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The Descent of the Manor of Papworth St. Agnes to Thomas Mallory (1425-1469)
Generation – 1
In 1086 at the time of the Doomsday Book we have a man by the name of Walter (no surname) who holds only a nice-sized parcel of land in the Parish of Papworth, which was part of the Hundred of Papworth in Cambridgeshire, and a somewhat a smaller holding in the Sawtry (later subdivided) in Huntingdonshire. He held both sets of lands as a feudal subtenant of a man known in Cambridgeshire as Robert of Huntingdon and in Huntingdon as Robert the Sheriff. The lands Robert held in Cambridgeshire can be shown to be those lands which later became known as the Manor of Papworth St. Agnes. The lands in Sawtry held by Walter were never erected into a manor, though the name, Papworth tract survived the medieval period into modern times to designate them. That both were held by the same individual, is a matter of importance because it provides a key clue as to their own descent later (as well as the descent of other connected properties which were acquire and disposed of at later dates during the middle ageas); and this, in turn, is a very powerful tool in clarifying the family relationships that were involved, a knowledge of which being what makes history come alive.
The name of the manor, the parish, and the county hundred was originally the same. In the earliest periods, it was sometimes written Pampeworthe (two syllables only), probably in confusion with the place name of another district of Cambridgeshire which was called Pampesworthe (three syllables, with the “s” pronounced). Soon enough Pappeworthe (the modern Papworth) became the most common medieval spelling, though there are endless variants. Anneys with its own variations in spelling became suffixed to Pappeworthe to produce Pappeworthe Anneys as the most common representation of the manor’s name by which it became popularly known from the very last years of the 12th century, at the latest. The Anneys of Pappeworthe Anneys was a phonetic representation of the local pronunciation of a woman’s name, Agnes. This was done in honour of the first woman to hold the manor in her own right, Agnes de Pappeworthe (perhaps the most common of many medieval spellings of this family’s name, so the one I would like to use, rather than Papworth which I will reserve for the name of the manor, itself). Apparently, in the 19th century, government surveyors, when translating into English the Latin version of the name (Papworth Agnetis) appearing in the legal documents of previous centuries, hyper-corrected it to Papworth St. Agnes on the mistaken assumption that the use of a woman’s name could only be explained if the woman the manor was named after were a saint. Actually, this was partly true, but is a story to be narrated under the next generation.
Walter would have been born around 1055, assuming a normal generation length between him and the next person to possess the manor. The Doomsday Book form of his name makes it appear he was English, rather than Norman French, but no mention is made of his ethnic background as is sometimes the case with others so, ultimately, his ethnic origin must be considered unknown. When he died is impossible to estimate, though sometime during the reign of Henry I would be reasonable as that would appear to have been during the era in which this manor was held by its next feudal tenant and under whom the unique manner by which Papworth St. Agnes was to be held in feudal tenure was likely to have been determined.
Generation – 2
The next identifiable feudal tenant of both the Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire properties was Agnes de Pappeworthe, a woman who was very likely to have been the daughter of Walter of generation – 1 and born around 1080. If not, then she would have been the wife of Walter’s son or nephew and the manor would have been entailed on her for her life, as her single appearance in the written record is in what would have to be her old age. An approximate year of birth, though, at around 1080, of course, assumes a generation length of only 20 years each between the two generations after her because we are dealing with heiresses, among whom child marriage was common. Agnes appears in the written record as the lady of Papworth in her own right only twice in the late 1250s, both times being listed in the Pipe Rolls as having paid money she, for some reason or other, owed the crown, the debt being paid off quite quickly. Her age can be roughly estimated as can the manner of descent due to a special mention made of the manor in the “Rotuli de Dominabus et Pueris et Puellis de XII Comitatibus”, a survey taken in 1285.
I once came across mention of a story that this particular Agnes had been a mistress of Henry I, but I would not know how to go about discovering whether this might be true or not. In any case, Agnes would have been the right age and the unique form by which she held her manor of the king seems to be hiding a story of some sort behind it. It was held by Agnes and her heirs in order to provide feed and clothe two poor people on an on-going basis and for its possessor to pray for the souls of the king and his ancestors. Because this was a religious purpose and was a gift of the king, it was subject to no other feudal fees, thus the manor effectively became a tax free zone operating in Cambrideshire to the benefit of its lords. Significantly, the Huntingdonshire lands are not included in this gift.
Agnes’s husband’s name is unknown, as is whether she even had a husband. Her surname, if she were Walter’s daughter, was probably no more than a territorial designation, not a surname in the modern sense, and so, too, would have been the name of any spouse or significant other, if he had been a native Englishman. In fact, there are at least two other Pappeworthe families I have come across in medieval England in different counties who cannot very well have been related to each other or to the lords and ladies of Papworth St. Agnes.
