Thomas Stoughton

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 16 Feb 1574, St. Mary's, Ash, Kent, England

Notes:

"Edward lived at Moat Farm in Ash, Kent. He was the primary beneficiary and executor of his father's will, suggesting that his older brother Peter was physically or mentally incapable of serving as head of the family." [Amelia Morrow, from Connections: Morrow, Porter, Sanders, etc.]

Birth derived from the fact that he was recorded as age 75 in May 1570.

Edward married Mary Exhurst before 4 Nov 1529 in St. Peter's, Sandwich, Kent, England. Mary (daughter of Richard Exhurst and Joan Roberts) was born between 1502 and 1511 in Kent, England; died before Feb 1548 in Ash-juxta-Sandwich, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1507
• Alternate death: Bef 1566

Notes:

"Mary Exhurst was born about 1507, the daughter of Richard and Joan Roberts Exhurst. Joan was Richard's second wife. About 1536, she married Edward Stoughton. They had three sons. A lawsuit initiated in 1556, brought by Walter Mayne against Edward Stoughton and his sons Francis and Thomas, confirms that Richard Exhurst was the father of Edward Stoughton's wife, Mary Exhurst, who was the mother of Francis Stoughton. One of the documents in the suit asserts that Mary was the daughter of Richard's second wife, Joan. It names the husbands of Bennett, Mary and Elizabeth Exhurst as Thomas Aldye, Edward Stoughton and Alane Mathewe respectively. Thomas Aldye and Bennett had a daughter, Margerye, and Edward Stoughton and Mary had sons Francis and Thomas. After Bennett and Mary died, Margerye married John Monnynges. Walter Mayne says that Richard Exhurst had two daughters by his first wife, Bennett and Elizabeth, and two daughters by his second wife, Joan; Mary and another Elizabeth. He also says that both Mary and the Elizabeth who married Alane Mathewe were the daughters of Joan. The language of the lawsuit indicates that Mary was dead by 1556. She was probably buried in the churchyard of St. Nicholas' Church in Sandwich, Kent." [Findagrave.com page for Mary Exhurst, by Todd Whitesides.]

Notes:

"Thomas Stoughton, the eldest son and heir of Henry, seems to have forsaken the mercantile pursuits of his father and grandfather and to have lived as a country gentleman upon his estates in Dartford. One wonders if he wished to live away from the scenes of his father's unhappy fate, and preferred the peace of country life to the stresses and strains of life as a business man in the city of London." [The English Ancestry of Thomas Stoughton, citation details below.]

Thomas married Margaret about 1492. Margaret died before 28 Jun 1528 in Dartford, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1471, Kent, England
• Alternate death: Aft 12 Jun 1512

Notes:

"Gentleman and vestryman for the chapel at Ash, also called a farmer at Colston." [Findagrave.com page for Richard Exhurst, by Todd Whitesides.]

Richard married Joan Roberts between 1502 and 1507 in [[pt:2990]]. Joan (daughter of Walter Roberts and Isabel Culpepper) was born between 1480 and 1491 in Glassenbury Manor, Cranbrook, Kent, England; died between Sep 1547 and Feb 1548 in Lamberhurst, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

It's possible that Joan Roberts' mother was Margaret Penn, the first wife of Walter Roberts, as asserted in the visitations of Kent. But Part Two of "The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings of New England", citation details below, lays out the strong evidence that Joan was in fact the daughter of second wife Isabel Culpepper.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 20 Dec 1508 and 9 Aug 1509

Notes:

Amelia Morrow, from Connections: Morrow, Porter, Sanders, etc.:

"Henry succeeded his father in the business in London. He was bequeathed Thomas's 'principal place in Old Fish Street and the two shops against the door of St. Nicholas...my great shops which Thomas Derham holdeth to farm, with a cellar and a shop of the yearly value of £ 4 13s 4d.' [...]

"Henry Stoughton was part owner of two ships captured by pirates in December 1491. He was also probably the fishmonger who, for reasons unknown, appears on a list of persons in prison in Cambridge who were exempted from the King's general pardon on 30 Apr 1509 (on the ascension of Henry VIII), only a few months before Henry's will was proven."

