Part 6.6 The Scottish Connections Lyon Family
The Lyon Family
The Hannah Lyon Family
Connections stem from the Lyon Family from Scotland
Synthene
was the daughter of:
5GG
Edward Knapp 1763 - 1821, and Esther. 1776 - 1853. Esther's records are
all transcribed under her second husband's name, with no research attributed to
her parents.
Edward
was the son of
6GG Daniel Knapp and Hannah Lyon,
1744 - 1807. The research now
concentrates purely on the Lyon lineage.
Hannah
was the daughter of
7GG Edward Lyon 1710 - 1773 and
Rebecca Boyden 1716 - 1776
Edward
was the son of
8GG
Samuel Lyon 1679 - 1756 and Joanna Weld 1685 - 1721
Samuel
was the son of
9GG
William Lyon 1652 - 1714 and Sarah Dunkin 1655 - 1689
William
Lyon was the son of
10GG William
Lyon 1620 - 1692 and Sarah Jane Ruggles 1629 - 1688
This
William was the first of the family to arrive in America, and there have been
countless assumptions made about his life and his ancestors. William Lyons arrived in 1635 on Hopewell,
from England. He arrived aged 14, and
from indications he was an orphan. His
brother John born 1619 arrived on the Hopewell in 1634.
William
was the son of
11GG
William Lyon 1580 - 1634 and Ann Carter 1594 - 1634. Ann was the daughter of
John Carter 1574 - 1630 and Bridget Benion 1578 - 1630. The Benions were merchants in London. Thomas
was a capper, meaning he made beer, and his son was a Vitner in London. Some stories follow.
William
was the son of
12GG William Lyon 1540 - 1624 and
Audry Deering. He also married Isabelle
Wightman 1559 - Her father was a MP.
He
had three sons and two daughters, one daughter was named Isabelle, likely the
daughter of Isabelle Wightman, and the other named Audry likely to be the
daughter of Audry. It is likely that Audry Deering was a cousin of Isabelle
Wightman. The sons were Robert, John and William.
William
Lyon was the son of
13GG John Lyon 1510 and his wife
Jean.
In order to prove who was who
within Randy DeGraw's DNA results, where practicable and where possible the
lineages have been sourced to a time well before America was settled.
The extended research has come
about due to the huge amount of mis-information which people have relied upon
to create their "family trees".
"Click on the leaf, and it
is amazing what you will find about your family", so are the words in an
advertising and marketing campaign directed at novices, who, because of the
current trend, believe that is all that is required.
Wrong, though when beginning to
form a family tree, it is the only method that can be used, then after grasping
an understanding of the concepts, and realising that the only way to really
know these ancestors is to adopt a different viewpoint, and have an
understanding of the events that shaped the United Kingdom.
Events that for a lot of us,
began with an invasion in 1066, or from when the Vikings and the Scots fought.
Or more particularly when the
Scots fought, and they did for centuries.
Gruesome, horrible deaths often with no regard to human life. Often when confronted with this information,
facts that certainly weren't taught in any classroom of our school days, it
reinforces the extreme hardships and difficulties that faced our ancestors.
Everyone began somewhere. Every
family had ancestors, some good, some bad.
It takes all to create the person who walks in your shoes, and leaves
footprints in the sands of time.
Without understanding the social
events of centuries past, there is no ability to understand or to learn the
paths trod by ancestors. Very often,
however, they are the history!
Royalty is for the United
Kingdom, something that has reigned for more than a thousand years. All those old rulers, of Europe began with
one Viking. His name was Rollo, which generally
is the assumption. But who begat Rollo?
No doubt over time, more
information will be forthcoming, but do we really want to learn that we all
began as a caterpillar under a leaf in the back garden? Perhaps not.
The can be no questioning that
the British Royal Family, under Queen Elizabeth II is an institution. As well, almost every family wants to find a
link or connection to one Royal or other.
When Hannah Lyon, the 6th great
grandmother married Daniel Knapp, neither had the remotest idea of what history
that she was introducing into her descendants.
Neither perhaps did they.
Little did she know that among
her ancestors were direct links to the sister of King William the Conqueror,
nor that her family would be directly related to the current Royal Family of
UK.
But they are.
Over
the years, the research conducted with my Scottish ancestors has been quite
extensive, simply because the are so many people named the same name, and it is
rather difficult to prove which Campbell that Mary Campbell called her great
grandfather 330 years ago.
From
early times, the Scottish began with settlers from Ireland on the West coast;
Alpín MacEchdach ( 825 -
834 )
831 - Diarmait of Iona goes to Ireland with relics of St Columba
834 - Alpín MacEchdach killed in Galloway. His son Kenneth succeeds him.
831 - Diarmait of Iona goes to Ireland with relics of St Columba
834 - Alpín MacEchdach killed in Galloway. His son Kenneth succeeds him.
Then
they have a battle with the Vikings
834 - Kenneth succeeds his father
Alpin MacEchdach
839 - Eóganan mac Óengusa and his brother Bran killed in battle with Vikings end of dominance of Fortriu.
844 - Kenneth MacAlpin becomes the dominant king of the lands of Dál Riata and of the Picts which would become known as Scotia,
849 - Kenneth MacAlpin moves St Columba's relics to Dunkeld making it an important Christian Centre
858 - Death of Kenneth MacAlpin
839 - Eóganan mac Óengusa and his brother Bran killed in battle with Vikings end of dominance of Fortriu.
844 - Kenneth MacAlpin becomes the dominant king of the lands of Dál Riata and of the Picts which would become known as Scotia,
849 - Kenneth MacAlpin moves St Columba's relics to Dunkeld making it an important Christian Centre
858 - Death of Kenneth MacAlpin
The monarch of Scotland
was the head
of state of the Kingdom
of Scotland.
According to tradition, the first King of Scots (Middle Scots: King of Scottis, Modern Scots: King o Scots, Scottish Gaelic: Rìghrean Albannaich) was
Kenneth
MacAlpin (Cináed
mac Ailpín), who founded the state in 843.
The
distinction between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of the Picts
is rather the product of later medieval myth and confusion from a change in
nomenclature i.e. Rex Pictorum (King of the Picts) becomes Rí Alban
(King of Alba) under Donald
II when annals
switched from Latin to vernacular around the end of
the 9th century, by which time the word Alba in Gaelic had come to refer to the Kingdom
of the Picts rather than Great Britain
He was followed by Constatine ,
who also had a battle with the Vikings!
870 - Alt Clut, Dumbarton Rock, captured by the Norse-Gael or Viking
leaders Amlaíb Conung and Ímar after six month's of siege
The next
ruler was Eochaid in 879,
Then in
889 - 900 Donald II, and a mass exodus from Strathclyde to Gwynedd Wales.
For
the next 150 years, there were wars, Vikings, more wars, more Rulers, until
just after King William invaded with his French Knights in 1066.
It
takes the death of another three rulers, until finally in 1100, Matilda III,
daughter of Malcolm of Scotland, married King Henry I. A merging of powerful families.
The family originated in the district of the Forest of Lyons, north of the town of Lyons-la-Forêt in Haute Normandie, where the family seat was the Castle of Lyons. The original surname was ‘de Lyons’ (‘of [the Forest and Castle] of Lyons’): subsequently, the ‘de’ was removed from the name, and some branches removed the ‘s’ from the end of the word, producing ‘Lyon’.
During the 14th century, a branch of the family emigrated to Scotland, where they became Clan Lyon, the Lords of Glamis, and the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne.
During the 15th century, a branch of the family emigrated to Ireland, where they established a seat at King's County that became known as River Lyons, and a seat at County Westmeath, Ledestown Hall (or Ledistown Hall). Members of the family repeatedly served both as High Sheriff of Westmeath and as High Sheriff of King’s County. This branch of the family owned extensive plantations in Antigua and later removed from Ireland to England. Their descendants include Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons, Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, the diplomat who solved the Trent Affair, Sir Algernon McLennan Lyons, Admiral of the Fleet, and Richard Lyons Pearson, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
The financier and Sheriff of London, Sir Richard Lyons PC, MP, who was friend of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, and who was beheaded during the Peasants' Revolt, by its leader Wat Tyler, was an illegitimate descendant of the branch of the family that remained in England.
The descendants of the Warkworth family who remained in England had ceased to reside at Warkworth by the 16th century, and resided on estates in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Middlesex. They intermarried with descendants of the branch of the family that had emigrated to Scotland. The Middlesex line of the family produced Sir John Lyon, Lord Mayor of London for 1553-1554, and John Lyon (d.1592), the founder of Harrow School, after whom The John Lyon School, the John Lyon's Charity, and a Harrow School house, Lyon’s, are named.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, especially after the defeat of the Royalist cause in the English Civil War numerous members of the family emigrated to America. The greatest concentration of descendants is in New York. A notable descendant of the American branch was Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon.
In 1066, Ingelram, Lord of Lyons, arrived in England with the Norman Conquest and was granted lands in Corsham and Culington. Fourteen years later, in 1080, a member of the Norman family, Nicholas de Lyons, emigrated to England with his son, Sir John de Lyons, who is considered the founder of the English Lyons family.
There was a branch of the family living in Norfolk, whose members included Sir John Lyon (1289–1346), Sir Richard Lyons, Sheriff of London, PC, MP (1310–1381), a friend of Geoffrey Chaucer who was beheaded during the Peasants' Revolt. Some members of the Norfolk branch intermarried with descendants of the branch that had emigrated to Scotland. From the Norfolk branch was descended the Middlesex Branch.
Notable members of the Warkworth family include Sir John de Lyons (1268–1313), Sir John de Lyons (b.1299), who fought at the Battle of Crecy and the Battle of Poitiers, Sir John de Lyons (1289–1348), who was Lord of Warkworth in 1322, Sir John de Lyons (1320–1385), who is interred in the Church of St Mary in Warkworth.
Sir John Lyon (1289–1348), Baron of Forteviot Forgandenny and Drumgawan, who was born in Scotland, William Lyons, Governor of Bordeaux during the reign of Henry V of England (c.1420), and Sir Richard Lyons, Governor of Calais during the reign of Henry VIII. The daughter, Elizabeth, of Sir John Lyons, (d.1385) who was Lord of Warkworth, married Sir John Chetwode: Elizabeth had no male siblings and the estate passed to Chetwode, who adopted the Lyons arms and the title 'Lord of Warkworth'. However, during the 15th century, a member of the Warkworth line of the House of Lyons was ennobled as Baron Lyon of Warkworth, Northamptonshire.
Scottish Branch
Sir John Lyon, Baron of Forteviot, Forgandenny, and Drumgawan (1289–1348) was the son of a member of the Warkworth
line. He was born in Scotland and is considered to be the progenitor of the
Scottish Branch of the family, Clan Lyon, the Earls
of Strathmore and Kinghorne,
including by the renowned genealogist Sir Iain Moncreiffe. His son was Sir John Lyon, Thane of Glamis (1340–1382), who married a daughter of Robert II of Scotland, for whom he served as Chamberlain of Scotland: this Sir John Lyon was known as the White Lyon due to his pale complexion. His marriage brought him ownership of Tannadice on the River Esky, and he was also granted the barony of Kinghorne. The present Lords of Kinghorne descend from the White Lyon in the direct line.
The son of this Sir John (b.1340) was Sir John Lyon (1377–1445), who married a granddaughter of Robert II, and the grandson was Patrick Lyon, 1st Lord Glamis, who was a Privy Counsellor and Master of the Royal Household.
Others have speculated, incorrectly, that the progenitor of the family was a member of a family which had the surname de Leon and which went to Scotland with Edgar, son of Malcolm III, and was subsequently granted lands in Perthshire. The new information about the father of Sir John Lyon has shown this theory, which was never proven, to be incorrect.
The eighth Lord Glamis renounced his allegiance to Mary, Queen of Scots and served under the Regents Moray and Lennox. He was made Chancellor of Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal. His son was Captain of the Royal Guard and a Privy Counsellor to James VI: in 1606 he was created Earl of Kinghorne, Viscount Lyon, and Baron Glamis. In 1677, the Third Earl was granted the titles Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, Viscount Lyon, Baron Glamis, Tannadice, Sidlaw, and Strathdichtie. His son was a Privy Counsellor.
Sir John Lyon (b.1353) owned lands in Middlesex in addition to lands in Suffolk and Norfolk, which he inherited from his ancestors. His son Sir Henry Lyon (b. 1355) moved to Middlesex and founded the Middlesex line of the family. From the Middlesex line of the Lyons family descended Sir John Lyon, Lord Mayor of London for 1553-1554, and John Lyon (d.1592), the founder of Harrow School, after whom The John Lyon School, the John Lyon's Charity, and a Harrow School house, Lyon’s, are named.
The Middlesex line were a prosperous yeoman family who owned substantial estates at Harrow-on-the-Hill. John Lyon (d.1592) resided at Preston Hall in Harrow, Middlesex and, in 1564, had the largest land-rental income in Harrow. There are memorials to this John Lyon (d.1592) and his wife, Joan Lyon, at St Mary's, Harrow on the Hill.
The Middlesex line supported the Royalist cause of Charles I of England in the English Civil War: after the Royalist defeat some members of the family emigrated to New England. William Lyon (1620 -1692), was the first Lyon to emigrate to America, in 1645. Richard Lyon (b.1590) died in Connecticut.
Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon, the first Union General to be killed in the American Civil War, was a descendent of the family’s emigrants to New England. For his efforts, he received the Thanks of Congress. 15,000 persons attended his funeral.
The 24th
Missouri Volunteer Infantry was
recruited as "The Lyon Legion" in honor of the General, and carried a
unique regimental color, depicting a Lion beneath a constellation of six stars. Counties in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada, and Lyons valley in Jamul, California, are named
after him. Two forts were also named in his honor: Fort Lyon in Colorado and Fort Lyon (Virginia). Lyon Park in St. Louis, Lyon Street in San Francisco and Lyon Lane in Carson City, Nevada are also named
after him
Extracts from the Lyon
Memorial 1907
It is my belief that historical
events associated with our ancestors are best told in the writings of those
periods, when they told it as it was, not a watered down censored version of
events. There are so many online
resources similar to this one, it is often just a case of looking until one is
found. More particularly in relation to
Hannah Lyon, as the records on the genealogical sites are so varied and inconsistent.