Nevertheless, whatever the marital state of Agnes de Pappeworthe, she did appear to live a long life and certainly must have appeared to do good, especially during the troubled times of King Stephen when much of the English countryside was devastated and the economy wrecked. For whatever reason, the manor became so indelibly identified with her that, by the time of her death, which I estimate to have been as late as 1165, the manor was popularly known as “Pappeworth Anneys” (or, any of the many numerous spelling variations, thereof), a name which is noted in the written record as early as the first years of the 13th century not more than 50, perhaps not more than 40 years after her death.
Generation – 3
The nature of English common law was such with regard to the inheritance of the lands held by feudal tenure, that we can know that Agnes de Papworth had only one surviving child, a daughter, who married and had at least one child who was a son. If Agnes had had a brother, she couldn’t have inherited anything. If Agnes had had a sister or if her sister had had a child, there would have been a co-heir Agnes would have been forced to share her properties with. As it is, the one record of Agnes comes at a time when we can prove that her next heir was a man with an different surname from hers and that Agnes was in sole possession of her properties, meaning that the man could not have been Agnes’s husband. Moreover, as this man can be shown to have had a daughter each by two different wives and that both daughters were considered co-heiresses at his death, it means he could not have been a husband of a daughter or granddaughter of Agnes who was merely holding the Pappeworthe lands in the right of his wife. He would have held it in his own right for this to have happened. As his family name was different from that which Agnes used, under the normal workings of the common law of the period, this man must have been the son of Agnes’s daughter and only surviving child. Agnes’s daughter’s name is unknown. However, we can rather roughly estimate her year of birth as being around the year 1100, meaning that the girl could, in terms of chronology, very well have been yet another of Henry I’s numerous illegitimate progeny. However, my gut feeling is that she probably wasn’t, as Henry I rather aggressively used his illegitimate daughters to increase his human relations network among his more important subjects and difficult neighbours. A daughter would have been treated as a valuable human resource by him and not left neglected in the rural countryside as some of his sons seem to have been. Whoever her father might have been, Agnes’s daughter was married to a man of the Stanton family sometime probably by around 1119, and certainly not after 1126, at the very latest. Though the mother and father’s forenames remain unknown, the son’s name was Gumer de Stanton. When Agnes’s daughter died is unknown and impossible to even estimate, the only thing we know is that she was not alive in 1285.
Generation – 4
Gumer de Stanton, as mentioned above, would have been born no later than 1127, but I would personally prefer an earlier date of around 1120 as a rough estimation of his birth year, because that would keep a fairly normal generation length between him his oldest surviving child, a daughter by the name of Elena, who was born to him by his first wife in 1145. His forename may have had its origin in the Breton name of Guiomar, and his father’s ancestors could have arrived after the Conquest with Count Alan who held Stanton in 1086. In his very old age, Gumer married, at least, for his second time and had another daughter who was one year old in 1185 when the “Rotuli de Dominabus et Pueris et Puelis de XII Comitatibus” was written and he was already dead, leaving Papworth St. Agnes to be held by two co-heiresses, one of whom was 39 years older than the other.
Generation – 5
The oldest daughter of Gumer de Stanton was mentioned as having four sons and two daughters in 1185, but no husband is mentioned, something which would have been the case had he still been alive, nor are any names mentioned other than that of her father Gumer. However, thanks to future court cases in the coming decades, her name, the name of her husband, and those of most of her children can be fairly safely inferred. Her own name would have been Elena and her husband’s Geoffrey de Pappeworthe, a man who was, in spite of the surname and the manor’s name being the same, surely not closely related, as the Church in the early Middle Ages hardly ever granted dispensations for either first or second cousins to marry, not even among royalty. Perhaps, in fact, they were not related at all in the normal modern sense of the word. Elena’s children’s names will be discussed under the next generation.
In the very last years of Elena’s life, however, lightning struck. 1207, King John decided to give Papworth to a man from the Parish of Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire called John Russell. He appears to have belonged to a merchant family that appeared frequently in the medieval records of Huntingdonshire. Elena demanded an inquisition be taken to determine whether the property was hers by inheritance or not. An inquisition was taken 1208, but sided with the king, thus dispossessing her of Papworth St. Agnes and all her cattle on these lands, as well as charging her a monetary fine for court costs. A decision was made in favour of the king on the technical grounds that the manor concerned was held of the king for a purely religious purpose and, as it paid no tax, could be disposed at the king’s own pleasure. Her lands, though, in Huntingdonshire, being subject to feudal aids, were left in her possession. From the records generated by this process, we learn that her heir’s name was Walter, possibly so called after her great-grandmother’s presumed father.
