Pigott of Little Horwood, Bucks c1500
Tompkins, M.L.
The earliest published historical reference to the family that I know of is the Heralds' Visitation of Buckinghamshire in 1566 (Harleian MS 5867 in the British Library, published by Walter Metcalfe in 1883). This contains two pedigrees, one submitted by the Pigotts of Little Horwood, the other by the Pigotts of Beachampton, a couple of miles away. The two pedigrees are substantially the same, except that the Little Horwood one begins with Robert Pigott of Little Horwood esq, who married an heiress of the Giffords of Whaddon, while the Beachampton one begins one generation earlier, claiming that Robert's father was a Richard Pigott, younger son from a Pigott family which had been long established near Ripon in Yorkshire (though it muddies the waters slightly by making it Richard, not his son Robert, who married the Gifford heiress). The Beachampton family claimed to be descended from a second marriage of the migrant Richard.
Visitation pedigrees which begin with a migration from some county conveniently remote from the family's present location always arouse a certain scepticism. I have seen genealogists' pedigrees on the internet which trace ancestry through the Little Horwood Pigotts to several earlier generations of Pigotts in Clotheram in Yorkshire, but none which quotes any evidential source or even gives any corroborative detail - they are all very vague. I can suggest an alternative origin for the family, however, from my research into the 15th century peasant population of Great Horwood, next to Little Horwood and Whaddon. I have a suspicion that the Buckinghamshire Pigotts were not a cadet branch of the Yorkshire Pigots at all, but were local peasants made good.
The earliest Pigotts never held any manor in Little Horwood; though they were always referred to as gentry, their interests were limited to smaller, lesser holdings - freehold and copyhold yardlands and the like - and possibly minor offices, under the Crown and in the management of Whaddon Chase. It may just be a coincidence, but at the very time when they first appear in Little Horwood as gentry - the late 15th century - there is a local peasant family which has been there since the mid-14th century, slowly clawing its way up the social ladder. By the late 15th century this local family (originally called Picoud, then Picot and finally Pigot) had accumulated quite a bit of land and become one of the wealthier peasant families in the area. Its last known member was a Richard Pigott, living in the 1440s and 1450s (his father died in 1450) - could he be the Richard Pigott, father of Robert Pigott esq, mentioned in the Beachampton Pigotts' pedigree but omitted from that of t!
he Little Horwood family?
I have not come across any explicit statement that Richard Pigott of Little Horwood, wealthy peasant, who disappears from the Great Horwood court rolls in 1459, was related to Robert Pigott of Little Horwood esq, who appears in the same court rolls from 1465 onwards (though holding different land), but it does seem a real possibility. If this peasant Richard was indeed related to (?the father of) the gentleman then the Beachampton family's claim of an origin in Yorkshire cannot be true, and in fact becomes just a clumsy attempt to cover up lowly origins by claiming a connecton to a genuinely armigerous family in a far away county - not an uncommon device in those days, when non-gentry ancestry had to be concealed at all costs. On the other hand, if anyone knows of any evidence confirming the descent from the Yorkshire family then my suspicions will be disproved.
I would also be interested to discover the original sources for two specific pieces of information which I have come across in internet pedigrees, statements that Robert Pigott esq was Steward to the Duke of York tempus Henry VI, and that his father Richard married one Alice Fennell. The latter is particularly tantalising because, although it appears in a pedigree which states that he was born in Clotheram, if true it actually tends to confirm his identity as a member of the local peasant family. The Little Horwood court rolls do not state explicity that Richard Pigott the wealthy peasant married an Alice Fennell, but the Fennells were another long-established local peasant family and Richard certainly had connections to them.
Any information anyone can supply will be gratefully received.
Regards,
Matt Tompkins
Tim Powys-Lybbe
> I wonder if anyone knows anything about the medieval ancestry of the
> Pigott family of north Buckinghamshire, who were living in Little
> Horwood and Whaddon at the beginning of the 16th century, and later
> held estates there and in Doddershall, Beachampton, Aston Rowant in
> Oxon and elsewhere in the area.
<snip of valid caution about the Pigot ancestry>
For whatever it is worth, there is something called the Pigot Roll.
This was prepared by some herald in 1598 and is a gorgeous artwork.
The original is something like 8 feet long by 3 wide - and survives. A
roughly half size photo of this is to be found in the Bucks record
office (or whatever grandiloquent name this building goes by today) in
Aylesbury, Bucks, England.
Basically it gives the family genealogy back to the claimed Ripon
ancestors.