From "The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings of New England", citation details below:

"[Turner and Turner, The English Ancestry of Thomas Stoughton] note that Edward Stoughton's grandfather Henry Stoughton 'appears in a list of persons beginning with Edmund de la Pole and including...a murderer...who were exempted from the King's general pardon on the accession of Henry VIII, April 30 1509,' but they say Henry Stoughton's offence is unknown. Henry's trial and death is documented in The Great Chronicle of London which shows that Henry Stoughton was imprisoned for his part in promoting the unpopular tax and debt-collecting activities carried out by Henry VII's ministers Empson and Dudley."

Footnote accompanying the above:

"A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley, ed., The Great Chronicle of London (London: G. W. Jones, 1938), 339. Following an entry describing a proclamation issued by Henry VIII 'upon the xviijth daye of maii' the chronicler states 'And abowth this tyme were convyct and demid to the pyllory iiij Sytyzyns as perjurid & comonly fforsworn personys, That is to say John derby bowyer othirwyse namyd John wrygth, John Sympson ffuller Rychard Smyth Carpenter & henry Stokton ffyshmonger Of the whych ffowyr personys iij were sett upon the said pyllory, and the iiijth which was henry Stokton ffor he was sore syke & In poynt of deth was sparid, But he dyed shortly afftyr In prison, These were the chevetaynys of alle the Questmongers of the Cyte, and In such ffavour wyth Empson & dudley that by theym was moche myschieff doon, The which afftyr this opyn shame to theym excecutid dyed alle shortly afftyr.' The next entry in the chronicle describes the marriage of Henry VIII 'Abowth the myddyll of the monyth of Junii.' The date of the trial is more precisely given in 'The Repertories of the Court of Aldermen, 1495–1835, from the Corporation of London Record Office,' microfilm (Brighton: Harvester Microfilm, 1986) repertory 2, fol. 68v, 8 June 1509 [FHL 1,482,846] (transcription, with modern spelling, supplied by historian Mark Horowitz of Chicago), which states 'At this court it is decreed and adjudged that Herry Stockton fishmonger and Robert Jakes sherman which as well by their own confession as otherwise been duly convict of detestable perjury shall be disfranchised [sic] from the liberty of this City forever.'"

Henry married Joan. Joan died after 7 Nov 1513. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1425, Kent, England

Notes:

"John Exherst, husbandman of Staplehurst was among those pardoned in July 1450 after Cade's Rebellion. He must have been at least 25 to have even been slightly involved. John moved to Canterbury by 1478, when he was admitted as a freeman there. He was a brewer in Canterbury and lived in St. Paul's parish" [Todd Whitesides on findagrave.com]

"Richard Exhurst's father John retained his land in Staplehurst, but in his later years he seems to have lived in Canterbury, where he was recorded as a brewer on his admission as a freeman of the town by redemption (purchase) in 1478. Chronologically, it is possible that John was the John Exhurst, husbandman of Staplehurst, who was among those pardoned in July 1450 after Cade's Rebellion. Around 1480 John Exhurst, citizen and brewer of Canterbury, and Sir Thomas Bouchier, knight, of Leeds, were involved in the arbitration of a dispute concerning the ownership of some oxen. On 26 June 1487 John Exhurst, John Waller, and others witnessed a deed in Canterbury. In his will John Exhurst described himself as a brewer of St. Paul's parish in Canterbury. He requested burial within the monastery of St. Augustine by Canterbury and gave 6s. 8d. to the making of a new bell there. John Exhurst died between 20 March 1492/3, the date of his will, and 15 April 1493, the date it was proved." ["The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings of New England," by Adrian Benjamin Burke, John Blythe Dobson, and Janet Chevally Wolfe. Part One, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 165, October 2011.]

John married Alice. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Aft 1436, of Cranbrook, Kent, England

Notes:

Lancastrian; attainted under Richard III; made Sheriff of Kent by Henry VII.

