Post by trencrom on Sept 11, 2007 5:53:38 GMT -5
Zenobia,
As Promised, here is my theory on the Edwards family.
As discussed on the “visitations” thread, we have two 17th century pedigrees relative to this family which although not totally incompatible do disagree on one essential point, namely whether the Thomas Edwards who was the son of Henry Edwards had a full brother named William. Thomas is furthermore credited with a half brother with that name in one of the pedigrees, and with a half brother with the same given name but a different surname in the other pedigree, which is the earlier of the two.
Both of these pedigrees appeared to have been supplied by relations, although their focus clearly differs. Thomas Edwards in his pedigree is focusing on demonstrating to the heralds in their visitation of 1620 his entitlement to gentry status and/or a coat of arms, and the pedigree for which he appears to be the informant does not concern itself with much detail about his wider family, whether on his father’s side or on his mother’s. For example, it does not even mention the spouses or children of his claimed brothers.
Mary Trefusis, his first cousin, in her pedigree of 1603 though is focusing on her overall descent from a number of different armigerous ancestral lines, and part of that focus involves some emphasis being placed on her relationship to other people who share various parts of that ancestry with her. These other people of course includes the Edwards family, or rather some members thereof.
The information in the 1603 pedigree suggests to me that the Edwards pedigree of 1620 may be in error on the above point, and it could also be that the Bosaverne half brother to Thomas has been incorrectly shown in the latter pedigree as being his full brother. This would in turn mean that the William Edwards and John Edwards who appear in subsequent decades at Lelant, and who are known not to have been descended from Thomas himself, must have been descended from one of Thomas’s half siblings instead.
As you have pointed out, a three lives lease dated 1666 names the relevant lessees as John Edwards and a (third) William Edwards, and the lives concerned as those of this last William Edwards, his wife Dorcas, and a Sedwell wife of Thomas Thurleby. We know from the will of this Thomas Thurleby that he had seven daughters, and that they were all under age in 1683 when his will was compiled. Hence none of them were born before 1663. We have christening dates for three of them, and the marriage dates for another three would suggest that they were born subsequently, rather than prior to, the ones for whom we have these christening dates. In other words, it appears probable that Thomas Thurleby married Sedwell in the period 1660-1665.
The deed of 1666 however does not state the relationships of any of the parties (bar Dorcas) to each other, an omission which I find rather unusual. Despite this, the marriage date (1660) for William and Dorcas, and the christening dates of children evidently born to this couple, together with an appearance by a John Edwards, who would surely have to be the same John named in this lease, at Lelant in the protestation return of 1641, and a mention of a John and his wife Alice in 1650, when all taken together would strongly suggest that this William has to be of the subsequent generation to this John, and so by inference almost certainly his son. The same argument could be made for Sedwell, but I will return to her in a moment. For the moment I merely want to establish the chronology of an apparent child of John’s, as a partial means of establishing a chronology for John himself.
Now we get to the question of which William in the earlier pedigrees is the apparent father of this John. According to the 1603 pedigree, Thomas did not have a full brother named William, so then who was John’s father? That John definitely had a forebear with this name is apparent from the deeds from St Dennis that you have described. These deeds show that John Edwards of Lelant must have been the legal heir in 1650 of a William Edwards of Lelant who was living in 1599, because in that latter year John held a property that was owned by that William and his wife Phillipa in the earlier year.
However in 1632, we have a reference to a William Edwards of Lelant and his then wife Sedwell. Given the unusual given name in this instance, and its association with the same Edwards family twice in 34 years, I think you have made a strong onomastic argument for an Edwards-Thurleby connection here. The additional chronological factors also seem to constitute a strong argument in favour of your placing of Sedwell junior as the daughter of John, and John himself as the son of this Sedwell senior by this earlier William.
As you have pointed out elsewhere, with a later William Edwards appraising the inventories of the estates of both Sedwell junior and her husband Thomas, and with one of Thomas and Sedwell junior’s children, possibly their eldest child, bearing the same given name as John’s wife, there is some additional circumstantial evidence pointing in the direction of an Edwards-Thurleby connection.
As you have rightly pointed out, there are difficulties in suggesting that William the husband of Phillipa must have subsequently remarried to Sedwell and then by her become the father of John, because with Phillipa as a joint lessee in 1599, how could William’s son by a later wife have been her heir?
