Attegare, Stephen (b. )

Note: Stephen Attegare, alias Garrard, lived at Sittingbourne, in Kent.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Stephen

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Sir Simon Attegare lived at Sittingbourne, in Kent.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Simon

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Robert Sandes lived at Rottenby Castle, St. Bees, in Cumberland.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Robert

Event: Type: Living
Date: at the time of Henry IV

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: William Wilford lived in Exeter, Devonshire

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: William

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Stephen de Betenham lived at Betenham in Cranbrook, Shurland in Pluckley, in Kent. By his second wife he possessed lands in Throwley, Boughton Malherbe, and Wormesall, all in County Kent.

He was a justice of the Peace and a commissioner of inquiry, for embankments, of array against rebellion in 1403 and against the French in 1407. He also served as tax controller.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Stephen

Death: 1415

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Hawise

Death: BEF 1415

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Thomas Jocelyn lived at Hyde Hall, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, and at High Roding in Essex.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Thomas

Event: Type: Living
Date: 1425

Death: BEF 1442

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Alice Duke came from Dukes in Essex.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Alice

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Edmund Bardolf was probably a member of the family of Bardolfs of Crowborough, Watton-at-Stone, Hertfordshire, a cadet branch of the Barons Bardolf.

Given Name: Edmund

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Richard de Hexstall lived at Hexstall Court, East Peckham, in Kent. He was a descendant of the Hexstal family of Hexstall in Seighford, Staffordshire.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Richard [or Thomas]

Event: Type: Living
Date: at the time of Richard II

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Elizabeth Hewitt came from Walsall in Staffordshire.

Given Name: Elizabeth

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Richard Grovehurst lived at Grovehurst and Pullens, both in Horsmonden, and Churtons, in Farningham, all in County Kent.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Richard

Event: Type: Living
Date: at the time of Richard II

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Thomas de Bromley lived at Bromley and Blymhill in Staffordshire.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Thomas FitzRobert

Death: 1419

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Margaret

Death: BEF 1422

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Thomas Squery lived at Squeries Court in Westerham, West Wickham, Keston, and Baston in Hayes, all in County Kent.

His family had been seated at Squeries since the time of Henry III.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Thomas

Event: Type: Living
Date: 1395

Death: 1439

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Sir William de Fiennes lived at Herstmonceux in Sussex, and held lands in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Essexd, Hampshire, Kent, and Middlesex.

He was Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, hereditary forrester of Windsor Forest, and commissioner to review the ordinances for Pevensey Marsh. he was co-heir to the Barony of Say.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: DNB

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: RD500
Title: RD500

Page: pp. 429-430

Given Name: William

Death: 1403

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Elizabeth Batisford is described in the Dictionary of National Biography as "a great Sussexd heiress.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: RD500
Title: RD500

Page: pp. 429-430

Given Name: Elizabeth

Death: BEF 1406

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Robert Wroth served as attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster and was one of the commissioners appointed in 1529 to investigate the properties of Cardinal Wolsey.

He sat for Middlesex in the Reformation Parliament, which sat from 1529 to 1535.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: MGSB
Title: Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin

Data:
Text: Barnes, Robert, "Ancestor Chart of Charles Gorsuch, and Early Settler of Baltimore County, Maryland"Vol. 38 number 1 (Winter 1997).

Given Name: Robert

Death: 1535

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Given Name: Jane

Event: Type: Living
Date: 1535

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003

Note: Sir Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich, Lord Chancellor of England, is perhaps the least attractive of all my ancestors to have died in bed. The Dictionary of National Biography, not a work given to overly harsh judgments, describes him as "A time-server of the least admirable type, he was always found on the winning side, and he had a hand in the ruin of most of the prominent men of his time, not a few of whom had been his friends and benefactors--Wolsey, More, Fisher, Cromwell, Wriothesley, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, Somerset, and Northumberland." Still, one can hardly help but admire the skill with which he navigated through the treacherous politics of Tudor England and emerged, unscathed, with vast wealth, a peerage, and an undeniable place in history.

Richard Rich came not from the landed aristocracy but rather from a middling position in the commercial aristocracy of London and he married into another family with the same background. He apparently attended Cambridge University (in 1539 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Chancellor of the University, losing to the Duke of Norfolk). He certainly attended the Middle Temple and studied the law. At the Middle Temple he made the acquaintance of Sir Thomas More.

Years later, Sir Thomas, at his trial for treason, remembered Rich. "You know," he told him, "that I have been acquainted with your manner of life and conversation a long space, even from your youth to this time; for we dwelt long together in one parish, where, as yourself can well tell (I am sorry you compel me to speak it), you were always esteemed very light of your tongue, a great dicer and gamester, and not of any commendable fame either there or at your house in the Temple, where hath been your bringing up."

Regardless of his eat-drink-and-be-merry ways at the Temple, however, Rich became deeply learned in the law. He was soon named to various commissions and in 1529 became a reader at the Middle Temple. That year he was elected to the "reformation" Parliament, which sat until 1536. In Mar 1532 he was granted the clerkship of recognisances of debt taken in London--a patronage plum--and was appointed Attorney General for Wales and the counties of Flint and Chester. The following year he was appointed Solicitor General and was knighted.

In these offices Rich was in the thick of Henry VIII's transformation of the English power structure and he took care always to seek the main chance. His own advancement and profit always came before any ties of loyalty or friendship. When Bishop John Fisher, a noted theologian who rejected Henry VIII's assertion of supremacy, was sent to the Tower, Rich visited him there. Endeavoring to ascertain Fisher's views, he assured him that the king had promised that nothing ill would come of anything he said. Regardless, the conversation formed the basis of the prosecution's case at Fisher's trial, at which he was condemned, and Fisher denounced Rich at the trial for having broken his word.

