in
particular Roger I "the Great Count" of Sicily. [17] I am aware of no
contemporary source that gives the surname FitzRoger to any member of
these Rogers families in the 15th or 16th century.
To address the question of whether a lorimer might marry the daughter of
a knight, there's a danger here of judging this late mediaeval / early
Tudor period by modern standards. In the towns, the master tradesmen
often were the gentry, and could become wealthy in a trade where the
guilds effectively operated a legal cartel. Consider Robert Rogers, the
founder of the Cripplegate almshouses mentioned above. He was a leather
seller, yet he died worth many thousands of pounds. [10]
John Rogers of Deritend was armigerous (or at least, so his descendants
claimed in the Warwickshire and Middlesex visitations [2, p 84]), and he
was evidently able to support his sons education. If he was a lorimer,
then he was a reasonably wealthy one, and as such I see no intrinsic
difficulty with him marrying the daughter of a knight. However I don't
know what contemporary source says he was a lorimer. The DNB cites a
paper "John Rogers of Deritand" by R K Dent, Trans. Birm. Arch. Sect.
xxii (1896) pp 1-10, which I have yet to locate. [18]
The name of John of Deritend's wife, Margaret or Margery Wyatt, comes
from the visitations, which do not name her father or place of origin.
[2, p 84] Nor does Chester elaborate in his biography of the martyr,
[1] nor is further detail given in the DNB. [18] (I think you're
mistaken in saying the DNB says Margaret was a tanner's daughter.) The
detail appears to come from another source I've yet to locate, a book by
Joseph Hill entitled "Bookmakers of Old Birmingham" privately published
in 1907, cited in a biographical register of Christ's College,
Cambridge. In an entry on John Wyatt, an early Fellow of Christ's, it
says Wyatt "was grandson of a John Wyatt, tanner of Deritend,
Birmingham, whose daughter Margaret married John Rogers of Deritend, and
was mother of John Rogers the first martyr under Mary." It also gives
the useful detail that John Rogers of Deritend made a will dated 1540
making his wife's nephew John Wyatt executor (presumably because his son
was effectively exiled in Wittenberg). [19, p 10]
Hill's book is old enough that it's out of copyright, but evidently with
on 250 copies printed none are in libraries that Google or the Internet
Archive have yet scanned, and the Cambridge University Library (one of
the UK copyright libraries) appears not to have a copy. However it
would be good to locate a copy, as a 2006 query on a RootsWeb mailing
list suggests it may include a transcript of the 1540 will of John
Rogers of Deritend in which he requests to be buried in Aston, "in such
place where the bones of my kynne do rest." [20]
If this is an accurate quote, then it tends to counter the theory that
John of Deritend's father was from Sutton Valence in Kent. The phrasing
seems to imply more than one person buried in Aston. With more solid
evidence of a Kent connection, one might reconcile this quote by
supposing that it was John of Deritend's father (rather than John
himself) that moved north: perhaps his parents, maybe a few siblings,
even a niece or nephew or a young child of his own constituted the "kin"
buried there.
The evidence for the Sutton Valence connection is not strong. John of
Deritend was presumably born in the 1470s or 80s, and the only source
for this is the visitation of Middlesex in 1634, which gives John of
Deritend's father as "... Rogers of Sutton Vallens [sic] in Kent". [2, p
v & 84] It is hard not to be suspicious of a detail of the earliest
generation not found in the rather earlier Warwickshire visitation of
1563 (according to Chester [1, p 223]), but present in a visitation made
150 years after the event.
It is certainly true that the Deritend family had virtually identical
arms to the Rogers family of Sutton Valence, as documented in the 1574
visitation of Kent, [21, p 25] and the minor differences that existed
could easily be put down to artistic licence. The link is apparently
further affirmed by fact that both arms were recorded as including a
crescent cadency mark, typically signifying a second son, that was not
found in Rogers families. But many families descend from a second son,
and it is quite plausible that two very distant branches of the family
independently added a crescent to distinguish themselves as descending
from a second son.