FAMILIES
OF CONNECTICUT AND NEW JERSEY
INCLUDING RECORDS OF THE DESCENDANTS OF THE IMMIGRANTS
RICHARD LYON, OF FAIRFIELD
HENRY LYON, ' OF FAIRFIELD
EDITOR: Sidney Elizabeth Lyon of Jeffersonville. Ind.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS, Louise Lyon Johnson, of Minneapolis, Minn.
A. B. Lyons, M. D., of Detroit, Mich.
DETROIT, MICH : Press or William Graham Printing Co. 1907
Three years ago the first prospectus appeared of a "Lyon Memorial." The object sought by its editors was a modest one. They proposed only to place on record the available historical data relating to the several Lyon families that settled in New England in the early colonial days. It was expected that the material thus "readily accessible" would fill a volume of about 500 pages. It was soon found, however, that a single volume would not contain the records already in hand.
The complete Memorial fills three such volumes. One, relating to the Massachusetts families, has already been given to the public. This includes the descendants of William Lyon of Roxbury, about
3,000 names, Peter Lyon of Dorchester, about 400 names and George Lyon of Dorchester, 135 names.
The present volume deals with three closely related families, whose progenitors, Thomas, Henry and Richard, appeared almost simultaneously in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The editor of this
volume accepts as historical facts certain family traditions for which documentary evidence has not yet been found. For this she asaumes individual responsibility. "Whether or not these three brothers came to America directly from Scotland, is not "a vital question. There can be no doubt that they, as well as the Lyons who settled in Massachusetts had a common ancestry with the Scotch noble Lyon
family — now Bowes-Lyon.
The volume will perhaps prove the most interesting reading of the series, and is of especial importance in that it deals in a thorough and painstaking way with an historical
subject presenting unusual difficulties, owing to the destruction during the Revolutionary War of many important records. It comprises the full family histories only of Henry Lyon of Milford, Fairfield and Newark, and Richard Lyon of Fairfield.
The third volume of the series is devoted wholly to the family history of Thomas Lyon of Stamford, Fairfield and Rye. This history is unusually full, and is largely the work of Robert B. Miller, a
descendant of Thomas Lyon, and an accomplished and accurate genealogist.
The writer of this note, who, in the midst of a life of strenuous and multifarious activities, has brought to a conclusion his self imposed task commends the completed Memorial to his numerous
American kinsfolk in the trust that his gratuitous labor may find its adequate reward in the kindly welcome it shall receive.
A. B. LYONS.
Detroit, February 1st, 1907
To the descendants of Henry, Thomas and Richard Lyon, notwith-standing its imperfections, the second volume of the Lyon Memorial will be "a good book which is opened with expectation and closed with profit." Nevertheless they should determine among themselves to gather materials for a more satisfactory history of the Scotch branch of the Lyon family of America. In the States that were the old Colonies, in Scotland and in England, there are public records and private papers awaiting whoever will interest himself or herself so far as to seek these data in person or employ experienced genealogists to do the necessary work for them.
Another thing. Doubt should not reject in toto the vague stories of forefather lore. Life was more serious than death to our Covenanter and Puritan sires. They were not given to vain-glorious
statements. Whatsoever is attributed to one of them is worthy of investigation. Oral testimony, after two centuries of reminiscential mention, has lost accuracy. Still there is a likelihood of discovering
documental foundations for many of these handed-down recollections. Errors may have been grafted on the vine of any tradition, but it sprang from the root of truth. What Moses related to Joshua, what
Joshua transmitted through the Elders and the Prophets is Holy writ.
"Some Old World Lyons" and "Some New World Lyons" give the history of the Lyon family as far as it could be gathered from accessible records and as far as it has been narrated incidentally by the
historians. An amplification of a series of events is history as it is written and understood. Bare facts with appurtenant dates do not appeal to the human mind. Out of countless fragments the imagina-
tion must reconstruct and visualize the past. This has been attempted by the author of the two sketches herein referred to. The "Lyons Farms" sketch and map, contributed by Professor S. R. Winans of
PREFACE
Princeton, N. J., will add greatly to the historical value of the present volume of the Lyon Memorial.
An especial acknowledgement is due Mr. C. C. Gardner, genealogist, of Newark, N. J., and to Mrs. Mary Lyon Hoe and Miss Amelia Lyon Hoe of New York City, for procuring copies of many of the colonial records in the archives at Trenton. Mr. Gardner, too, loaned private papers, and his acute judgment settled several points that were in dispute. Mr. W. E. Harrison of Fort Madison, Iowa, generously contributed all the Lyon data that he obtained at home and abroad, while collecting official records for a Harrison Family History. Mr. John Charles Lyon of East Orange, N. J., and Mrs. Nora Harris Badgley of New York City were indispensible co-workers, who made extracts from the Colonial history "authorities" in the Newark Library and in the Lenox Library and the Astor Library of New York City. And thanks are due to Mr. M. M. Crane of Elizabeth, N. J., for early Elizabethtown records, to Mr. C. S. Taylor of Cincinnati for pioneer records; to Miss Anna J. Cleveland of Minneapolis for foreign research and early Elizabethtown records; to Mr. J. P. Crayon, genealogist, of Rockaway, N. J., for early Morristown records; to Miss Hannah Lyon Wilbur of Newport, who placed the Rhode Island Lyon families among the descendants of Henry Lyon, the emigrant of Fairfield and Newark, and to Mrs. Laura Butler Taylor of Louisville, Ky., for her intelligent and faithful services.
SIDNEY ELIZABETH LYON.
The Octagon, 1906. Jeffersonville, Indiana.
The history of a family, especially of the Lyon family, as it goes from the chapter of one century to the chapter of the next, in its mysterious reality, has the fascination of fiction. Heredity gives every
human a certain sense of remoteness, which is soul retrospection. We, ourselves, have been a part of all this tragedy and death.
Godfrey Louvein or Lowen, Duke of Brabant, was doubtless the head of the Leonne family of Leon, or Lyons in Normandy. His daughter, Adelecia, the Fair Maid of Brabant, after the young Prince
William was lost in the wreck of the "Blanche Nef" 1120, was married to the widowed Henry I. in the hope of another direct heir to the English Crown. This alliance gave rise to the use of the lion in the
royal arms. The Castle of Lyons near Rouen was a residence which the Anglo-Norman monarch took much delight in. It was his death- place, too. After a hard day's hunting in the Forest of Lyons, the King ate heartily of his favorite dish, stewed lampreys, and died of "surfeit" seven days later.
At the time of the expedition against Harold, the Saxon King of England, 1066, one of the Leonne, an adventurous personage, with his followers, joined the banners of Duke William of Normandy. This de Leonne, the progenitor of the Lyon family of England and Scotland, held a considerable command in the invading army. Perhaps he espoused the cause through Galtic sentiment, or through Fitz Osborn's coercive example or through a liking for fighting as a diurnal occupation, or for what he expected to get out of it. An eye to the main chance through an aboriginal understanding of meum et tuum, was eleventh century common sense, and to take your chances was eleventh century philosphy.
The foreign project was not a popular measure with Duke William's people, as it would cost blood and money. But the chivalry of France, picturesque gentlemen, armed cap-a-pie in close-fitting ring
armor and nasal conical helmets, with a gonfalon streaming from their lances, who made war a diversion, accommodatingly accepted the story that Harold had been sent by Edward the Confessor to give the Crown to his verbally appointed heir. By the same right that Robert le Diahle's son was heir to the throne of the Saxon Usurper, they, his knights, were heirs to splendid preferment and splendid spoils, if they risked their lives to get them. Morally justified, they were going to their rightful heritage, these mail-clad warriors of William, surnamed the Bastordes, the best soldier and the best politician of the Middle Ages. Edward, the Saint, had loved the home of his childhood,
the learned and pious prelates and monks of its churches and monasteries, and its shrewd and daring Knighthood. It was theirs by royal gift. All the crown lands, the vast estates of Harold and his brothers, the folkland, every rod of England, except the sacred property of the Ecclesiastical corporations, would pass to the new king, to be granted away to those who served him best.
The Leonne of the armament, who followed the blood-red flag of the Mora from St. Valleri to Pevensly; who sang the war song of Rollo at Hastings and did much battle, realized his opulent anticipations, for he remained in England, and brought over to patrimonial expectation his son, Sir Roger de Leonne, born in France 1040, Sir Roger de Leonne furthered the fortunes of the family in an
adopted country. War was a profitable pastime, and to go to the rescue of King Edgar, the son of Malcolm Canmore, a righteous piece of errantry. So he donned his harness and rode with Atheling into Scotland to depose Donald Bain. For this good and faithful service, in 1091 he obtained from King Edgar certain lands in Perthshire, to which he gave the name of Glen Lyon — the Glen Lyon of today, extending from Fortingal about twenty-four miles, a vast cul-de-sac, flanked
by steep lofty mountains traversed from end to end by the river Lyon, rushing down in torrents and cataracts from Loch Lyon. It is a strong defensible pass like Killikrankie, Glenlochy and Glenogle.
The Romans built a camp at its entrance, such a station as commanded the passes of the Grampians throughout Perthshire. It was a stronghold of the aboriginal tribe of Venricones, who possessed
territory between the Tay on the South and the Carron on the North,comprising Gowrie, Strathmore, Stromont and Strathardle in Perth-shire, the whole of Angus and the larger part of Kincardineshire, with their chief town at Orrea on the Tay.
Sir Roger de Leonne stood by his Scottish possessions, and retained the friendship of the Scottish Monarch, for he was witness in a charter of King Edgar to the monastery of Dumfermline, dated 1105. His son, Sir Paganus de Leonne or Leonibus, was born in England about 1080. For his soul's health, and the highest christian duty, this Norman Englishman accompanied Geoffrey Plantagenet, Duke of Anjou to the Holy Land. On his return from the Crusade, he settled in England, where he did some fighting for Henry I. in the family difficulty with Duke Robert of Normandy, and in the campaign against the Welsh. He claimed lineage from the ancient Kings of Leone as 23rd
in descent from King Ataulphus, the Visgoth, successor of Alaric, who took and sacked Rome in 409 — Ataulphus, who married Placida, sister of Honorius, Emperor of the East, the son of the great Theodorius.
His son, Hugo de Leonibus, born about 1120, was seized of lands In the county of Norfolk, England, in the time of Henry II., and he was defendant m a plea of lands in the time of Richard Coeur de
Lion, 1149.
Ernald de Leonibus, born in Norfolk, about 1150, son of Hugo de Leonibus, claimed against Robert Briston, William de Grancut and Walter de Grancut, one third part in certain lands in Kettleston in the
county of Norfolk in the time of King John I. 1199. When the conqueror stumbled headlong upon Sussex soil, grasping the sand he gathered as he fell, he exclaimed, with prophetic joy, "See Seigneurs! by the splendor of God I have seized England in my two hands." The same land greed was a passion with his knights, and it besets their descendants even to this day.
The heir of Ernald de Leonibus, was John de Leonibus, alias Lyon, born about 1175, the first instance of our name being orthographically simplified as it has come down to us. He had two sons,
Pagan de Leonibus, alias Leon, born in Norfolk about 1200, and Walter de Leonibus, born about 1205. Walter de Leonibus had two sons, — Sir Henry Lyon and William de Lyon; both died without issue. Pagan de Leonibus, of Norfolk, England, married Ivette de Ferres, daughter
and heiress of William de Ferres of Cambridge. His two sons were Sir John de Lyouns, Knight, born in Norfolk about 1225, and Thomas Lyouns, who was of Woodward in Essex in the time of Edward I.
Sir John de Lyouns, first son of Pagan de Leonibus, was summoned to perform military service against the Scots 1294, when Edward subdued Scotland and imprisoned King John Baliol. He
married Marjory, daughter and co-heir of Simon de Ackle of Ackle in the county of Northampton, and died 1316 in the reign of Edward II.
Some of his descendants received the estate of Simon de Ackle, for in 1638 from Northamptonshire came John Lyne and Henry Lyne, his son, to America, and they were among the founders of New Haven.
The sons of Sir John de Lyouns were John de Lyon, Feudal Baron of Forteviot, born in Norfolk, England about 1250, and Sir Adam Lyon, Knight, born about 1255, and died without issue.
Perthshire was included in the kingdom of the Southern Picts. Their capital was removed to Forteviot from Abernathy. Later, when Forteviot was burnt by the Northmen, the chief royal residence was at Scone. Perth was the third seat of Government, but was abandoned in the reign of James II. in favor of Edinburgh.
John de Lyon, Feudal Baron of Forteviot, first son of Sir John de Lyons of Norfolk, England, had three sons*:
1. Sir Adam Lyon, Knight, born in Norfolk about 1285, who had two sons, Sir John Lyon, Knight, born about 1320, and Adam de Lyon, born about 1325.
2. Richard Lyon, born in Norfolk about 1287, who had three daughters, co-heirs, Isabella, born 1336, Cecilia born 1338 and Christina born 1345.
3. Sir John de Lyon, Knight, born in Norfolk, England, about 1290, who had a son. Sir John Lyon, who became the head of the Lyon family of Scotland.
The district of Glen Lyon in Perthshire had been in the possession of the Lyon family since 1091.
Malcolm Canmore, in being educated at the Court of Edward, the Confessor, was strongly pro-Norman, and his son King Edgar I. owed his throne to such valiant men as Sir Roger de Leonne. In the days of David I. other Anglo-Normans and Flemings settled in Scotland.
David had been trained in the Court of his brother-in-law, Henry I. "that he might be polished from the rust of Scottish barbarity." He married Maude, daughter of Walthe, Earl of Northumberland, by-
Judith, niece of William the Conqueror. When he came to his throne 1124, he was followed by a thousand Anglo-Normans and Flemings, upon whom he bestowed favors and lands, and most of the illustrious families of Scotland have their origin from the French Englishmen favorites of Edgar I. and David I., descendants of the Norman Knights who came to England at the time of the Conquest.
The life appealed to a mediaeval imagination, where every district was an independent state, with its own system of government, a sort of hereditary dukedom, allowed by the consent of each community, or clan, in the person of their chief. It was a stirring dramatic existence. Year in and year out predatory warfare and clan warfare were matters of gain and matters of strife. The strange garb of the Highland people, their weapons, their wild music, the power of the headship, and the fealty of the clansmen was a fascinating ensemble.
Every clan had its place of rendezvous, and every clansman answered in person the summons of his chief. The "tarie," the fiery cross, two pieces of wood, one end of the horizontal burnt^ and a bit of white cloth stained with blood, tied to the other, was given to two runners who sped in opposite directions, to deliver the "tarie" in turn to fresh runners. In 1215 the bearers of the fiery cross went round Loch Tay, a distance of thirty-five miles, and that same evening, five hundred men assembled under command of the Laird of Glen Lyon, to join the Earl of Mar.
