The Ma(u)nsers of Hightown

In the previous post I used a pedigree of the Maunser family of Sussex to trace one branch of my family tree all the way back to 1483 and to Sir Robert Maunser of Hightown, Wadhurst – supposedly my 15 x great grandfather. However, since writing that post I’ve found another version of the Maunser pedigree that contradicts the version I was using in some respects.

The chart I’ve been relying on was published in 1905 but is the literal transcript of a document in the Harleian collection in the British Museum, entitled The Visitations of the County of Sussex made and taken in the years 1530 and 1663-4. The pedigree of the Maunser family can be found on page 127 of this volume and it consists of six generations. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll keep to the main line of descent, through which the ownership of Hightown passed. The six generations in the chart are as follows:

(1) Robert Maunser, who was alive during the reign of Richard III and married Margaret

(2) Walter Maunser, alive during the reign of Henry VII

(3) Christopher Maunser of ‘Hightowne’, alive during the reign of Henry VIII, who married Mildred, daughter of a Barham of ‘Wadehurst’

(4) Robert Maunser of Hightown, who  married Joane, daughter of someone by the name of Rootes, from Marshalls in Sussex

(5)

Children of Robert and Joan Maunser:

1^st son: William Maunser of Hightown, who married Mary, daughter of Thomas Hobsden of Burrish, Sussex

2^nd son: John Maunser ‘of the borough of Southwark nigh London’, who married Mary, daughter of Benjamin Cole of Aston, Sussex

Daughter: Mary, who married Thomas Scotsonn ‘of Malling nere Lewes in Sussex’

(6)

Children of William and Mary Maunser:

Sons:

1. Thomas

2. Nicholas

3. Herbert

4. Abraham

Daughters:

Elizabeth

Mary

Son of John and Mary Maunser:

John Manser

The second pedigree chart can be found in a publication entitled ‘Pedigrees of the families in the county of Sussex’ by William Berry, which dates from 1830 (note: it has been wrongly labelled as something completely different at Google Books online). The preface of this volume notes a frustrating lack of dates and certain deficiencies in the original ‘visitation’ documents from 1530 and 1663-4, and claims to have corrected them by including additional information gleaned from the families concerned.

So how does this chart differ from the first? Well, the two charts are identical with regard to the first four generations, down to and including the Robert Maunser who married Joan Rootes. However, when it comes to the fifth generation, the children of Robert and Joan, this chart claims the following:

1^st son: William Maunser married not Mary Hobsden, but Mary the daughter of Nicholas Fowle Esq of Retherfield

2^nd son: John Maunser was not ‘of Southwark’ according to this version

As for the sixth generation, the children of William and Maunser were not the four sons and two daughters listed in the first version, but:

1^st son: Nicholas Maunser of Hightown, who married Elizabeth, daughter of someone from Burwash

2^nd son: John Maunser of the borough of Southwark, who married Mary Cole (as in the first version)

Daughter: Mary who married Thomas Scotsonn (as in the first version)

In other words, the main difference between the two pedigrees is that the second, amended version makes John Maunser of Southwark and Mary the wife of Thomas Scotsonn the children of William Maunser, not his siblings.

This revised version also adds a seventh generation, which consists of the children of Nicholas Maunser – who were wrongly allocated to his father William Maunser before. These were: Thomas, Nicholas, Herbert, Abraham, Elizabeth and Mary. This generation also includes John, son of John Maunser of Southwark.

How might my ancestor Mary Maunser fit into this amended version of the family tree? According to Renshaw’s history of the Byne family, Mary was the daughter of John Maunser or Manser of Wadhurst, who was in turn the son of Robert Maunser of Hightown. This must be the John Maunser who was Robert’s second son (the first being William, who was heir to Hightown). Renshaw also claims that this John Maunser died in 1598, and that he had a son named Christopher. We also know that Mary married Stephen Byne in 1611, so she was probably born around 1590.

Charles I visiting Parliament

If the second pedigree chart is correct, then Mary was the first cousin of Nicholas Maunser of Hightown, the son of her uncle William Maunser. We know that Mary and Nicholas were approximate contemporaries due to a piece of independent evidence. In 1630, King Charles I made use of an ancient custom to levy an unpopular tax on landowners who had not presented themselves for knighthood at his coronation. According to one source, quoting a document dated 29^th June 1631, among those ‘which have not agreed to paie their fines for their not attending at his Majesty’s Coronacion’ was Nicholas Maunser of Hightown, Wadhurst.  According to Renshaw, in 1630 Stephen Byne (Mary’s husband) also ‘answered to the Commission for examining into the cases of persons liable to compound for not taking up knighthood on the occasion of the coronation’ of Charles I.

