'rIIE GREENE }1 AMILY IN ENGLAND AND A~IJ£RICA WITH BOSTON PRIVATELY PIUN'l'E]) l\lOl CON'rEN~rs. lntrotluctory Note Aut,horit,ie,1 7 The Family of tlreene u " A Purpose of 1\Iarriage" 1805 . 87 Notes from Parish Register 88 Subsidy Rolls 94 Departure for America 9li (ireene of Hrm11<leane, Hampshire DH 'l'he Orecnes oE Boughton ma Greene vVills 107 The :Family Arms 128 ln<lex 131 Pe<ligreeR INTRODUCTORY NOTE. , ~ N tho followillg account of U10 G nmrn rn FAl\llLY . ~!) the compilers lmve not attempte(l to give a complete Genealogy, but rather to enable the members of that branch with which we are more imme­ diately connected, to trace their line to the English lUlcestry tl1ro11gh the fin,t of tho 11ame who came to New England, :md to show Ll10 descent from the emigrant dii-ectly to Natlia.niol (hoo1w, who (lied in Bostm1 in 1714, and morn especially to the families of his two sons, Benjamin and Gardiner Greene of Boston, with only such occasional refer­ ences to collateral branches as would aid those who may so desire, to follow 011t the liues tit tlieir leisure. Much valuable material lms boon gathered, which might have been included, had it been consistent with the plan indicated above : most of this will doubtless be foum;l in the Genealogy of the family, now in preparation, as we are happy to learn, by a descendant eminently qualified for that work. Discrepancies between a few of the dates herein and 6 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. those of some of the family records will no don bt be dis­ covered, but it is proper to say that nothing has been given except on what was believed to bo go()(l authority, a.Jl(l, wholl conflicting elates were furnished, the decision was made on the best information accessible at the time. Careful copies of early ·wills from the olHcial records in England, together with extracts from Pari:,h Hcgi8Ler::i, all of which have been obtained from original source::; for this work, with other historical notes, are brought together on the pages following the Genealogy, and these it is believed,. will he fournl of specbl interest and valne. In the Perligreos which close the volnme, some lines of descent are carried a generation or two heyond what is given in the text. A list of authorities consulted will be found on a suh­ seqnent page . • 0 AUTHORrrIES. Baker's History and Antiquities of N ortlrnrnptonshire. Halstead's Genealogies, cited hy Baker. 'The (~enL!elllan's 1\lagm:ine, 18:2(i. Houtell's l\lonumental Brasses of 1~ngl:tnd. Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries. I Lntchins's History of Dorset. Lower's English Surnames. 'Turnor'14 Ornenef4 of \Varwick Ill Colonial llif4t.ory. Gorton's Simplicity\; Defence agairnit Seven-heacle<l Policy. .J olmson's '\V onder \V orking Provi<lence of Sion's Saviour. Foote's Annals of King's Chapel. Procee<lings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. ·Colonial Documents, Public Record Ollice, Lonclon. Drake'H Fo1111ders of New England. Perkins's Sketch of the Life, etc., of .lohn Singleton Copley. 'I1HE :FAMILY OF GREENE. HID family of GmmNE derive their name, originally written de Greene, from their ancient possessions in N orthamptoushire, where they were seated so early as tho time of ]Ddwnnl the First. In 1B20, 'I1homas de Greene t-iuccccded tu Uw cHtates, and was Lord of the l\fouors of Boughton and N 01ton, afterwards called Greene's Norton, whorn the family continued to 1lourish for several generations, sending offshoots into various Counties; to some of these collateral lines reforenee will be made on a subsequent page. Boughton, the ancient name of which was Buke­ ton, is three and a half miles north of the town of Northampton; it was the former scat of the llial'ls ol' Strnffonl. In the Lwe11ty-scvcuU1 year of the reign of lDtl wanl UI (1B54), Sir llemy Greene, 10 'I'HE FAMILY OF GREENE. Lord of Boughton Manor, obtained for himself and his heirs the grant of a Fair, to be held yea1·ly for three clays, beginning on the vigil of St. ,T ohn Baptist, the patron Saint of the Parish; and since that time, clown to the beginning of the present cL~ntury, and pC!