John Darcy

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1400
• Alternate death: 1458

Family/Spouse: Joan de Greystock. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1458

Family/Spouse: Eleanor Scrope. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1443

William married Eupheme Langton after 23 Jan 1461 in Farnley, Yorkshire, England. [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.

Family/Spouse: Dowsabel Tempest. Dowsabel (daughter of Richard Tempest and Mabel Strickland) died before Dec 1499. [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)

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

Family/Spouse: Katherine Tyrwhit. Katherine (daughter of Robert Tyrwhit and Elizabeth Oxenbridge) died in 1567. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth Conyers. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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.

——

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.

——

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)

Family/Spouse: Elizabeth Astley. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1631

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

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1669, London, England

Notes:

Her second husband was the Rev. Sydrach Simpson, Master of Pembroke Hall at the University of Cambridge.

Isabella married John Launce about 1619. John (son of Robert Launce and Susan Tubb) was born about 1597 in of Penair in St. Clement, Cornwall, England; died before 25 Jun 1635; was buried on 25 Jun 1635 in St. Clement, Cornwall, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Newhall, Derbyshire, England

Edward married Elizabeth Stanhope after 1634. Elizabeth (daughter of Philip Stanhope) died about 1683. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

One of AP's two proven gateway ancestors.

Cotton Mather, in Magnalia Christi Americana, called Mary Launce, second wife of the Rev. John Sherman, a "young gentlewoman [...] a Person of good Education, and Reputation, and honorably descended," whose mother was "daughter to the Lord Darcy, who was Earl of Rivers." She certainly was not, and in his pioneering 1860-64 Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, James Savage took delight at exercising his well-known animus against Mather, who "tells of this wife calling her mother daughter of Darcy, Earl Rivers, one of the Popish Counsellors of Charles I who had no daughter that married a Launce." Savage continues: "If [Mary Launce Sherman] did give [her husband] these myths of her noble descent [...] either she was insane, which he had not sanity enough to discover, or she was irreverently playing on his bottomless credulity." It was left to the great Donald Lines Jacobus, founder of the twentieth-century "Jacobus School" of skeptical, fact-based genealogy, to point out, in a 1944 article, "The Family of Rev. John Sherman" (citation details below), that Mary Launce's mother really was a Darcy, albeit one of the Darcy family of Kent. Isabella Darcy of London, daughter of Sir Edward Darcy, a confidant and ally of Elizabeth I, first married John Launce of Cornwall and, secondly, the Rev. Sydrach Simpson, master of Pembroke Hall at Cambridge University. Her 1668 will names, with others, her sons James Launce and Darcy Launce, and her daughter Mary Sherman. In a subsequent article, "The Darcy Ancestry of Mrs. John Sherman" (citation details below), Jacobus put forth further proofs of Mary Launce's parentage, calling it a "perfect chain of evidence" and remarking that "Few English lines of early colonists are so thoroughly proved."

Descendants of the Rev. John Sherman and Mary Launce include Norman Rockwell, Declaration of Independence signer Robert Treat Paine, and the 68th governor of Massachusetts, William Weld.

Regarding the date of her death, the Early New England Families Study Project (citation details below) states only that she "[d]ied probably at Watertown between 15 October 1705 and 24 December 1712. She was living on 20 October 1704, when she acknowledged a deed." But Watertown records (citation details below) clearly state "m^s Mary Sherman (widow of mr. John Sherman Late: R^d: pastor of the church in watertown) deceas^t march : 9 : 1709/10".

Mary married Rev. John Sherman about 1647. John (son of Edmund Sherman and Grace Makin) was born on 26 Dec 1613 in Dedham, Essex, England; was christened on 4 Jan 1614 in Dedham, Essex, England; died on 8 Aug 1685 in Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts; was buried in East Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Katherine married Erasmus Phillips about 1 Sep 1660. Erasmus (son of Richard Phillips and Elizabeth Dryden) was born in of Picton Castle, Pembrokeshire, Wales; died on 18 Jan 1697. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 1645

Notes:

Minister at Sudbury, Massachusetts, Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and Salem, Massachusetts.

James married Mary Walker on 13 May 1680 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Mary (daughter of Thomas Walker and Mary Stone) was born on 9 Aug 1661 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts; died after 11 Mar 1709. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: John Shorter. John (son of John Shorter, Lord Mayor of London) was born in of Bybrook, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He and his wife Abigail Stone "settled in Springfield, Mass., where he was a schoolmaster and physician; but about 1722 they removed to the region which in 1731 became the town of Brimfield, where he was a physician, town clerk for thirty successive years, representative three years, and captain of militia." They were married for nearly seventy years.