I’ve found the will of Nicholas Manser of Hightown, which was made in 1673 and proved in 1674. I’ve been assuming that this must be the Nicholas who was the son and heir of William Ma(u)nser, and the cousin of my ancestor Mary. However, it’s a confusing document in many ways. Nicholas leaves twenty pounds each to Abraham Manser and Thomas Manser, described as ‘sonnes of my xxxx Abraham Manser, gent’. The word that I can’t quite read is reproduced in the screenshot below:

If anyone can help me interpret this crucial word, I’d be extremely grateful. The initial letter looks like the ‘w’ in some other words in the will, or perhaps a ‘v’, followed by a ‘u’ and then perhaps ‘ch’? Is this some obscure legal or Latinate term, I wonder, or am I not seeing the obvious? Later in the will, Nicholas bequeaths property to Francis Manser, son of ‘my xxxx Nicholas Manser’, and to ‘my Cosen Nicholas Manser, sonne of my xxxx Herbert Manser’ where ‘xxxx’ represents the same word as above. Nicholas, son of Herbert, also appears to inherit Hightown itself. Another Nicholas Manser, son of ‘Christopher Manser, gent’, also benefits from the will: was this the same Christopher who was the brother of my ancestor Mary Maunser?

The will is confusing because, according to the second pedigree that I quoted earlier, Nicholas, Herbert and Abraham were the names of the sons of Nicholas Manser or Maunser of Hightown. Not only that, but we know that Nicholas’ firstborn son, Thomas, who is not mentioned in this will, was the heir to Hightown. Finally, the will gives Nicholas’ mother’s name as Susan, when the pedigree says she was called Mary.

Could it be, though, that this is not the will of the Nicholas Maunser of Hightown mentioned in the pedigree, but that of his second son, another Nicholas? We know from another document in the National Archives that in 1646 Nicholas Maunser the elder of Hightown entailed a certain property to his son and heir Thomas and his wife Susan, with the remainder entailed to his sons Nicholas, Herbert and Abraham. Perhaps Thomas died and Hightown passed to his younger brother Nicholas Maunser the younger, who made his will in 1673, leaving property and money to the children of his brothers, who (confusingly!) bore the same names as the men of the previous generation? If so, then does the word in the will that I can’t understand represent, in some obscure way, ‘brother’?

Clearly, a good deal more research and analysis will be needed before we can be clear about the Maunser family tree, and its links with the history of my Byne ancestors.

The family of Mary Maunser

I’ve begun to explore the Manser or Maunser family, trying to find a link between John Manser, the London apothecary and ‘kinsman’ of my 8 x great grandfather, stationer John Byne (1651 – 1689), and Mary Maunser of Sussex, who was John’s grandmother (the mother of Magnus Byne, rector of Clayton-cum-Keymer), and thus my 10 x great grandmother. In the previous post, I reported what I’ve managed to find out about John Manser’s immediate family, but I’m struggling to establish a reliable connection with the Manser or Maunser family of Sussex.

In this post, I want to look more closely at Mary Maunser. As I’ve noted before, she married Stephen Byne of Burwash, Sussex, on 22^nd January 1611/2 in Wadhurst. According to Renshaw’s history of the Byne family, Mary was the daughter of John Manser or Maunser, a yeoman of Wadhurst who died in 1598. In his will dated 26^th December 1597, he apparently ‘devised his lands in Burwash in default of issue of his son Christopher to his daughter Mary and her heirs.’  It seems reasonable to assume that, like her husband Stephen Byne, Mary was born some time in the mid-1580s.

Local map showing location of Hightown in Wadhurst Park, Sussex

Renshaw also informs us that Mary’s father John was a son of Robert Maunser of Hightown in the parish of Wadhurst. Alfred A. Wace, in his 1923 history of Wadhurst, describes Hightown as the ‘seat’ of the Maunser family since the fifteenth century. Apparently the family was ‘very numerous’ in Wadhurst and in the seventeenth century they were great iron masters.

According to a pedigree of the family, John Maunser was Robert’s second son. His eldest son was named William and he married Mary, daughter of Nicholas Fowle, Esq., of Rotherfield. We’ve come across the Fowle family before: Mary Maunser’s husband Stephen Byne was the son of Edward Byne and Agnes Fowle, the latter being the daughter of Magnus Fowle of Burwash, himself the grandson of a Nicholas Fowle, though I can’t be sure at this stage that it’s the same person. Rather unhelpfully, the pedigree has very few dates attached, and since the same Christian names recur regularly in the Maunser, Fowle and Byne families, there’s a need for care in jumping to premature conclusions.

