Harley ms 807—Glover's pedigree 1570-77
The British Library's Harley manuscript 807 is a 120-folio
note book of pedigrees 'in the hand writynge of Robert
Glover Esq., Somerset Herald', according to a 17th
C inscription on the front page. The book measures c 35x22
cm. For his reference and record Glover sketched numerous
coats of arms in trick—with tinctures denoted by initial
letters, like g for 'gules' red and az for 'azure' blue. He
then passed these notes to College of Arms artists
to produce illuminated paintings on parchment for
clients to display.
On folios 44 and 45 Glover sketched a Broket pedigree—from
now on referred to as 'Harley 807'—spanning 3 pages and
12 generations, the last 6 of which feature the eldest Wheathampstead
line. The pedigreee has no dates, but 30-year-generation gaps
would provide a birth date of c 1220 for Edward Broket
of Steton at the top.
Elizabethan pedigrees played specific roles in their day
and while Harley 807 deviates in places from known
facts, it has value:
- It is a good example of Elizabethan genealogy.
- It shows how the head of the Wheathampstead Brockett dynasty
portrayed his ancestry and heraldry.
- Behind its contemporary context and creativity there is
sound genealogical information.
- It was reproduced literally in the 1860
Gateshead pedigree, which in turn was republished in New
Jersey 1905. From
there it has become widely available in various forms on
the internet.
| Harley
807 (without the heraldry) |
Edward Broket of m Maude daughtr to Richard 1
Steton in Yorksh | Gouer of the Northe Fitz simond
|
____________________|___________________ |
| | | |
| | | |
Edward Broket m Dyonise Maude wife to Anne Adam Fitz m Anne daughtr to 2
of Steton | Eldercare maried Simon | the Lord Audley
| |
| to ______|
| |
| |
Lyonell Broket m Margery daugh to Sr Hugh m Margaret 3
of Steton | darcy of the Northe Fitz Symon | daughter to Hoo
| |
_____________________|__ ________________|_____________
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
John maried Lyonell Thomas m Lucy John Fitz Symon Edward Fitz Thomas 4
one of the sine Broket | daugh and maried Maude and Simon maried Fitz
|
d of Samson prole of | heire to had a daughter Basingborne Simon
|
Steton | Harewood mar to Battell | sine
| |
__________________________|____ and had issue _____| prole
| | | |
| | | |
Edward Thomas m Elizabeth Elizabeth Nicholas m Maude the d 5
Broket Broket | Rider of maried to Fitz Simon | and heire
| |
| the Northe Plomton | of Durante
| |
| _________|_____
| | |
| | |
Sr Thomas Broket m Dionice one of William m Elizabeth Christian wyfe 6
knyght built Broket | the daughters and Asche | daughter to John Musley
| |
Hall in Yorksh | heires of the L | and heire |
| | |
| Fauconbrege | |
| | |
_________________________|__________________ | |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
William Thomas Edward Lucy mar to Thomas Broket m Elizabeth John 7
sine sine maried Anne Dalisone of Brokethall | Musley
|
prole prole Harrington | |
| |
_______________________________________| |
| | |
| | |
Edward Broket m Elizabeth Twaytes of Elizabeth maried Richard Musley 8
of Brokethall | Loftes in Yorksh vnto Haselrige sine prole
|
______________________|________________________________________________________
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Robert William Thomas John Broket m Luce Thomas m Elizabeth Elizabeth Alice 9
sine sine sine of Whettam- | Poulter Broket daugh and maried maried
|
prole prole prole sted | had heire to vnto to
|
| issue Calthrop Docray Perient
|
__________________________________|________________________________________
| | | | |
| | | | |
Alice maried Edward maried John Broket m Dorothe d and Elizabeth Lucy 10
to Hyde of the d and heire of Whet- |heire of Huson to Sr Nicho- sans
|
Throkinge of Micelfeild hampsted |of Cambreysh las Harington issu
|
__________________________________________|______________________________________
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
Thomas Robert Edward Nicholas Sr John Broket m Margaret Jane Lusey Filise 11
sans maried maried to maried of Brokethall | d and sole mari' maried to
|
issu one of Barle of to Hoo | heire to to to Hoo Ashbe
|
Suff Albere | Bensted Copwood
|
____________________________________________|__________________________
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
Thomas maried Edward John Broket m Daughter and Elizabeth Susan Elizabeth 12
Letton and Brokett heire of Sr maried sans issu
dyed wthout Robt Letton John Pope
issu
|
|
Harley 807 was a note book—professional but undated.