The principle difficulty with the Sutton Valence link is how John of
Deritend can be accommodated in the Sutton Valence genealogy, as given
in the Kent visitation. Like most visitation pedigrees, the Kent one
has no dates. [21, p 25] In the fourth generation is Richard Rogers,
the Bishop of Dover, who graduated Batchelor of Divinity from Cambridge
in 1562, and Alum. Cantab. says he was born c1533, son of Ralph of
Sutton Valence. [22, p 478] (A BD is a higher degree, taken some time
after an BA, and Richard had fled the country during Queen Mary's reign,
[23, p 273] which explains his age.) According to the visitation, the
bishop was a third son, so his father Ralph was probably born in around
1500, making him roughly the same age as the Martyr, and Ralph's father
John was presumably the same age as John of Deritend.
I can envisage three strategies for fitting John of Deritend into the
Kent pedigree:
1) Is it possible that John of Deritend, and Ralph's father John
are the same person? Perhaps he married the unidentified sister of
William Copynger, the Lord Mayor of London (1512-13), and had a son
Ralph, as per the Kent visitation; [21, p 25] then moved to Deritend,
married Margaret Wyatt, and had the five children identified in the
Middlesex and Warwickshire visitations [2, p 84].
2) An alternative way of grafting John of Deritend into the Kent
family is to assume that he is the brother of Ralph's father John.
Families with two brothers of the same name did exist, so the
possibility cannot be dismissed; indeed, the later 1592 visitation of
Kent does give Ralph's father John an elder brother called John, though
he is said (incorrectly) to be the ancestor of Sir Edward Rogers. [21, p
143]
3) The final possibility is that John of Deritend is Ralph's
grandfather who was also named John in the Kent visitations. This need
not make John of Deritend especially old when John the Martyr was born,
as the Kent generations are compressed. In this scenario, John of
Deritend was probably in his 40s and early 50s when the Deritend
children were born.
The case for the Sutton Valence link is weak, but not, in my view, so
weak that it should be dismissed out of hand. He heraldic evidence
provides circumstantial confirmation to the Middlesex visitation
pedigree -- unless, of course, the Sutton Valence link was made up by
the herald as a result of the heraldic coincidence of the crescent
cadency marks.
In contrast, the case for Margaret Wyatt being the daughter of Sir Henry
Wyatt is practically non-existent, or at least entirely undocumented.
So far as I can determine, it was first suggested by Underwood who says
"he met Margaret, or 'Margary,' Wyatt, the alleged dau. of Sir Henry
Wyatt of Abington [sic] Castle -- near Maidstone; and they were m.
1505-6". [17, p 22] It is unclear whether "alleged daughter" means that
Underwood made it up, that he only had a circumstantial source, or that
she was illegitimate and only allegedly Sir Henry's. Certainly she is
not mentioned Sir Henry's will (but then the only relative mentioned,
besides his dead wife Anne, is his son Thomas). [24]
If John Rogers of Deritend really does come from Sutton Valence, it is
not wholly impossible that Sir Henry might be his father-in-law, as
Allington Castle is a mere eight miles from Sutton Valence. But if Sir
Henry is Margaret Wyatt's father, Anne Skinner is almost certainly not
her mother, as Sir Henry and Anne's eldest son Thomas was born in 1503,
[25, vol 5, p 411] and Margaret Wyatt must have been born in the 1480s,
or earlier. Conceivably she is a much older illegitimate daughter of
Sir Henry's; much more likely, she is the tanner's daughter from Deritend.
> Third, on-line pedigrees of John Rogers the Martyr have his paternal
> grandparents as one Thomas FitzRoger, 1480-1530, and his wife,
> Catherine de Courtenay. I don't know if there were tradesman-class
> Courtenays or not, but this seems as unlikely as the above. The
> pedigree in which this was found used Douglas Richardson's
> publications as the source, but these indicate that this couple had a
> single son, George (not Thomas).
certainly born in 1500-1505 (and just conceivably as late as 1509),
could not have had a grandfather born in 1480. Normally, one would
expect his grandfather to be born sometime between the 1440s and 1460s.