The Lyons of Glen Lyon remained in high favor with the Scotch Court, for in 1372, a hundred and eighty years after the advent of Sir Roger de Leonne in Scotland, one of his descendants, John Lyon,
a grandson of John de Lyon, Feudal Baron of Forteviot, was son-in- law and Secretary of King Robert II, the first Stewart, and the founder of that dynasty. "He was a young man of very good parts
and qualities, a very graceful and comely person, and a great favorite with the King." Lyon King-at-Arms, who was a conspicuous figure at the coronation, 1371, must have been this John Lyon, pattern of superior excellences. When this dignity was constituted is lost from Court Annals. That the heraldic office was instituted as a preferment for a favorite courtier is more probable than that it took its name Lyon rex armorum, from the lion on the royal shield. The Princess Jean, youngest daughter of Robert II. fell in love with the handsome, successful John Lyon, and in 1379, he received her hand in marriage.
After the death of her first husband, she consoled herself with a second husband. Sir James Sunderlands of Calder. She was a daughter by the first wife of Robert High Stewart of Scotland, Elizabeth daughter of Sir Adam More of Powallen. (Mure)
A question as to the legitimacy of this lady, made a public declaration necessary at the accession of Robert II. and the crown was settled on John, Earl of Garrick.
Two years later a more explicit settlement was made on the King's sons by Elizabeth More, — John, Earl of Garrick, Robert, Earl of Fife, and Alexander, Lord Badenoch; falling them, on the sons of the second wife, Euphemie Ross, — David, Earl of Strathearn, and Walter, his brother.
John Lyon, by his marriage with the lady Jean Stewart, was brought into the reigning family. Wise in world-craft, he had nicely dominated the King whom Froissart represents as "not valiant, with
red, bleared eyes, who would rather lie still than ride," for by a charter dated March 13th, 1372, he received the lands and Thanedom of Glamis, a charter which says: "pro laudabili et fideli servitio con-
tinuis laborius."
The title of Thane of Glamis is an old one. Malcolm II. (1005- 1034) had two daughters. One of them married Crymin, Lord of the Isles and of Western Scotland, and was the mother of King Duncan,
the successor of her royal father. The second daughter married Sinel, Thane of Glamis, and was the mother of Macbeth, also the mother-in- law of that psychological mystery. Lady Macbeth. Glamis Castle, until it passed to John Lyon (on his marriage to the Princess Jean) had been a royal residence for a line of Kings that date back to Kenneth I. 850, A. D.
This hoary pile, historically famous, stands in the fertile vale of Strathmore, in Forfarshire, not far from Dundee, with the Sedlaw Hills to the South, and the lofty Grampians to the North. The glamour
of feudal times is all round about it, from its base to the summit of its towers that rise a hundred and fifteen feet above the ground, and the great dead dwell there in invisible life through the remembrance
of their deeds. It is claimed that the huge blocks of red sandstone of the earliest portion of the structure have been standing since 1016, the eleventh year of the reign of Malcolm II., father-in-law of Sinel, Thane of Glamis. Patrick Lyon, first earl of Strathmore* and third of Kinghorn, made extensive restoration and improvement about 1605.
Sir Walter Scott lamented over the disappearance of the walled eourt yards, and the moat, the defensive boundaries of the huge old Tower of Glamis, when he revisited the Castle after the devastation of a ruthless, capricious architect. Within the storied walls King Duncan was done to death by his ambitious cousin-german, Macbeth. It was the death-place of Malcolm II. from the wounds treacherously given by Kenneth V. an event of blood made authentic by the early
chroniclers. The Commonwealth soldiers prayed long prayers and sang loud psalms in that house of murder, and the Pretender pined and plotted there for a brief season.
Gossip has spread a tale of a mysterious grisly something, a secret not a substance, that is master of the Earl. When his eldest son becomes of age, this ghost of a wrong that must be righted is disclosed
to still another Lyon, and the thing dogs him till the hour of his death, making him of the past and guilty of a crime that calls for reparation. This gives a White-Lady-Banshee sort of mystery to the
awesome old castle.
Besides the lands and Thanedom of Glamis, the King bestowed upon his son-in-law, John Lyon, the Loch of Forfar, and the land of Kinghorn, and through his marriage came the right to carry the double
tressure fleuried and counter-fleuried in the bearing of the family*. He rose to be High Lord Chamberlain of Scotland and Ambassador to England. This increasing power excited the envy of Sir James Lindsay, and he fell in a duel provoked by this Judas friend at the Moor of Balhall in 1383. He and his royal consort were interred at Scone, the coronation place of the Kings of Scotland, destroyed during the Reformation. There still exists an indenture, dated 1433, between his son, John Lyon, Knight of Glamys, and the Abbot of Scone, confirming a grant of forty shillings annually made by his late father for masses for the repose of the souls of Sir John Lyon and Lady Jean, his spouse.
Sir John Lyon, Knight of Glamys, who fifty years after the death of his father still continued the pious custom of paying for masses for the souls of his illustrious parents, married the Lady Elizabeth
Graham, daughter of Patrick, Earl of Strathern, by Euphemia, Countess Palatine of Strathern, a granddaughter of Robert II.
His young man-hood was spent in tumultuous times. Disorders were rife in the Highlands, and the feuds of the clans were augmented by Alexander Badenoch, the fourth son of Robert II., whom his indolent father had constituted Lieutenant Governor, from the limits of Moray to Pentland Frith. The Wolf of Badenoch was the uncle of Sir John Lyon, Knight Lord of Glamys. He seized the lands of Alexander Bard, Bishop of Moray, and was excommunicated for this outrage.
In a frenzy of vengeance, he descended from the heights and burnt Forres, May, 1390, with the church and the Manse of the Archdeacons, and in June of the same year he burnt Elgin, the church of St. Giles, the hospital of Maison Dieu, the Cathedral, a splendid ecclesiastical pile, and the houses of the canons and chaplains in the College of Elgin, plundered the churches and carried off the sacred utensils and vestments. For this sacrilege against a See of Rome, the Lord of Badenoch was compelled to make full reparation, and was then absolved by Walter Trail, Bishop of St. Andrews, in the church of the Black Friars in Perth, in the presence of his brother. King Robert III. and
the nobility of Scotland.
Sir John Lyon, Knight of Glamys, was succeeded by his son, Sir Patrick Lyon.* He, too, saw turmoil and tragedy. On March 28th, 1424, he was delivered up to the English as one of the hostages for the
ransom of James I. and not released till June, 1427. Doubtless he loved the monarch of advanced ideas and elegant accomplishments, and the horror of the midnight regicide in the Monastery of the
Dominicans at Perth came to him as the blackest deed in his country's sombre chronicles.
But Patrick Lyon had sustaining ambitions, for this feudal chief was made a peer of Parliament as Lord Glamis in 1445, the eighth year of the reign of James II. and was appointed Master of the King's household in 1452. He married Isabel, daughter of Alexander Ogilvy, and had three sons and a daughter, — Alexander, 2nd Lord Glamis, John, 3rd Lord, William Lyon, Master of the Lyons of Easter Ogil of County Forfar, and Elizabeth, who married Alexander Robertson. Patrick Lyon first Lord Glamis, grandson of Sir John Lyon and the Princess Jean, died 1459.
His eldest son, Alexander Lyon, had died without issue, and the Barony devolved upon the second son, John Lyon, 3rd Lord Glamis, who was Privy Councillor to James IV, and Justice General of Scotland. He married Elizabeth daughter of Sir John Scrimguor of Dunlope, Constable of Dundee, and died 1494, and was succeeded by his son John Lyon, fourth Lord Glamis, who was succeeded twelve years later by his eldest son by Emily, daughter of Lord Gray, George Lyon, fifth
Lord Glamis. He died unmarried, and the title passed to his bi'other John Lyon, sixth Lord Glamis.
John Lyon, third Lord Glamis, John Lyon, fourth Lord Glamis, George Lyon, fifth Lord Glamis; and John Lyon, sixth Lord Glamis, lived in the reign of James IV., a reign of twenty-five years. Battle,
murder and execution are absent from the annals of the Monarch who loved chivalrous display, tournaments and martial exercise. A season of peace blessed the land that had been harrowed for ages by private wars and civil wars.
The Court was merry, but far from moral. Leniency was for one and all. Gifts and favors made loyal subjects, and the chiefs of the Highlands shared the largess with the barons. The two raids
across the border in behalf of the impostor, Perkin Warbeck, were mere incidents of Arms, and there was not a real cloud of threatening on the political horizon of Scotland till after the marriage of James
IV. and Margaret Tudor in 1502. The death of Henry VII. changed the friendly relations between England and Scotland.
Henry VIII. did not like the marriage of his young sister, and refused to deliver a legacy of jewels left to the Queen by her royal father. Mutual privateering and border fray increased the bad feeling,
and the continental policy of Henry in regard to the struggle in Italy between Louis XII. and Pope Julian I. easily provoked a war. James renewed his alliance with the King of France 1513. The herald who brought the declaration was the Scotch Lord Lyon, another Lyon King-at-Arms or Lion-King-at-Arms one of the Perthshire courtiers, or an Earl Marschal, keeper of the heraldic beasts of the royal shield.
The largest army ever raised in Scotland met the English at Flodden Field. Among the 12,000 dead in that "no quarter" massacre was the King; the nobility was almost decimated, and many families lost all their sons. The mortality was terrible in an age when the Temple of Janus was always open. Dugdale of the "Baronage" says: "For of no less than 270 families touching which this first volume doth take notice, there will hardly be found above eight which do to this continue, and of those not anj' whose estates — compared with what their ancestors enjoyed — are not a little diminished, — nor of that number — I mean 270 — above twenty-four who are by any younger male
branch descended from them, for aught I can discover."-
Of the gentry of Berkshire he continued, "It is remarkable that there is not one family descended in the male line from any of the gentry ennumerated in the above list, now left in the country." The
males of either kingdom were born to be battle-slauglitered. The mothers spared the grief of losing all their sons were fevv'.
John Lyon, sixth Lord Glamis, was not among the slain at Flodden, but lived to fight another day. He married Janet Douglas, a woman of rare beauty, daughter of George, Master of Angus, and grand-
daughter of the great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and had a son, John Lyon, seventh Lord Glamis. In the struggle between Angus and Arran in the rising of the Highlands to uphold the claim of
Macdonald to the Lordship of the Isles, Glamis supported Angus" in the hostilities that went on for several years, till it ended in a fight in the streets of Edinburgh, where the victorious Angus drove Arran out of the town and seized the castle. In 1525 Angus, with Beaton, obtained possession of the person of the boy King James V. to govern in his name in a regency that lasted till 1528, the year of the death of John Lyon, sixth Lord Glamis.
His widow, the beautiful Janet Douglas, took as her second husband, Archibald Campbell of Kepneith. Another Campbell fell in love with his kinsman's fair wife, and to revenge a repulse, gave information to the authorities that she and her husband, her young son John Lyon, seventh Lord Glamis, John Lyon a relative, and an old priest were conspiring against the life of the King by poison and witchcraft. They were tried for high treason and condemned on the evidence of a perjurer, and sentenced to be burned at the stake.
Campbell attempted to escape, but was dashed to pieces on the rocks below the window of his prison. But Lady Glamas died publicly by fire on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, July 12th, 1537. Owing to his
tender years, John Lyon, seventh Lord Glamis, was spared the horrible fate of his unfortunate mother, notwithstanding he had been convicted of treason, July 10th, 1537, of being "art and part of concealing and not revealing of the conspiring and imagination in the destruction of King James V. by poison, imagined and conspired by Janet, Lady Glamis, his mother, to which he consented and was art and part with her." He was returned to prison, and the sentence suspended till he should come of age.
The accuser of Glamis and his mother, on his death-bed, a prey to remorse (some authorities say "one Lyon") avowed his crime of swearing away the life of Lady Glam.is and her son. The young
Lord Glamis was given his freedom, and being a minor was placed under the care of his uncle Alexander Lyon. His estates were forfeited to the Crown by an act of Parliament, December 3rd, 1540. In January, 1542-3, he instituted a summons of redemption of forfeiture and was rescinded. The following March he was restored to his estates and honors by Parliament. He came into favor after the heart of James V. was broken by the treacherous desertion of the nobles.
During the regency of Arran and Mary of Guise, when the "orphan lass," Mary Stuart, was Queen of Scotland, he had charters for various lands in Aberdeenshire in 1543-4, and of the Barony of Kinghorne forfeited by James Kirkaldy of Grange 1548. His death occurred in 1558,
twenty-one years after the terrible death of his innocent mother.
John Lyon, seventh Lord Glamis, married Janet Keith, sister of William, fourth Earl of Marishal, and had two sons, John Lyon, eighth Lord Glamis, and Hon. Sir Thomas Lyon, known to fame as the
Master of Glamis. (Also a daughter Margaret 1547- 1626)
Before the death of the seventh Lord Glamis, the Reformation had been gradually spreading in Scotland, but he may have held aloof from the religious movement that was paramount during the life of his sons. In 1548 Mary Stuart as the betrothed of the Dauphin, had been sent to the Court of France to be brovight up with the children of Henry H. and Catherine ae Medici. The Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, a master of tact and craft, had gained the nobles by her gracious promises, and the people by tolerating the Reformation so ' far that only one disagreeable incident had occurred, the execution of "a simple but over zealous man for the new doctrine." After the death of Edward VI. 1553, the Scottish adherents of the Reformation who had taken refuge in England had to go abroad or return home to escape the persecution of Mary Tudor. The powerful preachers, Harlow and Whitlock and Knox organized the church in Scotland and the ministers of the Congregation were planted. Knox received Edinburgh for his charge," and Perth and Sterling were committed to the Congregation.
A bond drawn up in 1557 by Argyle, Morton, Lome and Erskine "to defend the whole Congregation of Christ and every member thereof against Satan and all wicked powers," was the first Covenant.
When the Regent, Mary of Guise, deserted by the Scottish nobility, came to die, to conform had become general. The Parliament of that year (1560), the great Reformation Parliament, was attended by the nobles, bishops, lesser barons, landed gentry, and representatives. On August 10th the Confession of Faith was sanctioned by the estates, and on August 24th an act was passed prohibiting the rites by the church of Rome. Athole, Summerville, Caithness and Bothwell alone
of all the nobles voted against the Confession, and the power of the State was in the hands of the party of the Reformation. If but four of the nobles voted against the Confession, then the sons of John
Lyon, seventh Lord Glamis, John Lyon, eighth Lord Glamis, and the Thomas Lyon, Master of Glamis, must have stood in line with the times through an evolution of opinion, and accepted the new order of things in active approbation.