Equally, he visited Sir Thomas More in the Tower and then testified as to what he had been told by Sir Thomas at that time, saying that More had denied the power of Parliament to make the King supreme head of the Church in England. More strongly denied saying this and accused Rich of perjury. "In good faith, Mr. Rich," More stated at his trial, "I am more sorry for your perjury than mine own peril; and you know you that neither I nor anyone else to my knowledge ever took you to be a man of much credit as either I or any other could vouchsafe to communicate with you in any manner of importance."

Whether Rich's testimony at More's trial was perjurious can never be known, although it undoubtedly accorded with More's actual beliefs. But it certainly was a powerful factor in More's conviction and execution. This episode in Rich's life is vividly depicted in Robert Bolt's play and movie, "A Man for All Seasons." And Rich certainly received his reward from the King, being made overseer of liveries of lands--an extremely profitable office--and chirographer of common pleas.

Even more profitable in the long run, Rich was appointed Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations of the Revenue of the Crown, a committee of the Privy Council, to which he was also appointed at that time, in 1536. This court was to deal with the dissolution of the smaller monasteries. He was also elected that year to the new Parliament and elected as Speaker of the House of Commons. At this point, except for Thomas Cromwell, Rich was the most powerful of the King's ministers.

He worked closely with Cromwell in the dissolution of the remaining monasteries and was able to obtains vast lands for himself in the process. But he deserted Cromwell when the latter made the mistake of pushing for Anne of Cleves to become Henry's fourth Queen. After Cromwell's downfall (Rich, needless to say, testified at his trial as one of the chief witnesses), Rich gained still more power and influence. He accompanied King Henry to France to negotiate a treaty, thereby adding some aspects of foreign affairs to his responsibilities.

In 1546, when Anne Askew, the Protestant martyr, was sent to the Tower, Rich and Sir William Wriothesley took part in her examination and were present when she was tortured. Indeed, according to her own testimony, Wriothesley and Rich themselves "took pains to rack me with their own hands till I was well nigh dead."

When Henry VIII died, in Jan 1547, he made Rich in his will one of his executors, left him two hundred pounds, and instructed that he be made a peer. He was created Baron Rich of Leeze (spelled Leighs today), Essex on Feb 26 1548. That October, Wriothesley was deprived of the Lord-Chancellorship, undoubtedly owing to Rich's machinations, and Rich was appointed in his place. Again, Rich maneuvered always to be on the winning side of the dog-eat-dog politics of the reign of Edward VI, and Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the Duke of Somerset the Lord Protector, and the Duke of Northumberland all suffered by his shifting alliances.

Illness forced him to relinquish the Great Seal and the Lord Chancellorship in 1551, but he was back in the councils of power by the end of 1552. On Jul 9 1553, after the young king's death, Rich signed the Privy Council's answer to Mary Tudor's remonstrance, which pronounced her a bastard and proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as Queen. But with typically artful lack of concern for consistency, immediately left London for Essex, his home base--indeed the manors he had acquired in the dissolution of the monasteries covered a good portion of the county--and declared for Queen Mary.

He entertained Queen Mary at his manor of Wanstead on her way to London and his wife accompanied the Queen on her entrance into London. Rich was at once sworn into her council and officiated at her coronation. Rich took little part in the government under Queen Mary, however, and rarely attended Privy Council meetings. But he vigorously pursued the government's policy of restoring the Catholic religion in Essex. He persecuted numerous heretics, often examining them himself, and Foxe in his book of martyrs attributes the high number of burnings in Essex to Rich's zeal.

But, still again, when the winds of change blew through English poltics, Rich bent expertly with them. He accompanied Queen Elizabeth I to London and was placed on a commission to inquire into the granting of lands in the late reign, a place from which, undoubtedly, he was able to enrich himself still further.

Rich was buried in Felsted Church where his effigy is still to be found and his portrait by Holbein is among the Holbein drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor. He endowed many institutions in Felsted including a grammar school that Oliver Cromwell's sons attended, and built the tower of Rochford Church. His London residence, now known as Warwick House, still stands.

As Rich and his wife had five sons and ten daughters (and he had as well four illegitimate children) his progeny is vast. His grandson Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich, was created Earl of Warwick in 1618, a title that went extinct in 1759.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Clagett
Title: Brice M. Clagett, Seven Centuries

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: DNB

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: Faris
Title: David Faris, Plantagenet Ancestry of Seventeenth-Century Colonists: The D
escent from the Later Plantagenet Kings of England, Henry III, Edward I
, Edward II, and Edward III, of Emigrants from England and Wales to the N
orth American Colonies before 1701 (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical P
ublishing Company, 1996)
escent from the Later Plantagenet Kings of England, Henry III, Edward I
, Edward II, and Edward III, of Emigrants from England and Wales to the N
orth American Colonies before 1701
escent from the Later Plantagenet Kings of England, Henry III, Edward I
, Edward II, and Edward III, of Emigrants from England and Wales to the N
orth American Colonies before 1701. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical P
ublishing Company, 1996.

Source: (Individual)
Abbreviation: TAG
Title: The American Genealogist

Page: Vol. 21, pp. 234-238, vol. 22, pp. 27-37.

Given Name: Richard

Death: 1568 Rochford Hall, Rochford, Essex

Change: Date: 9 Feb 2003