In saying John the Martyr's grandparents were Thomas Rogers and
Catherine Courtenay, you seem to be following the third of the possible
ways enumerated above of grafting John of Deritend into the Sutton
Valence genealogy -- namely by identifying him with John, the
grandfather of Ralph Rogers. This is effectively the approach Underwood
adopts. [17, pp 17-22] Chester adds an additional generation, [1, pp
233-34] following the first or second strategy outline above. But it
appears neither Underwood nor Chester were aware of the Kent pedigrees.
The 1592 visitation of Kent makes the John of Sutton Valence (Ralph's
grandfather, and according to Underwood, John of Deritend) the son of
Thomas Rogers of Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire and his second wife
Catherine Courtenay. [21, p 143] In doing so, it is consistent with the
1623 visitation of Gloucestershire [26, p 141], and to an extent with
the 1565 visitation of Wiltshire which simply gives Thomas a son "...
Rogers of Kent" by his second wife. [27, p 38]
While John of Sutton Valence may have been the son of Thomas of
Bradford, it seems clear he was not the son of Catherine Courtenay.
Thomas's inquisition post mortem was taken in 18 Ed IV (1478-79), [28, p
388] and Catherine subsequently married William Huddesfield. [25, p 426]
After William's death, Catherine left a will dated 21 Nov 2 Hen VIII
(1510) in which she pays for a mass at Bradford for "Thomas Rogers
somtyme my hosband sergeant at lawe", gives a silver cup to "William
Rogers of Bradforde aforseid, gentleman, sonne to the seid Thomas", and
another cup "to his brother John Rogers". [29] All of the visitation
pedigrees make William the son of Thomas's first wife, William Besill's
daughter; and as Catherine refers to John as William's brother, rather
than her son, it seems that John is descended from the Besill marriage too.
Catherine's will goes on to give the bulk of her property to "George
Rogers my sonne" and his children, Edward and Elizabeth. [29] This
strongly suggests George is her only son by Thomas, as Richardson says.
[25, vol 4, p 426]. This is consistent with the 1623 Somerset
visitation which omits John and shows William from the first marriage
and George from the second. [30, p 128] George's family is described
in some detail in an article in Notes & Queries, which gives the arms
for that branch of the family as including a mullet (a five-pointed
star) for difference. [31, p 339] This is the usual cadency mark for a
third son, and fits neatly with suggestion that William, the first son,
stayed in Bradford and used the undifferentiated arms; John, the second
son, moved to Sutton Valence, Kent and differentiated his arms with a
crescent; and George, the third son, moved to Lopit, Devon and
differentiated his arms with a mullet.
In any case, if John the Martyr's family originates from Sutton Valence,
then it seems much more likely that he descends from Thomas of
Bradford's first wife, William Besill's daughter (whom the VCH names
Cecily [33, pp 4-51]), than from the more prestigious Courtenay line.
Thomas of Bradford is usually said to descend from the Rogers family of
Bryanston. Two variants of this descent are commonly found.
1) Chester says that Thomas of Bradford was the son of Sir Henry
Rogers of Bryanston. [1, p 233] This fails on chronological grounds.
Thomas's first marriage must have been in the 1460s (if not earlier), as
it resulted in two sons; and his second wife's first husband (Sir
Seintcleir Pomeroy) died 1471, [25, vol 4, p 426] and she must have
married Thomas shortly thereafter. Sir Henry Rogers was born in the
late 1440s. [34] Sir Henry could not therefore have been Thomas's father.
2) Underwood says that Thomas of Bradford was the son of Thomas of
Benham Valence. [17, pp 15-17] (The Benham Valence certainly are
descended from the Bryanston family.) It's not entirely clear which of
the two generation of Thomases of Benham Valence Underwood means, and
probably he is unaware that there are two. The relationship between the
Benham Valence Rogers is best set out in the inquisition post mortem of
John Colyngruge, 15 Nov 15 Hen VII (1499), which sets out four
generations of the family: "John Roger, lately style John Roger of
Benham", his son and heir Thomas, his son Thomas, and his daughter
Elizabeth wife of William Essex. [35, vol 2, p 206, no 318] Thomas the
younger seems to have died in 1488 when his daughter Elizabeth was "aged
13 and more" (i.e. born in or before 1475). [35, vol 1, p 194, no 460]
If Elizabeth was born in about 1475, Thomas the younger was probably
born in or a bit before 1450, around the same age as Thomas of Bradford.
