Research News
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Thornbury & District Museum No. 147 March 2016 RESEARCH NEWS The History of Thornbury Park: Part Two Sir John Stafford.” However a note of another record The Harringtons/Haringtons (Gloucestershire Archives) has the Gloucestershire The Abstract of Title continues: Commission of Sewers noting complaints against Lady 2 April 1596 Licence from Queen Elizabeth to William Mary Stafford and Sir James Harrington for not doing Glover to convey the Castle & Park of Thornborough & repairs [to the sea wall] in Oldbury as ordered, 1587. divers other premises to James Harrington Esquire & his heirs 16 November 1598 Assignment of the said lease 6 May 1596 Bargain & Sale inrolled from the said [Fishers Lodge] from Sir John Poyntz & Richard William Glover to the said James Harrington of the Codrington unto the said Edward Harrington*[sic] said Castle, Park and divers other premises in Thornbury Parish in fee under the yearly rent of £100 Frances Harrington died in 1599. 7 May 1596 Letter of attorney from the said William Glover to give possession accordingly 9 May 1596 Feoffment from Thomas Wightman Esquire to the said James Harrington & his heirs of the said park in consideration of £500 10 May 1596 Assignment of the Statute Staple to James Harrington esquire 17 August 1596 Surrender of a lease from Wise and others to the said James Harrington 13 November 1596 Deed to lead the uses of a fine between the said William Glover & wife and James Harrington 29 November 1596 Exemplification of the fine James Harrington was the third son of Sir James Harrington of Exton, Rutland. His mother was Lucy, daughter of Sir William Sydney of Penshurst Place, Kent. (I’m presuming that Penshurst had also been one of the properties of Edward 3rd Duke of Buckingham and retained by Henry VIII after the Duke’s execution in 1521?) In 1552 Edward VI made a gift of Penshurst to Sir William who was his steward and tutor. The Sidney fortunes increased further when Sir William's son, Henry Sidney, married Lady Mary Dudley, whose powerful family included John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and his sons Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. In 1578 Harrington married his first wife, On the north wall of the chancel in Ridlington Church Frances (daughter and coheir of Robert Sapcote of is a small alabaster monument with the kneeling Elton, Hunts) and they possibly had 16 children. The figures of Sir James Harrington, Bt. (d. Feb. 1614), and manor of Ridlington was owned by the Harringtons of Frances his first wife Exton. In 1596, Sir John (afterwards Lord) Harrington of Exton conveyed part of it to his younger A Double Wedding 24th September 1601?** brother James Harrington. James and his eldest son Edward made a double It would seem that by the end of 1596 James match with a widow and daughter of an Oxfordshire Harrington had ownership of most of Thornbury Park, landowner John Doyley of Merton. Doyley had except for Fishers Lodge. Harrington also purchased married Anne Be[a]rnard(e) of Northamptonshire. He property at Oldbury on Severn. One source ( I think at died in 1593, leaving four daughters as coheirs, and Staffordshire County Record Office) has “Lord Stafford reserving a life interest in the manor of Merton to his apparently sold two mills on opposite banks of a wife, with reversion to his daughters He also had tributary of the River Severn, the one in Oldbury 1605, property at Shugworth in Berkshire. Anne was a together with the tithing of Oldbury, to Sir James daughter of Francis Bernard of Abington and sister of Harrington; in 1611 he sold Kington and its tithing to Baldwin Bernard. (** Sources need to be checked to see if the couples did actually marry on the same day *16 November 1598 Assignment of the said lease at Merton. One record on Ancestry online has a James [Fishers Lodge ]from Sir John Poyntz & Richard Harrington marrying ‘Anna’ Doyley at St Margaret’s Codrington unto the said Edward Harrington Westminster in December 1600.) James’s son Edward This Edward Harrington could be James’s son but married Doyley’s eldest daughter Margery. As early as another Edward Harrington had an interest in 1604 the two surviving younger daughters of John Thornbury Park. Written in 1599 and proved in 1602 Doyley seem to have conveyed their reversionary the will of James Harrington’s uncle, Edward rights to Merton to Sir James Harrington and to his Harrington of Ridlington, says “Item: Whereas I have son Sir Edward. bought one annuity of three score pounds by the After coming into their Merton estate the Harringtons yeere rent of my nephew James Harrington going out are thought to have resided partly at Merton and of the Parke or inclosed grounds called Holme Parke partly at Ridlington. James was knighted by James I in alias New Parke parcel of the inheritance of the sayd 1603. James Harrington for and during the natural lives of Sir James Harrington before his death paid the full me the sayd Edward Harrington John Wisse and £1,095 purchase price for one of the first baronetcies Henry Wisse* or the longest liver of them........”