ERSITY PROVO.UTAH Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2009 with funding from Brigham Young University http://www.archive.org/details/royaldescentsscoOOflet ROYAL DESCENTS: SCOTTISH RECORDS I. HOW TO TRACE By The Reverend A DESCENT W. G. D. Fletcher, FROM ROYALTY M.A., F.S.A. II. THE SCOTTISH \By J. BOLAM Johnson RECORDSj C.A. 1908. CHAS. A. BERNAU, Walton-on-Thames, England. Wholesale Agents: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT ft Co., Ltd. London. DUNN, COLLIN & CO., PRINTERS, ST. MARY AXE, LONDON, E.C. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] DB.LFELlBRARy BRi; ^RSITY How to Trace a Descent from Royalty. Probably most families Most families ,. ,. - possess a pedigree of that r * * have Royal . seven or eight generations in the paternal line, have at least one descent from the Kings of Eng- land, perhaps many lines of descent—even though they may be quite unaware of it. The difficulty is to trace out and prove your descent. The object of this chapter is to show from what kings and royal personages a descent can be derived ; and to give some suggestions as to how it is possible to work out and trace a descent from Royalty. — Royal The working out of a ^ * royal descent is, to my mind, Descents are . r .__ . a pursuit far more interest- worth tracing, . ing than working out a pedigree of one's paternal ancestors. The ordinary pedigree is too often merely a string of the names of persons almost unknown. You get their names, their places of abode, the dates and places of baptism, marriage and burial, the date and proof of their Wills or the grant of Letters of Administration and that is all. Useful and excellent persons these ancestors were in their day, no doubt ; but still they were for the most part u unknown to history." It is given to but few to have in the male line for an ancestor a Marlborough, a Nelson, a Clive, a Wellington, a Cromwell, a Fox, a Burke, a Pitt, a Milton, a Tennyson, a Lely, or a Reynolds. Those few who have such paternal ancestors in their family tree are justly proud of them. Descents 5 Every royal descent necessarily implies the possession of distinguished historical personages as ancestors—men and women whose doings we read about in the pages of history—not kings only, but warriors, states- men, knights of the garter, canonized saints, and so forth. It gives a keener interest to the visitor to Westminster Abbey or Win- chester Cathedral, or to the student of English history, if he knows that he is de- scended in a clear unbroken line from the kings and great men who lie buried in those sacred fanes and of whom he reads in history, and if he feels that he is united by the ties of blood to the Sovereign of these realms. Jt is sometimes llr ed The Blood S tliat after a11, tlle ( uantit Royal ' l y of royal blood that flows in any person's veins must be infinitesi- mally small; but the same holds true of the blood of our paternal ancestors—we only inherit one-half of our parents' blood, Royal one-fourth of our grandparents*, one-eighth of our great-grandparents', and so on. Although we may have but little of their blood coursing in our veins, still we are proud of being descended from them, because they are our lineal ancestors. During the reigns of How & When * * . Kings, _ _ the Plantagenetfe & ' Royal Descents „ . B princes and princesses of the royal blood fre( uentl Possible. l y intermarried with English nobles and knights, and it is from these unions that the strain of royal blood flows in so many English families to-day. The earliest monarch from whose younger children descent can be traced* is King John, whose daughter Eleanor married Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. The *Gundrada, wife of William de Warrenne, used to be con- sidered a daughter of William the Conqueror, but it is now almost conclusively proved that she was not his daughter, but his step- daughter. See the late Mr. R. E- Chester Waters 's Gundrada de Warrenne. Descent from Gundrada is very common. Descents 7 last monarch from whom descent can be traced is King Henry VII., whose daughter, Mary Tudor, Queen Dowager of France,' married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk! No commoners can trace legitimate descent* from the Stuarts or the Guelphs, except through morganatic marriages, for,' since the year 15 15 until quite modern days,' our princesses have intermarried only with foreign royalties and princelings. In our own time we have witnessed the marriages of the Princess Louise to the Duke of Argyll, and of the Princess Royal to the Duke of Fife, so perhaps we are reverting to the happy custom that was in vogue in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 8 Royal The Twelve There are twelve royal " Leakages " personages, the