Wadhurst Park, location of Hightown (via geograph)

The pedigree claims that Robert Maunser of Hightown, who I assume is Mary Maunser’s grandfather, married Joan, the daughter of a man by the name of Rootes, of Marshalls in Sussex. There is a contradiction here with Wace, who states that Robert married ‘a Fowle of Rotherfield’. Did he get confused with Robert’s son William, or did two successive generations of Maunsers marry into the Fowle family? Mace also writes that ‘the next holder [of Hightown] worked the Scragoak furnace’. Presumably he means Robert’s son William.

Both sources agree that Robert was the son of Christopher Maunser of Hightown. According to Wace, he died in 1545 and besides ‘Heightown’ owned properties called Riseden, Gregories and Wenborne. Wace says that Christopher ‘married a Barham’ (another prominent Sussex family) and the pedigree agrees, stating that his wife Mildred was the daughter of a man of that name from Wadhurst. Alongside Christopher’s name in the pedigree is the enigmatic ‘18^th Henry VIII. 1526’, which a history of the Barham family helpfully glosses as meaning that he was alive in 1526, being the eighteenth year of that king’s reign.

Part of Richard Budgen’s map of 1724, showing Wadhurst, Hightown and Scragoak

We can push the Maunser family tree back two more generations. Christopher was the son of Walter Maunser, ‘temp. (time of?) Henry VII’, according to the pedigree. He in turn was the elder son of Sir Robert Maunser and his wife Margaret. The legend accompanying Sir Robert’s name – ‘1483. Richard III’ – probably indicates that he was knighted by that controversial king in that year. Wace confirms that Robert lived at Hightown: the earliest association of the family with that property. Another source describes him as a ‘substantial landowner’.

If I’m on the right track here, then Sir Robert Maunser was my maternal 15 x great grandfather, making him not only my earliest confirmed ancestor, but also the first knight to appear in my family tree. I sometimes wonder what my Nan, Minnie Londors née Roe, the widow of a cemetery gardener, living in her tiny terraced house in East Ham, would have made of these illustrious ancestors, had she but known about them…

Exploring the Manser family

I’ve recently established that Magnus Byne (1615 – 1671), the rector of Clayton-cum-Keymer in Sussex and author of a famous diatribe against the Quakers, was my maternal 9 x great grandfather. He and his first wife Ann were the parents of John Byne (1651 – 1689), a London citizen and stationer. John and his wife Alice were the parents of Mary Byne (born in 1683) who married London goldsmith Joseph Greene (1677 – 1737). Joseph and Mary Greene were my 7 x great grandparents.

Investigating my newly-discovered Byne ancestors, and perusing William Charles Renshaw’s exhaustively detailed history of the Bynes of Sussex, I discovered that the parents of Magnus Byne – and thus my 10 x great grandparents – were Stephen Byne of Burwash and his wife Mary Manser or Maunser. According to Renshaw, Mary was the daughter of John Manser of Wadhurst, who died in 1598, in the closing years of the reign of Elizabeth I.

Countryside near Wadhurst, Sussex (via theargus.co.uk)

The discovery of someone with the surname Manser in my Byne family tree solved a question that had been prompted by the will of another Stephen Byne, the London citizen and upholsterer who was the brother of my 8 x great grandfather John. In his will of 1674, Stephen leaves ‘my cosen John manser the sume of forty shillings’ and appoints the same man as one of the two overseers of the will (the other being his father-in-law, Thomas Whiting). We learn from Renshaw that John Manser was an apothecary in East Smithfield, London, and that in his own will, drawn up in 1680, towards the end of the reign of Charles II, he appointed ‘my kinsman John Byne of Tower Hill’ as the overseer of his own will.

It’s reasonable to assume that, if John Manser was a ‘cosen’ and ‘kinsman’ of Stephen and John Byne, it was because he was related to their maternal grandmother, Mary. But what exactly was the connection between John Manser, the London apothecary, and Mary Manser, the husband of Burwash yeoman Stephen Byne?