The Catalogue of the Harleian MSS gave no date (vol
1 p 455). Glover was Somerset Herald from 1570 till his death
in 1588. Although he would have worked at the College of Arms
before 1570, a book like this came from his time as Somerset
Herald. Generation 12 on the pedigree, where John is not yet
'Sir', dates it pre 1577 when he was knighted.
- Glover would have visited John and been entertained at
Brockett Hall as he gathered his information. They probably
let him read or copy documents. In small, faint writing
bottom left of f44 a note says 'out of an old parchemin
Rolle', implying that data on the earlier Broket generations
came from an older written source.
- Additional and explanatory information would have been
oral.
- The Herts Brokets had only sold their estate in Yorkshire
a decade previously, so their knowledge about the place
of their ancestors would have been informed by visits to
the area. Glover's own Visitation to Yorkshire, which included
Bolton Percy, was not till 1585.
- The alabaster tomb
of Sir John I with its heraldry was in Wheathampstead parish
church for Glover to consult.
In Elizabeth I's time it became the fashion amongst the nobility
and gentry to construct family trees and display them
as works of art. Elizabeth had an elaborate pedigree,
illuminated in gold and bright colours, tracing her ancestry
all the way back to Adam. It now hangs in the Long Gallery
at Hatfield House, a short horse ride from Brocket Hall (Hey
1993 pp 2-3).
Although Harley 807 itself is a black ink sketch with arms
in trick, one should think of an illuminated copy
hanging in a prominent place in the late 16th C Hall
for all to see.
Three elements of the painting would strike the viewer, in
order of impact on the eye:
- shields
- lines
- names.
i. Shields are colourful and catch the eye.
They made a visual and readily understandable statement about
members of a dynasty and if people couldn't read the names
they either recognised arms they already knew or could have
them readily explained.
With Harley 807 specifically:
- Every Broket generation has a shield immediately
below the heir's marriage. They are halved, the
Broket arms to the left—often implied from the previous
generation, so left blank in the sketch—and the wife's
to the right. If she was an heiress it is made explicit
in writing.
- The FitzSimons' line only has arms in two places: at
the top and where it joins the Brokets'. Wives were probably
armigerous, but the aim was to build up the achievement
of the Broket side rather than the FitzSimon's.
- The progress of the shields down the pedigree culminates
in the achievements of the two living Brokets at
the base: John and Edward. These are at least twice
the size of earlier shields, with John's the central and
larger of the two. John's—halved with a Lytton heiress'—is
simply Broket and Bensted, i.e. his father and mother's
arms. That of Edward—unmarried
at the time—reflects 10 earlier arms and has a crescent
in the middle to indicate the second son.
ii. Lines. After the shields the lines of
descent would next strike the Elizabethan viewer. Harley 807's
diagrammatic symmetry tells a clear story:
- The centre—generation 7—is the crux.
Above it the design is bilineal, below it monolineal.
- Above the centre 2 lines reach upwards symmetrically
through 6 generations.
- Below the centre, despite 5 or more children in each generation,
only one line descends. Collaterals come
to nothing highlighting the main line.
- The exception of the Musley side line
to the right of the centre makes a particular legal point—it
was a line of inheritance that failed.
iii. Names. Impressed by the heraldry and
the linear genealogy the names then took the viewer into oral
history itself. Each name was a peg for hanging tales of the
past.
Harley 807 is not a family tree in our sense today—a
comprehensive chart of the individual members of this Broket
clan. As well as pride, it had 3 main functions:
The primary function was to defend and legitimise the right
to land.
| 'In earlier centuries the establishment
of a pedigree was often of practical value in an unscrupulous
world, when a challenge at a court of law might deprive
a family of its inheritance' (Hey 1993 p 2). |
| 'Members of the propertied classes
took care during this period [1450-1700] to maintain a
fairly broad knowledge of their kindred ... In an epoch
when the land law was complex and uncertain titles and
ingenious claimants abounded, it made sense to know who
one's ancestors and collateral kindred were' (Houlbrooke
1984 p 39). |
But knowing one's kin was not the same as detailing them
on a pedigree. Only those who had a right to the estate
were followed up on the pedigree. In a Percy pedigree,
for instance, younger sons were only included if they played
a role in the growth of the estates (Bean 1958 p 4).
Glover's Herts Brockett clients undoubtedly knew their Yorkshire
kin well; they were their local landlords there till the 1560s,
a mere decade earlier. But they are absent from Harley 807.
Yeoman kin nearby in Hertfordshire likewise.