However I do not think that the husbands of these two women were one and the same man. To my mind the early date of the first St Dennis deed and the references that you have posted concerning a William Edwards in the subsidy lists of Lelant in the fifteen nineties are consistent rather with the William of 1599 being the William of those records.
As you have also pointed out, the William Edwards of the subsidy lists appears therein from 1585 onwards, and since this appearance predates the similar appearances of Thomas Edwards in later Lelant subsidy lists, the William in question must be Thomas’s elder Edwards half brother.
I think that also chronologically a William married by 1599 fits more with that William being an older half-brother of Thomas rather than him being the younger full brother of the 1620 pedigree. This is because Thomas gives the age of his eldest son as 20 years in the 1620 visitation, and the ages of the other sons together with the number of the daughters suggest that his eldest son was probably also his eldest child; hence Thomas himself presumably married around 1599. As the eldest son of the third marriage, Thomas is much more likely in my opinion to have become married before any full brother of his was wed, rather than the other way around.
However, this William of the 1590s subsidy lists is far too old to be have been John’s father, because if Sedwell junior married in say 1665, she would have been born c. 1635-45 and hence her father c. 1610-25, making him born rather late to have been the son and heir of a man already of full age in 1585. However if John was born c. 1610-25 then his father presumably would not have been born before 1570 at the very earliest, in which case the William of 1585 cannot be John’s father, as that William would not appeared in the subsidy records while a minor.
You have suggested that John was born no earlier than 1610, and in the preceding paragraph I have indicated that same date as being my likely earliest date for him as well. He certainly must been born no later than 1623 to have been named in the protestation return of 1641.
So how do we resolve this?
At this point I think the deed of 1632 helps us, because it speaks of Sedwell senior as being “Sedwell Thomas the now [my emphasis] wife of William Edwards”. However that word “now” is not what I would expect to see said about a marriage that may have commenced two and a half to three decades earlier. which points to their marriage as not having occurred in the distant past.In other words, it suggests that the wedding of Sedwell and William was substantially later than 1610, and more likely to instead be towards the end of the above likely time frame for the birth of John.
There is also the distinct possibility that William Edwards was a second husband to Sedwell senior, as the description of the deed of 1632 makes it sound like Sedwell became the lessee of the land in question prior to marrying William, but it is also unusual to find land at that time being tenanted by a spinster. This scenario would mean of course that she was not a Thomas by birth. Was she therefore a Thomas widow, who had been left a lease by a former husband?
On the matter of Frances Edwards, since she first married in 1625 I do not see on chronological grounds how she could’ve been a daughter of William and Sedwell if their marriage was “later” in time as I am suggesting. For that reason I would be placing Frances as a sister of William rather than a daughter of his. Placing her as his sister would, of course, still account for her apparent Edwards connections in later years which you have described.
Therefore I am proposing the following alternative pedigree for the Edwards family:
Generation one: Henry Edwards, married secondly to …….. Samford of Somerset (Thirdly to Margaret Gaverigan, by whom he has children Thomas, Jennifer, and Elizabeth)
Generation two: Stephen Edwards and his brother William senior, William being married by 1581, he and his wife Phillipa both living in 1599, William still living in 1641, and died 1644/5,
Generation three: Henry Edwards senior of Ludgvan and his brother William junior, William being married by, say, 1622 to Sedwell senior (i.e. Sedwell Thomas), both living in 1632, William still living in 1641, and their sister Frances married before 1625 to Nicholas Remfrey, and subsequently remarried to John Harris,
Generation four: Richard Edwards the son of Henry, and his first cousin John the son of William junior, living in 1641, who married Alice before 1650, John still living in 1669,
Generation five: Henry Edwards junior the son of Richard, and his second cousins William married to Dorcas Eva in 1660, and Sedwell junior married to Thomas Thurleby by 1665.
This version of the pedigree I think accounts for the problem of the devolution of the estates at St Dennis from the William Edwards husband of Philippa of 1599 to the John Edwards of 1650, who I am showing as that William’s grandson. It incidentally also would make the Ludgvan Edwards even closer kindred to the ones at Lelant, because the common ancestor under this reconstruction is a generation later.