His will, made 11 Feb 1522, mentions "Johan Horden my doughter". His daughter Joan's second husband, after the death of Richard Exhurst in 1512, was Thomas Horden, who died in 1552.

From The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (citation details below):

THE MANOR OF GLASSENBURY is of considerable note, the mansion of which is situated near three miles north-west from the church. This seat was for many generations the residence of the antient family of Rokehurst, the first of whom, who settled in this county, was William Rookehurst, alias Roberts, a gentleman of Scotland, of the shire of Anandale, who, leaving his native country, came to the adjoining parish of Goudhurst in the 3d year of king Henry I and then purchased lands at Winchett hill there, where he built a mansion for his residence; which lands were afterwards named from him, the lands and denne of Rookehurst, which name it still retains, and there is a tablet put up over a tomb in the south chancel of this church, giving an account of him and his posterity, who bore for their arms, Azure, on a chevron, argent, three mullets, sable. This family continued at Goudhurst for 274 years, till, in the reign of king Richard II. Stephen Roberts, alias Rookehurst, marrying Joane, daughter and heir of William Tilley, esq. of Glassenbury, whose ancestors had resided here, as appeared by private evidences, from the time of king Edward I removed to his manor, where he built a mansion, on the hill of Glassenbury, which came by lineal descent to Walter Roberts, esq. who possessed it in the reigns of king Edward IV and Henry VII and was the first who wrote himself by that name only. He, about the year 1473, pulled down this antient seat, and built another lower down the valley, being the present seat of Glassenbury, which he moated round, and inclosed a large park which lay at some distance from it; to enable him to do which, in the 4th year of king Henry VII. he had a grant to impark six hundred acres of land, and one thousand acres of wood, in Cranebrooke, Gowdehurst, and Ticehurst, in Kent and Suffex, and liberty of free warren in all his lands and woods, and of fishing in all waters in his lands in those parishes, with all liberties and franchises usually granted in such cases. The park of Glassenbury has been long since disparked. He was afterwards dispossessed of this seat, and forced to fly into sanctuary, for endeavouring to conceal his friend and neighbour Sir John Guildford from the resentment of king Richard III. for which he was attainted, and this manor and seat, together with all other his lands in Kent, Suffex, and Surry, were granted by the king, in his first year, to his trustly friend Robert Brackenbury, esq. constable of the tower; but on the accession of Henry VII his attainder was taken off by parliament likewise, and all his estates restored to him. And in the 5th year of that reign, he was sheriff of this county. He died in the year 1522, aged more than eighty years, and was buried under the old tomb on the north side of the south chancel, being the first who appears by clear evidences to have been interred in this church, in which there are many gravestones and memorials of his posterity, who continued to reside here, several of whom were at times sheriffs of this county, until within memory.

From "The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings", citation details below:

Walter's manor of Glassenbury was the scene of a well-documented episode during the War of the Roses. At the parliament that began on 23 January and ended on February 20, in the first year of King Richard III, Walter Roberts was attainted and his lands forfeited:

Forasmoche as oon Walter Roberd, late of Crambroke in the Countie of Kent...accompanyed with Sr George Browne, Sr John Gylford, and other the Kyngs Traytors and Rebells, the xviiith day of October, the first yere of the Reigne of the Kyng oure Soveraigne Lorde, falsly and traiterously levied Werre ayenst oure said Soveraigne Lorde. And afterwards, the xth day of Fevrier, the said fyrst yere of oure said Soveraign Lorde, the said Water [sic]...herboured, comforted and ayded the same Sr John, and othre the Kings Traitors and Rebells...Bee it therfore ordeigned...that the said Water Roberd be atteynted of high Treason, and forfaite...all his Lands and Tenements, and other Hereditaments and Possessions, that he...had...the said xviiith day of October.