younger of the children of Kings John, Royal Blood. Henry III., Edward I., Edward III., and Henry VII., from whom descent can readily and usually be traced. John, 1199-1216, was father of (1) Eleanor, wife of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. Henry III., 1216-1272, was father of (2) Edmund " Crouchback," Earl of Lancaster and Leicester. Edward I., 1272-1307, was father of (3) Eleanor, wife of Henry, Count of Bar, in France. (4) Joan °f Acre, wife of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. {5) Elizabeth, wife of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex. Descents 9 (6) Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, and Marshal of England. (7) Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent. Edward III., 1327-1377, was father of (8) Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence. (9) John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. (10) Edmund of Eangley, Duke of York. (11) Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. Henry VII., 1485-1509, was father of (12) Mary, Queen-Dowager of France, wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. A descent from any of The Ancestry these implies of course a implied by a descent from William the Royal Descent. Conqueror, Alfred the Great, . 10 Royal and Egbert, from several Scottish kings, and from the Emperor Charlemagne, and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. A descent from Edward III., or from Eleanor de Bar, Joan of Acre, or Elizabeth de Bohun, implies a descent from the canonized Saint Ferdi- nand III., King of Castile (Edward II., and these three ladies being his grandchildren) Whilst a descent from Thomas of Brother- ton and Edmund of Woodstock, or from Edward III., implies a descent from St. Eouis of France, Edward I.'s second Queen being a granddaughter of St. Eouis, and Edward II. 's Queen his great granddaughter. Descent from Hugh Capet and a long line of French kings is also opened up. Each of these twelve royal children has left many descendants living to-day. It will be well to take each in order, and see how the royal blood has flowed down. — Descents it (l) Eleanor de Montf Eleanor de °* had a dau ht Montfort. ^ ^ Bleanor, who married in 1278 Llewelyn ap Griffith, Prince of North Wales, and their daughter, Catherine, was the wife of Philip ap Ivor, Lord of Iscoed, from whom many Welsh and border families can trace lineal descent. Edmund (2) Edmund Crouch- back married Crouchback. Blanche, Queen-dowager of Navarre, a niece of St. Louis of France, and had a son Henry, Earl of Lancaster and Leicester. Henry left a son Henry, the father of Blanche, first wife of John of Gaunt ; and four daugh- ters, from whom descent can often be traced, namely : [a] Maud, wife of William de ^Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster, who left an only daughter, Elizabeth, wife of Lionel of Antwerp. See (8). 12 Royal [f] Joan, wife of John, 3rd Lord Mowbray, from whom spring the Howards, Berkeleys, and many other families. [c] Eleanor, wife istly of John Beau- mont, 2nd Lord Beaumont (ances- tor of Beaumont,Bart.,of Coleorton, &c.) ; and 2ndly, of Richard Fitz- Alan, 9th Earl of Arundel, from whom springs the Duke of Nor- folk, &c. [d] Mary, wife of Henry Percy, 3rd Lord Percy, ancestor of the Earls and Dukes of Northumberland, &c. (3) Eleanor de Bar had a daughter, Eleanor, who married Llewelyn ap Owen, Lord of South Wales ; their son, Thomas ap Llewelyn married Eleanor, daughter of Philip ap Ivor and Catherine (granddaughter — — ; Descents 13 of Eleanor de Montfort). See (1). Their descendants are very numerous in Wales and the border counties. (4) Joane of Acre married Joane of Acre, istly, Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester, and had three daughters and co-heiresses \a\ Alia- nore, wife of Hugh le Despeucer the younger \6\ Margaret, wife of Hugh de Audley ; and [c] Elizabeth, wife successively of John de Burgh, Theobald de Verdon, and Roger d'Ainory. Joane of Acre married 2iidly, Ralph de Monthermer, and their grand- daughter, Margaret, married Sir John de Montacute (son of William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury). Elizabeth de Bohun Elizabeth (s) , „ . had three children Wil- de Bohun. nam de Bohun, Earl of Northampton ; Alianore, wife of James Butler, 1st Earl of Ormonde ; and Margaret, wife of Hugh Courtenay, 2nd Earl of Devon. — 14 Royal The descendants of Joane of Acre and Elizabeth de Bohun are very numerous. (6) Thomas of Brother- Thomas of \' , , .. ton left an nly dau hter Brotherton. ° S > Margaret, Duchess of Nor- folk, who married John, 3rd Lord Segrave, and had issue a daughter, Elizabeth, wife of John, 4th Lord Mowbray (ancestor of the Howards, Berkeleys, and many other families).