·haps later, this Fair is said by a local historian to have been the "most celebrated in that part of the kingdom, and reso1tecl to by great numbers for pleasure and business of every description." Here there formerly stood, near a lhrnons spnng, doubtless nsed in early times to supply the sacrn­ mental waters of baptism, the parish church, dedi­ cated to St. John Baptist; it was half a mile away from the village, on the Gt·ecn. As early as tho time of Ilemy VfIT, it had hognn to !'all into decay; the tower and spirn alone were standing in 17ul, and these foll about 1785; nothing now remains but a of' its rnins )· cha1>el ' erected about the l.H..wi11nin°·b b the sixteenth ce11tt11·y, wm; usetl by the people as their place of worship. '1-ihis had a low, embattled tower in which hun°· thre(• bells bcari1w the date ' b , ' b of Hi53. rn10 outlines of the foundations of tho mother chrn·ch can he tnwed, but there seems to be no THE l<'Al\HLY 01<' GHJ~JDNJD. 11 description of its interior extant. It contained the tombs of some of the early members of the family, and Baker, in his "History and Antiqnities of Northamptonshire," has preserved an account of two of its Greene monuments. One of those bore the arms of Greene and those of the allied families of Zouch, Drayton and Mablethorpc. The other had "a portraieture of a man in a short gowne yt should shew hym a lawyer, having also a s'geaut's coyfo. His wyfo also lies in portraictme by hym." On this tomb, at the head, were sculptnrecl the arms of Greene; on the south side they were repeated, and near them the Zouch device; on 1 he north, Greene but.ween ½ouuh irnpaliug Greene, and Hcynes impal­ ing Greene, showing marriages with the daughters of Greene, who were probably hero .interred. At the foot of the tomb was a shield bearing a foss between six crnssos patce, tho arm8 of a family not twmed by Baker, who rcurnrlrn that thi8 monument had l>cen erroneously m,signed to the Greene who married a Mablcthorpe; "but, as the Lol'll Chief ,T ustice was the only one of the family who attained to legal eminence, aml his daughters having mar­ rietl ½ouch aIHl Heyues, it may with confldeuee be applied to him." 12 THE Jl~AM:ILY OF GHKITINE. In addition to their Manor in Boughton, the family owned estates in Norton at a very early pcl'iod. This was a Parish in N mton Ilund1·c1l, in the same County ; its name is said by some authorities to have Leen given li·om its relative position to King's Sutton (i. e., N Ol'th town and Son th town), another portion of the Saxon royal demesne. 'l1110 Greeno prefix was given from its successive lords. "Domes­ day" mentions an extensive wood in this parish, which was 1lonbtless tho origin of Whittle-woml, 01· ,Vhittlebmy forest, a portion of which lingc!'ed till recent times, as "Kingthome vVood." In the reign of Henry V, 1413-22, Thomas Grncne was ,Varden of )Vhittle-wood, for an annual payment of thirty­ three shillings and fourpence at the Feast of St. Michael, and the Lord of the Manor " held it 'in capite of the King by the se1·vicc of lifting· up the right hand toward the King yearly on Christmas Day, in what place soever the King is." The royal claim on Norton was the same lot· centuries as it had been in the days of the Saxon princes. Sir rI1homas, the ,Vanlen, owned lands in Sewclle and Ashby, as well as in Greene's Norton. His willow, who died in the twelfth year or Ilemy VT, married, fom Jl!ttl'S before her death (1L1BD), J uhn Tirn FAMILY OF GRfljffiNE. 13 Not_y11ghnm, who was fined two l111rnll'cd JH)lllHls for coutracting the marrrnge without the royal pcnnis­ s10n. In 1353. Sir Henry Greeno, Lord Chief Justice of England in the reign of JTichvard III, bought tho Manor and gave his name to tho village. He was the ancestor of six Sir Thomas Greenes, who suc­ eeccle<l each other in the estate · without i11te1Tup­ tio11, the last one clyi ng in 150(i. rrhe Chief ,Justice was interred in the chmch of his ancestors, at Boughton, as we have seen above. The last Sir Thomas left two daughters, as coheircsscs ; the cl<ler, Anne, married Sir Nicholas Vaux, Baron of Ua1·rowdc11, and the _you11gcr, ~fatikla, 01· Maud, 111a.1Ticd Sir 'l111omas Parr, the father of (Jnccn Katharine Parr, the sixth and last queen of Henry VIII. The estate then passed to the crown, but was restored to the blood by a grant from Edward VI, in 1550, who gave it to "mine honest uncle," Katharine's brother, Thomas Parr. Henry VIII, also, had a high regard for his brother-in-law, whom he called "his integrity." After the death of Eel wnrd, and the second mar­ riage of the late Queen, Thomas foll into disfavor with Mary, but Elizabeth restored a part of his 14 THE FAMILY OF GREENE.