A vivid account of the attempt to arrest Walter Roberts on February 10 is given in the 1592 and 1629 Roberts pedigrees:

On the Wednesday following the Purification of the Virgine in the first yeare of that Kings reigne Edw: Stanley and John Savage Knights guarded with an extraordinarie Companye of Souldiours did with extreme violence enter the house of Glastenbery and there apprehended Sir John Guildeforde whom they Deteyned prisoner, wherewith Walter Rooberts being feared and doubting further evills to fall upon himselfe did yet set a good countenance thereon preparing a costly Dinner for Stanley and Savage. But when they were at their Repaste Walter beying let downe out of the House by a Sheete, for Stanley and Savage had so fastened the Doors yt none might enter in or out did forsake his house and committed himselfe to Sanctuary in whichhe lay secretly 3 yeares...until King Hen: the 7th obtained the Crowne at length; when Stanley and Savage knew the departure of Walter forthwith they seised upon his goods, spoyled his house and carried away the valew of A Thousand pounds declaring all there doings to King Richard whereupon the king beying heavily incensed against Walter Rooberts condemned him of High Treason and entered upon all his goods and possessions.

Walter married Isabel Culpepper on 20 Nov 1480 in St. Dunstan, Cranbrook, Kent, England. Isabel (daughter of John Culpepper and Agnes Gainsford) died on 17 Jan 1491 in Cranbrook, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1420
• Alternate death: Bef 8 Feb 1480, London, England

Notes:

He may have been the son of the Thomas Stoughton to whom John Wolfe granted land in Frolesworth, Leicestershire in 1413. That Thomas Stoughton was the son of a Maud Oudeby.

Amelia Morrow, from Connections: Morrow, Porter, Sanders, etc.:

"Thomas Stoughton worked for the King's household along with his brothers John and William. In Feb. 1444, he was commissioned to 'take fish for the expenses of the household and carriage therefore.' He is described in August 1445 as the King's sergeant and purveyor of sea fish. Around 1450, he was importing fish from Flanders for the King's household. By 1452, he acquired property in Rye, and his seal (a mermaid) and signature are found on a 1454 document appointing James Hyde as receiver for his rents there. He later sold the property to Hyde.

"In March 1475, he was appointed controller of the petty customs in the port of London, 'provided he executed the ofice in person' and received a similar appointment in Sandwich in Nov. 1476, which probably indicates he moved there.

"He is buried in London, in the church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey on Old Fish Street. There was a plaque in the church at one time inscribed in Latin 'Pray for the peace of ___ _Stockton, citizen and fishmonger of London and for Christian and Beatrice his wives.' The coat of arms shown is the same as on the tomb of Colonial Governor William Stoughton."

Thomas married Christian. Christian died before 31 Oct 1478 in St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, London, England; was buried in St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Near the end of his life, John added to his estate a substantial purchase of land in Ticehurst and Etchingham in Sussex. Documents recording the purchase suggest that John was a draper who may have recently achieved the status of esquire through his land purchases." ["The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings of New England," by Adrian Benjamin Burke, John Blythe Dobson, and Janet Chevally Wolfe. Part Two, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 166, January 2012.]

John married Agnes Baker. Agnes (daughter of William Baker and Joanna) died between 15 Feb 1495 and 2 Jul 1496 in Kent, England; was buried in St. Dunstan, West Peckham, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 2 Jul 1495

Notes:

"Even though her late husband had constructed a tomb in St. Dunstan's Church in Cranbrook for both of them, she requested burial in the churchyard of St. Dunstan's Church in West Peckham. Possibly she had moved to West Peckham during the thirty years of her widowhood, and felt no connection with Cranbrook." [Todd Whitesides, Findagrave.com]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1430
• Alternate death: Bef 1481

Notes:

"Walter Culpeper of Goudhurst esquire and John Culpeper gentleman, his son, appear in the list of adherents of Jack Cade in 1450. [...] John married the heiress of the Bedgeburys and so acquired their estate. He was knighted, was sheriff in 1467 and died in 1480." [The Family of Twysden and Twisden by John Ramskill Twisden, 1939, page 42. A note on page 49 reads: "See a paper on 'Jack Cade's followers in Kent' by William Durrant Cooper F.S.A in the Arch. Cant., Vol VII p.233, to which is appended a list of the names of those pardoned taken from the Patent Rolls of 28 Henry VI."]

