Up a Tree

I wrote previously about John Howland, who may be an ancestor of mine (see Hanging by a thread, er, rope , June 24, 2022). For those who don't remember -- and who would? -- Howland survived falling overboard on the Mayflower, surviving only because in the storm that caused his misfortune, some lines had come loose and were hanging over the side. He managed to grab one of those and hang on until he was rescued.  He would later marry a woman named Elizabeth Tilley, who also turns out to be one of my ancestors not just because of her marriage, but because her parents were on board and show to be in my direct lineage. John and Joan Tilley left England on the Mayflower with their youngest daughter to come to the new land for the same reason most of the other passengers did -- they belonged to the dissenting group known to us as Pilgrims and sought freedom to practice their version of Christianity outside of the constraints of the Church of England. The other children had reached majorit...

After all the wonderful connections I found on Sharon's side of the family with famous incidents in English history, I decided it was time to jump to my side of the tree and see if I could come up with some illustrious person or persons I could talk about.  As I've mentioned before, the most fruitful source of stories on my side has been through the lineage of my third great-grandmother, Orpha Morse, my grandmother's great-grandmother. I have links to English peerage through her and have occasionally found the odd good story.  For this post I started tracing back through a previously unexplored ancestral line, failing to find any interesting stories until I hit upon my 10th great-grandfather William Mead. I seem to be temporarily stuck on 10th great-grandfathers. Not much information exists about William. The notes attached to his record state that several genealogists have invested some effort into discovering the details of William's life, only to come up short.  One ...

Sir William Wade (Waad in older English spelling) worked most of his life in the employ of  Queen Elizabeth I's and King James I's governments. Among his roles, we discovered last time, was that of spy, and as we learned a few posts back, he also served as lieutenant of the Tower of London. His service in this last role brought about the execution of one of England's most infamous conspirators, Guy Fawkes. Because he served as a member of Parliament in the House of Commons, he earned an entry in the massive History of Parliament, which has its own website if you're curious. His role in Fawkes' death and his time are among the many items listed in this brief biography, which also mentions that he "played a significant role in failing the Babington and Lopez plots." Unfortunately, the History  maddeningly fails to provide any details about Wade's involvement nor does any of the sources I consulted while researching the plots he's connected with. What...

We return to another of Sharon's 10th great-grandfathers, Sir William Waad, or Wade, in contemporary spelling. Wade, you will remember, had been appointed  lieutenant of the Tower of London and is credited with being the one to interrogate Guy Fawkes after the attempted bombing of Parliament.  This all took place near the end of his career in government, but he held other positions, including member of Parliament, diplomat and ... spy. Now if you look at the English historical websites, you won't see that listed as a formal job description. Instead, you will see that he worked as an agent for 1st Lord Burghley, aka Sir William Cecil, whom we have encountered before, on whose behalf he traveled to a variety of European destinations over several years. He developed relationships with a variety of folks who could supply him with information about their countries of residence, information he forwarded on to Cecil.  Now, of course you could argue that he may have acting in a b...

James I had more impact on religion than commissioning the Bible that bears his name. Turns out, a few years earlier he wrote a book on demons, and one of England's longest lasting acts prohibiting witchcraft was passed early in his rule. I ran across this information while researching Sharon's side of the tree, and although I don't believe any of them had anything to with the legislation beyond voting on it, I thought I'd post about it before moving on to one of her relatives who's already been mentioned in connection with Guy Fawkes. Coincidentally he served on a couple of the same committees Sir John Hungerford served on, so they would have known each other. James' book on demons, aptly titled Demonology, appeared in 1597 in Scotland and was republished in England in 1603, when he assumed the throne there. Some scholars believe the book influenced Shakespeare's MacBeth, which dates to 1623. Others theorize Will might have been making some sort of subtle p...

I had intended to move on from Sir John Hungerford, but as I reviewed his bio, I ran across another committee assignment -- on a conference committee with the Lords (House of Lords) involving something called the Great Contract.  Sounds impressive enough, so I looked it up.  I'll be trying here to summarize the information from the Encyclopedia Britannica, so any mistakes are purely my own.  James I, just to review, was king in Scotland when Elizabeth I died, and he was next in succession to the English throne. Now we all know it takes money to run a country, but in a country where the rulers are supported by the public coffers, how much money coming in becomes a bit more personal.  The budget for Scotland ran to about £50,000. England was bigger and needed more income, so James may have thought that when he took over, he'd have more to work with. Alas, Elizabeth had left a debt in excess of £400,000. Just running his household would cost more money than his single p...

 Last time I mentioned that King James I, frustrated over Parliament's ability to broker a deal for the formal union of Scotland and England -- the two realms he reigned over -- created the very first version of the Union Jack: Now, he did this by combining the flag of St. George, by this time the default patron saint of England, and the flag of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. St. George:  St. Andrew:  It's fairly easy to see how this came about. Of course you'll recognize almost immediately that this is very close to the modern day flag, but not quite there. The National Flag of Great Britain:  You'll notice the extra red stripe. This represents represents Ireland, back in its united days.  A bit about the saints. St. George is thought to be a Christian Roman soldier -- in the days when the Romans persecuted Christians. He refused to recant his faith and was martyred. He became England's saint through the influence of numerous kings, mostly Plantangen...