There is also a photo of it, from the same negatives, right here.
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe t...@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org
John Townsend
Sheehan's "History & Topography of Buckinghamshire" gives useful medieval
history of Little Horwood and Whaddon.
Regards,
Best wishes,
John Townsend
Genealogist/Antiquarian Bookseller
http://www.johntownsend.demon.co.uk
Tompkins, M.L.
This was prepared by some herald in 1598 and is a gorgeous artwork.
The original is something like 8 feet long by 3 wide - and survives. A
roughly half size photo of this is to be found in the Bucks record
office (or whatever grandiloquent name this building goes by today) in
Aylesbury, Bucks, England.
Basically it gives the family genealogy back to the claimed Ripon
ancestors. There is also a photo of it, from the same negatives, right here.>>
Thanks very much for that, Tim - an excellently useful tip.
When you say there is a photo of it 'here' - do you mean you have one yourself? If so, I wonder if you could tell me what it has to say about the father and grandfather of Robert Pigott of Little Horwood and Whaddon, esq, living in the late 15th and early 16th century (I'm afraid I'm at home and my files are at work, so I can't supply any more precise dates). I wonder if this roll is the origin of the reference to Alice Fennell.
Thanks again,
Matt
Tompkins, M.L.
Sheehan's "History & Topography of Buckinghamshire" gives useful medieval
history of Little Horwood and Whaddon.>>
Thanks very much, John. I shall pop into the library and have a look at Sheehan this afternoon.
I'm still at home at the moment though, and my copies of the Little Horwood and Whaddon chapters of the VCH are at work, but I don't remember either of them having much to say about the Pigotts' origins. Did you have some other part of the VCH for Bucks in mind?
Regards,
Matt
Tim Powys-Lybbe
<and I had written:>
> > For whatever it is worth, there is something called the Pigot Roll.
> > This was prepared by some herald in 1598 and is a gorgeous artwork.
> > The original is something like 8 feet long by 3 wide - and
> > survives. A roughly half size photo of this is to be found in the
> > Bucks record office (or whatever grandiloquent name this building
> > goes by today) in Aylesbury, Bucks, England.
> >
> > Basically it gives the family genealogy back to the claimed Ripon
> > ancestors. There is also a photo of it, from the same negatives,
> > right here.
> When you say there is a photo of it 'here' - do you mean you have one
> yourself?
Exactly so. But it is six photos, each a little smaller than A2.
> If so, I wonder if you could tell me what it has to say about the
> father and grandfather of Robert Pigott of Little Horwood and
> Whaddon, esq, living in the late 15th and early 16th century (I'm
> afraid I'm at home and my files are at work, so I can't supply any
> more precise dates).
Assuming I have the right Robert, who m. Margaret dau. and heire of
John Giffard of Whadden, then Robert's father is recorded as:
"Richard Pigot of Littel Horwood in com. Bucks the younger son (?) of
Geoffrey"
and for his two wives:
"Alice the daughter and heire of Richard fFinnell of Winslowe (?) ...
(illegible)"
"Joan the daughter of Parel (?) Darress of Lissingstone Darrell
Esquire his 2 wife"
Robert's grandfather is recorded as:
"Geaffrey Pigot of Clotheram and Rippon sub. h. 5 et 6. maried"
and on the roundel for his wife:
"Margaret daughter of Raufe Plompton Esquyre: and has issue"
No other dates, of course.
> I wonder if this roll is the origin of the reference to Alice Fennell.
It has an Alice Finnell on it, above.
My view is that this roll is the origin of some of what is in
Lipscomb's Bucks as the words in Lipscomb for some people are identical.
If you or anyone is interested, I can scan this small section of
the roll and put it on my site.
There is on the roll a paragraph about Sir Randolph Pigot of Clotheram
but it is somewhat faint and difficult to transcribe. In the Bucks
Record Office there is a transcription of what is on the roll but on my
last visit, some years ago, I failed to take a copy as I thought there
was then a chance of seeing the original roll - but no such luck!
Anyhow if you acquire it, this will give you all the little gems of
text on this roll.
Tompkins, M.L.
It rather confirms my suspicion that the Richard in the Pigot Roll is the same man as the peasant Richard. It might just be that by coincidence there were two Richard Pigotts living in Little Horwood in the late 15th century, one a wealthy peasant from a local family and the other a gentleman from Yorkshire, but the fact that the Pigot Roll states that the gentleman was married to an Alice Finnell, daughter of Richard Finnell of Winslow, pretty much confirms that the Yorkshire ancestry is a fabrication. In 1437 the Winslow court rolls (Little Horwood was parcel of that manor) record the death of Richard Fynelle and the inheritance of his lands in Little Horwood by his nearest heir Alice, wife of Richard Pycot.