East Smithfield, from Rocque’s 1746 map of London

I’ve tracked down the will of John Manser of East Smithfield and have begun to tease out what it tells us about his family. We learn from the will that John’s wife was named Jane and that he had two sons, John junior and Abraham, and two daughters, Rebecca and Jane. As well as his kinsman John Byne (who was also a witness to the will), John Manser appointed his own brother Nicholas as an overseer, and his wife Jane as executrix. There is mention of a sister whose married name is Deborah Barber and, in the same sentence, of a nephew and godson named John. Finally, the will refers to money given to John’s daughter Rebecca by her aunt Rebecca Sawen.

I plan to transcribe the whole of John Manser’s will at a later date, but for now we can conclude that, at the time of his death in 1680, he was married to a woman named Jane and they had four surviving children: John, Abraham, Rebecca and Jane. If we search for records of this family, we find that on 12^th December 1675, Rebecca, daughter of John and Jane Manser of East Smithfield was christened at St Botolph’s, Aldgate. I’ve yet to find a baptismal record for their daughter Jane or for their son Abraham.

However, on 21s^t January 1653 (the year in which Cromwell became Lord Protector of England),  John and Sarah Manser of Tower Hill had two sons (twins, perhaps?) named John and Thomas baptised at St Botolph’s church. I’ve also found baptismal records at the same church for two other children born to (what I assume is) the same couple: Joseph, born in 1657 at Tower Hill, and Elizabeth who was born in 1663 in East Smithfield but died there aged 12 and was buried in February 1675. There is also a burial record for Nicholas Manser on 9^th January 1677. This last record is interesting because it describes the deceased as the son of John Manser of East Smithfield, but makes no mention of his mother’s name. I believe this is because John’s wife Sarah had died five years earlier: on 23^rd October 1672, Sarah, wife of John Manser of East Smithfield, was buried at St Botolph’s.

St Botolph without Aldgate

My theory is that Jane, who was the mother of Rebecca and Jane junior, married John Manser some time between 1672 and 1675, probably in 1674, a year before the birth of Rebecca, though I’ve yet to find a record of their marriage. Presumably, John’s sons Thomas and Joseph from his first marriage had died by the time he came to write his will.

Searching for records of John Manser’s second wife Jane, I came across an interesting probate document in the Ancestry database that had been wrongly labelled with her name. In fact, the document concerned one Rebecca Sawen, the person described in John Manser’s will as his daughter Rebecca’s aunt. Jane was actually a witness to this will, which was dated 16^th January 1679, a year before her husband John Manser’s death. The document informs us that on this date ‘appeared personally’ Jane Manser of the parish of St Botolph without Aldgate, aged about 40 years, with Margaret Tailor of the same parish, and swore that they were well acquainted with the late Rebecca Sawen, also of the same parish, and that they had been with her in her last sickness in the previous December when she ‘had a mind to make her will’. This will included the bequest to her niece Rebecca Manser mentioned in John Manser’s will. The deceased had also left property to her ‘brother and sister’ John and Jane Manser and had made John the sole executor of her will. It appears that Rebecca Sawen had made her declaration orally, and that John Manser had then written it down. John’s hastily written note is attached, and it begins ‘December 19 1679 my Sister Rebeckah Sawen was taken sicke and Sunday 21 the small pox came out the 23 she made her …will as followeth’.

Part of John Manser’s record of Rebecca Sawen’s will

It’s not clear from this document whose sister Rebecca Sawen was – John’s or Jane’s – nor whether Sawen was her maiden or married name. However, by browsing through the burial records at St Botolph’s for December 1679, I eventually found one for Rebecca Sawin of East Smithfield on 30^th of that month. Crucially, the parish register describes her as a ‘maiden’: this means that she has to be Jane’s sister, since any unmarried sister of John’s would have had the surname Manser. From that, I concluded that Jane Manser’s maiden name was also originally Sawen or Sawin, unless of course she was a widow when she married John.

Parish church, Little Hadham

I then found a christening record for a ‘Rebecka’ Sawen in Little Hadham, Hertfordshire, on 15^th March 1641 (the year before the outbreak of the Civil War); her father’s name was Thomas. A further search led me to a record of the christening on 6th January 1638, at the same place, of Jane Sawen, daughter of Thomas and Ann Sawen. I believe this is almost certainly the Jane who married John Manser. It emerges that Rebecca was the youngest, and Jane the next youngest, of nine children. My guess is that Rebecca lived with Jane and the Manser family in East Smithfield.