"Sir John [iii] Culpeper (d. 1480), had an eventful public and private life. In January 1459, together with his brothers Richard [ii] Culpeper (d. 1516) and Nicholas [ii] (d. 1510), he was ordered to be arrested by the sheriffs of London and brought before chancery to answer allegations of riot and other offences; these may have been politically motivated in the dying days of Lancastrian rule. Certainly, Sir John [iii] proved himself a loyal servant of Edward IV. He was knighted by December 1466, and the following November he appeared on the Kentish bench. In October 1468 he was appointed to the commission to muster Lord Scales's retinue at Gravesend, and the following month he was pricked as sheriff of Kent. From October 1469 until April 1470 he appeared on several commissions of array in the south-east, alongside his brother Richard, but during the readeption of Henry VI he was absent from both commissions of array and the county bench. He returned to public life after Edward's victory at Barnet in April 1471, in which month he was once again arraying soldiers in Kent, and in June he reappeared as a JP. The same month one Thomas Miller, a gentleman of Marden, Kent, and perhaps a Lancastrian die-hard, was alleged to have led a rebellious host against him. He went on to serve on numerous commissions throughout the early 1470s." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

Sometime between 1457 and 1461, John Culpepper's brothers Richard and Nicholas travelled from Sussex to Kent with a pair of sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret Wakehurst, daughters of John Culpepper's wife Agnes Gainsford by her deceased previous husband, Richard Wakehurst. At some not much later point, Richard married Margaret and Nicholas married Elizabeth, possibly in London. Shortly thereafter, the sisters' grandmother Elizabeth Wakehurst (maiden name lost to history) alleged in a petition to Chancery court that the two brothers, aided by John Culpepper, had in fact abducted the two sisters through force of arms, and that moreover John Culpepper was further culpable because as their stepfather he had "promysed on the faithe and trouthe of his bodye and as he was a gentylman" that he would protect the sisters.

Of course the allegation was about money. Both sisters were the only remaining heirs of grandmother Elizabeth's husband Richard Wakehurst, MP and justice of the peace, who had died in 1455. His only son, Agnes Gainsford's first husband Richard Wakehurst the younger, had predeceased him. So what you have is:

* Elizabeth, grandmother of the two sisters, widow of Richard Wakehurst the elder;

* Agnes Gainsford, Elizabeth's onetime daughter-in-law, who is now married to...

* John Culpepper, whose two brothers have "abducted"...

* Elizabeth and Margaret Wakehurst, granddaughters of Elizabeth and sole heirs to their grandfather's estate.

Much more detail on this can be read in "Abduction: An Alternative Form of Courtship?" by Julia Pope, a good paper with a misleading title presented at the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2003. The upshot is that the only evidence that the sisters were "abducted" against their will, making "grete and pittious lamentacious and weping" as they were "toke and caried away" "with force and armes, riotously agense the Kinges peas," was the grandmother's claim that they had been. All other evidence points to it having been a voluntary elopement supported by a significant number of the sisters' relatives, including their mother and stepfather.

For several reasons, the grandmother's claim was an astute strategy, both in her legal battle to maintain control of her husband's estate and in the war of local public opinion. The Culpeppers were already a bit notorious for building their family fortune by marrying heiresses, so there was some pre-existing disposition to regard them as upstarts. Also, contrary to modern popular belief, voluntary elopement was not considered illegal under late medieval English law, and according to Pope, the record of actual case law shows that consent, specifically the bride's consent, had great bearing on actual outcomes, notwithstanding the preferences of her family. (Note, however, that in her Imprisoning Medieval Women: The Non-Judicial Confinement and Abduction of Women in England, c.1170-1509, published in 2013, Dr. Gwen Seabourne argues in detail that the medieval concept of "consent" cannot be assumed to map reliably onto our own.) At any rate, Elizabeth had plenty of incentives to claim that her granddaughters had been carried off kicking and screaming by armed men.

