Aubrey of Llantrithyd: 1590-1856
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© 2007 by Jon Anthony Awbrey Dedicated to the Memory of Marvin Richard Awbrey 1911-1989 Whose Curiosity Inspired the Writing of this Book Table of Contents Preface...................................................................... ix Descent and Arms ................................................... xvi Awbrey of Abercynrig: 1300-1621 ................... 1 Dr. William Awbrey of Kew, 1529-1595 ............ 27 Awbrey of Tredomen: 1583-1656 ....................... 42 Aubrey of Llantrithyd: 1590-1856 ...................... 87 John Aubrey of Easton Pierce, 1626-1695 ......... 105 Aubrey of Clehonger: 1540-1803 ........................ 125 Awbrey of Ynyscedwin: 1586-1683 .................... 131 Awbrey of Llanelieu and Pennsylvania: 1600-1716135 Awbrey of Northern Virginia: 1659-1804 ......... 149 Awbrey of South Carolina: 1757-1800 .................... 236 Bibliography .................................................. 263 Index .......................................................................... 268 iii Illustrations Dr. William Aubrey & Abercynrig .................... after 26 Ynsycdewin House .............................................. after 131 Goose Creek Chapel, Awbrey’s Plantation and after 186 Samuel Awbrey ................................................... Noland House ...................................................... after 201 Awbrey of Ynyscedwin: 1586-1683 .................... after 131 iv Preface In an age of relatively static social mobility, the Aubrey/Awbrey family was distinguished by the fact that they managed to rise to prominence mainly through their own efforts, having established themselves as little more than freeholders in the wild Welsh borderlands during the period immediately after the Norman Conquest. In due course, they left their mark on Britain and her colonies. For nearly a millennium, the records of Britain and the United States have included vague and obscure references to members of the Aubrey (or Awbrey) family, and for the greater number of them, little more than a footnote exists as documentation of their lives. Althoughseveral branches of this family have had treatments written about them, no concise history has ever been compiled about the family as a whole, and their origin and early history has been almost entirely ignored. This has remained the case despite the fact that the Aubrey family was at one time among the most prominent gentry families of Britain, PREFACE contributing to the kingdom at least thirteen high sheriffs, twelve knights, seven baronets, six members of parliament, and high officers of state including Master of Requests in Ordinary, Lord Keeper, Judge Advocate of the Army, and Vicar General of Canterbury under Elizabeth I, and First Lord of the Admiralty and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury under George III. Maternally, and in an earlier age, the family was heavily linked to the Welsh heroes David Gam, Owen Glendower, and Sir Rhys ap Thomas. Further, they were intimately involved with the great Welsh families of Herbert of Raglan and Vaughan of Tretower, and the English noble families of Berkeley, Montague, Harcourt, Lowther, Digby, and numerous others. In modern times, the family has all but disappeared from the landed gentry of Britain, but their maternal descendants remain, including a number of hereditary Peers. Some of the great estates of the Aubrey family, notably Chilton and Dorton in Buckinghamshire, remain in the hands of these maternal descendants, but most have found their way into the ownership of others, erasing whatever connection that might have remained between the past and the present. Almost certainly more important than the Aubrey family’s role in the political process of Britain was the family’s influence on British learning, contributing pioneers to the study of law, archaeology, folklore, and biography, as well as being influential in the spheres of a host of thinkers, statesmen, and poets including Thomas Hobbes, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, William Harvey, and Leoline Jenkins, among others. Also ignored in the history of the Aubrey family was the important role of colonization that propelled various members of the family into new worlds, forever linking the family to the founding of Pennsylvania and to the settlement of Northern Virginia, placing descendants in the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, and, vi AUBREY: DOMINION AND DECLINE eventually, Oregon, into the Governor’s mansion of Pennsylvania, and into the ranks of the high command of the Confederate States Army. For the first time, this volume exhaustively records the colonial history of the Aubrey family, a history which has only been hinted at in previous attempts, and includes the close associations between the Awbrey family and the Penns, Lees, Pendletons, Monroes, and various other leading families of the colonial and early republican periods. The mere fact that this research has not been fully compiled in the past is startling, as the eminent Virginia historian Philip Bruce referred to members of the Awbrey family as among the foremost citizens of the colony, and the family was among the top ten landholders in Northern Virginia during the period immediately preceding the American Revolution. However, their prominence was not furthered by their descendants, and, just as in Britain, the family receded into historical obscurity. Perhaps the qualities that enabled them to acquire their great wealth, among which were a pronounced sense of loyal duty, patient action, and remarkable genius, were the very qualities that resulted in their dissipation and demise. The certain lack of scholarship regarding this family probably is due to the almost diabolical decline suffered by many branches of the clan, and it is not helped by the fact that the Aubreys have always been few in number and, at times, somewhat lacking in vitality. Therefore, this history was created mainly out of a sense of fear that whatever primary sources remaining might become lost, or worse yet, rendered wholly obscure without one solid overview of the subject ever being attempted. The men and women in this volume have become ghosts, mostly, their apparent legacies emerging only in the forms of weathered monuments, ancient houses, street names, and a myriad of other obscure references. Even the most concrete of these remains, the ancient structures at vii PREFACE Abercynrig, Dorton, Chilton, and Boarstall, John Aubrey’s Brief Lives, and the host of portraits on display in various museums, only hint at who they were, what they desired, or what they believed. As years pass into decades, and decades into centuries, even these grand capsules of the past lose relevance in an age that becomes increasingly disinterested in the lessons of quaintly attired men long dead. However, it is possible to understand them in a particularly human way. Although they held as their kinsmen, friends, and associates some of the most powerful men in Western Europe and North America, these associations did not ward off the debts, quarrels, and eventual destruction that the family seemed to attract. In fact, the greater heights that the Aubreys reached, the more ominous the consequences of their reaching became. Perhaps they were not destined to reach so high, and it was some hand of providence that struck them down to earth. This may be a romantic notion, however, as it is more likely that although many members of the family were equipped to achieve greatness, they never quite became accustomed to living with it. History is history, however, and the Awbrey family did play a small role in the development of western civilization. Whether it was formulating legal opinions that stood as precedents for centuries, building up fine mansions and manors, debating on the floor of parliament or various congresses, patronizing eminent scholars and universities, documenting the history of Britain, developing great swaths of Britain’s North American colonies, or struggling against great odds on Southern battlefields to secure the independence of the American nation, the Aubreys' influence is doubtlessly still widely felt, although the name itself has receded into obscurity. There will likely never be another period in human history when the development of civilization coincides so vii i AUBREY: DOMINION AND DECLINE directly with the functions of the ancient clan system. The age of the great families has subsided, leaving in its wake a geographically and socially fractured society. With the breakdown of class distinctions and the democratization of resources, it is likely that future generations will, at best, look back toward their origins with a passing curiosity, or, at worst, without any knowledge of them. It might be said that this is the proper course of progress, but even if this is so, such trends often marginalize fact and reduce it to fantasy in order to reframe it in terms more amenable to current and popular political models. However, as stated previously, history is history and should be viewed as such without prejudice of any kind. This is the challenge of future generations, especially in light of noxious current modes of thought that hold that we, today, stand at the brink of the end of history itself. This line of thought is of course nonsense. Although the Awbrey family has degenerated to little more than passing reference, history will be its greatest and possibly only ally. It is for this reason that this volume has been compiled. It would be shameful for this family, who figured so prominently in Britain’s