Omitting cadet lines guarded against any potential claims
to inheritance.
Shields on pedigrees were also claims to land. In feudal
times bearing arms had been inseparable from holding land,
and although by the 16th C the feudal system was a fossil,
having a heraldic pedigree was still a clear visual statement
of one's ownership of property. Representing the main Wheathampstead
estate, the FitzSimon arms—gules three
escutcheons argent—carry through to Edward's
achievement in generation 12, clearly placed on the
right of the top row balancing the Broket arms top left.
Pedigrees are thus found in land rental books. BL ms
Add 29438 (from 1580-3) for example, has a list
of the descent of Brokett heirs in amongst the financial accounts
of Simonside, Durrantes Hyde, Thebridge, Hide and other nearby
manors in 16-18th C Herts.
The property rights claimed by Harley 807 were principally:
- the FitzSimon Wheathampstead estates—with a dismissal
of any Musley claims
- Broket Hall in Yorkshire
- Broket Hall in Hertfordshire.
From the point of view of property, the FitzSimons were actually
more important than generations 1-5 of the Brokets, who were
there more for family pride.
The heir in each generation was highlighted by the addition
of the surname Broket. The right of the heir to inherit the
land to the exclusion of others—primogeniture—is
clear from Harley 807's narrow, vertical format. It displays
the descent of Broket property through the heir in each generation
and excludes all collateral lines. Children
other than the heir are listed in each generation, for sure,
but rather to dismiss any potential claim. Glover usually
wrote that they died 'sine prole'—without children—or
'sans issu'; giving them no descendants emphasised
the eldest line.
So long as the main male line did not fail, there was no
need to trace cadet lines. For the purpose in hand, it was
in fact better not to—they would divert the focus from
the eldest line. For example:
- Edward of generation 10 had been Sheriff, MP and the second
senior member of the dynasty at its peak. He had 4
sons with property, but Harley 807 mentions none.
- The son of Nicholas of generation 11, owner of Mackery
End, Wheathampstead and later to become Sir John
III, is not mentioned. Harley 807's focus is on
the line of Sir John I and Margaret Bensted.
Harley 807's frequent 'sine
prole' is genealogically unreliable
for the same reasons. The will
of Edward of generation 8, for instance, mentioned 3 surviving
sons of full age in 1485:
- John: the heir who inherited all the Wheathampstead lands,
as well as Broket Hall in Appleton
- Robert:
co-executor of the will, legatee of Jewleas Manor in Bolton
Percy and whose descendants were local Lords in Appleton
until the 1560s, little more than a decade before Glover
drew up the pedigree
- William: legatee of Herons Manor near Wheathampstead,
probable father of William
I of Hitchin.
Harley 807, however, labels both Robert and William sine
prole. What this actually meant was that their descendants
did not figure in the Wheathampstead line's inheritance concerns
of 3 generations later. Both without doubt would have been
at least 40 years of age in 1485 and heads of families:
| 'No single man would usually take
charge of the land. The master of a family was expected
to be a householder. In the city of Coventry in the 16th
C if he was not a householder he was outside civil society.
Marriage was the entry to full membership to the society
of our ancestors' (Laslett 1983 p 12, slightly edited).
|
Marriage to arms-bearing heiresses
in Harley 807's earlier generations of the Yorkshire Brokets
served to heighten prestige and authority. Heiresses to a
defunct line, like Fauconberg, were especially useful tools
in an Elizabethan herald's genealogical kit. The Fauconberg
arms carried right through to Edward's escutcheon
at the bottom of Harley 807.
In an age of widespread illiteracy and of the use of parchment
for only important purposes, the effect of painting a pedigree
on parchment was almost 'to write it in stone'. There are
also examples of creative heraldry literally being
written in stone, like the tombs of the Sir Johns
I and II in Wheathampstead and Hatfield.
Although late medieval lords and gentry were essentially
one social group (Pollard 1990 pp 86-9, 129), the gentry—particularly
knightly families—aspired to rise within it. Marrying
heiresses of peers was to be on the threshold of the peerage,
as with the knightly families of Conyers and Strangways marrying
Darcy and Fauconberg (Pollard
1990 p 90).
These 3 generations form the crux of the pedigree—the
establishment of the dynasty c 1373-1507, its location in
Hertfordshire and the convergence of 2 ancestral lines. Harley
807 was compiled up to 70 years later, sufficient interval
to allow for improvement by means of 2 crucial reconstructions:
- Edward, husband
of Elizabeth Thwaites, rather than the brother
of Thomas and Elizabeth
Ash, became their son. Without this reconstruction
the FitzSimon line would be lost.
