Clifton, William (d 1564), of Barrington

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Robert O'Connor

Clifton, William (d 1564), of Barrington

Legg inn av Robert O'Connor » 19 sep 2004 11:53:00

A cautionary tale of the reliability, or otherwise, of the Heralds
Visitations....

According to the very detailed Clifton of Clifton pedigree found in the
Visitation of Notts 1569 William Clifton of Barrington was a younger son of
Sir Gervase Clifton (d 1491) & his wife Alice Nevill. William only died 5
years before the visitation so one might have felt reasonably confident as
to its' accuracy.

However, due to obvious chronological problems with this placement Richard
Borthwick and I have been jointly engaged for some months in an attempt to
verify William Clifton's origins.

This week the answer was provided.

A copy of the will of William Clifton of Buxton, Norfolk proved in the
Consistory Court of Norwich in 1579 arrived in the mail during the week from
the Norfolk Record Office. The testator made reference in his will to "my
nephew Sir John Clifton of Barrington in the County of Somerset", to "Hester
Sandys my niece", to "Theophilia daughter of my brother William Clifton my
niece" and to "Jane daughter of the said William my other niece".

Sir John Clifton of Barrington, Hester Sandys, Theophilia Clifton and Jane
Clifton were all indisputably children of William Clifton of Barrington (d
1564).

It is therefore clear that William Clifton of Barrington (d 1564) was
brother of William Clifton of Buxton (d 1579).

The Norfolk Visitation records that John Clifton of Walsingham Parva had two
sons, both named William. The eldest is simply recorded as "William
Clifton" without any further particulars being given. The second is
recorded as "William Clifton of Buxton".

William Clifton of Barrington was therefore son of John Clifton of
Walsingham Parva, Norfolk, not Sir Gervase Clifton of Clifton (d 1491).

This raises the question of the origin of John Clifton of Walsingham. That
William Clifton of Barrington appointed "Sir Jarvis Clifton of Clifton
Knight" as his executor and the fact, albeit relying on the Norfolk
Visitation, that the Norfolk family used very similar arms to the Notts
family are highly suggestive of these Norfolk Cliftons being a cadet branch
of the main Clifton line.

It is possible, on chronological grounds, that this John may have been a
previously unnoticed son of Sir Gervase Clifton (d 1491), but that is pure
conjecture at this stage.

For interest sake William Clifton of Barrington is known to have been an
ancestor of Lady Diana Spencer, US President Franklin Roosevelt and US
Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry, as well as of lesser mortals
such as myself & Richard Borthwick.

Robert O'Connor

Tim Powys-Lybbe

Re: Clifton, William (d 1564), of Barrington

Legg inn av Tim Powys-Lybbe » 19 sep 2004 13:28:29

In message of 19 Sep, "Robert O'Connor" <roconnor@es.co.nz> wrote:

A cautionary tale of the reliability, or otherwise, of the Heralds
Visitations....

According to the very detailed Clifton of Clifton pedigree found in the
Visitation of Notts 1569 William Clifton of Barrington was a younger son of
Sir Gervase Clifton (d 1491) & his wife Alice Nevill. William only died 5
years before the visitation so one might have felt reasonably confident as
to its' accuracy.

I would have agreed with this. But this is to ignore the severe
warnings in the preface to this edition of this visitation. First of
all the published visitation was a combination of 1569 and 1614 and from
the Clifton entry it looks like the data came from the 1614 visitation,
probably by Gervase Clifton of Leighton, Hunts in 1611/2 ("temp Jacobus
8 yere of his Raigne"). William would be the grandfather of Gervase and
thus the limit of accuracy of Gervase's account of his ancestry.
Alternatively the information could have been provided by Gervase
Clifton of Clifton in 1617 and a second cousin twice removed to the
former Gervase, so even less likely to know about William, his
gt-gt-uncle (E and OE!).

This is, of course assuming that the published documents were accurate.
The preface makes very clear the editor's problems and the opening
paragraph is:

"The following pages are a copy of Harleian MS. 1555, together with
such additions as can be supplied by collating it with Harl. MS. 1400.
Harleian MS. 1555 was for the most part written and tricked by Richard
Mundy and contains the Visitations of Nottinghamshire made in 1569 and
1614. Harleian MS. 1400 contains professedly the Visitation of 1614;
was partly written by John Withie, but mostly by Jacob Chaloner and
others. The pedigrees in this MS. are far less complete than those in
the former, nevertheless they have enabled me to add considerably to
many of them. Taking Harleian MS. 1555 as the copy to be edited, I
have added to the pedigree it contains every scrap of additional
information furnished by Harleian MS. 1400; and whenever the MSS.
differ in the names of persons, places, or blazon of arms, I have given
the different reading, and appended the words "Harl. 1400" in
parentheses. It may not be thought unnecessary to say a few words in
justification of this course. When I undertook to edit for the
Harleian Society the Visitation of Nottinghamshire taken in the year
1614, I was not aware that it would be impossible to separate it from
that of 1569, but having afterwards come to this conclusion on a closer
examination of the Harleian MSS. containing Visitations of
Nottinghamshire, I determined to solve the difficulty by producing
both. Undoubtedly the best copy of them is that in Harleian MS. 1555,
which forms the staple of this work, but the supplementary matter to be
gathered from Harleian MS. 1400 appeared to me to be too valuable to
be omitted, and, at the same time, that MS. does not differ so much
from the former that its contents would be worth producing as a
separate volume. I hope therefore that by incorporating the two, I
shall be deemed to have done most service to the members of the
Harleian Society."