Finally for now, I’ve discovered from an online family history that John Manser’s sister Deborah was the wife of William Barber of Ticehurst in Sussex. They were married there on 6th February 1671 and had five children. According to the same source, Deborah was born in 1648 and christened at St Bartholomew’s church in Burwash on 29th October in that year. Now I just have to find a Manser family living in Burwash in the 1640s, who had children named John, Nicholas and Deborah, and work out the connection with my 10 x great grandmother, Mary Byne née Manser.

As for the four surviving children of John Manser, whether his two sons by his first wife Sarah, or his two daughters with his second wife Jane: there is a bewildering number of later records that might possibly refer to them, and I’ll consider these in another post.

William and Joan Byne of Burwash

In the previous post I wrote about my 11 x great grandfather, Edward Byne of Burwash, Sussex, who died in 1613, and about his connections with the Fowle family, via his wife Agnes. In this post, I want to explore Edward’s origins and see if we can push my maternal family tree back another generation.

Burwash churchyard (via http://www.hebdens.com)

Edward was the eldest son of William Byne, who was married to a woman named Joan. From their wills, we can ascertain that William and Joan had the following children: Edward (my 11 x great grandfather); Anthony; Symon; Margaret; and Jane.

Edward Byne’s brother Anthony lived in Battle and had a wife named Joan; he died in 1591. On 25^th October 1574, another brother, Symon, married Elinor Pudland, daughter of Richard Pudland, a churchwarden at Burwash; Symon had a number of children with Elinor and died in 1616. Edward’s sister Margaret married Goddard (or Godfredus) Russell, while his sister Jane married Henry Foster.

Queen Mary (died 1557)

William Byne’s will is dated 16^th April 1557, in the last months of the reign of Mary Tudor (she died in November of that year and was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth). Although Renshaw quotes some sections of William’s will, it’s unclear whether (like Gabriel Fowle’s will of 1554) it betrayed where he stood in the religious divisions of the day. The will was proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Lewes on 24^th April 1560. William’s widow Joan was buried at Burwash in July 1575.

Renshaw speculates that William might have been the brother, or at least a near relation, of the John Byne who was buried at Burwash in November 1559. The latter is the earliest member of the Byne family definitely associated with that part of Sussex: at a court held in the manor of Burwash in 1534, someone of that name was fined 2d. ‘for cutting down trees and upsetting the King’s highway and filling up a ditch’ (Renshaw, p. 75). At that time, Henry VIII had been on the throne for twenty-five years: in the following year, Thomas More would be executed and the year after that, the monasteries would be dissolved.

16th century manorial court rolls

For now, it seems that (with a fair bit of help from William Charles Renshaw) I’ve traced this particular line of my family history back as far as I can confidently go. Nevertheless, since discovering my 7 x great grandmother Mary Byne just over a week ago, I’ve added five new generations to this branch of my family tree and taken my maternal family history back a hundred years or so from its previous earliest point. Not bad going.

Edward Byne and the Fowle family

Yesterday’s post explored the immediate family of my maternal 9 x great grandfather, Magnus Byne (1615 -1671), Rector of Clayton-cum-Keymer in Sussex. I established that Magnus was the second of six children of Stephen Byne, a yeoman of Burwash, Sussex, and his wife Mary Manser or Maunser. In this post, I want to go back a generation and look at the family of Magnus’ father Stephen, my 10 x great grandfather. Once again, my main source is William Charles Renshaw’s 1913 history of the Byne family of Sussex.

Oast houses in Mayfield, Sussex

Stephen Byne was born at Mayfield, Sussex, and christened on 3^rd July 1586 (in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Elizabeth I) in nearby Burwash, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was the fourth of seven children of Edward and Agnes Byne. Edward Byne, my 11 x great grandfather, married Agnes, only child of Magnus Fowle of Mayfield by his wife Alice Lucke. I’m intrigued by the family of Magnus Fowle, and not just because he was one of my 12 x great grandfathers. I suspect that it is in honour of him that the name ‘Magnus’ entered the Byne family (though I stand ready to be corrected on this, if a Magnus Byne can be found before this generation). Magnus Fowle, a churchwarden at Burwash, was apparently both a freehold and copyhold tenant of the manor of Mayfield, and Renshaw found evidence of his interest in a number of other properties in that part of Sussex.