- Dionice, rather than a Sampson,
became a far more prestigious Fauconberg.
With this reconstruction the succession of heiresses
marrying in to the 6 first generations on the Broket
side reached a Yorkshire climax.
i. Edward 'son' of Thomas
Thomas the founder of the Hertfordshire Broket dynasty and
his brother Edward the 2nd head of the dynasty
preceded its rise to knighthood by only 3 generations. Both
would have been prominent in descendants' memories, yet
Harley 807 records Thomas and Edward as father and son.
To be able to include the FitzSimon arms in theirs—and
make their title to their estates more secure—the Brokets
needed to claim direct FitzSimon descent. One of the main
points in Sir John I's defence against a challenge in court
to one manor in 1547, was that 'he hathe all the said manour
of Thebrydge by dyscent
lynyally from his auncestours'
ii. Dionice 'Fauconberg'
Thomas married 'Dionice one of the daughters and
heires to L[ord] Fauconbrege'. 18th C Spains Hall descendants
made this more specific according to the 1860 Gateshead pedigree.
But while Dionice did not descend from that Lord Fauconberg,
she did indeed descend from a younger Fauconberg
line whose heiress had married a Sampson, 4 generations before
Dionice.
Thomas appears to have assumed arms himself by modifying
his wife's. Harley 807, while removing such an obvious
source, perhaps retains an echo in the arms of Maude Gouer,
the first heiress to marry a Broket. The Sampson name was
too recent to be removed entirely and was relegated to a brother
3 generations earlier—although anonymously and without
arms—'John maried one of the d of Samson'.
- Both Sampsons and Fauconbergs had died out in the male
line, so Glover could be a creative genealogist.
- The Sampsons had been county and city gentry, the Fauconbergs
nobility.
- To gild the lily, Dionice was not just given the arms
of 1 noble family—Fauconberg—but also of Neville,
who were moreover related to royalty.
iii. Other significant elements of this centre part of the
pedigree
1. It claims
that the Musley line had failed with Richard
son of John son of John and Christine. John—presumably
husband of Christine FitzSimon—was recorded 1428
and their son John Moseley Esq referred to in 1477.
But heirs Robert and Elizabeth Mosely—absent
from Harley 807—are recorded in Broket documents 1477-88.
2. 'Sir' Thomas Broket 'built Broket Hall'.
The title 'Sir' at first sight may look like fabrication
and aggrandizement of ancestors by Glover for his clients,
but Thomas certainly bore arms.
Bearing arms originally meant being a knight and was related
to how much land you owned.
Considering that he had the resources to endow the building
of the Lady Chapel in Bolton Percy Church, Thomas would
undoubtedly have added to Southwood, run down perhaps from
the Sampsons' decline in prosperity. That it was thereafter
called Brockethall
suggests that he did not just extend, but rebuilt it.
3. Thomas and Elizabeth
Asche are also given a daughter: 'Elizabeth
maried vnto Haselrig'. The Haselrigs were nobility. Elizabeth
was probably in fact a sister
rather than the daughter of Thomas. Thomas and Elizabeth
died without heirs.
4. This section is where the location
in Hertfordshire was established, so Clutterbuck and Berry,
while apparently dependent on Harley 807, understandably
did not trace the line back before its appearance in Herts.
John's heraldic achievement on marrying Helen Lytton is a
conclusion to the pedigree. But their marriage was
in the 1560s, so the pedigree was not produced for the marriage,
nor even in the first years after it. The couple had daughters,
but no sons. Hence younger brother
Edward's achievement is there too, as the heir and
a secondary conclusion:
Quarterly of 10 with a crescent in the middle, signifying
the second son.
- Or a cross flory sable—Broket
- Gules on a saltire argent a fleur de lys for difference—Neville.
Ascribed to Dyonise in generation 6.
- Gules on a fretty, or, a canton? Not in Harley 807
above.
- Or a lion rampant azure—Fauconberg.
Ascribed to Dyonise in generation 6.
- Gules three escutcheons—FitzSimon
- Or on a pile azure a griffin
passant of the field—Broket?
Ascribed to Dyonise in generation 2.
- Gules a fess truncetted between two lions passant
or—Harwood. Ascribed to Lucy
in generation 4.
- Arms ascribed to Dorothe Huson
in generation 10.
- Arms ascribed to Dorothe Huson
in generation 10.
- Gules three bars gemelles—Bensted.