Probably a few years before this, she entered into another court case for the benefit of her daughter Agnes, who would surely have been the namesake of Elena’s long-lived great-grandmother, in order to ensure that the rent off a certain piece of property she had a dower right to in Bedfordshire would go to her daughter after her death. We can also learn that Elena de Stanton’s husband was Geoffrey de Pappeworthe. This Pappeworthe is unlikely, though, to have had his origin in either the Parish of Papworth St. Agnes or in Papworth Hundred in Cambridgeshire. The fact that Elena de Pappeworth had dower rights in Bedfordshire she was in a position to dispose for the benefit of her daughter would indicate the man was from a Papworth family having its origins in a different county. He did, though, have, by coincidence, the same family name as the manor over which people must have expected him to eventually become lord of through right of his wife but which he did not live long enough to do so, thus preventing his existence from obscuring the historical record even further than it already is, by obscuring that of his wife and heir. If destiny and history are brothers, they must be comedians, because they are constantly playing tricks on humankind.
Since Helena’s year of birth must be 1145 or thereabouts, a rough estimate of Geoffrey’s year of birth would be about 1140. He and his wife would have married around 1160 and their first son, quite probably, would have been Walter who appeared as his mother’s heir in 1207 and 1208 and who would have been born by around 1165, when his then legendary great-great-grandmother, Agnes, the St. Agnes of future popular imagination, would have been in the very last years of her long life. She could not, in any case, have passed away very much before his approximate year of birth. One can easily imagine that this by then awesome matriarch named him, giving him the name of her own presumed father, Walter. Even if Agnes had recently died, she still, though, would have been very much alive in people’s memories, being locally famous for having kept fed and clothed continually throughout most of her long life at least two poor people and, something which was probably more difficult, having prayed all the days of her life for the richly sinful souls of the five kings of England that had co-existed with her during her time on earth and for their sometimes even more sinful ancestors. Dying between 1208 and 1210, Elena did not long live after the shock of having lost Papworth St. Agnes, but coming from the stock of what legends are made of, she probably was not killed by that shock either, as will be further explained below.
Nothing is known of Gumer de Stanton’s youngest daughter who was one year old in 1185, not even her name. She probably died soon after the survey was taken, because she doesn’t figure in the inquisition of 1208 to determine whether Papworth St Agnes belonged to Elena de Pappeworthe by right of inheritance or not.
Generation – 6
Of Elena de Stanton and Geoffrey de Pappeworthe’s children, most, rather surprisingly, can be identified, though, of course, with varying degrees of certainty. They will be listed in order of certainty.
Walter de Pappeworthe was Elena de Pappeworth’s heir in 1208. He was probably born between 1160 to 1165, and, if as I suspect he was the namesake of his great-grandmother’s father, probably born earlier rather than later, as she could easily be believed to be alive in 1160, but less so as the years go on. He would have married early as was customary at the time, so a rough estimate of 1181 would not be far wrong as a year for him to have begun a family. His presumed children will be covered in the next generation. When his mother was dispossessed by King John, they would have still had their lands in Huntingdonshire. These lands are the subject of a 1210 Curia Regis case alluded to above, from which we can deduce that this particular Walter de Pappeworth, like his mother, had already passed away by that time.
Agnes de Pappeworthe would surely have been named after her great-great-grandmother, but, as the court case her name appears in could have only taken place, at the earliest, in 1195, and, the object of the case was to give her future property rights in a yearly rent, this would seem to indicate it was part of a marriage settlement. Considering the early ages at which people got married, I would estimate her year of birth as being around 1180 and would think she might be her parents’ younger daughter. Who her husband might be, may prove impossible to discover as might an estimated year of death.
Robert de Pappeworthe, the elder, on the basis of the 1210 Curia Regis case can be deduced to have existed in the Cambridgeshire/Huntingdonshire area and can be most easily placed in this generation. He seems to have left no record in which he is directly mentioned. All that can be said about his life is that he would have probably been born between 1165 and 1180 and would have died after 1210 and that he probably never wandered far from where he grew up, thus the need for the widow of someone of the same name who has to be of the next generation calling her former husband by the name he must have been known by, Robert the younger (literally, “little Robert”).
According to the Curia Regis Rolls, Geoffrey de Pappeworth, a monk belonging to the Abbey of Sawtry, was given power of attorney by the abbot for a certain period of time in 1214 in anticipation of the abbot making a trip abroad, most likely to the mother abbey of Bon Repos in Viscounty of Leon in Brittany, an abbey whose neighbouring castle was called Joyeuse Garde. As nothing else is known about this Geoffrey, he could just as easily fit in the next generation as he would here. However, if he were a member the next generation, I would rather expect a man given his name to be the family heir as so many men in earlier centuries named their first sons after their fathers.