Yet ultimately Elizabeth lost. The court declined to overturn the marriages. She died in 1464, and both couples returned to Sussex shortly thereafter, where they lived out their lives, managing to inherit substantial portions of their Wakehurst grandfather's estate despite various legal challenges from their grandmother's allies over the next twenty years. To all the evidence, while the marriages divided their kinship network, the larger portion of support went to them. Richard and Margaret left no issue, but the funeral brass commemorating the family of Nicholas and Elizabeth Culpepper, ten sons and eight daughters, has been described as "so crowded as to look like a poster warning against rush hour travel."

-----

If (as has been plausibly speculated but never proved) John Culpepper (1637-1674), early emigrant to Virginia, was the father of Henry Culpepper (d. 1675), 9X-great grandfather of PNH, this John Culpepper and his wife Agnes Gainsford would be the most recent common ancestors of PNH and TNH.

John Culpepper (d. 1480) = Agnes Gainsford
Walter Culpeper (1475-1524) = Anne Aucher (1480-1533)
William Culpeper (1509-1559) = Cicely Barrett (1512-1559)
John Culpeper (1531-1612) = Elizabeth Sedley (1534-1618)
John Culpeper (1565-1635) = Ursula Woodcock (1566-1612)
John Culpeper (c. 1637 Harrietsham, Kent - c. 1674 Virginia)
possibly father of
Henry Culpepper (1633-1675), 9X-great grandfather of PNH

John married Agnes Gainsford on 7 Jul 1460. Agnes (daughter of John Gainsford) died in Bedgebury, Goudhurst, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

It is possible that she was the sister, rather than the daughter, of the John Gainsford shown as her father here.

From Culpepper Connections:

"It appears also from [the Visitation of Kent, 1619] that this Sir John married Agnes, daughter of John Bedgebury, but no mention whatever is there made of the undoubted fact that some time before 1460 he was the husband of Agnes Gainsford, which is clearly proved by the Proceedings in Chancery relating to the abduction of the two Wakehurst heiresses by Sir John's brothers, Richard and Nicholas, where it is expressly stated that a sister of John and William Gainsford was wedded to John Culpepyr, and later on in the same suit mention is made of John Culpeper and Agnes, his wife. The marriage is also alluded to in De Banco Roll, Trin., 5 Edward IV., m. 118d, and it explains the mention of Ottewell and George Gainsford (grandsons of the above John Gainsford, who married Anne Wakehurst, aunt of the co-heiresses, and sons of Sir John Gainsford, by Anne, daughter of Ottewell Worsley), as cousins in the will Walter Colepeper, of Calais, 1514-1516.

"The question arises, therefore, as to whether the record of Sir John's marriage with Agnes Bedgebury is not due to a mistake on the part of the heralds. In their pedigree they certainly omit these two important facts, viz., that before 1460 Sir John was the husband of Agnes Gainsford, and also that his father Walter's wife, of the same Christian name, was the widow of John Bedgebury. It seems therefore not improbable that these two marriages have been confused; such, indeed, must have been the case unless Sir John was twice married, and of this the Visitation affords no evidence whatever. Sir John Colepeper died 22nd December, 1480, and was buried at Goudhurst."

Notes:

Roberts pedigrees from 1592 and 1629 include a Stephen and a John as the grandfather and father of Walter Roberts's father John Roberts. They describe John, son of Stephen, as "John Roobertes the elder." This Feet of Fines abstract from Kent, 25 Jun 1447, includes as parties to the transaction "John Roberd' the elder and John Roberd' the younger." Taken together it seems plausible that Walter Roberts's grandfather, like his father, was a John Roberts.

John married Agnes. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Pedigrees from 1592 and 1629 call her Agnes, daughter and heiress of William Buckfolde. She may actually have been named Buckhurst. In Walter Roberts' settlement for his third marriage, to Alice Naylor, he pledged, among other lands in Goudhurst and Cranbrook, "Pykenden Bokherst."

William married Joanna before 25 Jun 1424. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1400
• Alternate death: 24 Nov 1462

Notes:

Fought at Agincourt. Supposedly, was later known locally as "The Squire of Agincourt."