The ancestry of this peasant Richard Pycot or Pigott can be worked out from the land inheritance entries in the manor court rolls. It was somewhat different from that set out in the Pigot Roll. His parents were John Pigot of Little Horwood, died 1450 (leaving a will recorded in the St Albans probate register, now at Hertfordshire record office), and Joan (maiden name unknown, died 1458), and his grandparents were John Pigott of Little Horwood, who died in 1427 (and left a will, which is copied into the court rolls) and Agnes Candeler. John Finnell's 1437 will has also survived, and it is clear from all these documents, wills and manor court roll entries, that none of these Pigotts and Finnells could lay claim to the rank of gentleman - at best they were what a generation or two later would call yeomen.
Their climb to gentry status seems to have been achieved by Richard. He may have built on his accumulation of landed wealth by moving into office-holding, if I am right to think he was the Richard Pigot who was Escheator of Beds and Bucks in 1453, and certainly by moving into the gentry marriage market. His second marriage, to a Dayrel of Lillingstone Dayrel, was a social step above his first, but what finally set the seal on his family's rise to the gentry must have the marriage of his son Robert to the heiress of the Giffords of Whaddon, which brought with it the manor of Whaddon and the hereditary office of Keeper of Whaddon Chase. Shortly before he died he bought the manor of Beachampton for another son.
And there may have been an element of noble patronage as well. Whaddon Chase, and the overlordship of the manor of Whaddon, were appurtenances of Richard Duke of York's earldom of Ulster. The Duke of York died at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, of course - and the VCH Bucks iv, p 150 quotes Lipscomb to the effect that Richard Pigott was killed at the same battle. If this is right (and it probably is - the last reference to him in the Great Horwood court rolls is in 1459) then Richard Pigott may have been at Wakefield as a member of the Duke of York's affinity - an association which must have both resulted from and assisted his and his family's social advancement.
Which makes me curious to discover the source of the statement I have seen that Richard's son Robert Pigott was steward to the Duke of York during Henry VI's reign. I wonder if it is actually a reference to the Keepership of Whaddon Chase. I recently came across it in Kevin Bradford's website (as a result of his posting a link to it in connection with Rohese Giffard), which seems to give three sources - maybe Kevin can help on this point?
Anyway, I'm now fairly sure that the Little Horwood Pigotts were not descended from the Clotheram Pigotts, as claimed in the Pigot Roll - which makes me wonder whether the Clotheram Pigotts ever actually existed? Does anyone know anything about them?
Thanks again, Tim. It would be certainly interesting to see the relevant section of the roll, if you could scan it and put it on your website.
Regards,
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Powys-Lybbe [mailto:t...@powys.org]
Sent: 04 February 2006 11:56
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
Subject: RE: Pigott of Little Horwood, Bucks c1500
<snip>
Tompkins, M.L.
Sheehan didn't have much to say (just that the Beachampton Pigotts'
"ancestors had migrated out of Yorkshire where they had been established
soon after the Conquest" - the kind of claim the Victorians liked to
make and JH Round liked to demolish!), but the VCH did have an
interesting comment in the Beachampton chapter about Richard Pigott
having been killed at Wakefield - as mentioned in my previous posting.
So thanks very much for your suggestions.
Regards
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: John Townsend [mailto:jo...@johntownsend.demon.co.uk]
Sent: 04 February 2006 10:30
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Pigott of Little Horwood, Bucks c1500
I suggest a peep at Victoria County History: Buckinghamshire. Also,
Sheehan's "History & Topography of Buckinghamshire" gives useful
medieval history of Little Horwood and Whaddon.
Regards,
John Townsend
>Dear John,
>
>Sheehan didn't have much to say (just that the Beachampton Pigotts'
>"ancestors had migrated out of Yorkshire where they had been established
>soon after the Conquest" - the kind of claim the Victorians liked to
>make and JH Round liked to demolish!), but the VCH did have an
>interesting comment in the Beachampton chapter about Richard Pigott
>having been killed at Wakefield - as mentioned in my previous posting.
>So thanks very much for your suggestions.
I wasn't thinking of that specifically. The V.C.H. index has what looks
like about 100 references to Pigott - not necessarily in the places which
you mentioned.
