LONG CRENDON VILLAGE

To a very great extent, the minor gentry of 16th century Buckinghamshire were connected by an intricate web of kinship and lordship ties. What is witnessed in early colonial Virginia, when Thomas Harris receives a bequest of 400 acres of land from Ann Gurgeyney, very likely his sister, is the result of a myriad of associations that culminated in an alliance of the Harris and Gurgeyney families.

This brief notice can not be fully understood without reference to ‘The Family of Captain Thomas Harris’, and ‘Child Family Connections’, posts on this blog.

1. John Gurgeyney, m. Dorothie Brigham.
1.1. Edward Gurgeyney, likely to have m. a dau. of James Harris, and Luce Lucas, who married on November 30, 1587, in Wingrave, Bucks.; his wife bequeathing land in Virginia to her brother, Thomas Harris.
1.2. James Gurgaynie, m. Frances Hopper, dau. of Thomas Hopper, whose grandfather appears here: ‘Kilpin v Hopper. Plaintiffs: William Kilpin. Defendants: Thomas Hopper and Agnes Hopper his wife. Subject: manor of Wardes and lands, Buckinghamshire. C 2/JasI/K7/63. 1603-1625. See PROB 11/55/461: Will of Thomas Hopper, Yeoman of Loughton, Buckinghamshire, November 19, 1573. Thomas Hopper was in dispute with Valentine Pigott, whose br., William, was married to a sister of James Harris, of Wingrave, who m. (November 30, 1587) Luce Lucas. William Piggot’s sister, Ursula Pigott, married her kinsman, Christopher Pigott, of Doddershall, near Aylesbury, Bucks. Christopher Pigott’s brother, Thomas, represented Aylesbury in the 1589 Parliament before serving as county sheriff in 1593-4. Sir John Gibson married Anne, daughter of Sir John Allott, Fishmonger of Wood Street, London, and Mayor in 1590, widow of the aforesaid Thomas Pigott. Margaret Berman (Bourdman), recorded as being in the household of Captain Thomas Harris in the 1624 Muster, was a niece of Sir John Gibson on her mother’s side.

The dispute is witnessed here: C 2/Eliz/P2/55 Pigott v Hopper. Plaintiffs: Valentine Pigott.Defendants: Thomas Hopper, Mathew Kyveton, James Parnell and Richard Lyne and others. Subject: To recover deeds and to establish right of common. The manor of Lowghton (Loughton), Buckinghamshire, the inheritance of Thomas Pigott esq, deceased, plaintiff’s father, in respect of which he claims the right of common set forth in the bill. C 2/Eliz/P2/55. Between 1558 and 1603. Thomas Hopper and Agnes Hopper had issue, John Hopper and Thomas Hopper STAC 8/141/16 Farnell v Hopper. Plaintiffs: John Farnell, yeoman. Defendants: John Hopper, brother and heir of Thomas Hopper gent, and others.Subject: Felling trees and hedges on land in Loughton enclosed under a general agreement of the tenants. Buckinghamshire. STAC 8/141/16. May 1619.

In 1460, (1 Edw. IV.) George de Loughton and Arnethan his wife, passed a fine of the Manor of Loughton-Parva, in order to convey it to a purchaser; and in the seventh year of that reign (1467,) it was conveyed in pursuance thereof, to Thomas Edy, of Stoney-Stratford; from whom it passed to James Edy; who, in 1493, gave this Manor by Will, to Philippa his wife; soon after which, it was held by John Edy; whose daughter, Isabell, carried it by marriage, to John Pigott, of Beachampton. Willis states, that “Great Loughton came in the time of King Edward III., to the Ardres, of Turvey, Co. Beds, who held it from 1350 to 1414, when the Rushleys seem to have acquired it, by the marriage of a widow, or heiress of Ardys; and that the family of Lucy (from which family was ‘Luce’ Lucas so named, most likely being of it), of Haversham, bought Ardys and Rushley’s right.

