In her will of 1652, Elizabeth Greene, widow of Stepney, writes as follows:

I give and bequeath unto my two Kinsmen Master Whittingham fogge and Ezekias fogg his brother both Living in East Kent fortie shillings apiece with benefit of Survivourshipp.

This follows immediately after the clause in which Elizabeth leaves five pounds to ‘my cousin Master Whittingham wood of Canterburie Gentleman’ and comes just before her bequest to the Jane, daughter of Richard Lee of Rochester. In my last post, I wrote about Whittingham Wood and his connections with a number of prominent Kent families – including the Lees and the Lovelaces. I also threw some light on the links between the Wood and Fogg family, and offered an explanation for the recurrence of such an unusual first name. Basically, I concluded that the Whittingham Wood mentioned in Elizabeth Greene’s will was the son of another Whittingham Wood, whose sister Mary married Richard Fogg of Barham, Kent. Whittingham Fogg was their son, and was presumably named after his maternal grandfather. So Whittingham Fogg and Whittingham Wood junior were cousins.

1611 map of Kent

In this post I want to take a closer look at the Fogg family. From various sources we know that Whittingham Fogg was born in 1608 in Barham, Kent, the son of Richard Fogg and Mary Wood, who were married two years before at All Hallows Lombard Street, London. In the following year his parents had another son christened, also at Barham, named Hezekiah – I believe he is the ‘Ezekias’ (a Latinised version of Hezekiah) of Elizabeth Greene’s will. Richard and Mary Fogg also had a daughter, Katharine, born around the same time.

There seems to be some confusion about the precise identity of Richard, father of Whittingham Fogg. This is partly because there were a number of Richard Foggs living in Kent in the first half of the seventeenth century, all apparently members of the same distinguished family. However, the most reliable information we have connecting Whittingham Fogg with his father identifies the latter as an ironfounder, probably born in Chilham, Kent, but residing in Barham. His son Whittingham lived in nearby Kingston.

Map of part of Kent, showing places associated with the Fogg family

Richard Fogg drew up his last will and testament in 1628, requesting his body to be buried in Chilham, making his wife Mary his executrix, and bequeathing money and property to his children Whittingham, Ezekias and Katherine. The connection with Chilham, when taken together with the recurrence of the name ‘Ezekias’, makes it almost certain that Richard’s parents were Rev. Ezekias Fogg and his wife Margaret Courthopp. Ezekias was born in Repton, near Ashford, in 1550. He became minister at Chilham, where he served for 52 years until his death at the age of 74 in 1624. Ezekias and Margaret Fogg had two daughters and five sons, including Richard, who was probably born in about 1580. According to Richard’s will, one of his sisters married Sir Christopher Marr, but I’ve yet to find any further records of this connection.

Some sources, including a pedigree of the Fogg family included in Archaeologia Cantiana mistakenly identify Richard Fogg, father of Whittingham, with the royalist naval captain of that name who was removed from his command by Parliament in July 1642, along with four other captains, when the Earl of Warwick took charge of the navy. Some sources give Captain Fogg’s year of birth as 1600, while the monument erected in his memory in Bekesborne church suggests he was born in 1594. Either birth date would be far too late for the Richard Fogg who married Mary Wood in 1606 and whose children were born in the same decade.

Royalist soldiers

Captain Fogg was the cousin of yet another Richard Fogg, of Danes Court in Tilmanstone, Kent. Volume 5 of the Archaeologia Cantiana includes a transcript of the family chronicle of this Richard Fogg, which provides some very useful information about the Foggs. Like Captain Fogg, this Richard seems to have been a royalist. On 11 July 1644 he notes that his daughter Ann has died of ‘convulsion Fitts occasioned by Sr Edwd Boys his Troops comming to my house often to search for me and to plunder me’, which one commenter interprets as suggesting that Fogg took part in the abortive Kentish rising of the previous year.

On 31st March 1645, Richard Fogg’s chronicle reports that a child named Jane was christened ‘after the new fashion according to the directory’ – that is, the Directory brought in when the Prayer Book was abolished in 1644. However, on 14th October 1647 a child name Richard was christened ‘by Mr  Thos. Russell a great Cavaleere with the Book of Common Prayer and signed with ye Cross’. On 6th October 1654 another child named Cecily was ‘baptized in ye old Way cum signo crucis’ . A footnote records that Richard Fogg regularly incurred the 40 shilling fine for use of the Prayer Book or non-use of the Directory.

Charles II landing at Dover, May 1660 (see below)

Richard Fogg’s chronicle also includes a copy of a letter sent to him on 17th September 1645 by the ‘General Committee’ at Ashford, demanding a contribution towards the expense of ‘suppressing several rebellions’ in Kent. The letter refers to the ‘backwardness’ of ‘you and your party’ in ‘ye Parliament service’ and threatens a ‘forfeiture for your past malignity’. By contrast, there is unaffected jubilation in this note in Fogg’s chronicle, headed ‘Anno Dni 1660’:

On May day the KING CHARLES the second was voted by the Parliament to bee the true and lawful KING of this land, and was immediately proclaimed in every County in their chefe towns. 

The 26 of May following being Friday the KING with his two Brothers, YORKE and GLOUCESTER, landed at Dover about 12 O Clock at Noon and without Stay went to Canterbury being accompanyed with GEN: MONKE and most of ye Nobility and Gentn of England ; such a SHEW on BARHAM DOWNE was never seene; and never the like OCCASION I HOPE.

Barham was, of course, the residence of the Richard Fogg who was father to Whittingham. The inclusion of Rev Ezekias Fogg’s epitaph in this chronicle definitely connects these Foggs with Richard Fogg, father of Whittingham, but I’ve yet to work out the precise connection. However, given the loyalty of these other Foggs to the King, it does seem likely that Richard Fogg of Barham and perhaps his son Whittingham were also royalists. If so, this provides further evidence of divided loyalties in the extended family and social network of the Woods and Foggs – and perhaps the Greenes of Stepney too, given that Elizabeth Greene leaves money to both families in her will – reflecting the divisions that ran through many English families at the time of the Civil War.

Sir Thomas Wilsford

As for Whittingham Fogg himself, he married Katharine Wilsford, daughter of Sir Thomas Wilsford of Kingston, who seems to have been another royalist. Whittingham and Katharine Fogg had eight children, including Whittingham Fogg junior, born in 1636. The latter may be the Whittingham Fogg who settled in Virginia in 1653. He seems to have been associated with a certain Ezekiel Fogg of Boston, a ‘practitioner of physick and Divinity’.