First Challenge: Prosper
"Week 17 (April 23-29) – Prosper. Which ancestor has a rags-to-riches story? Which ancestor prospered despite the odds?" (No Story Too Small)As a teen, I traveled with my family to the British Isles. While there, we spent one week out of our three weeks there with Fairford Mill as our home base. A 17th-century mill-turned-vacation house, it's a charming location in the Cotswolds. When not off visiting another part of England or Wales on a day trip, I spent time taking Elizabeth Bennet-style walks in the neighborhood, fed the trouts Frosties (Frosted Flakes), watched swans paddling up the river, and ate fish and chips from the local chip shop. From the Mill, I could see the church. In the mornings, I would wake to the sound of sheep bleating in the fields. To a seventeen-year-old who had discovered the works of Austen and the Brontes, it was bliss.
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| Fairford Mill on the left and St. Mary's Church on the right Image courtesy Waiten Hill Farm House |
A few years ago, I discovered a surprising connection between my family and Fairford. Through immigrant ancestor Audrey (Barlow) Almy, my ancestors, it seemed, were John Tame and his son Sir Edmund.
According to the Fairford Town Council, "In 1487, Henry VII leased the estate to John Tame, a wealthy wool and cloth merchant of Cirencester. The old manor house had fallen into disrepair, and he built a new house to the south of the church, and was living in Fairford by the mid 1480’s. During the 1490’s he rebuilt the church, which was re-consecrated in 1497 and dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin. The chief glory of the church was the magnificent set of stained glass windows illustrating the Christian faith."
In regards to the Tames' role in rebuilding the church at Fairford, the Fairford History Society adds, "The rebuilding of the church was started by John Tame in the early 1490s after been given permission by the Bishop of Worcester to dismantle the existing church. As Tame's fortune was acquired through the wool and cloth industry, St Mary's can be counted as among a number of so-called 'wool' churches built in the Cotswolds in the medieval period. The new church at Fairford was consecrated in a ceremony presided over by the Bishop on 20 June 1497, an event marked by a painted Consecration Cross on the wall of the chancel near the vestry door. Although structurally complete, the church was still far from finished at this point and at the death of John Tame in 1500 his son Edmund Tame undertook to complete the work. At about this time work commenced on the production of 28 stained and painted glass windows that would make up a stunning visual account of the Bible story from Adam and Eve through to the Last Judgement and would provide instruction as well as illumination, in both senses of the word."
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| St. Mary's Church, Fairford, Gloucestershire, England |
In 1870, Henry F. Holt wrote The Tames of Fairford. While I'm not sure how accurate his assessment of John's character is, he does illustrate the Tame family's rise in fortune during John's lifetime. "Industrious, persevering, thrifty, ostentatious in his charity, but extremely parsimonious in its indulgence, John Tame strove hard, by the sheer force of wealth and intelligence, to take his place among, and be recognised as one of, the gentry of his native county,--a position from which his father was excluded in 1433, as appears by the absence of his name from the list of the gentry of Gloucestershire, returned by the royal commissioners in the twelfth year of Henry VI, at which time John Tame was about four years old."
John seems to have been in the position to marry "respectably," as Holt notes: "John Tame married circa 1461. His bride was Alice Twynhoe, a native of Gloucestershire, of most respectable family between whom and the Tames an enduring friendship existed (as will be seen) for several generations."
At this time, he claims the family was not yet connected to Fairford. But before his first known association with Fairford, John was involved in the wool and cloth trade, as noted before. But John's attention turned to Fairford and its sheep pastures and that choice benefited Fairford:
"Neglected by the manorial authority, to which Fairford was wholly subjected; without trade to attract and encourage its scanty population, and agriculture, their sole resource, fast fading away, consequent upon the lands being converted to pasturage, Fairford assuredly possessed but few attractions to the stranger, and in that very circumstance John Tame found his advantage. He was then not only extensively engaged in trade as a manufacturer of cloth, at Cirencester, but largely interested in the breed of sheep, for the sake of their wool, and to him, therefore, Fairford presented the attraction of becoming the head-quarters of his operations. He was enabled to rent large tracts of land in the neighbourhood at a very moderate sum, to cover them with vast flocks of sheep and to collect their wool at Fairford, thereby imparting new life to its monotony, and affording employment to its labouring population.
