Robert Darcy

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1631

Family/Spouse: Grace Reddish. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Edward Darcy was born about 1610 in of Dartford, Kent, England.

Notes:

Edward Darcy was Groom of the Privy Chamber to Elizabeth I, 1583-1603. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1561, and was admitted at the Inner Temple in Nov 1561. Special ambassador to Francis, Duke of Anjou and William of Orange in 1583. Burgess (M.P.) for Truro, Cornwall, in 1584; justice of the peace in Kent from 1604 to his death.

His lifelong cupidity appears to have been notable even by the standards of Elizabethan court society. From his entry in the History of Parliament: "In 1594 the attorney-general protested at the nomination of one Wiseman to the post of clerk of the outlawries, after Darcy had virtually put up the office for auction, and in 1600 the widow of Edward Denny petitioned against Darcy's attempt to obtain part of the proceeds of the sale of her late husband's office. He had little need, she wrote, 'to suck this small portion of her Majesty's favour from the hungry mouths of my children'. [...] His patent for searching and sealing leather, which he was granted in 1592 (or 1593), led him to commit 'such exactions and outrages as disquieted all England', and his privileges were first reduced (in 1595) and then (before May 1598) replaced by a new patent for the monopoly of importing and manufacturing playing cards." Sometime between then and 1602, Darcy sued Thomas Allin (also spelled Allain, Allein, Allen, etc.), haberdasher of London, for infringing on his playing-card patent. In what came to be regarded as a landmark case in English law, known to history as the "Case of Monopolies," the King's Bench ultimately ruled against Darcy, declaring his patent void because monopolies are ultimately damaging to the public good. The arguments set forth in the verdict were later much quoted in the various deliberations leading to the creation of modern antitrust and competition law.

His loss in court can't have broken his stride too badly; he was knighted the next year, on 23 Apr 1603, and retired to live the comfortable life of a wealthy man.

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Edward Darcy (1543-1612) = Elizabeth Astley
Robert Darcy = Grace Reddish
Edward Darcy = Elizabeth Stanhope [1]
Katherine Darcy (d. 1713) = Erasmus Phillips (d. 1697) [2] [3]
Elizabeth Phillips (b. abt 1664) = John Shorter [4]
Catherine Shorter (1682-1737) = Robert Walpole (1676-1745) [5]
Horace Walpole (1717-1797)

[1] Daughter of Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield.

[2] Erasmus Phillips and Katherine Darcy were parents of Sir John Phillips of Pembrokeshire, a leading Welsh social and religious reformer.

[3] Through his mother, Elizabeth Dryden, Erasmus Phillips was a first cousin of the poet John Dryden, a second cousin once removed to Jonathan Swift, and a first cousin once removed to Mrs. Ann Marbury Hutchinson, the antinomian religious reformer who was famously cast out of the early Massachusetts Bay colony.

[4] John Shorter was a son of John Shorter (1625-1688), Lord Mayor of London.

[5] Robert Walpole is generally considered to have been the first Prime Minister of England in the modern sense.

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Edward Darcy (1543-1612) = Elizabeth Astley
Catherine Darcy (1581-1646) = William West (b. 1575)
Elizabeth West (1606-1669) = Francis Vane (1617-1680)
Francis Vane (1643-1691) = Hannah Rushworth (1646-1705)
Henry Vane (1669-1726) = Anne Scrope (1673-1721)
Thomas Fane (1701-1871) = Elizabeth Swymmer (1708-1782)
Mary Fane (1739-1809)= Charles Blair (b. 1735)
Charles Blair (1776-1820)
Thomas Richard Arthur Blair (1802-1867) = Frances Catherine Hare (1823-1867)
Richard Walmesley Blair (1857-1939) = Ida Mabel Limouzin (1875-1943)
Eric Blair (George Orwell) (1903-1950)

Edward married Elizabeth Astley. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Lieutenant of the Tower of London.

Arthur Darcy and Mary Carew were both descendants of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, he as a 6Xgreat-grandson and she as a 5Xgreat-granddaughter. By those descents they were, to one another, sixth cousins once removed. But in fact they were slightly more closely related than that: fifth cousins once removed by shared descent from Ralph de Greystoke and Katherine Clifford, and fifth cousins twice removed by shared descent from John de Welle and Maud de Ros.