So there you have it, this document is principally prepared by Richard
Mundy, a noted collector of pedigrees and arms. It was not the 1569
visitation by Robert Glover, Somerset herald. Nor was it the 1614
visitation by Richard St George, Norroy king of arms. It seems that
the original of the 1569 visitation has been lost and that of the 1614
visitation is in the College of Arms. It must be remembered that at the
time of this book (1871) and until around 1970 the College of Arms did
not allow the Harleian Society to publish visitations from the master
copies in its possession.

It is only since around 1970 that the published visitations have been
from the original documents and thereby have their accuracy increased.
But the rule still applies that they cannot be relied on for further
back than the grandfather of the interviewee. (Does such a rule allow
one to include the siblings of grandparents, the gt-uncles and
gt-aunts? It would certainly exclude gt-gt-uncles.)

--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org

John Brandon

Re: Clifton, William (d 1564), of Barrington

Legg inn av John Brandon » 19 sep 2004 19:12:31

Good work, Robert!

John Brandon

Re: Clifton, William (d 1564), of Barrington

Legg inn av John Brandon » 20 sep 2004 04:09:40

For interest sake William Clifton of Barrington is known to have been an
ancestor of Lady Diana Spencer, US President Franklin Roosevelt and US
Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry, as well as of lesser mortals
such as myself & Richard Borthwick.

President Roosevelt and Mr. Kerry are descendants of John-1 Nelson of
Boston, son of Robert-A Nelson by his wife Mary Temple, who was a
descendant of the Hester Sandys mentioned above.

Comparatively little seems to be known about Robert and Mary (Temple)
Nelson--e.g., the rather threadbare account of them in three editions
of _Plantagenet Ancestry_. So I was pleased to notice recently that a
letter from Robert Nelson to Henry Slingsby has been in print for many
years. Nelson discusses the difficult time his son John has had
convincing the Massachusetts authorities of the validity of the second
will of "his brother" Sir Thomas Temple. (Temple made one will in New
England and a second after returning to England). Robert Nelson
thought the conduct of the Massachusetts Bay government in this matter
might constitute a breach of their patent.

Richard R. Johnson's book, _John Nelson, Merchant Adventurer: A Life
Between Empires_ (OUP, 1991), doesn't mention this letter, so I'll
post the abstract tomorrow.

John Brandon

Re: Clifton, William (d 1564), of Barrington

Legg inn av John Brandon » 20 sep 2004 23:20:46

_Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Part
I, Report and Appendix_, p. 340 (manuscripts of Sir Reginald Graham,
Bart.):

n.d. [i.e., probably 1670s] Rd. [sic] Nelson to Esquire Slingesby
[i.e., probably Henry Slingsby, the addressee of most other letters in
this section] at his lodgings in the Tower.---His Majesty was pleased
upon a treaty with the King of France to give him Canada, of which my
brother Sir Thomas Temple had the inheritance by grant from His
Majesty; the purduse (produce) of which and disbursements in the time
of war against the King of France and the Dutch, amounts to 20,000l.
My brother, Sir T. Temple, comes here about it [and] dies. He makes a
will when he was in New England; his last he makes here, my son and
another executors here; one revokes, and consents letters of
administration to be granted to my son _cum testamento annexo_. By
virtue of which my son went into New England to get in some debts. By
letters from him they will not allow the letters of administration,
but will proceed upon the first will there, and distribute as they
please. This against our law, and conceive may amount to a forfeiture
of their charter. I desire your advice and direction if it be not
proper a petition to your committee to command the execution of the
letters of administration there according to our law here.

_Abstract and Index of the Records of the Inferiour Court of Pleas
(Suffolk County Court), Held at Boston, 1680-1698_ (Boston: Historical
Records Survey, 1940), p. 142 (Abstract of Miscellaneous Cases):

August 21, 1680

19. John Nelson appointed executor of will of estate of Thomas
Temple.

p. 144:

August, 1681

John Joyliffe, et al., appointed committee to look into creditor's
claims of estate of Thomas Temple.

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