The wheel of history was making some dizzy revolutions in Scotland, carrying the Lyon family onward in a rush of peculiar events. The widow. Queen Mary, had come home from France to a
career of capers and intrigues, of conspiracies and crimes, and the thunder-bolts of John Knox could not frighten her back from destruction. Her ill-advised marriage with her cousin, Lord Darnley, the
birth of her son, the heir to the throne, the murder of David Rizzio, the retaliatory murder of Darnley, and the suspicion of the Queen's consent to the death of her husband, Bothwell's indecent wooing when the royal dead was just buried. Queen Mary's mad marriage with the Black Earl, the rebellion of her outraged subjects, the surrender at Carbary Hill, and the escape from Lochleven Castle were the
extraordinary happenings of seven years of Scottish history.
The Lyons drew near together while their giddy sovereign achieved ner own ruin, distrustful of the spinster daughter of Henry VIII. and remembering the few that came home from Flodden Field, put
their own house in order with a prayer that one might be spared. In a charter dated April 23rd, 1567, John Lyon, eighth Lord Glamis, made an entail of his estates of Glamis, Towndyce and Baky in Forfarshire, Cullan, Buttergask, Langforyard and Irchture in Perthshire, Bethelvic, Ardendracht, Collistown, Coustertown and Drumgowan in Aberdeenshire, on himself and the male heirs of his body, Thomas Lyon, his brother, John Lyon of Haltown of Esse, James Lyon of Easter Ogill,
John Lyon of Culwalogy, and the heirs of their bodies, respectively, which failing, to his own nearest heirs male whatsoever bearing the name and Arms of Lyon.
This charter gives the headship of five prominent branches of the Lyon family of Scotland in 1567, John Lyon, eighth Lord Glamis; Thomas Lyon, Master of Glamis; John Lyon of Haltown of Esse; James Lyon of Easter Ogill, and John Lyon of Culwalogy, all lineal descendants of the Feudal Baron John de Lyon of Fortevoit.
The eighth Lord Glamis had a charter of the Barony of Balky to himself and his wife, Elizabeth Abernathy, daughter of Lord Salton, dated 2nd July, 1569, the sixth month of Moray's Regency. During the Regencies of Lenox, Mar, and Morton, he rose to prominence.
He was sworn a Privy Councillor and constituted an Extraordinary Lord of the session, 30th September, 1570, held it till 24th October, 1573, and in 1575 was promoted to the office of High Chancellor of Scotland. In the meantime, Moray and Lenox had died by violence, and Mar by
foul play. The death of John Knox, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew had been simultaneous events.
In March, 1578, John Lyon, Lord of Glamis, was deputed to signify to the Earl of Morton, Regent of Scotland, that the King had now resolved to take the administration of the national affairs in his own
hands. The 27th day of the same month the eighth Lord Glamis was killed at Sterling in an accidental encounter between his own followers and those of the Earl of Crawford. He was counted one of the ablest men of his own party, and Douglas took pride in mentioning that John Lyon had a correspondence with Beza, the French reformer and Calvanistic theologian, on the subject of church polity and the doctrines of the Prophet of Geneva.
He had one son, Patrick Lyon, ninth Lord Glamis and two daughters, the Hon. Jean Lyon, who married;
1st Robert Douglas, the younger of Lochleven;
2nd 1586 Archibald, eighth Lord of Angus,
3rd Alexander, Lord Spynie, and the
Hon. Elizabeth Lyon who married Patrick, seventh Earl Gray.
The Hon, Thomas Lyon, designated Master of Glamis as presumptive heir to the title, increased his estates in the short tenure of the death-shadowed Regents, Lenox, Mar, and Morton. He had charters
to "Thomas Lyon, brother of John, Lord Glamis" of Seragesfield, 18th September, 1571; of the Dominical lands of Balumbu. also the lands of Gogar, and Grugar in the counties of Edinburgh and Air, to "Thomas Lyon of Balkouky, Master of Glamis and Agnes Gray, Lady Home, his wife, 20th June, 1579, of the Barony of Melgownd," etc., in Forfarshire, to them 6th May, 1586.
Morton, in 1581, was accused in the Council of Holyrood for complicity in the murder of Darnley. He was tried and on his own confession that Bothwell had revealed to him the plot to kill the
Queen's husband, was convicted as an accomplice in the crime.
The management of the affairs of the realm passed to Lenox and Stewart. One had been created a Duke, and the other received the Earldom of Arran. These two ambitious personages in 1582 were in a plot to associate Mary Stuart with her son in the Government, to renew the league with France, and through a breach with England to restore the church of Rome. Bribes won even many of the nobility
to this hazardous scheme The Presbyterian ministers were not approachable, and an illegal banishment of the clergy was expedient.
A proclamation for an Extraordinary Chamberlain Air — an itinerant Court of Justice — to be held at Lenox, precipitated the Raid of Ruthvan. where the Master of Glamis was one of the principal agents in the seizure of the person of the King. James was on a visit to the Earl of Cowrie at the Castle of Hunting Tower near Perth. During the absence of Lenox and Arran, the Master of Glamis, with some others, surrounded the Castle with armed men, and with Gowrie made James VI. a prisoner. The King, trusting none and fearing all, started toward the door in an impulse of flight, but the Master of Glamis stayed his going.
The apprehensive James in his alarmed agitation burst into tears, exclaiming "No matter, better children weep than armed men," and surrendered to these new enforced guardians. Arran, on his return to Perth, was cast into prison by this other band of conspirators, and Lenox took refuge in Dumbarton Castle, and soon fled to France.
The tutelage of the Protestant nobles was disagreeable and irritating to the royal youth, and at length he escaped from Falkland to St. Andrews. The Raid of Ruthvan was declared high treason. The
Earl of Gowrie was taken and executed for his political crime. But the Master of Glamis fled to England to review the situation and readjust his plans.
In May of the same year, Thomas Lyon returned to Scotland, and with the Earls of Angus and Mar, seized Sterling Castle and assumed the Government. But they were presently obliged to fly
across the border. The following year the Master of Glamis and the other banished nobles came north, bringing a great force with them. They invaded the Palace and compelled Stewart, Earl of Arran, to quit the royal presence. This high-handed disloyalty was graciously forgiven, and they were restored to favor. Thomas Lyon received the prodigal's ring and embrace in being appointed Captain of the King's Guards in the place of Arran, and was made high treasurer of Scotland.
He was also constituted an extraordinary Lord of the Session, held the position for six years, then was re-appointed and sat till May 28th, 1593.
The nobility and landed gentry were spoilsmen and quick to take advantage of the King's privilege to grant feus of church lands annexed to the Crown. The Master of Glamis, the prime mover In the Raid of Ruthvan, must have rated his second treason of the seizure of Sterling Castle and the person of James VI. as a service rendered to his sovereign. By force of argument of a Calvanistic turn,
he may have appeased the sombre yet fickle conscience of an unfilial son in the days of fretful remorse or religious excitement after Mary Stuart expiated her follies on the block at Fortheringay. James had needs to lean upon a character of tremendous strength, and nothing daunted Thomas Lyon. Tomorrow was seen through a veil of sickening uneasiness. It might be his turn next. Out from the dank crypt of history came a grisly procession of Scottish Kings to point to their wounds and remind him that the divinity that hedged him 'round would not save him from the swords of the lawless Barons. The headless ghost of his crown-robbed mother lurked behind the hangings of his chamber. He did not remember her fair face, and he had been told that she was a baggage who had sinned many sins. But he had sided against the woman who bore him, for a woman who delivered her royal person to the heads-man.
An axe-blow could sever the stem of his own neck, if his terrible cousin in the ruff and farthingale had him within her borders. And while the miserable young Monarch, haunted by horrors that had
come to pass, and horrors that were yet to be, fretted over the Government of a turbulent and fearful people, the few near his person, by indulging his humors, reaped much benefit. Thomas Lyon received a charter of Tullock and Crawquhy in Forfarshire, August 19th, 1587, "to Thomas Lyon of Baldoukie, His Majesty's treasurer. Master of Glamis, of Corstown, and of the Barony of Dod in Forfarshire, to him and Eufamia Douglas, his wife, November 7th, 1589," adding substantially to his estate.
The King in 1585, "was become a brave prince in bodie and ptature, so well exercised in reading that he could perfitlie record all things he had either heard or read. Therefore that noble King Frederic
II. of Denmark, who had then twa daughters, was willing (gif it suld please our King) either to give him the choice of thaim, or that he would accept the one of thaim as it suld please the father to bestow guhilk suld be maist comely, and the best for his princelie contentment." To Danish Anna fell the honor of being the royal bride. After a long proxy courtship, a romantic marriage, and a honeymoon spent at Upslo, the Danish princess was brought home to Scotland, and her coronation took place within the Abbey of Holyrood on the 17th of May, 1590. "Twa high places were appointed there, one for the King and the other for the Queen.
The King's procession, having entered the Abbey, that of the Queen, preceded by several Danish nobles, magnificently dressed, with diamond chains about their necks, then came the Scottish nobles and heralds; Lord Lion, King-at-Arms, ushered Lord Thirlstone bearing between his two hands the Queen's Crown, then followed the Queen herself in royal robes."
The company and the ceremony were splendidly imposing as described in a contemporary chronicle. Here, as at the coronation of Robert II., Lion-King-at-Arms was a striking feature of an historical pageant. Princely revelry on that May Sunday, frightened the Holyrood ghosts back to the shades. On Tuesday the Queen, in a gilded coach, the King and the Court, had a street parade in Edinburgh, and the festivities were prolonged even into the month of June. Thomas Lyon, Master of Glamis, was Knighted while the coronation rejoicing was in progress. On May 27th, 1590, the Scottish statesman and soldier knelt before the royal pair and was dubbed Sir Knight. He was still among the King's advisers and held the important office of high treasurer of Scotland till 1595.
After 1571 he had married Agnes Gray, Lady Howe, third daughter of the fifth Lord Howe, widow of Sir Robert Logan, and of Alexander, fifth Lord Howe; and for a second wife, he married Lady Eufamia Douglas. There was another charter granted to him April 6th, 1594, "to Thomas Lyon of Auldbar, Knight, and Euphemia Douglas his wife."
From the return of the banished Lords in 1585, he had remained in favor with the King, faithful to the best interests of his sovereign, and when death ended his eventful life James I. of Scotland and I. of England said: "The boldest and hardest man of my dominion is dead." But two of his children are on record, a daughter, Mary Lyon, who married Robert Semphell of Bellars, and a son, John Lyon, who, August 6th, 1608, served as heir to his father, Sir Thomas Lyon, Knight, in the Barony of Melgund lands of Auldbar, etc., etc.
But he may have had other sons forgotten by an absentee King and omitted in the family annals. John Lyon of Auldbar married a daughter of George Gladstone, Archbishop of St. Andrews. He must have died before 1617 without issue, or lost favor through some political blunder and forfeited his estates, involving all other descendants of Sir Thomas Lyon, Knight.
At any rate, Anne Murray, Countess of Kinghorne, and her son, John Lyon, second Earl of King-
horne, August 8th, 1617, had a charter to the Barony of Auldbar in Forfarshire. The lands of Auldbar had been given by Earl Patrick to his second son, Hon. James Lyon, who died without issue, and this
estate reverted to the family. The next Lyon of Auldbar, after a lapse of three generations, was John Lyon, Esq., of Brachin in North Britain, a great grandson of the famous Master of Glamis, Sir Thomas Lyon.
Patrick, ninth Lord Glamis, being a minor at the time of the death of his father, John Lyon, eighth Lord, in 1578, was placed under the tuition of his uncle. Sir Thomas Lyon, who was afterward (1585)
high treasurer of Scotland. He served as heir in general of his grandfather, John Lyon, seventh Lord Glamis, January 29th, 1600.
Through his rank he received a remission under the great seal, dated 15th of September, 1601, of penalty for a transgression of violence to him and his five servants, for the slaughter of Patrick Johnstown in Haltown of Belhelote, slain on the 6th of September, accidental homicide, justifiable homicide and incidental homicide, misfortunate matters too common with the nobility and the gentry not to be easily pardoned. In 1604, Lord Patrick Lyon was sworn a privy councillor of James VI, and chosen by Parliament as one of the Commissioners to treat of the Union with England.
Favors continued to be heaped upon him. He had charters of Ardwork in Forfarshire 8th of August, 1605, of Kingseat in Aberdeenshire 17th June, 1606, and by a patent dated 10th July, 1606, was raised
to the dignity of Earl of Kinghorne, Lord Lyon and Glamis.
He and his wife, Anne Murray, and their second son, James Lyon, had charter of Wester Drynic in Forfarshire, 20th May, 1608, of the Isle of Inch Keith and right to the patronage of Kinghorne, 10th June, 1609, of the Barony of Farnadic the following year and of the dominical lands of Hurley in 1613.
His death occurred December 19th, 1615, and he was succeeded by his eldest son, John Lyon, second Earl of Kinghorne. He had also a daughter, Anne, who married the Earl of Errol, and a third son, Hon. Fredrick Lyon, who got from his father the lands of Brighton and was the ancestor of the Lyons of Brighton. John Lyon, tenth Lord Glamis and second Earl of Kinghorne, was a minor when he came into his lands and titles. In 1603, at the succession of King James VI., Scotland had become a part of England, the home of the elder branch of the Lyon family.
Sir Adam Lyon, first son of John de Lyon, Feudal Baron of Forteviot, the descendant of the Norman de Leonne who fought at Hastings with the Conqueror, was of Norfolk, England, at the time his brother John de Lyon, married the Princess Jean, daughter of Robert High Stewart of Scotland.*
Sir Adam Lyon, Knight, had two sons,
1. Sir John Lyon born about 1320, who was Knighted by Edward III. and
2. Adam de Lyon born about 1325. Sir John Lyon, Knight of Norfolk, had three sons, — Sir Richard Lyon born about 1350, and Sir John Lyon born about 1353, both Knighted by Edward IV. and Henry Lyon born about 1355.
Henry Lyon of Rystippe, Middlesex, born in Norfolk about 1355, great grandson of John de Lyon, Feudal Baron of Forteviot, had a son,
John Lyon, born at Rystippe about 1380.