These arms correspond to parts of the arms quarterly of
18 in the College of Arms ms D24/ii/50 of Edward's grandson
Edward. The
Neville arms were described there as gules a saltire argent
an annulet for difference—signifying the fifth son. |
Note: In generation 10 for 'Elizabeth vnto Sr Nicholas Harington'—read
Barrington.
Above William and Elizabeth Asche the FitzSimon
side as a whole represented the descent of the Wheathampstead
property and created the impression of an
inheritance time out of mind—challenge it if you dare!
Above Thomas and Dionice the Broket side
was largely beyond verification by records and primarily concerned
prestige. It lent antiquity to the line.
Yorkshire ancestors were irrelevant to property inheritance
in Herts and too distant to affect primogeniture. Five features
emerge:
- Wives and heiresses' arms
- Steton
- Number of generations
- FitzSimons
- Male first names.
i. Wives and heiresses' arms
Each and every wife marrying a Broket was given arms. While
this may have been correct from the time of Dionice onwards,
earlier wives' names echoed prestigious Yorkshire families,
enhancing prestige and improving credentials. Several may
have been embellished recollections of ancient Percy
loyalties: the 3rd Earl of Northumberland held the
wardship of William Plumpton in the 1420s
and Sir William Rither was a Percy retainer
in 1453 (Pollard 1990 pp 98, 248).
Generation 1: The arms of Maude Gouer—while
not corresponding to any Gower arms in the Complete Peerage
or in Burke's General Armory—hint at the adoption of
a wife's arms as the origin of the Broket cross flory.
Generation 2: The arms of Dyonise—or,
on a pile, azure, a griffin passant of the field—were
given in Burke's General Armory as the earliest Broket arms.
Generation 4: Harwood: gules, a fess truncetted
between two lions passant, or. These arms were used on Broket
seals preserved in the British Library—Harl Charter 112,
Addit Charters 705, 35512-3 dating to 1577, 1578 and 1609
(The Complete Peerage 1926 vol 5 p 286b).
ii. Steton
One of the main statements of this top part of the pedigree
was that Steton
was the ancestral home.
The 5 generations before Thomas and Dionice—married
by 1393—take the line back to c 1220. This is about right
for the Yorkshire Ainsty where John of Newton Kyme
was recorded in 1260.
The earliest surviving Steeton Broket record dates from 1303-15
although none may have been there in 1269
(Parker 1932 pp 166-7).
If Thomas, husband of Dionice, was born in Bolton Percy c
1370,
then his father would probably have been a poll-tax payer
there in 1379.
Harley 807 gives Thomas' parents as Thomas and Elizabeth
Rider, but the 1379 poll tax list had no Thomas Broket
for Bolton Percy nor indeed for the Ainsty. In 1379 there
were 2 Broket households in the parish of Bolton Percy but
neither Nicholas nor Cecilia figure on Harley 807.
In Harley 807, however, this Thomas is not 'of Steton', like
his ancestors, which could perhaps explain. Thomas husband
of Elizabeth Rider could therefore be taken as Thomas
the mainperner from elsewhere in Yorkshire. Harley 807's Thomas
of the previous generation—husband of Lucy Harewood—certainly
corresponds with the Thomas
of Steton recorded 1303-35.
iii. Number of generations
The number of Broket generations matches that of the FitzSimons.
This will not have been fortuitous—the Brokets
were to be seen as deep rooted and as long established as
the FitzSimons. The symmetry of the number of generations
would have been made particularly visible on the final work
of art. The 1860 Gateshead pedigree missed out generation
4—the 3 children of Lyonell and Margery Darcy—but it
was not obvious as the symmetry of the manuscript had not
been reflected in print.
iv. FitzSimons
Harley 807's FitzSimon descent varies from other records,
and not only in the generations above Nicholas of generation
5. His even more recent son Edward and wife Cecilia
daughter of John and Ida Cockayne—parents of
Elizabeth wife of William Asche—are omitted. This may
well have been deliberate as a first line of defence against
possible inheritance claims.
Betwen 1480-1500 Richard Battaille had challenged
Broket ownership of Symondes Hyde, the heart of their territory.
In generation 4 Glover acknowledged that a FitzSimon and Battell
had had issue, but relegated them to marriage to a daughter
of a brother.
v. Male first names
The preponderance of Edwards among the Brokets
of this upper part of the pedigree could be seen as eponymous
reinforcement of the importance of Edward husband of Elizabeth
Thwaytes in the family's later memory, the main line of which
was by then named John.
|