If Thomas of Bradford is a son of Thomas the elder of Benham, this
gives the improbable situation of two sons called Thomas; or if as
Underwood appears to suggest, Thomas of Bradford was brother of
Elizabeth Essex, it fails to explain why Elizabeth was Thomas the
younger's heir. Underwood's explanation that Thomas of Bradford chose
to forgo his inheritance makes no sense, especially when coupled with
the fact that Thomas of Bradford's arms were entirely unlike those of
the Benham Valence family (as preserved as a quartering in the Essex
arms in Lambourne [36, p 8]).
Chester's variant of the descent can be ruled out, and Underwood's seems
barely more plausible. More likely, Thomas was not descended from the
Bryanston family. Possibly he descended from the Bryanston family's
forebears in Bridport, but quite probably his was an unrelated family.
Richard
SOURCES
[1] Chester, Joseph Lemuel. /John Rogers: the compiler of the first
authorised English Bible/. London, 1861.
<https://archive.org/details/johnrogerscompi00unkngoog>
[2] Armytage, Sir George John, ed. /Middlesex Pedigrees: as collected
by Richard Munday: Harleian MS 1551/. London, 1914.
<https://archive.org/details/middlesexpedigre65mund>
[3] Horn, Joyce M, ed.. /Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541-1857: Volume
6, Salisbury Diocese/. London, 1986.
<http://www.british-history.ac.uk/fasti-ecclesiae/1541-1847/vol6>
[4] Foster, Joseph. /Alumni oxonienses; the members of the University
of Oxford, 1500-1714/, vol 3. Oxford, 1891.
<https://archive.org/details/alumnioxoniensi01oxfogoog>
[5] Marshall, George W, ed. /The Visitation of Wiltshire, 1623/.
London, 1882. <https://archive.org/details/visitationofwilt00sainrich>
[6] Hartigan, A S. "Eyre of Wilts" in /Wiltshire Notes and Queries/, vol
5 (1905-7), pp 27-31.
<https://archive.org/details/wiltshirenotesqu5119unse>
[7] Larson, Bryan S. "Thomas Eyre, Sr." (I40387) on /Our Family
Histories/ <http://www.ourfamilyhistories.org/getperson.php?personID=I40387>
[8] Dorset History Centre. Poole parish registers, christenings
1550-1558. [PE-PL/RE/1/1A]
[9] The National Archives. "Will of Roberte Rogers of Poole, Dorset."
1555. [PROB 11/37/513] In records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
[10] The National Archives. "Will of Robert Rogers, Leather Seller of
London." 1601. [PROB 11/99/141]. In records of the Prerogative Court
of Canterbury.
[11] Hasler, P W, ed. "EYRE, Thomas (d.1628), of Salisbury, Wilts." in
/The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603/. Boydell &
Brewer, 1981.
<http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/eyre-thomas-1628>
[12] Burke, Sir Bernard. /A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the
Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland/, 6th ed., vol 1. London,
1879. <https://archive.org/details/genealogicalhera01byuburk>
[13] Bindoff, S T, ed. "WEBBE, William II (by 1499-1554), of Salisbury,
Wilts." in /The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558/.
Boydell & Brewer, 1982.
<http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/webbe-william-ii-1499-1554>
[14] Rylands, John Paul, ed. /The visitation of the county of Dorset,
taken in the year 1623/. London, 1885.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationofcound00stge>
[15] Metcalfe, Walter C, ed. /The visitation of Dorsetshire, A.D.
1565/. Exeter, 1887.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationofdors00harvuoft>
[16] Birmingham Archives and Heritage. Catalogue description for MS
3369/Acc 1961-9/107. "Lease for 70 years". 1513.
[17] Underwood, John Cox. /Lineage of the Rogers Family, England —
Embracing John Rogers the Martyr/. New York, 1911.