In 1557, Thomas Lucy sold his interest to Thomas Hopper; which family conveyed the Manor of Great Loughton to John Crane, in 1612. A fine was passed in Easter term, 1557, between Thomas Lucy, Deforcient, and Thomas Hopper Claimant, of the Manor of Loughton, and lands there. In 1599 (41 Eliz.) Edmund Pigott obtained from George Pigott and Clement Pigott, a release of all their right and interest in the Manor of Loughton. George Pigott was second son of John Pigott of Beachampton, and Isabel his wife. Ursulla, eld. dau. and coh., mar. to Sir Christopher Pigot, Knt.,”of Doddershall, M.P. for Bucks, as his first wife, younger son of Thomas Pigott, sen., Esq., grandson of Thomas Pigot, Esq., of Horwood and Whaddon, Serjt -at-Law, by his second wife, Elizabeth Iwardby.

The Lucys then retained Great Loughton while alienating Dagnall, and after the death of William Lucy, in 1551, his son and heir, Thomas Lucy* (Exch. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), file 1151, no. 4.) conveyed it in 1557 to Thomas Hopper. (Feet of F. Bucks. Mich. 4 & 5 Phil. and Mary; Recov. R. Mich. 4 & 5 Phil. and Mary, m. 340.) Thomas Hopper died in 1573, (Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), clxviii, 11.) leaving his dwellinghouse to his wife Audrey for life, with reversion to his son Thomas. (P.C.C. 34 Peter.) On the death of the latter in 1596 Loughton passed to his son, another Thomas, (Ibid. ccclxxvii. 64) who was succeeded in 1618 by his brother John. (Ibid. ccclxxvii. 64.) He died in March 1621–2, leaving a son Thomas. (42. Ibid. cccxci, 55.)

*Thomas Lucy m. Elizabeth Empson, sister of Thomas Empson, whose dau. (by Audrey or Etheldreda, one of the daughters of Sir Guy Wolston), Ellen Empson, was the wife of (Guy’s Godson) Wolstone Child, their son being Nathaniel Child, d. 1647, who m. Isabel Treadway, b. 1591, the highly likely step-sister of Thomas Harris of the 1624/5 Virginia Muster, almost certainly the son of the aforesaid James Harris, of Wingrave, who m. (November 30, 1587) Luce Lucas.

Wolston Child was the uncle of William Child, who m. Joane Hoare, who paid for her sister’s (Audrie Hoare, 2nd wife of Captain Thomas Harris), voyage to Virginia. The Child family of Aylesbury were tennants of the Cheneys in Chesham. In 1577, John Cheyney, Esq., left a rent-charge of £5 per annum to the poor of Amersham, Chesham, and Drayton Beauchamp; chargeable upon a farm called the Moze, in Chesham parish. In 1622, William Child left a rent-charge of 20s. a-year to the poor of this parish. John Cheney, Esq. was the uncle of John Duncombe, whose dau. m. Drewe Woodliffe, whose son was John Woodliffe, who settled in Virginia, and whose daughter, Anne Woodliffe, was named as ‘kin’ of Thomas Harris in the 1624/5 Muster. * Elizabeth Empson m. (2) Sir William Hampton.

Sir Guy Wolston was ‘Esquire of the Body to Edward IV.’, and sheriff as well as M.P. for Northamptonshire. His dau., Margaret Wolston, by Margaret Tamworth (d. 1476), m. Sir Guy Sapcote. Their dau. was Anne Sapcote (d. March 14, 1559), whose Will was proved March 21, 1559. She married firstly John Broughton (d. 24 January 1518), the son of Sir Robert Broughton (d.1506) by his wife Katherine de Vere. Their dau. Anne Broughton (d.  May 16, 1562), married, as his second wife, May 24, 1539, Sir Thomas Cheyney (see ‘Cheyne, Thomas’, Dictionary of National Biography,pp. 421-3, 1901).

Anne Sapcote married secondly, Sir Richard Jerningham (d. 1525), the son of Sir John Jerningham (d. 1503) and Isabel Clifton, the daughter of Sir Gervase Clifton (d. 1471) and Isabel Herbert. (See Richardson, Douglas, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd ed., vol. I, p. 512). Anne Sapcote’s brother-in-law, Edward Jerningham (d. January  6, 1515) of Somerleyton, married firstly Margaret Bedingfield (d. March 24, 1504), and secondly Mary Scrope (d. August 25, 1548).

Anne Sapcote’s sister-in-law Margaret (or Mary) Jerningham married Thomas Stanhope, esquire, of Shelford or Rampton, by whom she had issue, Sir Edward Stanhope, who married firstly Adelina or Avelina Clifton (my direct ancestors), and secondly Elizabeth Bourchier.