He was with the army of Henry V. that invaded Normandy, and was at Agincourt, amid the splendid pageantry of a war that made England heir to the Crown of France, and was present at the famous battle. He had a son, Henry Lyon, born at Rystippe about 1410, the second of a name which became a heritage among the Lyons.
John was a favorite prenomen with the English as well as the Scotch Lyons. Thomas and William were also baptismal names repeated from generation to generation. The name of Adam came in use in 1225, that of Richard 1350 and that of Henry in 1355.
Henry Lyon of Rystippe, born about 1410, had four sons all born at Rystippe,
1. Henry born about 1440,
2. John born about 1450,
3. Thomas born about 1455 and
4. William born about 1458, who died without issue.
Henry Lyon of Rystippe, Middlesex, England (1440), the third of the name, had two sons, —
1st John, born about 1470, and
2nd, William, born about 1475.
L2 John Lyon (1450), second son of Henry of Rystippe, had a son,
John Lyon of Preston, Middlesex County, born 1500, who was the founder of the famous English school of Harrow-on-the-Hill, ten miles from London. This philanthropic yeoman of Preston yearly set aside the sum of twenty marks for the education of the poor children of Harrow. The school of Harrow was founded 1571. Queen Elizabeth granted the charter. But the statutes were drawn up by the founder in 1590. However, the first building was not completed till 1611.
At his death, October 3rd, 1592, he settled two-thirds of his property on the school, and left the other third for the maintenance of a high- road between Harrow and London. John Lyon and his widow, Jean Lyon, who died August 30th, 1608, are buried at Harrow.
They had —
Mary, born at Preston 1540, buried at Harrow December 13th, 1568,
Jean, born at Preston 1545. buried at Harrow, May 13th, 1559, and
Zachery, born at Preston 1560, died without issue, and was buried at Harrow, May 11th, 1583.
It is a pleasing coincidence that Mary Lyon, the American Educator, Founder of Mount Holyoke Seminary (now College), for the higher education of women, should have borne the name of the eldest daughter of John Lyon, founder of the great school of Harrow-on-the-Hill.
L3 Thomas Lyon (1455) of Perefore Middlesex County, third son of Henry Lyon of Rystippe, had two sons. The first of these was
Sir John Lyon, born about 1490, who was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth. In 1550 he was made an Alderman of London and High Sheriff and in 1554 was Lord Mayor.
By his wife Alicia he had a son,
John Lyon, born about 1550 and died without issue 1620. The second son of Thomas Lyon (1455), was
Henry Lyon of Roxley in Lincolnshire. By his wife Dorothy, he had two sons,
Richard Lyon of West Twyford, Middlesex County, born about 1532, and
Henry Lyon of Harrow-on- the-Hill, born about 1550, who died October 16th, 1590.
Richard Lyon, of West Twyford 1532, by his first wife Agnes, had a son
Henry Lyon of Roxley in Lincolnshire, born about 1655, who married Catherine Rithe, and had issue, also issue by his second wife, Mabilla, daughter of Adam Dornell of Thornhohn, Lincolnshire. By his second wife, Isabella Millet, Richard Lyon of Twyford had three children,
1. John Lyon born about 1560, died without issue,
2. Dorothy Lyon, born 1565, married Humphrey Hyde of Northeste, Berkshire, had issue, and
3. Catherine Lyon, born 1570, married William Gifford of Northeste, Middlesex County, and had issue.
John Lyon of Rystippe, the third, first son of Henry Lyon (1440), was born there 1470. He married Emma Hedde, and had four sons,
1. Henry Lyon, born 1500,
2. Thomas, born 1503,
3. Richard, born 1505, and
4. John, born 1510.
It is a singular fact that of the fifteen Lyons who came to the American Colonies between 1638-1683, twelve of them bore the distinctive family names of these sons of John Lyon of Rystippe, the exception being William of Roxbury, and Peter and George Lyon of Dorchester.
However, William was a name that began with the William Lyon who was born at Rystippe 1640 and continued in favor.
He would not realize his danger. Moral and physical cowardice were not among his weaknesses. They dared not, this Round-head Court, that arraigned their Sovereign in Westminster Hall. He embodied feudalism; and through the nightmare hours of the seven days' trial he sat in majestic composure, eyeing Bradshaw, in his scarlet robe and high hat; eyeing the bewildered spectators; eyeing Cromwell half expecting at some shout of God Save the King! the armed force and the nervous populace that packed the hall would turn upon his self-appoiuted judges. Then the headsman's arm would be weary of swinging the axe, and those that died for this treason would be a multitude.
His sentence was passed in the midst of confusion. "Justice! Execution!" was the cry that followed him from the court of the regicides to Whitehall; from Whitehall to St. James, to the Banqueting House at Whitehall, that bitter mid-winter day.
But when he passed through the window at the further end of the Banqueting Hall to the scaffold raised in the street, no voice was lifted in mockery or malice. Dense masses of soldiery were far and
near, the mournful cries of the populace in the distance were borne weirdly to him by the low wind. And the great pack of Puritan warriors waited in breathless expectancy while the King adressel his
last speech to Bishop Tuxon and Colonel Tomlinson, inside the window.
He spoke with the executioner. He put his flowing hair under a cap. He threw off his coat and gave his "George" to the Bishop saying, "Remember," a word of mystery, of significance. He stood in profound meditation, whispered a brief prayer, and knelt at the block, the altar of expiation, and with one blow his royal head was severed from his body.
As if from the hill of Golgotha when the Son of Man gave up the ghost, a simultaneous groan broke from that vast assembly, from the armed Puritans and from the crowded people who neither heard
nor saw. It was consummated. And they wrapped him in the ermine of his rank and called him a martyr. Troops of horse dispersed the crowd and night rung down the curtain on the greatest drama of English history.
Note: — Agnes Strickland says in her "Lives of the Queens of England," to establish the date of the execution; "It was found, withal, that no inscription had been placed on the royal coffin. One of the
gentlemen present supplied this want by simple but effectual expedient. A band of sheet lead was procured, and they cut out of it with pen knives spaces in the form of large letters so that the
words
CHARLES REX 1648
could be read, the leaden band was then lapped round the coffin." "Many absurd tales regarding the disposal of the corpse of Charles I. were circulated among the enemies of Monarchy in the course of the last century.
These were all set at rest by the accidental discovery of the vault containing his remains and those of Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour, which were equally forgotten. King George IV. on the evening of the funeral of his aunt, the Duchess of Brunswick, 1813, went, attended by Sir Henry Halford and several Noblemen, and assisted personally at the opening of Charles I.'s coffin, when the corpse was satisfactorily recognized."
Narrative by Sir Henry Halford.
SOME NEW WORLD LYONS.
Henry, Thomas and Richard Lyon, Lyons of Glen Lyon in Perthshire, soldiers in Cromwell's army, were on guard before the Banqueting House at Whitehall on January 30th, 1648, and they witnessed
the execution of Charles I. A tremendous reaction followed the regicide, and many a Puritan and Covenanter patriot of the insurgent army disappeared from London in the confusion of the horror of the days the headless corpse of the Monarch remained at St. James Palace, till it was deposited in the vaults of the Chapel at Windsor.
The King was dead — long live the King! After an interregnum of a few tomorrows another Stuart would come to the throne, and the years of his regent-ruled minority would be a sorry reckoning for
those who bore arms against his discrowned and dishonored sire.
The Scots never acted as an integral body. Every clan was an independent force that withdrew at the discretion of its chieftain. The three Lyon hrothers from Glen Lyon, took advantage of a national
privilege. They had kinsmen in Middlesex and Norfolk counties who may have kept them in concealment pending a departure of a ship for the Colonies across the sea. Over there they had kindred in the new Fatherland of Freemen.
It is a rational supposition that Henry, Thomas and Richard Lyon landed at New Haven. There lived John Lyne of Badby, Northamptonshire, England, one of that opulent company of two hundred
fifty persons who came from London on the ship "Hector" January 12th, 1638, with Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins as their directors and the Puritan divine, John Davenport, as their spiritual
guide, to plant an independent colony on the Connecticut Coast.
And when the Plantation Covenant was signed, June 4th, 1638, John Lyne affixed his signature among names that became historic when the story of New England was told. They were an anti-Monarchal people strongly in sympathy with the Parliamentarian party. To their hospitable protection came the Regicides, Goffe and Whalley, in later troublous times. The young Scots from Perthshire were sure of a welcome. Their news was waited for in every town and settlement. But it would be detailed in whispers behind barred doors. Other Lyon emigrants had preceded the three who stood beneath the scaffold at Whitehall, when the second executioner, the grey-beard mask, lifted the bleeding head and announced, "This is the head of a traitor!"
Colonel John Lyon of the Scottish Guards of Henry IV. of France, had a son William Lyon, who was denounced as a heretic at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholemew, 1572. He escaped to Holland, and finally came to America with his three children.*
The next to come to a remote world were the orphan sons of William and Anne Lyon of Heston, in Middlesex County, England.
John Lyon, the eldest, aged 18 years, came in the ship "Hopewell," Captain Babb, February 12th, 1634.
The following year his brother, William Lyon, aged 14 years, came in the "Hopewell," September, 1635.
John Lyne of New Haven from Badby, Northamptonshire, England, is the fourth on record.
With him was his son, Henry Lyne or Lyon. Henry Lyon married Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Harrison of West Kirby, Cheshire, England, the same Richard Harrison who removed from New Haven to Branford, and came with the Branford Colony to Newark, New Jersey, 1666, as one of its founders. Elizabeth Harrison, widow of Henry Lyon, became the third wife of Mr. John Morris,* who was one of the signers of the New Haven Plantation Covenant, and he was one of the Milford Colony that planted Newark. On June 18th, 1668, he and his wife were appointed guardians of Hopestill Lyne, a minor.
In the New Jersey archives is a certificate, "that Hopestill Lyne, 6 to 7 years old,, the daughter of Henry Lyne of New Haven, the son of John Lyne of Badby, Northamptonshire, which Henry died January 14th, 1662, and had child Hopestill by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Harrison of West Kirby, Cheshire, England, is still alive, as sworn to by Richard Harrison, Thomas Johnston, William Meeker and Ellen Johnston."
Henry Lyne doubtless spelled his name Lyon.
The sixth on the list of emigrants, is John Lyon, who was at Salem from 1638 to 1648.
The seventh is Peter Lyon, probably from Middlesex, England, who was at Dorchester, as a proprietor, 1639, was a freeman 1649 and died before 1694.
Then came another English Lyon, Thomas Lyon from Yorkshire, who appeared on Byram River
1640, antedating the advent in that locality of the ScotchThomas Lyon by thirty-three years. (?)
The ninth is Richard Lyon of Cambridge, who was sent from England by Sir Henry Mildmay as a tutor for his son William, at Harvard, 1644. He was co-adjutor of President Demster in improving the New England version of the Psalms.
Another John Lyon was at Marblehead, 1648. In 1648 came Henry, Thomas and Richard Lyon, Lyons of Glen Lyon. The last of the list is George Lyon of Dorchester, 1666 a freeman, 1669. In 1678 he joined the church at Milton, Mass. He may have been a brother of Peter Lyon of Dorchester.
There may be duplications in the foil of first-comers, and the identity of others lost in the mystery of meagre information. I have found no trace of the descendants of William Lyon, the heretic son of
Colonel John Lyon of the Scottish Guards of Henry IV. of France.
But there may be those in the female line who will make themselves known. John Lyon of Salem, 1638-48, may be the John Lyon of Heston who came in the "Hopewell" 1635, and Thomas Lyon of Yorkshire, who, it is said, was at Byram Point in 1640, may have been confused with the Thomas Lyon of Fairfield, whose immediate descendants were so much in evidence from the "Liberty of North Castle," around Byram Point, and along the River and in the White Plains, "named for the balsam which grew there."
This asserted early arrival of the Lyon family at either side of the Connecticut and New York line may
be an error of tradition.
Baird states this date is years too early. The late Mr. R. M. Lush,* a descendant of Thomas Lyon of Fairfield, who was familiar with every foot of the district occupied by these pioneers, said the
claim that Thomas Lyon and John Banks voyaged to their new possessions in a row boat, 1649, was now rejected by the Lyon families identified with that locality. A small water vehicle was an inadequate means of transportation for a large party. Thomas Lyon had a wife and children, and some of his children were adults. The year before the transplanting of the household, his daughter, Abigail, had married John Banks at Stamford, a wedding that occurred on April 3rd, 1672, for Mr. Lush places the date of the emigration as 1673. Perhaps, too, there were other families from Fairfield and from Stamford, a goodly company that traveled through a pleasant land, with their chattels and flocks and herds. He left considerable estate behind him, as he shared in all the land divisions of Fairfield Township after 1654.
However, on Nov. 1st, 1675, he sold his home lot to Daniel Frost, but he retained the rest of his realty. At the time of his death he was a large land holder at Fairfield and Greenwich, and he owned the Mill at Rye, and several acres of land at White Plains. Both Thomas Lyon and his son Thomas, were among the inhabitants of Rye in 1683. Lyon's Point, a promontory on the east side of Byram River, extending out into Long Island Sound, now a part of Port Chester, was named for the elder Thomas Lyon. Baird, Mead, and Bolton all agree that the Lyon families from Fairfield were Scots, a belief that has never been questioned by the descendants of Thomas, Richard, and Henry Lyon, the emigrants.
Mr. Lush made extensive Lyon research. He left his notes and papers to the Westchester Co., New York, His. See. but they have never been classified. [The data contained in them relating to the Lyon family have, however, been transcribed, through the courtesy of the custodians of the collection, and will be found in subsequent pages of the Lyon Memorial. — A. B. L.].
During the American Civil War, Sidney S. Lyon, Major of Engineers, the father of the writer, made the acquaintance of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon. Their name called for genealogical exchanges, and
kinship was established.
Each had the identical tradition, viz:
Three brothers Lyons of Glen Lyon in Perthshire, Scotland, at the time of the Civil War in England were soldiers in Cromwell's army. The day of the execution of Charles I. these three were on guard at the scaffold before the Banqueting House at Whitehall on Jan. 30th, 1648, and witnessed the regicide. Immediately after the execution they fled to the Colonies.