[18] Lee, Sidney. "Rogers, John (1500?-1555)" in /Dictonary of National
Biography/, vol 49. London, 1897.
<http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rogers,_John_%281500%3F-1555%29_%28DNB00%29>
[19] Peile, John. /Biographical Register of Christ's College,
1505-1905/, vol 1. Cambridge, 1910.
<https://archive.org/details/biographicalregi01peil>
[20] Helm, Richard. "John Rogers of Deritend", post on ROGERS RootsWeb
mailing list, 6 Apr 2006.
<http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ROGERS/2006-04/1144366754>
[21] Bannerman, W Bruce, ed. /The Visitations of Kent taken in the
years 1574 and 1592 by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux/, part 2. London, 1924.
[22] Venn, John & Venn, J. A. /Alumni Cantabrigienses/, part 1, vol 3.
Cambridge, 1924. <https://archive.org/details/p1alumnicantabri03univuoft>
[23] Garrett, Christina Hallowell. /The Marian Exiles: A Study in the
Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism/. Cambridge, 2010.
[24] The National Archives. "Will of Sir Henry Wyatte or Wyatt of
Allington, Kent". 1538. [PROB 11/26/130]. In records of the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
[25] Richardson, Douglas. /Royal Ancestry/. Salt Lake City, 2013.
[26] Maclean, Sir John, ed. /The Visitation of the County of
Gloucester, taken in the year 1623/. London, 1885.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationofcoun00inchit>
[27] Metcalfe, Walter C, ed. /The Visitation of Wiltshire, 1565/.
Exeter, 1897. <https://archive.org/details/visitationofwilt00harvrich>
[28] Caley, John & Bayley J, eds. /Calendarium Inquisitionum post
mortem sive Escaetarum/, vol 4. London, 1828.
[29] The National Archives. "Will of Dame Kateryn Lady Huddesfeld,
Widow". 1510. [PROB 11/18/20] In records of the Prerogative Court of
Canterbury.
[30] Colby, Frederick Thomas, ed. /The Visitation of the County of
Somerset in the year 1623/. London, 1876.
<https://archive.org/details/visitationcount05britgoog>
[31] Rogers, W H H. /Rogers-Courtenay-Huddesfield, of Bradford-on-Avon,
Wilts; Cannington, Somerset; and Shillingford, Devon/ in /Wiltshire
Notes and Queries/, vol 3 (1899-1901), pp p 337-345.
<https://archive.org/details/wiltshirenotesqu03deviuoft>
[33] Chettle, H F, et al. /The Victoria History of Wiltshire/, vol 7.
London, 1953. <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol7>
[34] Harrison, George. "Rogers Genealogy" in /Miscellanea Genealogica
et Heraldica/, vol 1 (1868), pp 258-65.
[35] H M Stationary Office. /Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem: Hen
VII/. London, 1915. vol 2:
<http://www.archive.org/details/calendarofinquis02grea>
[36] Metcalfe, Walter C, ed. /The Visitation of Berkshire in 1566/.
Exeter, 1885. <https://archive.org/details/visitationberks00hervgoog>
Bronwen Edwards
Apr 27, 2015, 4:29:36 PM4/27/15
to
Hello again - I'm overwhelmed by the depth of your reply but very grateful for it.I have let go of the pleasure in having an ancestor who was actually burned at the stake (my husband remarked: "Don't give up. Maybe it'll be you.").
Regarding Elizabeth Rogers' hyphenated name, "Susan-Elizabeth", that was how I first saw it when I first looked at the Eyre pedigree. That was probably about 20 years ago and I failed to note where I saw it. But in those days I spent many hours at our local university library sitting on the floor with Burke's Peerage on my lap, and so suspect that it may have been there. I have already erased the "Susan" part on my chart.