Shortly after the death of Sir Richard Jerningham, Anne Sapcote married John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, by whom she was the mother of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford. Anne Sapcote appointed three persons to take charge of her burial, ‘my Lord Marquess of Westminster, my Lord Abbot of Westminster, and my Lord of Saint Jones’, who can be identified as:- (1) William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester (1474–1572), grandfather of William Paulet (c. 1532-1598), 3rd Marquess of Winchester, husband of Agnes Howard (d.1601),only child of Anne Sapcote’s daughter, Katherine Broughton, by William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham. (See the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). (2) John Paulet, Lord St. John (1517-1576), son and heir of William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester, and father of Anne Sapcote’s son-in-law, William Paulet (c. 1532-1598), 3rd Marquess of Winchester. In 1557, John Paulet, Lord St. John, had married Elizabeth Seymour, a younger sister of Queen Jane Seymour.

‘D(omi)ne Anne Comitisse Bedford In the name of God, Amen. The 19th day of August in the fifth and sixth years of thereign of our Sovereign Lord and Lady Philip and Mary by the grace of God King and Queen of England, France, both Sicilies, Jerusalem and Ireland, Defenders of the Faith, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Milan, Burgundy and Brabant, Counties of Hapsburg, Flanders and Tyrol, I, Lady Anne, Countess of Bedford, being sick in body but of goodand perfect memory, do make and ordain this my present testament containing my lastwill in manner and form following …

Item, I give and bequeath to Francis Russell, gentleman, one other of my son’s son[s], my manor of Covington in the county of Huntington, to have and to hold the said manor to him, the said Francis, for term of his life; Item, I give to Henry Cheyney, esquire, my daughter’s son, one annuity or yearly rent of fifty pounds by year out of my lands and tenements, to have and to hold the said annuity ...’.

Francis Russell, gentleman was the father of William Russell:

The advowson of Wingrave St Peter & St Paul passed to the Crown in 1535. Thomas Duncombe was lessee for a term of fifty-six years dating from 1535. (Pat. 13 Eliz. pt. ix, m. 4, reciting earlier lease). In 1571, the Crown granted a new lease for twenty-one years to John Duncombe,* (ibid.) and another in 1575 to Benedict Duncombe, (Ibid. 17 Eliz. pt. xiv, m. 6) which was cancelled for a fresh lease in 1580. (Ibid. 22 Eliz. pt. ii, m. 24). In 1583 he obtained a further lease for three lives in survivorship. (Ibid. 25 Eliz. pt. xiii, m. 18). *John Duncombe, of Moreton, who married Mary Russell, daughter of William Russell. Their daughter, Katherine, married, in 1581, Drewe Woodliffe, whose son was John Woodliffe, who settled in Virginia, and whose daughter, Anne Woodliffe, was named as ‘kin’ of Thomas Harris in the 1624/5 Muster.

1.2.1. John Gurgaynie, bapt. Staplehurst, Kent
1.3. Mary Gurganey, m. William Burt. Bond in 40 marks for peaceful enjoyment 1. John Gryffinn of Chearsley, yeoman, bound to 2. Thomas Burte of Long Crendon, husbandman. D-X1040/1/1. December 10, 1577.

copyright m stanhope 2015

AD.

Long Crendon St Mary 1560 – 1906
13 Nov 1564 Anthony son of John GURGEYNEY
17 Apr 1568 Jane daughter of John GURGEYNEY
14 Apr 1570 John son of John GURGEYNEY
22 Apr 1571 Hughe son of John GURGEYNEY
3 May 1573 Mary daughter of John GURGEYNEY
13 Nov 1575 Dorothie daughter of John GURGEYNEY
16 Dec 1576 Edward son of John GURGEYNEY
31 May 1578 Prudence daughter of John GURGEYINE
6 Mar 1581 Margery daughter of John GURGEYNY
4 Jun 1582 Edward son of John GURGAYNIE
26 Dec 1583 James son of Mr John GURGAYNIE
9 Feb 1586 Paule son of John GURGEYNIE, Gent

Long Crendon St Mary 1562 – 1904
30 Jan 1564 John GURGENEY & Dorothie BRIGHAM
8 Feb 1591 Thomas STONE of Mourton, Thame & Elizabeth GURGAYNIE of this parish 1591
16 Jan 1598 William BURT & Elizabeth GURGAYNIE