Arthur Darcy (1505-1561) = Mary Carew
Thomas Darcy (d. 1605) = Elizabeth Conyers
Conyers Darcy (1570-1654) = Dorothy Belasyse
Conyers Darcy (1599-1689) = Grace Rokeby
Conyers Darcy (1622-1692) = Frances Howard
John Darcy (1659-1689) = Bridget Sutton
Robert Darcy (1681-1721) = Frederica Schomberg
Robert Darcy (1718-1778) = Mary Doublet
Amelia Darcy (1754-1784) = John "Mad Jack" Byron (1756-1791), father of Lord Byron
Augusta Maria Bryon, known as Augusta Leigh (1783-1851)

Arthur married Mary Carew. Mary (daughter of Nicholas Carew and Elizabeth Bryan) was buried in St. Botolph's, Aldgate, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Arthur Darcy and Mary Carew were both descendants of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, he as a 6Xgreat-grandson and she as a 5Xgreat-granddaughter. By those descents they were, to one another, sixth cousins once removed. But in fact they were slightly more closely related than that: fifth cousins once removed by shared descent from Ralph de Greystoke and Katherine Clifford, and fifth cousins twice removed by shared descent from John de Welle and Maud de Ros.

Notes:

Possibly a groom of the Privy Chamber to Elizabeth I, although this may represent confusion between him and his much older half-brother John Astley, who married, as her second husband, this Thomas Astley's wife's maternal grandmother.

Thomas married Mary Denny before 1563. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He was summoned to Parliament by writ from 17 Oct 1509 to 3 Nov 1529. An opponent of Henry VIII's destruction of the religious houses, he joined the Pilgrimage of Grace and was subsequented convicted of high treason for having delivered up Pontefract Castle to the rebels. He was beheaded on Tower Hill.

Thomas married Dowsabel Tempest. Dowsabel (daughter of Richard Tempest and Mabel Strickland) died before Dec 1499. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Beddington, Surrey, England

Notes:

Nicholas Carew was a courtier and diplomat, knight of the shire for Surrey, sheriff of Surrey and Sussex 1518-19, and Master of the Horse to Henry VIII. A close friend and rousting partner of the king's for many years, he was eventually brought down by Thomas Cromwell. Accused and convicted of having been part of the Exeter Conspiracy, he was attainted and executed at Tower Hill on 3 Mar 1540. One of the jurors who convicted him was his wife's brother Francis Bryan, rake, libertine, trimmer, close friend of Henry VIII, remembered to history, for his efficient lack of any perceptible principle, as the "Vicar of Hell."

Nicholas married Elizabeth Bryan in Dec 1514. Elizabeth (daughter of Thomas Bryan and Margaret Bourchier) died between 21 May 1546 and 17 Jul 1546; was buried in St. Botolph's, Aldgate, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Elizabeth Bryan was vice-chamberlain to Catherine of Aragon, an office also held by her father, and a reputed mistress of Henry VIII. Following her husband’s death, she was reduced to penury. Some of their former property eventually wound up in the Darcy family.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Melton Constable, Norfolk, England

Thomas married Ann Cruse. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 18 Jan 1500

Notes:

Burgess (M.P.) for Ipswich, Suffolk. Knight of the shire for Hertfordshire, 1547. Privy Councillor. King's Remembrancer, Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Yeoman of the Royal Wardrobe, Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and Groom of the Stole to Henry VIII. One of the guardians of the young Edward VI.

At the dissolution of the monasteries, and at various times after, he received from Henry VIII immense gifts of lands. He accompanied the king to France in 1544, and fought at the siege of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he was knighted by the king.

He was a legatee in the will of Henry VIII, who bequeathed him £300 and named him one of his executors. Six months after Henry's death, a royal patent recognized him as "the most intimate of Henry VIII's council and chamber." He appears as a character in Shakespeare and Fletcher's Henry VIII.

Anthony married Joan Champernoun about 4 Feb 1538. Joan (daughter of Philip Champernoun and Katherine Carew) died on 15 May 1553. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"She […] had a position in the households of queens Anne of Cleves and Katherine Parr, while her sister-in-law Lady Berkeley was governess to Princess Elizabeth. A committed protestant, with her sister Katherine Raleigh she is reported to have protected the persecuted reformers in Devon. In the summer of 1546 Lady Denny (and by extension her husband) was one of the court protestants whom religious conservatives tried to incriminate through accusations wrung from Anne Askew, a distant relative of Joan's uncle Sir Gawain Carew; Anne would admit only that Lady Denny's servant had brought her money, and Sir Anthony survived as a leading figure among Seymour's associates at the close of the reign." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, citation details below]