IF I understand this correctly, the evidence mostly supports Elizabeth as daughter of Robert, not John, Rogers of Poole, and his wife, Elizabeth Webb, daughter of William Webb. The will of Robert Rogers from 1601 that mentions his sister Elizabeth Ayer makes it pretty clear as to which line I should be looking at. The Webb line is intriguing to me (my mother, also, was an Elizabeth Webb, though probably unrelated; her father's family was from Somerset and are said to have been German imports for the textile industry). The Webb line here seems to flow in the direction of the Odstock Webbs; on "Stirnet" the line is given with Elizabeth Webb the daughter of William Webb, Mayor of New Sarum, d. 1553, and Catherine Abarrow, daughter of another Mayor of New Sarum, John Abarrow. Stirnet also has these Webbs as "alias Killihoe of Odstock".
I hope I have this much correct so far (as a direction, not proof). Your knowledge and generosity in sharing that knowledge is very much appreciated. Thank you,
Bronwen
Regarding Elizabeth Rogers' hyphenated name, "Susan-Elizabeth", that was how I first saw it when I first looked at the Eyre pedigree. That was probably about 20 years ago and I failed to note where I saw it. But in those days I spent many hours at our local university library sitting on the floor with Burke's Peerage on my lap, and so suspect that it may have been there. I have already erased the "Susan" part on my chart.
IF I understand this correctly, the evidence mostly supports Elizabeth as daughter of Robert, not John, Rogers of Poole, and his wife, Elizabeth Webb, daughter of William Webb. The will of Robert Rogers from 1601 that mentions his sister Elizabeth Ayer makes it pretty clear as to which line I should be looking at. The Webb line is intriguing to me (my mother, also, was an Elizabeth Webb, though probably unrelated; her father's family was from Somerset and are said to have been German imports for the textile industry). The Webb line here seems to flow in the direction of the Odstock Webbs; on "Stirnet" the line is given with Elizabeth Webb the daughter of William Webb, Mayor of New Sarum, d. 1553, and Catherine Abarrow, daughter of another Mayor of New Sarum, John Abarrow. Stirnet also has these Webbs as "alias Killihoe of Odstock".
I hope I have this much correct so far (as a direction, not proof). Your knowledge and generosity in sharing that knowledge is very much appreciated. Thank you,
Bronwen
Richard Smith
Apr 28, 2015, 10:00:31 AM4/28/15
to
On 27/04/15 21:29, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
> Hello again - I'm overwhelmed by the depth of your reply but very
> grateful for it.I have let go of the pleasure in having an ancestor
> who was actually burned at the stake (my husband remarked: "Don't
> give up. Maybe it'll be you.").
It's a subject I've been researching for much of the last year and had
> Hello again - I'm overwhelmed by the depth of your reply but very
> grateful for it.I have let go of the pleasure in having an ancestor
> who was actually burned at the stake (my husband remarked: "Don't
> give up. Maybe it'll be you.").
been meaning to write it up for some time. Your email happened to
arrive at an opportune moment, and mentioned many of the links found in
commonly-used, modern sources that I believe I've disproved.
However it raises a good point that perhaps the group can advise me on.
I think it's likely that in the next year or two I'll have exhausted
most of the obvious avenues for progress, and as my own connection to
the Rogers family is via an illegitimate daughter of Sir Henry of
Bryanstone, there's a limit to how much further effort I'm willing to
expend sorting out the distant collateral branches. If I want to
publish a summary of what I've found on the 15th and 16th century Rogers
families, how should I do it?
I can, of course, put it on a website, but with so much rubbish online,
I think many people just ignore stuff on websites, especially if it goes
against the understood relationships. But neither is it the sort of
thing that will interest the various local genealogical societies, as it
spans at least Warks, Kent, Berks, Hants, Dorset, Somerset, Glocs, and
Devon.
> Regarding Elizabeth Rogers' hyphenated name, "Susan-Elizabeth", that
> was how I first saw it when I first looked at the Eyre pedigree.
> That was probably about 20 years ago and I failed to note where I saw
> it. But in those days I spent many hours at our local university
> library sitting on the floor with Burke's Peerage on my lap, and so
> suspect that it may have been there. I have already erased the
> "Susan" part on my chart.
his Landed Gentry just calls her Elizabeth daughter of John Rogers, but
I've not checked any of his other works, nor other editions of BLG.