As Promised, here is my theory on the Edwards family.
As discussed on the “visitations” thread, we have two 17th century pedigrees relative to this family which although not totally incompatible do disagree on one essential point, namely whether the Thomas Edwards who was the son of Henry Edwards had a full brother named William. Thomas is furthermore credited with a half brother with that name in one of the pedigrees, and with a half brother with the same given name but a different surname in the other pedigree, which is the earlier of the two.
Both of these pedigrees appeared to have been supplied by relations, although their focus clearly differs. Thomas Edwards in his pedigree is focusing on demonstrating to the heralds in their visitation of 1620 his entitlement to gentry status and/or a coat of arms, and the pedigree for which he appears to be the informant does not concern itself with much detail about his wider family, whether on his father’s side or on his mother’s. For example, it does not even mention the spouses or children of his claimed brothers.
Mary Trefusis, his first cousin, in her pedigree of 1603 though is focusing on her overall descent from a number of different armigerous ancestral lines, and part of that focus involves some emphasis being placed on her relationship to other people who share various parts of that ancestry with her. These other people of course includes the Edwards family, or rather some members thereof.
The information in the 1603 pedigree suggests to me that the Edwards pedigree of 1620 may be in error on the above point, and it could also be that the Bosaverne half brother to Thomas has been incorrectly shown in the latter pedigree as being his full brother. This would in turn mean that the William Edwards and John Edwards who appear in subsequent decades at Lelant, and who are known not to have been descended from Thomas himself, must have been descended from one of Thomas’s half siblings instead.
As you have pointed out, a three lives lease dated 1666 names the relevant lessees as John Edwards and a (third) William Edwards, and the lives concerned as those of this last William Edwards, his wife Dorcas, and a Sedwell wife of Thomas Thurleby. We know from the will of this Thomas Thurleby that he had seven daughters, and that they were all under age in 1683 when his will was compiled. Hence none of them were born before 1663. We have christening dates for three of them, and the marriage dates for another three would suggest that they were born subsequently, rather than prior to, the ones for whom we have these christening dates. In other words, it appears probable that Thomas Thurleby married Sedwell in the period 1660-1665.
The deed of 1666 however does not state the relationships of any of the parties (bar Dorcas) to each other, an omission which I find rather unusual. Despite this, the marriage date (1660) for William and Dorcas, and the christening dates of children evidently born to this couple, together with an appearance by a John Edwards, who would surely have to be the same John named in this lease, at Lelant in the protestation return of 1641, and a mention of a John and his wife Alice in 1650, when all taken together would strongly suggest that this William has to be of the subsequent generation to this John, and so by inference almost certainly his son. The same argument could be made for Sedwell, but I will return to her in a moment. For the moment I merely want to establish the chronology of an apparent child of John’s, as a partial means of establishing a chronology for John himself.
Now we get to the question of which William in the earlier pedigrees is the apparent father of this John. According to the 1603 pedigree, Thomas did not have a full brother named William, so then who was John’s father? That John definitely had a forebear with this name is apparent from the deeds from St Dennis that you have described. These deeds show that John Edwards of Lelant must have been the legal heir in 1650 of a William Edwards of Lelant who was living in 1599, because in that latter year John held a property that was owned by that William and his wife Phillipa in the earlier year.
However in 1632, we have a reference to a William Edwards of Lelant and his then wife Sedwell. Given the unusual given name in this instance, and its association with the same Edwards family twice in 34 years, I think you have made a strong onomastic argument for an Edwards-Thurleby connection here. The additional chronological factors also seem to constitute a strong argument in favour of your placing of Sedwell junior as the daughter of John, and John himself as the son of this Sedwell senior by this earlier William.
As you have pointed out elsewhere, with a later William Edwards appraising the inventories of the estates of both Sedwell junior and her husband Thomas, and with one of Thomas and Sedwell junior’s children, possibly their eldest child, bearing the same given name as John’s wife, there is some additional circumstantial evidence pointing in the direction of an Edwards-Thurleby connection.
As you have rightly pointed out, there are difficulties in suggesting that William the husband of Phillipa must have subsequently remarried to Sedwell and then by her become the father of John, because with Phillipa as a joint lessee in 1599, how could William’s son by a later wife have been her heir?