"Walter Culpeper of Goudhurst is described in his monumental brass in Goudhurst Church as son of Sir Thomas Culpeper. He is there stated to have died in 1462 and his wife Agnes Roper in 1457. [...] Walter appears to be in the list of gentlemen of Kent in the 12 Henry VI (1434), which will be referred to afterwards. Walter Culpeper of Goudhurst esquire and John Culpeper gentleman, his son, appear in the list of adherents of Jack Cade in 1450, which will also be referred to later." [The Family of Twysden and Twisden by John Ramskill Twisden, 1939. Page 42.]

Walter married Agnes Roper before 1429. Agnes (daughter of Edmund Roper) was born before 1410; died on 2 Dec 1457; was buried in St. Mary's, Goudhurst, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Sometimes referred to as Anne Roper. Her surname and ancestry are in doubt; see below.

From "The Exhurst Ancestry of the Stoughton Siblings of New England," Part Two, citation details below:

"The Roper pedigree in the 1619–21 visitation of Kent shows Agnes, wife of Walter Culpepper, as the sister of Edmund and John Roper. Their parents are shown as Rodolphus (Ralph) Roper, son of Thomas Roper, and Beatrix, daughter of Thomas Lewknor, Knight. Ralph Roper is shown as the first husband of Beatrix Lewknor, and her second husband is shown as Thomas Kemp of Wye in Kent. Attree and Booker suggest that Agnes was the daughter, not the sister, of Edmund Roper of St. Dunstan's next Canterbury, citing her tomb at Goudhurst. However, Weever quotes the inscription on the Culpepper tomb in Bedgebury as stating Walter Culpepper's wife 'Agnes erat filia Edmundi Robar iuxta Cantuar.' Possibly the 'b' in Robar was a transcription or printing error or a mistake on the tomb itself, but the inscription as reported raises the possibility that the surname of Agnes' father may have been a form of the name Roberts rather than Roper.

"A royal descent via the Lewknor family has been proposed for Walter Culpepper's wife Agnes based on the assumption that she was either the daughter or granddaughter of Ralph Roper and Beatrix Lewknor. Ongoing research raises questions about the identity of Ralph Roper's wife as well as other aspects of the early Roper pedigree. While there is evidence that Thomas Kemp had a wife Beatrix, the marriage of Beatrix and Ralph Roper claimed in the visitation pedigree is called into question by the 1401 will of John Roper of St. Dunstan outside Canterbury. The will implies that Ralph Roper was living and had a wife named Alice and an adult son Edmund in 1401. If so, Ralph could not have had a widow Beatrix who subsequently married Thomas Kemp and was also the mother of Ralph's adult son Edmund."

[Footnote to the above:]

"Gary Boyd Roberts, The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States, Who Were Themselves Notable or Left Descendants Notable in American History (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2008), 534–37 shows Ralph Roper and Beatrix Lewknor as the parents of Agnes Roper, wife of Walter Culpepper, and Beatrix Lewknor as a daughter of Sir Thomas Lewknor and a granddaughter of Sir Roger Lewknor and Elizabeth Carew (a descendant of Robert II of France) but suggests on p. 828 that Beatrix may instead have been a daughter of Roger's parents, Sir Thomas Lewknor and Joan D'Oyly. However, in the 2010 printing of the book, pp. 534–37 are revised to show Ralph Roper and Beatrix Lewknor as the parents of Edmund Roper and grandparents of Agnes Roper, wife of Walter Culpepper, and to note the need for additional research on the early Roper and Lewknor families, while on p. 828, Beatrix Lewknor is suggested as possibly the daughter of the earlier Sir Thomas Lewknor's parents, Sir Roger Lewknor and Katherine Bardolf. With either of the changes to Beatrix's parentage, Beatrix would have the descent shown on p. 562 from Adelaide, sister of William the Conqueror, and consequently from Robert I of France, but not the descent from Robert II of France shown on p. 534."

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 9 Oct 1450
• Alternate death: Bef 9 Nov 1450

Notes:

Sat in Parliament as a Knight of the shire for Surrey, 12 Jan 1430. Steward for the Duke of Buckingham for the duke's lands in Surrey from 1428 to 1448.