> IF I understand this correctly, the evidence mostly supports
> Elizabeth as daughter of Robert, not John, Rogers of Poole, and his
> wife, Elizabeth Webb, daughter of William Webb.
mentioned in the will of her grandfather, William Webb, dated 22 Jan
1553 (OS) [PROB 11/36/352]. "Also I give to young Robert Rogers sonne
to Robert Rogers and Elizabeth my daughter fourtie pounds. And to Amye,
Elizabeth and Joan his other daughters and to the childe that his wiffe
nowe goeth withe to every of theym fourtie [marks?]." Young Robert is
the man who founded the Cripplegate almshouses, and Elizabeth is the
woman who married Thomas Eyre. It's a long and detailed document which
may well be of interest to you.
> The will of Robert Rogers from 1601 that mentions his sister
> Elizabeth Ayer makes it pretty clear as to which line I should be
> looking at. The Webb line is intriguing to me (my mother, also, was
> an Elizabeth Webb, though probably unrelated; her father's family
> was from Somerset and are said to have been German imports for the
> textile industry). The Webb line here seems to flow in the direction
> of the Odstock Webbs; on "Stirnet" the line is given with Elizabeth
> Webb the daughter of William Webb, Mayor of New Sarum, d. 1553, and
> Catherine Abarrow, daughter of another Mayor of New Sarum, John
> Abarrow. Stirnet also has these Webbs as "alias Killihoe of
> Odstock".
detail: that Elizabeth Webbe married "Robert Rogers (dau of Sir John of
Stockbridge & Houghton)". Stirnet only cites sources for entire
genealogies, rather than for specific parts, and clearly relies on
uncited sources too, as details are often found on the site are not
given in any of the cited sources. Sadly, that makes Stirnet of
questionable value as a source.
The 8th edition of BLG (1894), under "Webb of Odstock" [p 2160-62],
gives William Webb a daughter "Elizabeth, m. Robert, son of Sir John
Rogers, Knt." This is one of the sources Stirnet cites. I don't know
whether later editions of BLG say anything different. Per my last
(long) message, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that Robert was a
younger son of Sir John Rogers, and therefore a grandson of Sir Henry
Rogers, but I have no idea what evidence Burke had for saying it was so.
Sir John's will, dated 9 Jun 1535 and proved 25 May 1546 [PROB
11/31/153], only mentions children John, James, and Jane the husband of
Richard Zouche. According to a genealogy compiled in 1853 by George
Harrison, the then Windsor Herald, [Misc. Gen. et Her., vol 1, pp
258-65] his children were: John, William, James, Anthony, Jane, Margaret
and Joan. Harrison cites only unspecified "Records of the College of
Arms"; perhaps he was relying on an early visitation that has otherwise
been overlooked. This certainly suggests Sir John's will does not
mention all his children, so it's quite possible there may have been
another son called Robert.
There's one further connection. According to the VCH [Hants, vol 4, pp
655-58], "in 1544 Sir John Rogers grandson of [Sir] Henry sold the
manors [of Dibden Hanger and Dibden Poleyn] to William Webb, Mayor of
Salisbury in 1523 and 1534, who died in 1553." The VCH cites "Feet of
F. Hants, East. 36 Hen.VIII; East. 38 Hen. VIII." for this information.
Similar text is found in the VCH's accounts of the manors of Houghton
Drayton [vol 3, pp 413-17], and Marsh Court in King's Sombourne parish
[vol 4, pp 469-80].
It's mentioned in Webbe's will too. "I give to the saide William all
that my mannor of Stockbridge, Houghton, Broughton and Somborne withe
all and singuler the landes, tenementes, rentes, revercons and pr'mices
thereunto belonging or in any wise apperteyning whatsoever they be. And
more one yard lande lyinging Porton to the yerely value of twentie fowre
poundes three shillinges and foure pence accompting t'hole which landes
was purchased of Sr John Rogers knight as by the dedes of the same may
appeare." Although that wording does not make it clear that all those
manors were bought from Sir John, the VCH makes it clear they were.
(Stockbridge had been a Rogers manor too, but may have entered the Webbe
family earlier.)