Douglas Richardson
< Anyway, I'm now fairly sure that the Little Horwood Pigotts were not
descended from the Clotheram Pigotts, as claimed in the Pigot Roll -
which makes me wonder whether the Clotheram Pigotts ever actually
existed? Does anyone know anything about them?
<
< Matt
Dear Matt ~
Yes, the Pigot (or Pigott) family of Clotherholme (in Ripon), Yorkshire
did exist and they have living descendants. Below is information
regarding one member of this family taken from Magna Carta Ancestry
(2005).
As you can see, Geoffrey Pigot (died 1467/9) of Clotherholme lived in
the right time period as stated in the Pigot Pedigree Roll, but it was
his mother who was a Plumpton, not his wife. Also, this Geoffrey Pigot
and his wife, Margaret Sywardby, had no son named Richard. You can
investigate this matter further by consulting the sources that I've
listed for this family.
Best always, Douglas Richardson, Salt Lake City, Utah
Website: www.royalancestry.net
+ + + + + + + + +
Source: Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), pages 451-452:
10. MARGARET SYWARDBY, daughter and heiress. She married before 9
April 1450 (date of her father's will) GEOFFREY PIGOT (or PIGOTT),
Knt., of Clotherholme (in Ripon) and Melmerby, Yorkshire, and, in right
of his wife, of Sewerby, Gristhorpe (in Filey), etc., Yorkshire, son
and heir of Ranulph Pigot, Esq., of Clotherholme (in Ripon) and
Melmerby, Yorkshire, by Margaret, daughter of Robert Plumpton, Knt.
[see PLUMPTON 8.ii for his ancestry]. They had three sons, Ranulf,
Knt., William, and Thomas, and three daughters, Joan (wife of John
Wandesford, Knt.), Anne, and Elizabeth. In 1453 an oratory was granted
to them at Sewerby, Yorkshire, and again in 1454. In 1454 they granted
Peter Sywardby, Esq., a yearly rent of 40s. from their manor of
Sewerby, Yorkshire. In 1455 an oratory was granted to them and to her
mother, Elizabeth Sywardby. He was a legatee and sole executor of his
father's will dated 20 April 1466. SIR GEOFFREY PIGOT was living 9
May 1467, when he proved his father's will. He died in or before
1469, when his widow, Margaret, took a vow of chastity. She left a
will dated 7 Nov. 1485, proved 17 Dec. 1485.
References:
Testamenta Eboracensia 2 (Surtees Soc. 30) (1855): 136-137; 3
(Surtees Soc. 45) (1865): 156-158, 161, 340; 4 (Surtees Soc. 53)
(1869): 6-7 (will of Dame Margaret Pigot names her daughter
Scargill). Glover & St. George, Vis. of Yorkshire 1584-5, 1612
(1875): 302 (Pigot pedigree: "Galfridus Pygott. = [left blank]").
Bertram, Story of the Family of Wandesford (1904): 26-28, chart foll.
32. VCH Yorkshire N.R. 1 (1914): 222. Harvey et al., Vis. of the
North 2 (Surtees Soc. 133) (1921): 30; 3 (Surtees Soc. 144) (1930): 134
(Pygot pedigree: "Dominus Galfridus Pigot miles = Margareta filia et
heres Iohannis Swardby"). Lancaster Birstall, Gomersal &
Heckmondwike (Thoresby Soc. 26) (1924): 26-29. Yorkshire Deeds 6
(Yorkshire Arch. Soc. Recs. 76) (1930): 130, 188-191. VCH Yorkshire
E.R. 2 (1974): 138-139.
Tompkins, M.L.
Regards
Matt
-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Richardson [mailto:royala...@msn.com]
Sent: Sat 04/02/2006 18:29
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Pigott of Little Horwood, Bucks c1500
Merilyn Pedrick
in about 1600? Specifically I have Martha Pigott daughter of William who
married William Stamer.
Merilyn
-------Original Message-------
From: John Townsend
Date: 02/05/06 03:45:53
To: GEN-MED...@rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: Pigott of Little Horwood, Bucks c1500
Tim Powys-Lybbe
> It would be certainly interesting to see the relevant section of the
> roll, if you could scan it and put it on your website.
Done. See http://www.southfarm.plus.com/Manuscripts/pigot.html .
You have to click on the little image to get the full monty and it will
take a while to download being over 900 K bytes. But all the text is
readable, just. You will find it will occupy perhaps two screens wide
by four high and if you don't have that many, you'll have to scroll
round a bit.
It might be sensible to print out the little image first to give you a
plan of where you are going.
Bear in mind that this is only a small portion of the full roll.