Magnus Fowle was the only son of Gabriel Fowle of Southover, Lewes, who died in 1559. From his will, dated January 1554/5, it appears that Gabriel was master of the Free Grammar School in Lewes. The last years of his life coincided with the brief reign of Mary Tudor (1554 – 58), which saw the temporary restoration of Catholicism in England. His will suggests that Gabriel was sympathetic to the old faith. I haven’t been able to track down a copy of the document yet, but according to one source he bequeathed to his parish church his ‘written mass book’ (as the author comments, ‘evidently hidden away in the hope of better times’). The same source adds: ‘Fowle was one of a substantial minority of Lewes testators, amounting to 30% of the total, who now revived the old custom of endowing masses for their souls’. However, Gabriel was evidently aware that there might be difficulty in finding priests: he asked that masses be sung by ten priests ‘if they can be got’.

The Old Grammar School, Lewes, founded in 1512 (via tigergrowl.files.wordpress.com)

Gabriel was the son of Nicholas Fowle and Joan Vince, and the brother of William Fowle of Rivenhall, and also of Bartholomew Fowle, the last prior of St Mary Overy, Southwark, before Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. The prior and canons surrendered to Thomas Cromwell’s commissioners on 27^th October 1539.

Although I’m enormously proud of my Nonconformist and Puritan ancestors, I’m particularly pleased, for personal reasons, to have discovered my first pre-Reformation ancestor. Having recently read Eamon Dufy’s The Voices of Morebath, tracing one parish’s experience of the religious upheavals of the 16th century, I’m intrigued by Gabriel and wonder how this ancestor of mine managed to hold on to his traditional faith in such turbulent times.

St Mary Overy, Southwark

Another reason for my interest in the Fowle family is that this surname also occurs in my father’s family tree. In 1836 my paternal great-great-grandfather William Robb, a London stationer’s clerk, married Fanny Sarah Seager, who was the daughter of Samuel Hurst Seager and Fanny Fowle. I’m fairly sure that Samuel came from somewhere in the Midlands, but I haven’t been able to find out anything about Fanny’s origins: it’s possible she was descended from the Fowles of Sussex.

Edward and Agnes Byne had six children: Magnus; William; Edward; Stephen (my 10 x great grandfather); John; an unnamed daughter buried at Burwash on 14^th August 1590; and James, baptised there on 9^th December 1593 and buried on 20^th December 1594.

Edward Byne’s will is dated 11^th December 1611 and Renshaw quotes from it at length (pp. 101 – 103). He was buried at Burwash on 4^th January 1613/14. Edward’s widow Agnes made her own will on 27^th April 1625.

The Bynes of Burwash

In this post I want to summarise what we know about the immediate family of my newly-discovered 9 x great grandfather Magnus Byne (1615 – 1671), rector of Clayton-cum-Keymer. Once again, I am indebted to Walter Charles Renshaw’s incredibly detailed history of the Byne family of Sussex. Having access to Renshaw’s pioneering research, published a hundred years ago, means that I can extend this branch of my family tree back through the generations far more quickly and easily than would otherwise have been possible (even if does take away some of the thrill and unpredictability of the search). At the same time, the complexity of Renshaw’s history means that, in tracing your own particular family line, you have to pick a very careful and painstaking path through the details of his account.

Interior of St Bartholomew’s church, Burwash (via geograph)

Magnus Byne was the son of Stephen Byne, who was himself the son of Edward and Agnes Byne and was baptised at Burwash, East Sussex, on 3^rd July 1586. On 22^nd January 1611/2* Stephen married Mary Maunser or Manser, daughter of John Maunser of Wadhurst (six or seven miles north of Burwash), who was the son of Robert Maunser of Highwood in that parish. I assume that the John Manser, an apothecary of East Smithfield, London, who was appointed by a later Stephen Byne – the brother of my 8 x great grandfather John – as overseer of his will, and who in turn appointed ‘my kinsman John Byne’ as overseer of his will – was a member of this family.

Various records describe Stephen Byne as a yeoman (a term used to describe a free man owning his own farm) of Burwash, where he also served as a churchwarden. Stephen and Mary Byne had five children that we know of, all born and baptised in Burwash. Elizabeth was christened on 22^nd January 1613/3; Magnus (my 9 x great grandfather) was born in 1615; John was christened on 2nd May 1617; Mary on 30^th July 1620; Edward on 2^nd December 1623; and Stephen on 14^th October 1632.

Stephen Byne made his will on 24^th July 1660: I haven’t seen a copy, but some of its provisions are cited by Renshaw (pp.123-4). He was buried at Burwash on 22^nd April 1664 and his will was proved by his youngest son Stephen on 1^st May at Lewes.