Webb's entry in Hist. Parl. suggests this was part of arrangements for
Webb's daughter Elizabeth's marriage into the Rogers family. Maybe it
was, but transactions like this were common enough between unrelated
families.
Richard
jhigg...@yahoo.com
Apr 28, 2015, 1:17:22 PM4/28/15
to
On Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 7:00:31 AM UTC-7, Richard Smith wrote:
> On 27/04/15 21:29, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
> > Regarding Elizabeth Rogers' hyphenated name, "Susan-Elizabeth", that
> > was how I first saw it when I first looked at the Eyre pedigree.
> > That was probably about 20 years ago and I failed to note where I saw
> > it. But in those days I spent many hours at our local university
> > library sitting on the floor with Burke's Peerage on my lap, and so
> > suspect that it may have been there. I have already erased the
> > "Susan" part on my chart.
>
> I can easily believe it's in one of Burke's works. The sixth edition of
> his Landed Gentry just calls her Elizabeth daughter of John Rogers, but
> I've not checked any of his other works, nor other editions of BLG.
>
The identification of this woman as "Susan Elizabeth Rogers" is definitely from BLG - and specifically in the 20th century. You mentioned that the 6th edition of BLG (1879) shows her as Elizabeth (not Susan Elizabeth), and the 1894 edition is the same. Leo's Genealogics database calls her Susan Elizabeth and cites the 1937 BLG. The 1939 BLG uses the same name, as does the 1965 BLG (the last appearance of the family in BLG).
> On 27/04/15 21:29, Bronwen Edwards wrote:
> > Regarding Elizabeth Rogers' hyphenated name, "Susan-Elizabeth", that
> > was how I first saw it when I first looked at the Eyre pedigree.
> > That was probably about 20 years ago and I failed to note where I saw
> > it. But in those days I spent many hours at our local university
> > library sitting on the floor with Burke's Peerage on my lap, and so
> > suspect that it may have been there. I have already erased the
> > "Susan" part on my chart.
>
> I can easily believe it's in one of Burke's works. The sixth edition of
> his Landed Gentry just calls her Elizabeth daughter of John Rogers, but
> I've not checked any of his other works, nor other editions of BLG.
>
> As you've no doubt noticed, the Webb01 genealogy on Stirnet adds one
> detail: that Elizabeth Webbe married "Robert Rogers (dau of Sir John of
> Stockbridge & Houghton)". Stirnet only cites sources for entire
> genealogies, rather than for specific parts, and clearly relies on
> uncited sources too, as details are often found on the site are not
> given in any of the cited sources. Sadly, that makes Stirnet of
> questionable value as a source.
>
> The 8th edition of BLG (1894), under "Webb of Odstock" [p 2160-62],
> gives William Webb a daughter "Elizabeth, m. Robert, son of Sir John
> Rogers, Knt." This is one of the sources Stirnet cites. I don't know
> whether later editions of BLG say anything different. Per my last
> (long) message, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that Robert was a
> younger son of Sir John Rogers, and therefore a grandson of Sir Henry
> Rogers, but I have no idea what evidence Burke had for saying it was so.
I can't see how Stirnet made the connection to Stockbridge and Houghton. In any event, as you seem to suggest later in the post, these manors may be key to determining the connection here.
Richard Smith
Apr 29, 2015, 5:50:47 AM4/29/15
to
Stirnet, and he says the 1952 BLG identifies Elizabeth's husband as
"Robert, son of Sir John Rogers, Kt., Lord of the Manors of Stockbridge
and Houghton, Hants."
> This has been a useful series of posts. I can understand if you may
> not want to go to the extra effort, but it might be worth preparing
> your material as a submission to one of the broader genealogical
> periodicals dealing in medieval genealogy - like Foundations or The
> Genealogist.
formally writing up my findings is a good way of clarifying my thoughts
and identifying further avenues of research. In fact I already have a
draft under way with the working title "Landed Rogers families,
1400-1600: Dismantling the Smithfield martyr's ancestry". Assuming I
finish writing it up, I'm inclined to try first for publication in
Foundations, as I have a much clearer idea of what Foundations' remit is.
Richard
0 new messages