Thus we know, from the authority of Leland, that 'Fairford never flourished afore the cumming of the Tames into it.'" (Holt)
The sheep breeding venture in Fairford succeeded but John wasn't finished yet. "Wealthy, but still a nobody; the chief personage in Fairford, and yet not the owner of a foot of land in it. Whilst matters thus stood, John Tame doubtless conceived the possibility of his taking a firm root in Fairford, and, following out that idea with his usual tact and perseverance, he met with his accustomed success; and, for a consideration, obtained from Henry in 1498 a cession of a portion only of the manor, by lease or otherwise. Whatever the arrangement was, certain it is that John Tame did not acquire the lordship of the manor." (Holt)
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| John and Alice's tomb The family floor vault is behind this tomb, along with son Sir Edmund's floor brass |
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| Brass memorial John and Alice (Twynyho) Tame |
All of this had a huge impact on his son Edmund's family's prospects. Edmund married twice. His first wife and my ancestor was Agnes Greville, who came from noble roots. Edmund's daughter Margaret Tame married Sir Humphrey Stafford (both are my ancestors). Sir Humphrey was a descendant of Henry II, grandson of Elizabeth Woodville's lady-in-waiting and kinswoman Alice (Haute) Fogge, and brother-in-law of Mary Boleyn.
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| Brass wall memorial, St. Mary's Fairford Sir Edmund Tame with son Edmund, wife Agnes Greville with daughters Alice, Elizabeth, and Margaret, and wife Elizabeth Tyringham |
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| Brass floor memorial Sir Edmund Tame and his wives |
Just as John's attention turned to Fairford and the opportunities it afforded, Edmund's attention turned to achieving a position prior generations of Tames probably didn't think possible. "At this time he had abandoned all active interference in business, although he still embarked an extensive capital in the breeding of enormous flocks of sheep. His ambition was, however, rather with the Court than the counting-house, and so successfully did he play his cards as to receive the honour of knighthood from Henry VIII, in 1516, in which year he was attached to the Royal Household, as appears from the 'list of names of the king's officers and servants sworn to attend in his chamber'; and wherein the name of Sir Edmund Tame appears as a knight of the body, and that of his son, Edmund Tame, as an esquire for the body, extraordinary." (Holt)
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| The Tame and Greville coat of arms on left The Tame and Tyringham coat of arms on right Both are copied from the coats of arms on Sir Edmund's tomb. |
One last fact about John Tame:
In his will, John "left a legacy toward the 'marriage of xxx poor maydenes within four myle of Fairford, or else in the town of Cicetter'..." (Holt)
And with that, I turn to the next challenge...
First Challenge: Where There's a Will
"Week 18 (April 30 – May 6) – Where There’s a Will: Do you have an ancestor who left an interesting will? Have you used a will to solve a problem? Or, what ancestor showed a lot of will in his or her actions?" (No Story Too Small)And here, things take a sinister turn...
Recently, I re-read Killed Strangely by Ellen Forman Crane. The book covers the death of Mrs. Rebecca Cornell, probably born Rebecca Briggs. Because Crane suggested that Rebecca and her eldest son Thomas seemed to be two strong-willed personalities that may have destroyed each other and because there seemed to be some resentment on Thomas' part, probably because of stipulations in Rebecca's will, I've chosen to write about Rebecca.
Rebecca and her husband Thomas Sr. came from Saffron Walden, Essex, England and immigrated with their large family of children to Boston. They were Puritans but soon became allied with Ann Hutchinson. They moved to Rhode Island and for a brief time, to New Netherland (now New York).