Before continuing, though, a short digression to illustrate a small number of possible Pappeworthe and Mallory of Papworth St. Agnes connections with “Le Morte Darthur”. The adjective of Leon, by the way, is Leonaise (hopefully, I remember my French spelling correctly) which appears in the “Le Morte Darthur” in medieval English spelling as Lyonesse, the Kingdom of Lancelot. Lancelot’s castle is called Joyeuse Garde and when King Arthur fights the Emperor of Rome, one of the Roman senators is named Sawtry. Interestingly, both the barons la Zouche of the first and second creations appear to be ancestors of Thomas Mallory of Papworth St. Agnes (1425 – 1469) and the la Zouches descend from a ruling house of Brittainy. The Abbey of Sawtry itself was founded and funded by others of the later Pappeworthe descendant, Thomas Mallory of Papworth St Agnes’s ancestors, the Earls of Huntingdon, certain of whom also became kings of Scotland. One Duchess of Brittany, whose father had been an Earl of Huntingdon, chose to be buried at Sawtry, and the Papworth’s, throughout their history, kept a close relationship with the abbey, a relationship that was continued by Thomas Mallory, himself, as well as his son, Anthony, right up until the dissolution of the monasteries made that no longer possible in the late 1530s. None of this is decisive. All is suggestive. This is just a very small selection of items creating a presumption on my part that the possible authorship of “Le Morte Darthur” is still open to debate.
Of the possible sons, there is a Ralph who would probably fit chronologically but for whom there is no other evidence, even circumstantial, that could justify his inclusion here, other than the fact that he had a son named Robert, a name which appears to have been common in this family during the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
One remaining daughter, as of yet, cannot even be tentatively identified.
Generation – 7
I would place a certain Robert de Pappeworthe the younger as the oldest son of the above mentioned Walter de Pappeworthe and born perhaps around 1182 or 1183. He married a woman by the name of Clera, the one mentioned above as having brought a Curia Regis case against Walter de Pappeworthe for her dower in the Pappeworthe Huntingdonshire lands which had been at least partly inherited from the Walter who appeared in the Doomsday Book. Several things may be deduced, one of which is that, her husband had possessed the Huntingdonshire lands up till his death which might very well have been that same year of 1210 and close in time to the deaths of his presumed father and his grandmother. To summarize the facts, at the beginning of 1208, the holder of these lands would have had to have been Elena de Pappeworth and her heir was Walter, not Robert. Neither Clera’s husband nor the Walter who is being sued can, thus, be Elena’s children. Clera distinguishes her former husband as being Robert the younger and, as properly distinguishing people who could be confused with one another has always been an important matter in English common law, it means there very likely must be a Robert the older still living of whom Robert the younger cannot be a direct heir. Also, there must be yet at least the possibility of another Robert the son of Walter being born before the Curia Regis case is actually decided. Taken together, the most economical explanation is that Walter de Pappeworth I, the son of Elena and Geoffrey de Pappeworthe, died around the same time as his mother in around 1209 and that also at about the same time Walter de Pappeworthe I’s son Robert the younger died with a widow but without any surviving children. It would also mean that Walter de Pappeworthe I’s younger son Robert the elder, Walter I’s second son Walter de Pappeworthe II, and that possibly even a newly born son of Walter de Pappeworth II by the name of Robert were in existence when the court case opens. Assuming these identifications to be correct, I would also assume that sometime during the years 1208 to 1210, Huntingdonshire was hit by one of the many plagues and diseases that regularly devasted Europe throughout the middle ages every 10 years or so, though none as disastrously as that of the Black Death of 1349 when roughly one third of England’s population was killed off in a single year. A record of whether Clera received her dower or not has not survived.
Walter de Pappeworthe II would have been, for reasons mentioned immediately above, almost certainly been a younger son of Walter de Pappeworth I. A rough estimate of his approximate year of birth would be 1185. As a younger brother without land, it is unlikely he married until his older brother died in perhaps 1209. He is most likely to have had at least two sons, the younger of whom survived, as an identifiable Papworth line of descent for the Huntingdonshire properties continued into the 14th century. In 1219, there was another Curia Regis case brought against Walter II by Robert Russel, being most likely the same Robert Russel who was awarded Papworth St. Agnes in 1208. After this, I have been unable so far to find any further records concerning this member of the Pappeworth family.