One brother settled in Conncticut, one went to New York and the third removed to New Jersey. Dr. Woodward, who some years ago wrote the "Life of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon," must have obtained from a brother or a sister of the dead soldier that the Ashford Lyon family was descended from Scottish ancestry. A belief is entertained that Thomas, Richard and Henry Lyon descended in a direct line from the Master of Glamis. Douglas's Peerage gives but one son of Sir Thomas Lyon, John Lyon of Auldbar, who served as heir Aug. 6th, 1608, and died without issue. He may have had sons and grandsons of whom no record is preserved, soldiers who were slain in the Civil War or fled into life-time exile beyond the sea. But there were other branches of the Lyon family of Scotland.
When John Lyon, eighth Lord Glamis made an entail of his estates of Glamis, Towndyce, and Baky in Forfarshire; Cullen, Buttergask, Longforgard and Inchture in Perthshire; Bellelvic, Ardendracht, Collistown, Coustertown and Drumgowen in Aberdeenshire, besides himself and the male heirs of his body, he gave those eligible through lineage, as Thomas Lyon, his brother; John Lyon of Haltown of Esse; James Lyon of Easter Ogill; John Lyon of Culwalogy, and the male heirs of their bodies respectively, which failing, to his own nearest heirs, male, whatsoever bearing the name and arms of Lyon, by Charter dated 23rd of April, 1567.
This was but eighty-one years before Thomas, Richard and Henry Lyon appeared in Connecticut in
1648. They belonged to one of these flve families descended from John de Lyon, Feudal Baron of Fortevoit, but the name of their Scottish ancestor is lost out of tradition. But such research as has gone into the compilation of the "Lyon Memorial" may disclose the names that will connect the New World Lyons of New England, New York and New Jersey, with the Old World Lyons of England and Scotland.
To return to the third of the Lyon brothers from Glen Lyon, Henry Lyon, to outline his eighteen years in New England.
In 1639 a company of religious disputants, a split-off from Wethersfield Church, joined with a few families from other places, fifty-four souls in all, bought a tract of land down on the coast of Long Island Sound, and planted Milford. Thomas Tibabls, who, tradition says, led the party through the Connecticut wilderness, selected a favorable site, and the new settlement was destined to become a sea-port. Ships, after a long ocean voyage came up the Sound and dropped anchor in the safe harbor below the Mill dam, to land home-seekers and supplies, and after a time a ship industry added to the prosperity of the hamlet, and sloops were built for the long-shore traffic.
It is not positively known just who were the first comers at Wepowang. Lambert's "History of New Haven County" gives a list of Milford Planters, with numbers of home lots attached said to have been made Nov. 29, 1639. There are sixty-six names on this list, but there are no records at Milford to bear out the impression this would give that the company from Wethersfield and neighborhood
settlements was several hundred strong. An unmarried man was a suspicious stranger and the annual baby did more for the Connecticut census than the emigrant additions to the population. Of the fifty-four souls that trudged through the wilderness to the new purchase, two-thirds of the foot-tired travelers were women and children.
LAMBERT'S LIST
1. John Ashwood 16. John Birdseye
2. Richard Baldwin 17. Edward Harvey
3. Benjamin Heme 18. John Lane
4. Samuel Cooley 19. William East
5. John Peacocke 20. Thomas Lawrence
6. Henry Stonehill 21. Thomas Sandford
7. Nathaniel Baldwin 22. Timothy Baldwin
8. James Prudden 23. Alexander Breyan
9. John Sherman 24. Jasper Gunn
10. Thomas Barker 25. Thomas Howe
11. Stephen Freeman 26 Henry Lyon
12. John Fletcher 27. John Stream
13. John Baldwin 28. William Slough
14. Francis Bolt 29. James Preine
15. Micah Tompkins 30. Thomas Read
The list continues:
31. Robert Denison 49. Roger Tyrrell
32. Zachariah Whitman - 50. Nicholas Camp
33. Thomas Welch 51. John Fowler
34. Thomas Wheeler 52. Joseph Baldwin
35. Edmond Tapp 53. Thomas Tibbals
36. Thomas Buckingham 54. Widow Martha Beard
37. Robert Plum 55. Thomas Campfield
38. Richard Piatt 56. Thomas Ford
39. Thomas Tapping 57. William Roberts
40. Mr. Peter Prudden 58. John Smith
41. Mr. William Fowler 59. Thomas Bailey
42. Thomas Lawrence 60. William Brooks
43. George Clarke, Jr. 61. John Brown
44. John Burwell 62. Nathaniel Briscoe
45. Henry Botsford 63. Edward Riggs
46. John Smith 64. Andrew Benton
47. John Rogers 65. George Clarke, Sen.
48. Philip Hallery 66. George Hubbard
Lambert's list was certainly made from the town plat drawn at a subsequent period. The men that bought Wepowang and took possession of their purchase in August, were not keeping a Town Book in November. Cabin-building, stockade-building and how to provide for the nearing winter were the only matters that engaged these work- weary folk in an Indian land.
The original records have been sacredly preserved, and the present Town Book is an accurate transcription from the worn, time-browned records begun in 1649, which is the earliest date shown on any Milford document, outside of the Church records, a positive proof that a Town Book was a long-felt want before a book appropriate for this purpose was obtained.
Newark could not procure a book to record lands and town expenses for several years after the Passiac settlement was planted, which was fully thirty years after the first Wepowang cabin was under roof. The cost was great, and money scarce and these London-bound volumes were not to be had by every hamlet within a month's journey of Boston.
Someone may have had an Ink-horn, geese were common fowl, and quills were the pens of long ago, but the fly-leaf of a Bible was perhaps the only bit of paper at hand to serve as a register of mar-
riages, births and deaths. Each man stepped off his own town lot.
So many paces to the acre, and established his own lines by witness trees till Robert Treat, the young surveyor, got the leisure to inspect imaginary metes and bounds and drove corner stakes, as witness
stones, for the several planters, who need be none too particular if his homestead tract contained more than 300 square rods. They were so few, and as far as the eye could reach was theirs. When William
Fowler built a grist mill on the banks of the little river he was given thirty acres of land and perpetual use of the stream. And why not, in this miles wide country that God had given to the chosen of
Israel, just as he gave Canaan to the hosts of Moses.
The General Court, November 24, 1640, changed the name of the settlement to Milford, a befitting designation when mills were few and far between. Then it was a decent supercedence of an ungodly Indian appellation.
To this growing community, in 1648, came Henry Lyon, the youngest of the three brothers from Glen Lyon. He was a young man, born, perhaps about 1625. When he came to die in 1703, he had minor
children and his will excites no suspicion of approaching senility. A generous and cordial welcome must have been accorded to the stranger Scot, a Round-head soldier.
He brought the verification of the rumor of terrible happenings at home, and the tales he told to his breathless listeners were tremendous National facts that make the most astounding pages in English
history.
The rest of the book can be downloaded:
William Lyon
The account of the family of William Lyon was compiled in 1905. Not an easy task to do in those times. A.B. Lyon, G.W.A. Lyon, & Eugene F. McPike. 1905. Lyon Memorial. Vol. I. Press of Wm. Graham Printing Co., Detroit, MI (page images online at Ancestry.com):
p. 24 WILLIAM LYON OF ROXBURY
[The family history compiled by A.B. Lyons, M.D., of Detroit, Mich.]
In the list of passengers that embarked for America in the Hopewell September 11, 1635, we find the name of William Lyon, age "fourteen yeres." "Theis vnderwritten names," it is stated, "are to be transported to New England imbarqued in the Hopewell, Tho: Babb mr p. Cert. from the Ministers and Justices of their conformitie in Religion to or Church of England: & yt they are no Subsedy Men. they have taken ye Oaths of Alleg: & Suprem."
The name is further registered in Rolls Office, Chancery Lane, London, as having sailed for New England Sept. 11, 1635, and settled in Roxbury, Mass. William Lyon, perhaps an orphan, is said to have been placed in the care of Isaac Heath.† There appears to be no reason to question the conclusion reached by Albert Welles (American Family Antiquity) that this was the William Lyon who was baptised at Heston, now part of the city of London, Dec. 23, 1620, the youngest son of William and Anne (Carter) Lyon of Heston.
According to Welles, Henry Lyon, fourth in descent from Baron John de Lyon, left Norfolk, which had been for more than two hundred years the ancestral home, and settled at Ryslippe [Ruislip], Co. Middlesex. The family remained in Ryslippe through four generations, bringing us to what we may regard as unquestionable historical ground.
John Lyon, born in Ryslippe about 1470, married Emma Hedde of Ryslippe, and had four sons bearing the suggestive names, Henry, Thomas, Richard and John (compare names of the three brothers who came to Fairfield Co., Conn.). John settled in Little Stanmer, Co. Middlesex; his wife's name was Joan, and their oldest son, born about 1540, was William, who married Isabel Wightman, daughter and heiress of William and Audry (Deering) Wightman of Harrow on the Hill. William lived for a time (1596) in London, but was buried Sept. 7, 1624, at Little Stanmer.
He had a brother Thomas, whose son William was called the Marquis of Southwold, and was owner of the ship Lyon which brought to America so many emigrants.
William and Isabel †"Isack" Heath, "harmsmaker" (armorer) with family were fellow passengers with William Lyon, his name immediately following theirs in the passenger list. He was freeman 1636; member of John Eliot's church, ruling elder, town officer and deputy; buried Roxbury, Jan. 23, 1661.
In Roxbury land records the name of William Lyon appears as Lion, Lyon and Lyons, and we find all three forms also in the records of the Eliot church. He seems to have written it himself sometimes Lion (see autograph signature of his will, p. 28), sometimes Lyon [or Ljon]. William Lyon married, June 17, 1646 (Roxbury Ch. R.), Sarah Ruggles, daughter of John and Mary (Curtis) Ruggles of Nazing,§ England. She was born April 19, 1629, and came to America with her parents while yet an infant.
The death of Sarah is not found in Roxbury town or church records, and probably occurred in Rowley, for on Sept. (or Nov.) 30, 1677, William Lyon "of Rowley" was married to Mrs. Martha (Philbrick) Casse [Cass], widow of John Casse.
William Lyon in 1645 became a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Roxbury. He received in 1648 a grant of six acres of land in Roxbury, and in 1652 of three acres "upon the common, by John Polly's." His name also appears as grantee in deeds of land in Roxbury in 1651, 1658 and 1661, and as grantor in 1658 and 1672 (see below). When the new settlement at New Roxbury, now Woodstock, Conn., was determined upon in 1686, he was one of the "goers," and he was assigned a lot there, although he did not actually occupy it. Several of his grandsons (William, Thomas, John and Jacob) were prominent members, however, of the new colony, and a stepson, Ebenezer Cass,† received a grant of land there.
The Lyon homestead in Roxbury was on what is now Bellevue avenue, formerly called Lyon street. It was on the east side of the street, southwest of Atwood street.
Upon reading the extensive family research, there are some minor errors. One though perhaps needed further research. There was no records for a Marquis associated with a Lyon, nor as the owner of a ship.
William Lyon's brother Thomas, does not appear to be the owner of any vessel in any fleet with settlers to America.
There is one particular ship owner identified - William Vassall.
William Vassall was a son of John Vassall and Anne Russell. William Vassall's paternal grandfather John Vassall had been sent to England by his father, who was also named John, to escape persecution in France, as the Vassall family were Huguenots from Normandy in the time of French religious purges in the 16th century. William Vassall's father had been recognized by Queen Elizabeth I as achieving merit in the war with the Spanish Armada in 1588 by providing two ships which he commanded at his own expense, the Samuel and the Little Toby. A 'Mayflower' (not the Pilgrim ship), of 250 tons out of London, owned by William Vassall's father John Vassall and others, was outfitted in 1588 for the Queen, possibly also for Armada service. The Vassall arms can be noted on the National Armada Memorial in Plymouth England. In 1609, John Vassall was recorded as a shareholder on the Second Charter of The Virginia Company. Anne Russell was John Vassall’s second of three wives and with her had five children, William being the youngest
In England in March 1629, William Vassall was recorded in the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company as an Assistant to the Governor. He was a signatory to both the Massachusetts Bay Charter and the Cambridge Agreement in 1629. The Cambridge Agreement was to move the entire government of Massachusetts from England to the New World.
At an October 1629 meeting of the Company, William Vassall, with others, was appointed to travel out to New England. Per page 256 of The Mayflower Quarterly of September 2010, William Vassall sailed on the Lyon to New England in 1630 and returned on the Lyon to England about one month later. There is some confusion in the article as it states that Vassall traveled in company with Governor John Winthrop, who was just assuming his post.
Other sources state that Winthrop did not travel on the Lyon but was on the Arbella, flagship of what became known as The Winthrop Fleet - eleven ships bringing over 700 persons. This was the beginning of what came to be known as the historic event called The Great Migration - thousands of English settlers coming to New England in the early-mid-1630s.
Regarding William Vassall's first trip to New England, research indicates that if he did travel on the Lyon to New England, he may have arrived in February 1630 as per the Letter from Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley to Lady Bridget, Countess of Lincoln, March 1631: in this letter the Lyon is noted several times, once for its arrival date from Bristol of February 5, 1630 and another for being in-port in Salem on July 7, 1630. Additionally, some sources state that his family came with him on this first trip, but this cannot be confirmed.
In mid-1635 William Vassall returned to New England on the ship “Blessing” out of London with his family - per the manifest: William, 42, wife Anna, 42 and children: Judith 16, Frances 12, John 10, Ann 6, Margaret 2, and Mary age 1. The family first settled in Roxbury and then Scituate, Massachusetts Colony. He is recorded as owning 200 acres of upland and some acreage of meadow land and was licensed to operate a ferry on the North River.
On November 28, 1636 William Vassall joined the church of Rev. John Lathrop. What followed were many years of rancorous events involving Vassall over his perception of Puritan religious intolerance in New England.
In 1639 William Vassall was granted the liberty “to make an oyster bank in the North River, in some convenient place near his farm which was called the ‘West Newland’ and to appropriate it for his own use, forbidding all others to use same without his license.”
William Vassall was an advocate of religious freedom for all in the New England church. He was very much against those whose religious opinions followed the strict Puritan line and agitated against the heavy-handed methods of the colonial government. He had strong convictions in the rights and religious freedoms of his fellow colonists and worked hard for religious tolerance which caused him no end of problems with the conservative colonial government.
In 1644-45 Vassall was involved in a controversy involving the church in Scituate about baptism, which caused half the congregation, with the minister, to relocate to Barnstable. Meanwhile, the part of the congregation that included William Vassall and his daughter Judith White, wife of Mayflower passenger Resolved White, remained at Scituate. The "Vassall group" left behind, called their church the "Second church" of Scituate, the first Church apparently the one that moved to Barnstable.