However I do not think that the husbands of these two women were one and the same man. To my mind the early date of the first St Dennis deed and the references that you have posted concerning a William Edwards in the subsidy lists of Lelant in the fifteen nineties are consistent rather with the William of 1599 being the William of those records.
As you have also pointed out, the William Edwards of the subsidy lists appears therein from 1585 onwards, and since this appearance predates the similar appearances of Thomas Edwards in later Lelant subsidy lists, the William in question must be Thomas’s elder Edwards half brother.
I think that also chronologically a William married by 1599 fits more with that William being an older half-brother of Thomas rather than him being the younger full brother of the 1620 pedigree. This is because Thomas gives the age of his eldest son as 20 years in the 1620 visitation, and the ages of the other sons together with the number of the daughters suggest that his eldest son was probably also his eldest child; hence Thomas himself presumably married around 1599. As the eldest son of the third marriage, Thomas is much more likely in my opinion to have become married before any full brother of his was wed, rather than the other way around.
However, this William of the 1590s subsidy lists is far too old to be have been John’s father, because if Sedwell junior married in say 1665, she would have been born c. 1635-45 and hence her father c. 1610-25, making him born rather late to have been the son and heir of a man already of full age in 1585. However if John was born c. 1610-25 then his father presumably would not have been born before 1570 at the very earliest, in which case the William of 1585 cannot be John’s father, as that William would not appeared in the subsidy records while a minor.
You have suggested that John was born no earlier than 1610, and in the preceding paragraph I have indicated that same date as being my likely earliest date for him as well. He certainly must been born no later than 1623 to have been named in the protestation return of 1641.
So how do we resolve this?
At this point I think the deed of 1632 helps us, because it speaks of Sedwell senior as being “Sedwell Thomas the now [my emphasis] wife of William Edwards”. However that word “now” is not what I would expect to see said about a marriage that may have commenced two and a half to three decades earlier. which points to their marriage as not having occurred in the distant past.In other words, it suggests that the wedding of Sedwell and William was substantially later than 1610, and more likely to instead be towards the end of the above likely time frame for the birth of John.
There is also the distinct possibility that William Edwards was a second husband to Sedwell senior, as the description of the deed of 1632 makes it sound like Sedwell became the lessee of the land in question prior to marrying William, but it is also unusual to find land at that time being tenanted by a spinster. This scenario would mean of course that she was not a Thomas by birth. Was she therefore a Thomas widow, who had been left a lease by a former husband?
On the matter of Frances Edwards, since she first married in 1625 I do not see on chronological grounds how she could’ve been a daughter of William and Sedwell if their marriage was “later” in time as I am suggesting. For that reason I would be placing Frances as a sister of William rather than a daughter of his. Placing her as his sister would, of course, still account for her apparent Edwards connections in later years which you have described.
Therefore I am proposing the following alternative pedigree for the Edwards family:
Generation one: Henry Edwards, married secondly to …….. Samford of Somerset (Thirdly to Margaret Gaverigan, by whom he has children Thomas, Jennifer, and Elizabeth)
Generation two: Stephen Edwards and his brother William senior, William being married by 1581, he and his wife Phillipa both living in 1599, William still living in 1641, and died 1644/5,
Generation three: Henry Edwards senior of Ludgvan and his brother William junior, William being married by, say, 1622 to Sedwell senior (i.e. Sedwell Thomas), both living in 1632, William still living in 1641, and their sister Frances married before 1625 to Nicholas Remfrey, and subsequently remarried to John Harris,
Generation four: Richard Edwards the son of Henry, and his first cousin John the son of William junior, living in 1641, who married Alice before 1650, John still living in 1669,
Generation five: Henry Edwards junior the son of Richard, and his second cousins William married to Dorcas Eva in 1660, and Sedwell junior married to Thomas Thurleby by 1665.
This version of the pedigree I think accounts for the problem of the devolution of the estates at St Dennis from the William Edwards husband of Philippa of 1599 to the John Edwards of 1650, who I am showing as that William’s grandson. It incidentally also would make the Ludgvan Edwards even closer kindred to the ones at Lelant, because the common ancestor under this reconstruction is a generation later.
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