For reasons that will be evident elsewhere, I would like to include the Robert Russel who was given the Manor of Papworth St. Agnes by King John (for a fee to be paid, of course, which was guaranteed by two earls) in this generation. He appears to have married after acquiring Papworth St. Agnes as no known children of his appear to have been born earlier than this event, so I would not consider him to be much older than 30 (if that old) when King John dispossessed Elena de Pappeworthe of her manor for his benefit. A rough estimate of his year of birth would, thus, be around 1180. He came from Kimbolton, which means his family could not have been a gentry family, as the only known medieval Russels in the Kimbolton region of Huntingdonshire, which appear to be numerous, were described as merchants whenever a profession is mentioned. According to folio 200 of the Harleian Manuscript 807, this Robert Russel of Papworth St. Agnes is the father of John Russel of Papworth St. Agnes who is the father of Mary Russel who is the wife of Walter Papworth, etc. The same manuscript entry also ascribes the first Robert Russel with a son Ralph who marries the daughter of James de Novo Mercato and from whom a long line of Russels in Gloucestershire descend. Many of the pedigrees in this manuscript, though, seem corrupt, as does this one, too, the corruptness, though, being based on inadequate information rather than bad intentions. However, the pedigree is not impossible chronologically, at least, with regard to Papworth St. Agnes, if we also assume the first Robert Russel was an old man when he acquired the manor and that his older son John, to whom the manor was to descend, died before his father, leaving several children behind. I am not prepared to reject this possible argument as being completely out of hand, however, and am supplying information here about it for anyone who might find it attractive. However, I do not, myself, at the moment, personally consider the argument to be attractive. I would rather think that the heirs of the first Robert Russel of Papworth St. Agnes were his children and not his grandchildren, as there are no contemporary records in which I have so far been able to find justification for an intermediary generation. Also, I think it unlikely, though of course not impossible, that the Russels of Gloucestershire were related to this family. Confirmation would be needed to believe so, considering that the concerned Harleian manuscript was written perhaps as much as 500 years afterwards and, as is typical of such documents, does not list its sources. I would, thus, place this Robert Russel’s marriage at perhaps around 1210 and place the birth years of the three children who survived him at around 1210 to 1225.
Generation – 8
The first of the older Robert Russel’s children to inherit Papworth St. Agnes was his son Robert Russel II. If the father of Robert Russel I were not yet another Robert, as is entirely possible, this Robert might also not be the first son of his father, though would have been the first to survive to adulthood. I would, thus, suggest an approximate year of birth as about 1215. As heir of the manor, he would not have been allowed to not get married, but who his wife was or whether they had children or how many is, to date, completely unknown. When he passed away, the various family lands at Papworth St. Agnes in Cambridgeshire and other lands which Robert Russel I appears to have had in Huntingdonshire before acquiring Papworth St. Agnes went to his next heir, which was his brother John. No former wife of Robert II appears demanding a dower, indicating she, too, had died, as well as any children they might have had.
John Russel was the second of the elder Robert Russel’s children to survive. According one inquisition post mortem of his brother, John’s year of birth would be around 1219 and according to another it would have been 1221. For our purposes we should assign him a birth year of about 1220 give or take a year. If he married, it probably was late, perhaps even after he acquired the family lands in 1249. He did not, in any case, have children who survived him, as, when he died in 1290 his next heir was the son of his sister.
Robert Russel II’s sister’s name is nowhere written in any contemporary record I have so far been able to locate. However, on folio 200 of the British Library’s Harleian Manuscript no. 807, a pedigree of the Russel family which has already been referred to above, gives her name as Mary. Although the pedigree seems unreliable, for the sake of convenience, I would be prepared to accept Mary as being the lady’s name, as long as no other name shows up in any yet to be discovered contemporary record, as a name makes it easier to remember the individual and to keep known data in one’s mind about that individual with far greater levels of accuracy. Mary’s son must have been born before 1258, but as his future heir was born in 1299, it is unlikely this son William de Pappeworthe’s year of birth is many years before the 1258 date mentioned just above. Mary’s own approximate year of birth would probably be not much beyond 1225, if her brother’s known life records can be considered an accurate guideline. That she would have been probably more than 30 at the birth of the future de Pappeworthe family heir of the Russel lands in Papworth St. Agnes and elsewhere, however, deserves comment. This would indicate that her only known husband, Walter de Pappeworthe was probably her second husband and that by her first, if any children survived, she would have had daughters only. Mary died before her second surviving brother did in 1290, but when is impossible to know.
Mary, during her presumed second marriage, was, considering the history of their families, sleeping with the enemy. This is another reason for assuming that Walter de Pappeworthe was her second husband. If she had been married before, it would have most likely been to another member of the gentry class her father had schemed so hard to become a part of and which her father or oldest brother would have chosen for her, but not into a family her immediate family had deprived of its rightful inheritance. If, in her late 20s or early 30s, she were a widow of a fairly well off lord of a manor or a gentleman possessing significant lands by feudal tenure, as many did, her dower rights would have given her financial independence, whether or not she had any children, thus giving her both the means and the ability to more or less chose her second husband as she pleased, as long as she paid an appropriate fee to her immediate feudal overlord, someone who, in the case of her dower lands, would not have been her brother and not cared about the human relations aspect of what she was doing.