. in 1611, and insisted in his will that the coat of arms Edward wished his annuity to go to his nephew on his funeral monument, set up for his first wife and James on the understanding that the money would himself, be altered to add the date of his death and go towards the marriage portions of any of James’ “my stile with a blouddie hand.....” “which though I daughters that were still unmarried at the time of have not pride therein, so I do not disdain that badge Edward’s death. His Majesty hath given me and my heirs male 17 August 1596 Surrender of a lease from Wise and forever.” King James established the hereditary Order others to the said James Harrington of Baronets in England on 22 May 1611, partly to raise *Presumably a member of the same Wise or Wisse money from the fees and partly to encourage family involved in another lease or annuity. The development in the province of Ulster - "for the Wisses were a gentry family who owned the Manor of plantation and protection of the whole Kingdom of Hope (aka Hope Farm) and other property around Ireland, but more especially for the defence and Thornbury, including a “tenement called security of the Province of Ulster, and therefore for Brentmarshe”. In 1596 John Stafford of Marlwood their distinction those of this order and their wrote a will before his departure on the expedition to descendants may bear the Red Hand of Ulster[aka the Spain in 1596. The will was never proved as he bloody hand of Ulster] in their coats of arms either in returned safely, and with increased honours, having a canton or an escutcheon at their election". been knighted by the Earl of Essex, immediately after the successful siege of Cadiz. In it he wrote, “I give to Sir James, 1st Baronet of Ridlington, died 3rd my neighbour Mr, Thomas Wysse and his wife, of February 1614, a few months after his elder brothers Houpe, in the parish of Thornbury, 60s. a peice, to be Sir John and Sir Henry. In his will of 16th June 1613, bestowed on a gold ring with a death's head graved in he bequeathed Thornbery Parke aka ‘Thornberry it. I bequeath to my servant John Wisse all such Parke and property at Merton to his “profitable and money as is due to me for rent.” obliging wife” as a jointure estate, but suggested that she exchange these lands with some of his eldest son I suspect John Wisse was in a position of Sir Edward’s property, in order to secure possession responsibility in Stafford’s household.A “servant” did of her first husband’s estate. He ordered the sale of not necessarily have a menial job. In March 1596 Oldbury and two of his Midland manors, which he Edward Wish/Wisse was baptised at St Mary’s Church; valued at more than £10,000, to pay his creditors and his godparents were Edward Lord Stafford, Edward pay for his legacies. However, most of his estates Veale and “Dorithy ?Covington gentlewoman”. were entailed on his heir Sir Edward, who was to pay James’s widow Lady Anne in or by 1614 married as annuities to five of his younger brothers (probably to her third husband Sir Henry Poole of Oaksey, be paid out of Thornbury Park). Sir James also Wiltshire. His first wife had been a daughter of warned that “It is to be remembered by my son and Edward Neville, 7th Lord Abergavenny. Under James I my wife that Thornbery Parke is charged with a Poole became a leading figure in Wiltshire affairs He hundred pounds a yeare to Mr Glover.....” It seems was an MP for Oxfordshire and elsewhere and was that if the charge was not paid within a certain knighted in 1603. Quite what the arrangement was amount of time each year then the whole park would between Sir Edward Harrington and his mother be forfeit! concerning the various properties is not certain, but she is the “Lady Ann Poole” mentioned in the abstract on 1 June 1629. 1 June 1629 Bargain & Sale inrolled from Sir Edward Harrington Knight & Baronet to John Dent esquire of Can anyone find out where Lady /Dame Anne Poole all that park aforesaid called New Park or Holme Park was actually buried? otherwise Thornborough Park with all Libertys etc thereto belonging and all those parcels of ground lying in the Parish of Thornborough containing 1000 acres and all that Water Mill within the park & 2 messuages or tenements in the said Park to hold to the said John Dent esquire his heirs and assigns for ever subject to the Estate of Lady Ann Poole and to a rent charge of £100 per annum to the said William Glover & his heirs.