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| Saffron Walden |
The massacre that claimed Ann Hutchinson's life forced much but not all of the family back to Rhode Island. After Thomas Sr.'s death, Rebecca became involved with the Quakers, the movement having newly arrived in America, which, among other beliefs, viewed women in a progressive light.
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| Trial of Ann Hutchinson |
This may have put her even more at odds with Thomas Jr., who was not a member of any church and seemed more interested in increasing his wealth and prominence in the community. So too he lived in a society where he would be expected to be the head of his family, having control of his own property. His efforts to get ahead were frustrated by his mother who controlled the property on which she, Thomas Jr., and his wife and children lived and to whom he was in debt (she holding a bond against him).
Thomas was left property in Rebecca's will but it was not without strings attached. Rebecca stipulated that for the property, he was to pay a sum to each of his brothers and sisters. Crane estimated that the total of these sums would have been nearly the value of the property and surmised that Thomas may have wondered why he had to essentially buy his legacy while his siblings were given theirs and while other eldest sons received more generous bequests.
In 1673, elderly Rebecca's body was found burned in her bedroom. While the death was ruled accidental initially, a dream of Rebecca's ghost by her probable brother John Briggs, as well as other circumstantial evidence, led to Rebecca's body being exhumed and examined and an inquest being conducted.
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| The house where Mrs. Rebecca Cornell died which stood near what is now West Main Road, Portsmouth, Rhode Island |
Now, I saw one website that related John Briggs' dream, then stated something along the lines of "And thus we dismiss him." That didn't really make sense to me. Dismiss how? I mean they had an entire page devoted to him. Anyways, we can't really just look away when it comes to the supernatural evidence that occassionally appear in the official records of colonial New England or we will never understand that very interesting period in history. Crane makes it clear that New Englanders were at the crossroads of modern legal procedures we are familiar with and the older practices of medieval Europe. Supernatural evidence, like Rebecca's ghost beseeching John to look how she was burnt, had begun to be controversial at the time but was still widely accepted. Studying these difficult cases shows us the gradual evolution of the world that was to the world that now is.
It is indeed difficult in our day to understand exactly what happened in the trials and why the jurors and bench chose as they did or ascertain what really happened to Rebecca (accident, murder, or suicide can't be ruled out). But the result was that Thomas was found guilty of murdering his mother.
Whatever Thomas did or didn't do, he would face the gallows just months after his mother died. "Whereas you Thomas Cornell have been in this Court Indicted and charged for murthering your mother Mrs Rebecca Cornell Widow. and you beinge by your peers the Jurry found Guilty. Know and to that end prepare your selfe, that you are by this Court Centanced to be Carried from hence to the Com[m]on Goale, and from thence on fryday next which will be the twenty thre day of this instant month May about one of the clock to be carried from the said Goale to the place the Gallowes — and there to be Hanged by the neck untill you are dead dead." (Records of the General Court of Trials 1671-1704; Newport Court Book A; October 1673 Transcribed verbatim by Jane Fletcher Fiske, 1998)
What is certain is that the relationship between the mother and son was extremely troubled. Witnesses testified that Rebecca complained of abuse and neglect. Whether Rebecca's fears ultimately proved to be true or not is obscured by Rebecca's suggestions on a couple of occassions that she had considered doing herself away and by the circumstantial nature of the evidence. There was the fact that she was not feeling well and that women from time to time met their deaths by accidentally getting their skirts caught in the flames of hearths. In addition, there is the possibility of other suspects.
Did Thomas kill his mother? It's too hard to really tell. Crane goes into much more detail and if you are interested in this case, her book may help you interpret the strange facts of Rebecca's death. She will lay out a number of theories. But she will not solve it for you. What at the execution of Thomas Cornell Jr. seemed like a clear murder case is now an unsolved mystery, a cold case with little hope of resolution.
Next week's challenge from No Story Too Small: "Week 19 (May 7-13) – There’s a Way: What ancestor found a way out of a sticky situation? You might also think of this in terms of transportation or migration." And now, (hopefully) back to more regular posting!