The Vassall church also brought the pastor from the Duxbury church to Scituate to be their pastor, ordaining him in September 1645 in spite of the refusal of the Duxbury church to dismiss him.
William Vassall was known for the Remonstrance of 1646, in which Robert Child and others petitioned the Bay Colony General Court for greater religious and political freedom and closer adherence to the laws of England. Vassall, as a resident of Plymouth, did not sign the Bay Remonstrance of 1646, but Gov. Winthrop, and most other persons, believed it was actually his creation. In order to counter Vassall's charges, the very conservative Edward Winslow went to London in 1646 on behalf of Governor Winthrop and other Bay Colony leaders.
The conservative Winslow would be the liberal Vassall's nemesis for a number of years and they should have been friends, since they were in-laws - Vassall's daughter Judith was married to Resolved White, who was Edward Winslow's step-son. Both men died in the Caribbean in the 1650s - Vassall on Barbados and Winslow off the coast of Jamaica.
Though Vassall is known for his work on the famous 1646 Bay Colony Remonstrance, he was earlier involved in a 1645 incident whereby he petitioned to the Plymouth General Court asking for full religious toleration for well-behaving men - i.e. religious freedom. Many of the town deputies, plus assistants, including Myles Standish, William Collier, Thomas Prence and Edward Winslow were opposed. The petition could have passed, but a delaying action by William Bradford gave the conservative side time to maneuver against it which caused its defeat. In a letter to Gov. Winthrop, Winslow expressed his pleasure at the defeat.
With the Bradford-engineered defeat of Vassall's 1645 petition, even though most of the deputies were for it, Winslow described what happened to Winthrop: “but our Governour and divers of us having expressed the sad consequences would follow, especially my selfe and mr. Prence, yet notwithstanding it was required according to order to be voted: But the Governour would not suffer it to come to vote as being that indeed would eate out the power of Godlines etc.”
Winthrop stated in his History of New England, that Vassall was “a busy and factious spirit, and always opposite to the civil governments of this country and the way of our churches.” He describes Vassall’s several petitions to the Bay Colony and Plymouth courts, and to Parliament, as asking that “the distinctions which were maintained here, both in civil and church estate, might be taken away, and that we might be wholly governed by the laws of England.”
Former Pilgrim leaders, William Bradford and Edward Winslow, both prior Plymouth governors, still had much power over religion in New England and were adamantly opposed to Vassall’s freedom of religion policy.
Edward Winslow, in his letters to Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop, often expressed his feelings against democratic tendencies in both colonies, Plymouth and Bay Colony. In 1645, following the abortive Vassall attempt to obtain more civil and religious freedom, Winslow wrote (Gov.) Winthrop, “I utterly abhorred it,” and he added that if such a change came about, he would move from Plymouth to Massachusetts (Bay colony), “I trust that we shall finde (I speake for many of us that groane under these things) a resting place amongst you for the soules of our Feet”.
In 1646, after several years of religious controversy, he found that his religious beliefs were not compatible with those of others in his community. He returned to England to make his grievances known with a petition to parliament to expose his perception of the Massachusetts Puritan leaders’ political corruption, religious intolerance and abuse of power. He never returned to New England.
While in England, Vassall’s intention was to petition for the rights of non-Puritans in that very religious community - a petition which failed. This process ended his friendship with Edward Winslow, a Mayflower Pilgrim of 1620, and a diplomat representing Plymouth Colony’s interests in England, who was much against Vassall’s efforts. The two men had been friends, as Winslow was the step-father-in-law of Vassall’s daughter Judith, wife of Resolved White. During his time in England, Vassall was known to be friend of trans-Atlantic merchant Isaac Allerton, another Mayflower Pilgrim of 1620. Vassall was a member of the London merchant group Merchant-Adventurers, which had provided funding for the 1620 Mayflower voyage, and Allerton was an associate of this group.
William Vassall had property in Rotherhithe on the Thames, across from where the Mayflower had boarded its passengers. Being a wealthy man, Vassall was known to businessmen throughout Europe. He was the owner of the ship "Lion" (Lyon) which he offered to Isaac Allerton, who put it to much use in his trans-Atlantic trading business. Both Vassall and Allerton were close associates of Matthew Craddock, who had been the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company.
About 1648, after two years in England, Vassall sailed for Barbados in the West Indies where he settled at St. Michael’s Parish purchasing land and remained there for the rest of his life.
William Vassall married at Cold Norton, Essex, England in June 1613, Anna King (Kinge), born about 1593. She was a daughter of George Kinge and Joane Lorran of Woodham Mortimer, Essex.
Children of William and Anna Vassall:
• Anna, born September 6, 1614 at Cold Norton, Essex - buried September 22, 1614.
• Judith, born about 1619. Buried April 3, 1670. Married November 5, 1640 to Mayflower passenger Resolved White, son of Pilgrim William White (Mayflower passenger). Eight children.
• Frances, born about 1623. Married Jul 16, 1637 at Scituate, Mass. to James Adams, son of John Adams.
• Samuel, (twin), born June 22, 1624 - buried November 16, 1624.
• Mary (twin), born June 22, 1624 - died before 1634.
• John, born about 1625. Married Anna Lewis, daughter of John Lewis, and English resident of Genoa, Italy. He became quite wealthy acquiring large tracts of land in Jamaica after the 1655-57 British capture of Jamaica from the Spanish. He died between August 10, 1684 and July 6, 1688 at Jamaica, West Indies.
• William, baptised February 2, 1627 at Little Baddow, Essex. No further record.
• Anna, baptised April 20, 1628 at Little Baddow, Essex. Married before 1655 Nicholas Ware.
• Margaret, born about 1633. Married April 25, 1656 at St. Michael’s Parish, Barbados, Joshua Hubbard (Hobart). She died prob. in Barbados, West Indies.
• Mary, born 1634 - died unmarried in 1657, prob. in Barbados, West Indies.
His Will
Barbadoes. William Vassall, now resident of this Island, Esq., 31 July 1655, proved 12 June 1657. Son in law Nicholas Ware and his wife Anna, my daughter. My two other daughters, Margaret and Mary Vassall. All now here with me. My estate in this Island, New England, or any other part or place in the world. To my daughters, Judith, wife of Resolved White, Frances, the wife of James Adams, Anna, the wife of Nicholas Ware, and Margaret and Mary Vassall, the other two thirds, to be equally divided among them, to each a fifth. My son John not being now in the island, my son in law Nicholas Ware to act and manage for him and he and his wife, child and family, to remain, abide and dwell on my plantation until my said executor’s arrival, or an order from him concerning same.
The Testator made his mark in the presence of Humphrey Davenport, Humphrey Kent and Lion Hill. The will was proved by John Vassall, sole executor.
William Vassall died in Barbados between July 1655 and June 1657 in the Parish of St. Michael. It is believed that Vassall’s wife Anna died, location unknown, before his will was written in 1655 as she is not named. His grave no longer exists and his wife's is unknown.
In 1657 Resolved White and his wife Judith of Scituate in New Plymouth of this island (Barbados), Esq. sold to Nicholas Ware of St. Michael’s, merchant, his one fifth of two thirds of William Vassal’s plantation in St Michael’s.
In May 1657 Mary Vassall sold her share of William Vassall's plantation in St. Michael's to her brother-in-law Nicholas Ware.
There is information, largely unsourced, that states that John Vassall or the Vassall family was the builder of the ship Mayflower that came to Plymouth in 1620. There is no documented evidence of Vassall ownership of the Mayflower of 1620 Plymouth fame, but Marsden does note on page 675 'a Mayflower' of London of 250 tons, owned by John Vassall and others, fitted out by Londoners for the queen in 1588, and mentioned in documents until 1594.
As a result of his Armada service, the Queen authorized him to bear arms and use an English family coat of arms in place of his French one, with his name and services commemorated on a memorial erected in 1888 in Portsmouth, England. In 1609 John Vassall was recorded as a shareholder on the Second Charter of The Virginia Company. Anne Russell was John Vassall’s second of three wives and with her had five children, William being the youngest.[32]
The GSMD (Mayflower Society) states that the building date and original owner of the ship Mayflower that came to Plymouth in 1620 is unknown. Additionally, the Society states that Mayflower was a common ship's name in the period and that the Mayflower captained by Christopher Jones from about 1609 has never been adequately researched prior to his time as ship's captain.
Building ships for His/Her Majesty's Government ensure the shipbuilders had plenty of work.
One such very successful shipbuilder from Plymouth was William Kingdom.. His family and that of the Sprye family were involved for many years. He was Maree's great grandfather.
The
Pheasant's Revolt in 1381
The Peasants' Revolt, also called Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within the local leadership of London. The final trigger for the revolt was the intervention of a royal official, John Bampton, in Essex on 30 May 1381. His attempts to collect unpaid poll taxes in Brentwood ended in a violent confrontation, which rapidly spread across the south-east of the country. A wide spectrum of rural society, including many local artisans and village officials, rose up in protest, burning court records and opening the local gaols. The rebels sought a reduction in taxation, an end to the system of unfree labour known as serfdom and the removal of the King's senior officials and law courts.
Inspired by the sermons of the radical cleric John Ball, and led by Wat Tyler, a contingent of Kentish rebels advanced on London. They were met at Blackheath by representatives of the royal government, who unsuccessfully attempted to persuade them to return home. King Richard II, then aged 14, retreated to the safety of the Tower of London, but most of the royal forces were abroad or in northern England. On 13 June, the rebels entered London and, joined by many local townsfolk, attacked the gaols, destroyed the Savoy Palace, set fire to law books and buildings in the Temple, and killed anyone associated with the royal government. The following day, Richard met the rebels at Mile End and acceded to most of their demands, including the abolition of serfdom. Meanwhile, rebels entered the Tower of London, killing the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer, whom they found inside.
The Peasants' Revolt, also called Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years' War, and instability within the local leadership of London. The final trigger for the revolt was the intervention of a royal official, John Bampton, in Essex on 30 May 1381. His attempts to collect unpaid poll taxes in Brentwood ended in a violent confrontation, which rapidly spread across the south-east of the country. A wide spectrum of rural society, including many local artisans and village officials, rose up in protest, burning court records and opening the local gaols. The rebels sought a reduction in taxation, an end to the system of unfree labour known as serfdom and the removal of the King's senior officials and law courts.
Inspired by the sermons of the radical cleric John Ball, and led by Wat Tyler, a contingent of Kentish rebels advanced on London. They were met at Blackheath by representatives of the royal government, who unsuccessfully attempted to persuade them to return home. King Richard II, then aged 14, retreated to the safety of the Tower of London, but most of the royal forces were abroad or in northern England. On 13 June, the rebels entered London and, joined by many local townsfolk, attacked the gaols, destroyed the Savoy Palace, set fire to law books and buildings in the Temple, and killed anyone associated with the royal government. The following day, Richard met the rebels at Mile End and acceded to most of their demands, including the abolition of serfdom. Meanwhile, rebels entered the Tower of London, killing the Lord Chancellor and the Lord High Treasurer, whom they found inside.
King Richard II a fourteen year old boy, goes
to confront the Peasants???He could not save Sir Richard Lyon
[1]
Sir Richard Lyons PC, MP (1310 - 1381) was a prosperous City of London merchant, financier, and property developer, who held a monopoly on the sale of sweet wine in London, during the 14th century. He was a Privy Counsellor, an Alderman of the City, a member of the Worshipful Company of Vintners and served as both as Sheriff of London and MP for Essex.
Lyons was a lifelong friend of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Lyons was killed by Wat Tyler during the Peasants' Revolt.
Sir Richard was the most famous member of the Lyons family during the 14th century: he was a member of the Norfolk branch of the family. He was an illegitimate son of a Lyons father and a Flemish mother. Lyons was a lifelong friend of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer and Chaucer’s father, a fellow vintner.
Lyons employed Geoffrey as his deputy or Comptroller: although Lyons consistently engaged in vast fraud, on an unprecedented scale, of which Geoffrey Chaucer were necessarily aware, Geoffrey Chaucer repeatedly certified to the Exchequer, in 1374 and 1375, that no fraud was being committed by Lyons. Lyons was also a lifelong friend of John of Gaunt.
One of the leading merchants in the City of London, Lyons was a financier, merchant (in wine, wool, cloth, iron, and lead), shipowner, and property-developer. He had extensive business interests in Flanders and was extensively involved in overseas trade.
He was an Alderman of the City of London, a member of the Worshipful Company of Vintners, and served as Sheriff of London. Lyons was knighted and served as Privy Counsellor and Chief Financial Advisor to Henry III. He was also the Head of a Commission convened to investigate an attack on Portuguese merchant ships, in 1371, Keeper of the King’s Monies at the Tower of London, in 1375, Collector of the Petty Customs, in 1373, and Collector of Customs and Subsidies in 1375.
By virtue of his fraudulent engineering on the wine market, Lyons secured a practical monopoly on the London wine market, which lasted until his impeachment: he leased, from the City, the only three taverns in London permitted to sell sweet wines. It has been surmised that he acted as a broker for the Bardi banking family of Florence, from whom he took a large commission.
Lyons was extremely rich: At the time of his death, he owned lands in Essex, Kent, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, in addition to several properties in London, including a large house contiguous with the Guildhall of the merchants of the Hanse of Germany, in Thames Street, and property situated in Cosyn Lane in the Ropery. The Elizabethan antiquary John Stow noted that Lyons’s effigy, at St Martin Vintry, London, featured a large purse: in the words of D. Carlson, ‘the man was a wallet’.
Together with his close associate and fellow Privy Counsellor, William Latimer, 4th Baron Latimer, the King’s Chamberlain, Lyons was involved in some monumental financial frauds, including extortion, the deliberate retardation of the market at several ports, the engineering of the increase of the prices of foreign imports throughout the kingdom, and the abuse of Lyons’s position as collector of the wool subsidy to export his wool otherwise than through the staple at Calais, thereby avoiding duties. For this, Lyons and Latimer were impeached by the Good Parliament: this was the first case of impeachment in law.
Following his impeachment, Lyons attempted to bribe Edward, the Black Prince, to whom he sent £1000 disguised as a barrel of sturgeon: Edward refused to accept the bribe and imprisoned Lyons. However, Edward died later in 1376, after which Lyons, due to his favour with John of Gaunt, was pardoned. Lyons served as MP for Essex in 1380. Lyons established a perpetual chantry foundation at the Church of St James Garlickhithe, to which he donated vestments embroidered with lions. He is commemorated at the Church.