Stephen’s daughter Elizabeth Byne – the elder sister of my ancestor Magnus – married Gregory Markwick of Wadhurst, gentleman, at Burwash on 14^th August 1632. They had a daughter, also named Elizabeth, christened on 24^th March 1638/9. Elizabeth senior died soon afterwards, presumably as a result of the birth, and was buried on 8^th April at Burwash.

Magnus Byne’s younger brother John, born in 1617, married Elizabeth, widow of Simon Conye. John and Elizabeth Byne had five children: Stephen (1650), Mary (1651), John (1657, died 1659), Edward (1661) and Anne (buried in 1680). John Byne’s will, dated 20^th April 1662, describes him as a yeoman of Burwash. His widow Elizabeth died in 1669.

Peterhouse, Cambridge in the 17th century (via flickr.com)

Another of Magnus’ younger brothers, Edward, born in 1623, was, like him, a clergyman and also a Cambridge graduate. Edward matriculated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1639, when he was described as ‘Londoniensis’ (of London). Renshaw speculates that he is the Edward Byne who was registered at Merchant Taylors School in 1632. He appears to have moved between Cambridge colleges, proceeding to the degree of B.A. at Trinity in 1644/5 and to that of M.A. at Caius in 1648. Edward Byne clearly shared his brother Magnus’ taste for religious controversy. According to Renshaw (quoting another source):

He was at first refused his M.A. degree because ‘being only B.A. contrary to the laudable custom of the University he preached in the town, and in his preaching delivered divers things derogatory to the Scriptures’.

(It would be fascinating to know exactly what those ‘derogatory’ things were: this was, of course, in the aftermath of the Civil War and shortly before the execution of King Charles, a time of great religious and political turmoil and experimentation). However, Renshaw informs us that Edward ‘made his submission’ in 1648 and became a fellow and president of Caius College, where he remained a fellow until 1652, having been morning lecturer there in 1645, registrar in 1646, and rhetoric praelector in 1649. In 1649 he was also minister of the Cathedral Church of Ely. In 1661 he was vicar of Pyworthy in Devon and from 1663 vicar of Linckinghorne in Cornwall.

Edward Byne married Martha, daughter of John Radford of Bermondsey, Citizen and Merchant Taylor, and his wife Joan. Edward and Martha Byne had six children: Edward who, according to the records of Exeter Cathedral, was born in the Close there on 26^th October 1653, Martha, Mary, Francis, Henry and John. Edward Byne died on 6^th February 1682/3 and his will was proved by his widow Martha on 7^th June. His son Francis, who was born in 1665, attended Exeter College, Oxford, and became a clergyman like his father, serving as vicar of Linkinghorne from 1690 until his death in 1724.

Magnus Byne’s youngest brother, Stephen, who was born in 1632, remained in Burwash and is described variously as a yeoman and a ‘gentleman’. He married twice: his first wife was Ann, daughter of John Peckham of Framfield, who was buried at Burwash on 17^th January 1667/8, and his second wife was Alice Heathfield, whom he married on 19^th October 1678 at Maresfield. Stephen was churchwarden of Burwash (a position previously occupied by his father, Stephen Byne senior) from 1670-72. By his first wife Ann, Stephen junior had three children: Magnus, christened at Burwash on 11^th April 1672; Ann, baptised there in 1674; and Mary. By his second wife Alice, Stephen had four more children: Alice, christened at Burwash in 1681; Stephen, baptised there on 14^th February 1683/4; William; and John, christened at Burwash on 9^th February 1689/90.

Stephen Byne was buried at Burwash on 17^th October 1691 and his will was proved exactly a month later at Lewes by Alice, his widow.  Alice was buried at Burwash on 3^rd June 1730.

In future posts, and continuing to use Renshaw as a guide, I will attempt to trace the Byne family back another generation, to the late 16th century and the reign of Elizabeth I.

(* In this post, as before, I have followed Renshaw’s practice of giving the old/new calendar dates as alternatives, where appropriate.)

Magnus Byne (1615 – 1671): a life in turbulent times

In 1615, in the twelfth year of the reign of King James I and in the last year of the life of William Shakespeare, my 9 x great grandfather Magnus Byne was born, in the village of Burwash, Sussex.* He was the son of Stephen Byne, a yeoman, and his wife Mary. While Magnus was still a child, Sir Walter Ralegh was beheaded, the ‘Mayflower’ sailed to the New World and Charles I succeeded his father as king.

Parish church of St Bartholomew, Burwash (via geograph)

On 31 June 1631, when he was sixteen years old, Magnus Byne was admitted as a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Two years before, King Charles had dissolved Parliament and it would not meet for another eleven years. Magnus graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1634 and proceeded to the degree of M.A. in 1638.