Mary’s husband Walter was the heir of the Walter de Pappeworthe II of the previous generation who had been sued by his presumed sister-in-law and can be shown to have inherited this man’s lands, as they later appear as a part the possessions which were noted by early 14th century documents as having been held by Mary and Walter’s son. It would, therefore, be convenient to think of this Walter de Pappeworth III as the elder Walter de Pappeworth II’s son, the proof being in the descent of land held in Offord Darcy in Huntingdonshire which was at issue when Clera sued the elder Walter de Pappeworthe II and which had never formed a part of the Russel estate.
As indicated previously, Walter de Pappeworthe III probably had an older brother named Robert who was born in around 1210, but who must have died young. He would also either have had other older brothers who died young or sisters who may have survived but do not appear in contemporary records in an identifiable fashion. Walter de Pappeworthe III, like his wife Mary, must have been over 30 at the time of his marriage to her, but was probably not very much older, as there is good reason to assume that both were financially independent and of age and that both could marry as they pleased, thus indicating a love match. And though there is always the exception that proves the rule, love matches most generally occur among those of the same generation. I would, therefore, assume him to be no more than five years older than his wife, if that, therefore tentatively setting his approximate year of birth as 1220. This would mean, too, that barring an older brother surviving until early adulthood, just as he was probably Mary’s second husband, so was she probably his second wife. In his case, too, if he did have a first wife and have children by that woman to survive, they would have surely been daughters, as his son by Mary can be shown to have inherited property through both parents, something he normally could not have done, unless he were Walter de Pappeworthe III’s first son to survive to adulthood. Concerning contemporary records, he must have been an exceptionally non-confrontational individual, as there is only one contemporary record I have so far been able find of him and that is only as the witness to a charter concerning someone else. His year of death is unknown, but has to be before 1300 when his son by Mary Russel dies having held his father’s Pappeworthe property in Huntingdonshire in addition to his inheritance from his mother’s family.
Generation – 9
Sir William de Pappeworthe, son of the above Mary Russel and Walter de Pappeworthe, by an almost comic quirk of history united in his person the two families, both the possessed and the dispossessed, who, since the Norman Conquest, had been lords of the manor of Pappeworthe St. Agnes. Not only that, through the possession of estates which had apparently belonged to the Russels before King John awarded them Papworth St. Agnes, he is likely to have also held more land in feudal tenure than any of previous lord of Pappeworth St. Agnes had before him. He might very well have been the product of second marriages on the part of both of his parents and was probably born not much earlier than 1258. He was able to hold in feudal tenure the lands of his mother’s family from 1290. His holding of lands inherited from his father could have come at any time in the last half of the 13th century, as there is currently no way to estimate when his father died, though he certainly was dead by 1299 when Sir William, himself, died. Sir William played an active role in local society and was chosen as a county representative in the House of Commons. He had two known sons by Ada who, considering Sir William’s age at his sons’ birth, was probably his second wife. It is also convenient to think of him having had a rather much older (relative to his sons) daughter, who was probably not Ada’s child. Passing away in 1314, his widow survived him, though for how long is unknown.
Generation -10
Sir William’s presumed daughter could also have been the only surviving child of a next older full brother or the only surviving child of an only surviving full sister with no surviving sisters to produce heirs on either Sir William’s father or mother’s sides. Only by stretching things to the realm of the barely possible could she have been a daughter of his only known wife, Ada, whose oldest son was born in 1299. Whatever this presumed daughter’s true affiliation was with Sir William, it could only have been through her that the Mallory’s could have inherited Papworth St. Agnes. It is more convenient to think of her as Sir William’s daughter than a niece and would better explain the continued connections with the Mallorys which ensured their future inheritance of Papworth St. Agnes. She would have been born around 1280 and would have been the wife of a man by the name of Thomas Brocket of Kirkby Mallory, a man of fairly moderate means who was not the lord of the manor, but had been raised as a member of the gentry class and who, in spite of his apparently somewhat modest means, was very actively involved in the local affairs of his time. They had only one daughter called Ala (Ela in modern English) to survive. Sir William’s daughter quite possibly survived her husband to continue as a link between the Pappeworth’s and her daughter’s descendents, her husband Thomas Brocket most likely having died around 1320 as there are no records of him being alive after 1316 in which he deeds a piece of land in Kirkby Mallory to a certain Robert Mallory in what must be a marriage settlement. Taken together, this would indicate that the Brocket line had died out in that area of Leicestershire and would also indicate that Thomas Brocket did not outlive his wife or, if he did, did not remarry to produce a second family that would have needed to be provided with lands.