Lyons was beheaded, at Cheapside, on 14 June 1381, by Wat Tyler during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Froissart suggests that Lyons was killed in revenge for historical mistreatment of Wat Tyler: the chronicler Knighton, in contradistinction, contends that the rebellious Peasants targeted Lyons as a consequence of his associations with fraud and extortion, which had produced for his vast wealth.
Harrow on the Hill Home of John Lyon 1500 - 1592 and his wife Jean
John Lyon, an educated wealthy farmer and landowner, had longed to set up a school in Harrow on the lines of Eton and Merchant Taylor’s. His patience was adequately rewarded in 1572 (Tudor calendar 1571) when together with his friend Sir Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney General, who owned an estate in Sudbury, they were granted a royal charter by Elizabeth I. The first Governor of the school was Gerard’s brother, William Gerard, who lived in a house called Flambards located on Harrow-On-The-Hill, and which was used as the school until John Lyon built his school in 1615.
The brass to John Lyon, founder of Harrow School, and his wife Joan, is to be found on the walls of the nave near his grave by the lectern. It has an interesting inscription in English. The gravestone on the floor, with a Latin inscription, was laid in 1875.
William Gerard enlarged the town well, erecting a pump house to provide water for all the tenants, and laid pipes to provide water at Flambards. Both John Lyon and William Gerard have monuments in St Mary’s, Harrow-On-The-Hill. By the seventeenth century the manor consisted of a windmill and eight hundred acres and William’s son Gilbert spent £3000 on further improvements.
In 1664 Flambards was the largest house in the parish of Harrow; it had twenty five hearths, which became a liability when the Hearth Tax was introduced between 1662 and 1689. The house was pulled down sometime towards the end of the nineteenth century to make way for more houses, due to the railway boom.
That part of the family descended from William of Flambards supported parliament and his grandson, Sir Gilbert (knighted by James I), became involved in the puritan network of marriage alliances when he married Mary Barrington, first cousin to Oliver Cromwell.
Sir Gilbert was Member of Parliament for Middlesex, sitting in five parliaments between 1623 and 1640. He became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and sat in Cromwell’s Upper House. He became actively involved in the puritan movement to found puritan colonies in America; during the 1630s there was a great migration, and Gerard gave his support to his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Barrington, and the Providence Island Company.
He served with Hampden and Hesilrige on the Grand Committee for Religion to investigate the growth of popery, the decay of preaching and scandalous ministers. He was dismissed from his position as magistrate over his opposition to the ship money.
During
the summer of 1640, Sir Gilbert and another wealthy puritan, Sir William
Roberts, together led the opposition in Middlesex in refusing to pay coat and
conduct money for a new expedition against the Scots.[1]
In 1471 Hamond's son, Richard,
conveyed the property to John Canon, who surrendered it in 1486 to John Pinner,
tallow-chandler of London, from whom it passed in 1488 to Sir Thomas Brian,
chief justice of the King's Bench. Brian must have surrendered the property to
Edmund Stevens before 1495, when John Canon quitclaimed his interest, and in 1499
Stevens bought out the interest of George Collins, son of Joan, the other
coheir. Stevens's purchase from Brian included Mill Hill, 12 a. south of
Kingsbury Road, which John Pinner had acquired from Henry Mosshatch in 1488. (fn. 59) Part of the property held by the Grove
family in the early 15th century, (fn. 60) it had passed to John Lyon by 1441, (fn. 61) and to Robert Mosshatch in 1466. (fn. 62) Other near-by property acquired by
Edmund Stevens included Wadlifs, Spencers, and Longcrofts (19 a. in 1597), land
held in 1426 by Alice Clerk, whence it passed to the Mosshatch family and to
Hugh Morland, who conveyed it to Stevens in 1492.
The Reduction of New Netherland
Articles of Capitulation on the Reduction of New Netherland
[General Entries, I., 1664-1665, p.23, In Secretary of State’s Office, Albany, N.Y.]
These Articles following were consented to by the persons hereunder subscribed at the Governor’s Bowry, August 27th Old Style, 1664.
1. We consent that the States-General or West India Company shall freely enjoy all farms and houses (except such as are in the forts), and that within six months they shall have free liberty to transport all such arms and ammunition as now do belong to them, or else they shall be paid for them.
2. All public houses shall continue for the uses which they are now for.
3.All people shall still continue free denizens and enjoy their lands, houses, goods, shipps, wheresoever they are within this country, and dispose of them as they please.
4. If any inhabitant have a mind to remove himself he shall have a year and six weeks from this day to remove himself, wife, children, servants, goods, and to dispose of his lands here.
5. If any officer of State, or Public Minister of State, have a mind to go for England, they shall be transported, freight free, in his Majesty’s frigates, when these frigates shall return thither.
6. It is consented to, that any people may freely come from the Netherlands and plant in this country, and that Dutch vessels may freely come hither, and any of the Dutch may freely return home, or send any sort of merchandise home in vessels of their own country.
7. All ships from the Netherlands, or any other place, and goods therein, shall be received here and sent hence after the manner which formerly they were before our coming hither for six months next ensuing.
8. The Dutch here shall enjoy the liberty of their consciences in Divine Worship and church discipline.
9. No Dutchman here, or Dutch ship here, shall, upon any occasion, be prest to serve in war, against any nation whatever.
10. That the townsmen of the Manhatoes shall not have any soldier quartered upon them without being satisfied and paid for them by their officers, and that at this present, if the fort be not capable of lodging all the soldiers, then the Burgomaster, by his officers, shall appoint some houses capable to receive them.
11. The Dutch here shall enjoy their own customs concerning their inheritances.
12. All publique writings and records which concern the inheritances of any people, or the reglement of the church, or poor, or orphans, shall be carefully kept by those in whose hands they are, and such writings as particularly concern the States-General, may, at any time, be sent to them.
13. No judgment that hath passed any judicature here shall be called in question, but if any conceive that he hath not had justice done him, if he apply himself to the States-General the other party shall be bound to answer for ye supposed injury.
14. If any Dutch living here shall, at any time, desire to travel or traffic into England, or any place or plantation in obedience to his Majesty of England, or with the Indians, he shall have (upon his request to the Governor) a certificate that he is a free denizen of this place, and liberty to do so.
15. If it do appear that there is a public engagement of debt by the town of the Manhatoes, and a way agreed on for the satisfying of that engagement, it is agreed that the same way proposed shall go on, and that the engagement shall be satisfied.
16. All inferior civil officers and magistrates shall continue as now they are (if they please), till the customary time of new election, and then new ones to be chosen, by themselves, provided that such new chosen magistrates shall take the oath of allegiance to his Majesty of England before they enter upon their office.
17. All differences of contracts and bargains made before this day by any in this country, shall be determined according to the manner of the Dutch.
18. If it does appear that the West India Company of Amsterdam do really owe any sums of money to any persons here, it is agreed that recognition and other duties payable by ships going for the Netherlands be continued for six months longer.
19. The officers, military and soldiers, shall march out, with their arms, drums beating and colors flying, and lighted matches, and if any of them will plant they shall have 50 acres of land set out for them, if any of them will serve any as servants, they shall continue with all safety, and become free denizens afterwards.
20. If at any time hereafter the King of Great Britain and the States of the Netherland, do agree that this place and country be re-delivered into the hands of the said States whensoever his Majesty will send his commands to re-deliver it, it shall immediately be done.
21. That the town of Manhatans shall choose Deputies, and those Deputies shall have free voices in all public affairs, as much as any other Deputies.
22. Those who have any propriety in any houses in the fort of Orange, shall (if they please) slight the fortifications there, and then enjoy all their houses, as all people do where there is no fort.
23. If there be any soldiers that will go into Holland, and if the Company of West India, in Amsterdam, or any private persons here will transport them into Holland, then they shall have a safe passport from Colonel Richard Nicolls, Deputy Governor under his Royal Highness and the other Commissioners, to defend the ships that shall transport such soldiers, and all the goods in them from any surprisal or acts of hostility to be done by any of his Majesty’s ships or subjects.
That the copies or the King’s grant to his Royal Highness and the copy of his Royal Highness’ commission to Col Richard Nicolls, testified by two Commissioners more, and Mr. Winthrop to be true copies, shall be delivered to the Honorable Mr. Stuyvesant, the present Governor, on Monday next by eight of the clock in the morning, at the Old mill.
On these articles being consented to and signed by Col. Richard Nicolls, Deputy Governor to his Royal Highness, within two hours after, the fort and town called New Amsterdam, upon the Isle of Manhatoes, shall be delivered into the hands of the said Col Richard Nicolls by the service of such as shall be by him deputed by his hand and seal. John De Decker, Robert Carr, Nich: Verleet, Geo: Cartwright, Sam: Megapolensis, John Winthrop, Cornelius Steenwick, Sam: Willys, Oloffe Stevensen Kortlant, Thomas Clarke, Jaams Cousseau, John Pincheon.
Born in Angus, he was the second son of Patrick Lyon, 1st Lord Glamis, and inherited the title on his brother's death in 1486. He attended university, possibly in Paris. He was active in royal service during the early reign of James IV of Scotland, and was appointed justiciar north of Forth.
Before 1479 he married Elizabeth Scrymgeour, supposedly the daughter of John Scrymgeour of Dudhope, constable of Dundee and they had four sons and seven daughters. The eldest, John Lyon, succeeded his father as Lord Glamis. The three younger sons: David Lyon of Cossins, William and George, were killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513.
Lord Glamis was buried in Glamis Kirk, Angus
Patrick Lyon, 1st Lord Glamis (1402 – 21 March 1459) P.C. was a Scottish nobleman, created Lord Glamis on 28 June 1445.
He was the son of Sir John Lyon of Glamis (c.1377–c.1435) and Elizabeth Graham, daughter of Sir Patrick Graham of Dundaff and Kincardine and Euphemia Stewart, Countess of Strathearn. Sir John was the son of Sir John Lyon (d. 1382) and Princess Joanna Stewart, daughter of Robert II of Scotland.
Patrick Lyon was hostage in England for King James I from 1424 until 9 November 1427 when he was exchanged for another hostage. He was one of the Lords Auditors (1450–1451) and Master of the King's Household (1450–1452) to King James II. He was Ambassador to England (1451) and again (1455). He was Keeper of the Castles of Kildrummy, Kindrocht and Balveny (1456–1459).
Late in 1427 or soon thereafter he married Isabel, daughter of Sir Walter Ogilvie of Lintrethan, Treasurer of Scotland. They had at least four children:
Alexander Lyon, 2nd Lord Glamis
John Lyon, 3rd Lord Glamis
William of Peetanya
Elizabeth, the wife of Alexander Robertson of Strowane
Violetta, the wife of Hugh Fraser, 1st Lord Lovat
Sir John Lyon was the son of Sir John Lyon (c. 1290 - ?), feudal baron of Forteviot and Forgandenny in Perthshire, and Curteton and Drumgowan in Aberdeenshire.[1] Sir John is widely accepted as being the progenitor of Clan Lyon, a claim verified by renowned historian Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk. His origins were French, his surname being an anglicised version of the Norman family "de Lyon-Levieux" of Contentin Peninsula also written in book as "de Leonne".
Career and death
From at least as early as 1367 he started to acquire various properties, from the Earl of Ross in 1367, from John de Hay in 1368. He acquired the thanage of Glamis from his future father-in-law in March 1372. He was knighted sometime prior to 1377. He was killed (perhaps rather treacherously) on 4 November 1382 during a quarrel with Sir James Lindsay of Crawford, nephew of the King, near Menmuir in Angus.
Before the storm: The Bowes-Lyon family in 1910. Lady Elizabeth, second
Marriage and children
Sometime in 1376, Sir John Lyon married Princess Johanna (Jean), daughter of Robert II and Elizabeth Mure, daughter of Sir Adam Mure of Rowallan. The Princess was the widow of Sir John Keith, eldest son of the Earl Marischal. After Sir John Lyon's death, Johanna married Sir James Sandilands. Sir John Lyon and the Princess had only one child, another Sir John Lyon.
On 28 June 1445, his grandson, Patrick Lyon was created Lord Glamis. In 1606, Patrick, 9th Lord Glamis was created Earl of Kinghorne.
Sir John Lyon is an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (formerly Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon), meaning that the current British monarch is also descended from him.
"The Ancestors of Henry
Irvin DeGraw - Part 6B "The Extended Family
Connections" contains biographical
information on a huge number of families who form part of the extended DeGraw
Family in America. It is the sixth in the series of family histories relative
to the family of my brother in law Randy DeGraw.
There are ten parts in all, each
in a chronological order, and each introducing the DeGraw family with ancestors
they may never have known.
When resourcing the Lyon heritage
in this collection, it was quite amazing to unravel the different clans, the
marriages and the stories which almost all could be found.
The Earls of Strathearn were a
wealthy Scottish family. Over the years,
they survived this various clan wars, and the huge battles that existed it
seems forever, in Scotland. A beautiful
place, and one which forms 50% of me!
However according to the DNA results only 14% of me is Scottish.
Another of those puzzles, but the
answer probably lies due to the intermarriages of the different members of the
British Royals into the lineages of every Scottish Clan. However, over the past 300 years, my Scottish
lines have intermarried their own. So
much so that my great grandmother is my great aunt, and my great grandfather is
my great uncle. Try to work that out in
DNA, surely it must have an effect.
The family history stories are a
compilation of established and researched facts regarding the ancestor in
question. Sourced material from
Wikipedia is included.
With the DeGraw
Family History, all lines have, were
possible, been taken to their lives before arrival in America, where ever they
came from.
My initial
reasoning for this, was simply to establish the lineages, and to ensure that
the correct family lines were being followed.
It is also the
role of a family historian, to include additional research about the events of
life in the periods being researched. There are so many
interesting stories to be told, of these ancestors, quite remarkable
stories.
A work of Non-fiction, is based
on factual information. A Family
Historian works purely on fact, to prove the findings. Today's Family Historian
can best be described as telling "Social History", by including history from the past.
This work is the copyright of
Kristine Margaret Herron and while all care has been taken any such family
history story this one in particular is certain to contain errors, due to so
many different opinions and viewpoints, and transcriptions relating to the
origins of some family lineages.
Add to that is the enormous
number of triple marriages among the settlers.
Where possible factual evidence has been included in the form of
articles from newspapers and records.
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