Everard Digby

Family/Spouse: Maria Neale. Maria (daughter of Francis Neale) died after 1592. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Everard Digby was born about 1578; died on 30 Jan 1606.

Notes:

Knight of the shire for Stamford, 1539, and for Rutland in 1545, 1547, Mar 1553, Oct 1553, 1555, 1558, 1559, 1571, 1572, and 1584. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford and at the Middle Temple. Sheriff of Rutland 1541-42, 1549-50, 1553-54, 1561-62, 1567-68, 1575-76, and 1585-86.

"Whatever knowledge of the law Digby had acquired at the Middle Temple, an inn with which he retained a connexion for many years, was put to both public and private use: regularly named to commissions of oyer and terminer for the midlands, he was also consulted on legal matters by his friends and relatives, for whom he often acted as a feoffee. It was perhaps his legal bent which in 1572 prompted his demand to see the 3rd Earl of Huntingdon’s patent of lieutenancy before acknowledging Huntingdon’s standing in the county, a piece of officiousness which incensed the earl. With so ardent a Puritan as Huntingdon, however, Digby can have felt little at ease: in 1564 he was reported to be ‘indifferent’ in religion but towards the end of his life he was described as unsound in faith and one of his sons was a notable Catholic." [History of Parliament]

Kenelm married Anne Cope. Anne (daughter of Anthony Cope and Jane Crewes) died after 1591. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Knight of the shire for Rutland, 1529.

Everard married Margery Heydon before 1518. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Hanwell, Oxfordshire
• Alternate death: 6 Jan 1551

Notes:

Sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, 1548. Vice-chamberlain and later principal chamberlain to Catherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII.

He was the author of The Historie of the two moste noble Capitaines in the Worlde, Anniball and Scipio (1544) and A Godly Meditacion upon XX select and chosen Psalmes of the Prophet David (1547).

Anthony married Jane Crewes. Jane (daughter of Matthew Crewes) died after Jan 1551. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Sheriff of Rutland, 1485, 1486, 1499. Said to have fought on the victor's side at the battle of Bosworth Field.

Everard married Jacquetta Ellis. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Katherine Willoughby. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1450, of Banbury, Oxfordshire, England

Notes:

Cofferer of the household of Henry VII. Serjeant of Catery, and later of the Poultry. Steward of Worpledon and Witeby, 1510. Constable of Porchester Castle, 1511. Lieutenant of Southbere Forest. Steward and Bailiff of Bedhampton. Secretary to the Duchess of Savoy, 1513.

Alleged in some online sources to have fought at Bosworth, a claim we have been unable to confirm.

Royal Ancestry (vol. III, p. 242) has him as cofferer to Henry VIII rather than VII, but we assume that to be a typographical error.

Cofferer of the household of Henry VII. Serjeant of Catery, and later of the Poultry. Steward of Worpledon and Witeby, 1510. Constable of Porchester Castle, 1511. Lieutenant of Southbere Forest. Steward and Bailiff of Bedhampton. Secretary to the Duchess of Savoy, 1513.

Burgess to Parliament from Ludgershall, Wiltshire, 1491-92.

Alleged in some online sources to have fought at Bosworth, a claim we have been unable to confirm.

Royal Ancestry (vol. III, p. 242) has him as cofferer to Henry VIII rather than VII, but we assume that to be a typographical error.

William married (Unknown second wife of William Cope). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Killed at the Battle of Towton, fighting on the Lancastrian side.

Everard married Anne Clarke. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Henry Heydon, also a common lawyer, was knighted at Henry VII's coronation in 1485 and married Anne (d. 1510), daughter of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn of Blickling, Norfolk. He was survived by three sons, the eldest of whom, John Heydon (1468–1550), inherited the Norfolk and Kent estates, and five daughters, for whom he arranged good marriages.

Many prominent sixteenth-century East Anglian families (such as the Townshends, Pastons, and Jenneys) owed their rise to a successful fifteenth-century lawyer of humble origins, but even by these standards the rapid ascent of the Heydons is remarkable and owed much to the opportunities and tenacity of the first John Heydon. In the pedigree devised by Clarenceux king of arms for Sir Christopher Heydon in 1563, the family tree before the first John Heydon is fictitious: and the arms of Sir Christopher himself were derived from those of the Hertfordshire Heydons, who were unrelated to the Norfolk family.