Sir John de Pappeworthe, born in 1299, was 14 ½ when his father passed away in 1314, the inquisition post mortem of his father being unusually precise about his age. His mother Ada was assigned a dower and swore not to remarry without the king’s permission as it was the king, himself, who was the direct feudal overlord Papworth St. Agnes was held of. The name of Sir John’s wife is unknown. He did play an active role in local society and, like his father, was elected as a county representative of the House of Commons. He passed away in 1359.
Edmund was a younger brother of Sir John, but played no known role in local society and I have not yet been able to trace him elsewhere. He probably died young and did not marry or have children.
Generation – 11
Ala Brocket, the daughter of Thomas Brocket and his wife the presumed oldest surviving child of Sir William de Pappeworth of generation – 9, would have been born around 1300. He father deeds her a piece of property when still a child and deeds further property in 1316 in what can only be interpreted as a marriage settlement to Robert Mallory, the second or third son of Sir Thomas Mallory, lord of the Manor of Kirkby Mallory, and his wife whose name is unknown but is fairly likely to have been the sister of the last Baron la Zouche of the first creation. They were endowed with enough property to survive comfortably when considered with relation to the times in which they lived, but given normal circumstances, their children’s chances of holding on to gentry status would have been quite slim. Destiny has its favourites, though, and merely clinging to the fringes of gentry status was not what destiny had in mind for the children of these individuals.
Sir William de Pappeworthe II was the only surviving child of Sir John. He was born around 1331 and died in 1414, having played an important role in both local society and at the national level, having fairly frequently been a member of the House of Commons. He was a fairly close associate of Roger Flore, the most influential parliamentarian of his times, a man who was often chosen by the House of Commons to serve as its Speaker. Another of Sir William’s associates was the family of his young neighbour who literally had estates bordering his, the future Lord Tiptoft, a man who, in his earlier years participated frequently as a member of the House of Commons, but, on marrying an aunt of the Duke of York and near relative of the royal family, was ennobled and became a member of the House of Lords. Lord Tiptoft’s son, who Sir William would not have lived long enough to know, was the future first Earl of Worcester, a man who played an important role, even if indirectly, in the lives of the descendants of Sir William’s cousin, Ala Brocket.
Sir William had no surviving siblings. Considering his family’s relative wealth, Sir William II’s father married him to a woman who brought only very modest additions to the family estate. Her name was Elizabeth Preston, the daughter of John Preston of Preston Plucknet in Somersetshire. She and Sir William had a son by the name of John, but he died as a child. Then, in 1359, within a matter of weeks, Sir William’s father, his father-in-law, and finally his wife pass away. He is judged, due to the fact that he and his wife had a child together, to have a life interest in his father-in-law’s manor. Feeling a sense of responsibility, he bought out the shares of his wife’s coheirs, being either the sisters of her father or, when not living, their heirs. However, after gaining full title in his own right to the manor, he then sold it. He married again when he was around 40 to a woman by the name of Alice. If they had any children, none survived and, as he reached his mid-50s, he came to an agreement with his next heir, the grandson of his first cousin Ala Mallory that his lands should passed to that man’s second son William Mallory who, if not his godson, would appear, based on the course of later events, to have at least been his namesake. In fact, at the death of William Mallory’s father when he was still a small boy, Sir William de Pappeworthe seems to have taken over the role of the young William’s foster father, with Sir William making two series of property settlements on the boy, the second of which takes place in 1408 and would indicate that the young William Mallory, having come of age, had married a woman the older Sir William and his wife had chosen for him, possibly a close relative of his wife Alice, though since history has provided no clue as of yet to the woman’s name, this must remain speculation. Sir William de Pappeworthe passed away in 1414 having previously arranged to leave behind bequests to his old associate Roger Flore and to the Abbey of Sawtry with which all the lords of Papworth St. Agnes of the Pappeworthe family had traditionally kept a close relationship and which the Mallorys were to continue. His wife Alice died in 1416, at which the young Sir William Mallory took full possession of those properties Sir William had entailed him, becoming not only the first Mallory lord of Papworth St Agnes in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire (it straddled county borders), but also the first Mallory lord of Shelton in Bedfordshire, a manor which had never previously belonged to either the Pappeworthes or the Mallorys, but which Sir William de Pappeworthe went to a special effort to acquire his much loved heir.
Generation – 12
Even though there is no direct proof, Ala Brocket and Robert Mallory can fairly safely be considered the parents of a man by the name of Anketil Mallory. There is documentary evidence that they also had a son by the name of John and another by the name of Robert.