Magnus was licensed to the curacy of Wadhurst, a few miles north of Burwash, on 9^th December 1639, at the age of 24. Just seven months later, on 24^th July 1640, he was inducted to the rectory of Clayton-cum-Keymer, some thirty miles to the west. Later that year, King Charles was forced to recall Parliament as the result of a Scottish invasion, and in the following year there was insurrection in Ulster and the first stirrings of civil war in England.

St Peter and St Paul, Wadhurst (via flickr)

Soon after taking up the post of rector of Clayton, Magnus Byne married his first wife, Ann. Christened at Clayton on 2^nd March 1602, she was the daughter of William Wane, another clergyman, and his wife Joan. William, born at Westerham, Kent, in 1561, was ordained deacon on 28^th May 1598 and priest on 24^th June in the same year. After serving as curate of Wivelsham, Sussex, he was inducted on 1^st January 1601 to the rectory of Clayton-cum-Keymer. In 1606 and 1607 he was apparently ‘in trouble in the Court on account of his relations with a woman named Ellenor Poulter’ (Renshaw, p. 126, footnote). He was buried at Clayton on 10^th June 1640.

As well as being the daughter of a former rector of Clayton, Ann had previously been married to the two incumbents who immediately preceded Magnus. On 9^th July 1628 she married John Bantnor, who died ten years later and was buried at Clayton on 29^th June 1638. He was succeeded as rector by William Chowne, who married Ann Bantnor, widow, on 17^th October 1638. William died less than two years later and was buried on 10^th June 1640.

Interior of Clayton parish church (via englishbuildings.blogspot.
com)

I don’t have a date for Magnus Byne’s marriage to Ann, but it must have followed shortly after his arrival in Clayton, since the couple’s first child was born in July 1641. From our perspective, it seems an odd state of affairs: it’s almost as though Magnus inherited Ann with the rectory. We can only assume it was a marriage of convenience, rather than love: Ann would have been 40 years old when she married Magnus, who was only about 25 at the time.

Despite her age, Ann would have five children with Magnus, all of them born in one of the most turbulent decades in English history. In 1642 civil war broke out in earnest and continued until the royalist surrender in 1646, followed by the execution of the King in 1649. Mary Byne was born in 1641 but died two years later; Ann was born in 1643 and died in 1662, at the age of nineteen. Renshaw gives Stephen Byne’s year of birth as 1649 but this must be a mistake, since we have a christening record from 1647. In fact it was another son, Edward, who was baptised in 1649. Ann Byne’s last-born child was my 8 x great grandfather John, christened on 11^th March 1651, the year in which the second civil war broke out, culminating in the Battle of Worcester and the flight of Charles II.

The early childhood of my 8 x great grandfather John Byne would have been spent under the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell, which lasted until the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. It was during this period, in 1656, that Magnus Byne published his famous attack on the Quakers (see previous post). His wife Ann died in the first year of the reign of Charles II and was buried at Clayton on 11^th March 1661 (1662 by modern reckoning). In September 1662 Magnus married his second wife Sarah Bartlett, spinster, the daughter of John Bartlett of St Faith’s in the City of London, Citizen and Stationer. (I wonder if the latter was instrumental in John Byne’s decision to follow the same occupation, also in London?) Magnus and Sarah had three children together: Jane in 1663, Magnus in 1664 and Sarah in 1666.

Magnus Byne’s second wife Sarah was buried at Clayton on 7 February 1669/70. Magnus himself died in 1670/1 and was buried at Clayton on 3^rd March. He would have been 56 years old when he died. Letters of administration of his effects were granted at Lewes to his son Stephen on 6^th March.

Graves in churchyard at St John the Baptist, Clayton (via geograph)

When Magnus died, his eldest son Stephen was 24 years old and living at Tower Hill, London, where he worked as an upholsterer. He was recently married to his wife Rebecca. My 7 x great grandfather John Byne would have been 20 years old, probably also living at Tower Hill by this time and working as a stationer, though he would not marry his wife Alice for another five years. Edward Byne was 22  and also unmarried, while Magnus was only seven and Sarah five. There is no mention of Jane in her brother Stephen’s will of 1674, so I assume she did not survive.

Having laid out the basic facts and events of Magnus Byne’s life, my next post will explore his origins and family history.

(* In this, as in the last few posts, I am indebted to Walter Charles Renshaw’s exhaustive history of the Byne family of Sussex.)