Henry married Anne Boleyn. Anne (daughter of Geoffrey Boleyn, Lord Mayor of London and Anne Hoo) died about 1510. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Simon married Joan Bellers. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Jane; also called Belers, Bellairs, etc.

Several sources, including Royal Ancestry (vol. 1, p. 351), have Joan/Jane, daughter of James Beler and Margaret de Bernake, as having been married to Simon Digby and Thomas Seyton. But:

"Everard Seyton was the son of Sir John Seyton by his second wife a daughter of Digby. He died in 16 Edward IV [1477] leaving two infant daughters Joan and Anne. Everard Seyton received the estate of Maidwell, Northamptonshire as his inheritance. He is not mentioned in Vincent's pedigree of the family but his daughter Joan married Francis Metcalfe and upon her husband's demise conveyed the manors of Maydewell to John Seyton, esq. Her uncle had received the estate of Seyton in Rutlandshire upon his father's death in 1396. In 6 Henry VIII [1515] a fine was levied between Joan Metcalfe, widow, daughter to Everard Seyton, Esq. and John Seyton, Esq. This John Seyton was the second son of Thomas Seyton, Esq.; eldest son to John Seyton, Esq. by Jane Bellers his first wife." [The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, Compiled from the Manuscript Collections of the Late Learned Antiquary John Bridges, Esq. by Peter Whalley. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1791]

"Though the pedigree of the Seytons given in the visitation of Northamptonshire shows that John Seyton had a son Thomas and three grandsons, Martinsthorpe is said to have passed to William Feilding by his marriage with Agnes, daughter and heir of John de St. Liz or de Seyton." [VCH Rutland 2:84-85]

"John de Seyton [...] died at Jerusalem in 1396 and was succeeded by his son John. The latter held the manor until his death, which took place about 1436-7. His son Thomas de Seyton assigned it at that date in dower to his father's widow Joan." [VCH Buckinghamshire 2:334-35]

Just as a side note, the late Leo van de Pas's Genealogics site shows Joan/Jane Beler as having married Simon Digby and John Seyton (alias St. Liz).

Notes:

Possibly actually named John Clarke.

Francis married Agnes Flower. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Agnes Flore.

Notes:

"John Heydon, gentleman, of Baconsthorpe (about 3 miles from Gresham) was a Norwich lawyer who encouraged Lord Moleyns in his attack on Gresham manor. He was J.P. 1441-50 and 1455-60, and M.P. 1445-6, 1459, and 1460-1, but was involved in many illegal and violent incidents. He died in 1479." [Norman Davis, footnote in The Paston Letters, citation details below.]

"Heydon [formerly Baxter], John (d. 1479), lawyer, was the son of William Baxter, a free peasant or yeoman at Heydon in north-east Norfolk in the early fifteenth century. Heydon's humble origins were known to contemporaries and although throughout his career he used the surname Heydon, possibly in order to disguise his origins, legal records as late as 1450 refer to him as John Heydon of Baconsthorpe alias John Baxter of Heydon." [Oxford DNB, citation details below.]

"John Heydon's marriage was troubled. He seems to have believed that the second child born to his wife, Eleanor, was not his; in July 1444 Margaret Paston reported that Heydon 'wille nowt of here, nerre of here chyld', and that he had threatened to cut off her nose 'to makyn here to be know wat sche is' and kill the infant if they came near him. Heydon appears to have remained on good terms with his father-in-law, but his marital problems clearly continued, for in October 1450 he is said to have paled visibly when Chief Justice Markham remarked that he 'levid ungoodly in puttyng awey of his wyff and kept another'. His will, made in March 1478 and proved in 1480, makes no reference to his wife or to any child besides Henry, though it is otherwise a pious and conscientious document." [Oxford DNB, citation details below.]

John married Eleanor Winter. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Blickling, Norfolk, England

Notes:

Citizen and mercer of London. Sheriff of London 1446-47. Burgess for London, 1449. Alderman 1452-63; Lord Mayor, 1457-58.

Geoffrey married Anne Hoo before 1445. Anne (daughter of Thomas Hoo and Elizabeth Wychingham) died in 1484; was buried in Norwich Cathedral, Norwich, Norfolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Possibly a son of the John Cope who was sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1401 and 1405, knight of the shire for Northamptonshire several times in the late 1300s and early 1400s, and who died in 1417.

William married (Unknown daughter of William Gossage). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]