John was probably the oldest son, perhaps being born around 1317 or 1318. Anketil would have perhaps come second sometime around 1320 and Robert a couple of years later.
Anketil, being the only one who left behind any strong trace in the historical record, and the one to whose descendants Papworth St. Agnes descended, he shall be the only one of his siblings to be discussed. He appears to have been well-educated, possibly having spent a certain amount of time studying at Oxford. He became a part of the entourage of a presumed somewhat distant relative, the Archbishop of York William la Zouche who, being pleased with him, gave him his sister in marriage around 1245 and at least part of the Manor of Sudborough in Northamptonshire as a type of marriage settlement. By the Archbishop’s sister, he had two children. He may have lost his wife in the Black Death and, after the Archbishop’s subsequent death, he became involved in financial difficulties in the late 1350s. In 1360 he settles most, if not all (the precise proportion is still unsure) of the manor he acquired from the Archbishop on his daughter as a marriage settlement. In the 1360s he became a servant of the royal family and, when Richard II becomes king, he is made a king’s knight and given various pensions and sources of income, possibly because he seems to have been a second cousin to the father of the king’s half-brothers, partly because his son-in-law is influentially placed in the government of the times and perhaps most of all because he was educated and had a knack for pleasing others. Based on recent information provided by S. V. Mallory Smith, in his last years, he would appear to have married again and to have had at least one more child, a son Anketin who was born posthumously. He may have also had another daughter, but this, too, needs further review.
Generation – 13
Anketil Mallory’s oldest son, who would have been born sometime around the mid to late 1340s was variously called Anketil, Anketin, and Anthony (or Antoine in French language documents). Most commonly he his referred to as Anketin, so that is what he will be called now. Anketin seems to have experience financial insecurity in his youth and it is unlikely he would have been married before the reign of Richard II which propelled his father into court favour. In 1378 he married Alice de Driby a very wealthy heiress, as her third husband. It seems that they were roughly the same age. Even if his first aim was financial security, the marriage was successful and rapidly became of love match on not only her side, but his, too. He was knighted by 1382 and was called on to play an active role in the government of Lincolnshire. He died in 1392.
Anketil’s daughter by the sister of the Archbishop was called Ala and married to Sir Thomas Greene, the son of Sir Henry Greene and brother of yet another Sir Henry Greene who was Richard II’s favourite minister of state. Ala had several children by her husband. One of her more historically important descendants, for good or bad, was Catherine Parr, the sixth Queen of Henry VIII whose role in raising Edward VI and Elizabeth I as protestant, ensured that England did not return to Catholicism after his death.
Anketil, according to my interpretation of information supplied just yesterday by S. V. Mallory Smith, may have had a posthumous son also named Anketin like his much older brother, but would have been younger than all but one of his older brother’s children. I still don’t know enough about him though to write a coherent narrative.
Anketil is sometimes credited with a daughter who married firstly the above-mentioned younger Henry Greene’s son Ralph, then married Sir Simon Felbrigge. However, the inquisition post mortem is said to have shown that her next heir could not have been a descendant of Anketil. Considering that Anketil had a second wife very late in life, it could very possibly fit quite nicely chronologically and it is worth going over the facts once again to determine things with more definiteness.
In addition, there is a Thomas Mallory of Bytham who cannot be a son of Anketil’s oldest son by the name of Anketin. He would, however, most likely be a near connection of Anketil’s, but in what way is not at all clear.
Generation – 13
Sir Anketin Mallory had four children by Alice de Driby. Thomas, his oldest son, was his rich mother’s heir, but dying before his mother did in 1412, her estates passed to his daughter Elizabeth and her descendants. Their daughter Margery married Sir Robert Moton of Leicestershire. Their other daughter Beatrice married Sir John Bagot of Staffordshire. Their second son William became, through family agreement, the designated heir of Sir William Pappeworthe II of Papworth St. Agnes.
William’s history, being covered by me in depth elsewhere, will not be covered here. Suffice it to say that he was born in 1386 and died in 1445. He married twice, firstly in around 1408 to a woman whose name has not yet been identified and secondly to Margaret a presumed daughter of John Burley of Shropshire and the wife of Robert Corbet, the lord of the manor of Corbet Moreton. His second wife died in 1439. He married a third time to a woman by the name of Margery who survived him. By his first wife, he seems to have had a daughter Margaret who was the first wife of Thomas Palmer of Leicestershire. By his second wife Margaret Burley he had a son Thomas who inherited Papworth St. Agnes and possibly a second son Robert who, in the first years of the reign of Edward IV was the Lieutenant of the Constable of the Tower of London. He also had a daughter Anne whose age is impossible to judge and who could have been a daughter of any of his three wives. He was knighted relatively early in life and twice served in the French wars.
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