John married Abigail Stone on 9 Nov 1703 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts. Abigail (daughter of Daniel Stone and Mary Moore) was born on 13 Feb 1681 in Sudbury, Middlesex, Massachusetts; died on 9 Mar 1772 in Brimfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Catherine married Robert Walpole on 30 Jul 1700 in Knightsbridge Chapel, London, England. Robert (son of Robert Walpole and Mary Burwell) was born on 26 Aug 1676 in Houghton, Norfolk, England; died on 18 Mar 1745 in London, England; was buried on 25 Mar 1745 in Houghton, Norfolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 31 Mar 1703, Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts

Bezaleel married Abigail Graves on 4 Feb 1732 in Brimfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. Abigail (daughter of Ebenezer Graves and Mary Colton) was born on 18 Feb 1707 in Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Christened Horatio Walpole, he was an antiquarian, an art historian, the author of the first Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto, and of letters of great social and historical interest, which have been published in 48 volumes by Yale University Press.

MP for Callington, Cornwall, 1741-1754; for Castle Rising, Norfolk, 1754-1757; and for King's Lynn, Norfolk, 1757-1768. Earl of Orford from 1791 to his death.

Abigail married Joseph Thompson on 19 Feb 1754 in Brimfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. Joseph (son of James Thompson and Mary) was born on 25 Mar 1733 in Brimfield, Hampden, Massachusetts; died in 1795 in Virginia, Coshocton, Ohio; was buried in Virginia, Coshocton, Ohio. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He appears to have been served in the Revolution for nine months beginning in July 1779, under Captain Reuben Lilly.

Family/Spouse: Sarah Clark. Sarah was born in 1767; died on 15 Jan 1852; was buried in Peru Center Cemetery, Peru, Berkshire, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 3 Jul 1788, Hampshire County, Massachusetts

Notes:

Also called Sarah Thompson.

Sarah married Elisha Branch on 3 Oct 1810 in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Elisha (son of Nathan Branch and Elizabeth "Polly" Woodward) was born on 9 Apr 1787 in Worthington, Hampshire, Massachusetts; died on 14 Nov 1856 in York, Medina, Ohio; was buried in Branch Cemetery, Medina, Medina, Ohio. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1813
• Alternate death: 13 Dec 1914, Lansing, Ingham, Michigan

Notes:

History of Medina County and Ohio (citation details below), naming her as a daughter of Elisha Branch and Sallie Thompson of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, calls her "Mrs. Albert Mead, in Michigan".

From Edythe Alma (Pearsall) Palmer (citation details below):

Sarah Branch Mead moved from a New York county to the Lansing area with her brood of six, lived in a log cabin and taught her children (plus the neighbors') how to read from newspapers on the walls, before she was able to add a real book to her copy of the Bible and one by Charles Dickens. I have a photo (circa 1903) of her at least 90, wearing her black bombazine highnecked shirtwaist, wearing her gold wedding ring, and reading the Bible. (I don't believe that many women could read at all at that time.) Of course, it paid off. Grandpa Mead became a proofreader for the Detroit Free Press, a Shakespeare scholar and a "reader" in the Christian Science church! He loved to laugh and tell funny stories. I remember the one about the witches in Macbeth.

Sarah married Albert Cyrus Mead on 7 Jan 1847. Albert was born in Dec 1825 in New York. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Nathan married Mary C. Egan on 12 Oct 1921 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan. Mary (daughter of William Egan and Margaret Livingston) was born about 1857 in Canada. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

According to his obituary in the Detroit Free Press, he was a compositor for them (1880-1890), not a proofreader as reported in his granddaughter Edythe Alma (Pearsall) Palmer's undated letter quoted in our entry on his mother. From 1890 until his retirement in 1926, he was a customs officer in Detroit. According to Edythe Alma (Pearsall) Palmer, he was also an amateur Shakespeare scholar. He must have been well-liked; obituary notices appeared for him in newspapers in Detroit, Lansing, and Battle Creek.

Edwin married Carolyn Green on 22 Jan 1873 in Lansing, Ingham, Michigan. Carolyn (daughter of Capt. John Green) was born on 22 Jan 1852 in Lansing, Ingham, Michigan; died on 22 Jun 1932 in Albion, Calhoun, Michigan. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Myron married Katherine Kappeller on 16 Oct 1878 in Ingham County, Michigan. Katherine was born on 17 Feb 1859 in Elba, Genesee, New York; died on 16 Jan 1934 in Mason, Ingham, Michigan; was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Mason, Ingham, Michigan. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Ella A. Holmes on 5 Jul 1881 in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Ella was born about 1862; died after 5 Feb 1922. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Emma married Lucius R. Williams on 14 Nov 1887 in Lorain County, Ohio. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1862, Michigan

Family/Spouse: John B. Hanson. John died after 19 Dec 1932. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Alma married George E. Newell on 12 Nov 1885 in Lorain County, Ohio. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Lois married Charles A. Quay on 6 Oct 1896 in Lansing, Ingham, Michigan. Charles (son of Sanford Quay and Margery Thompson) was born about 1863 in Green County, Indiana; died after 9 Jul 1938. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Eva J.. Eva died before 18 Mar 1933. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: E. Viola Andress. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1884, Michigan
• Alternate birth: Abt 1885, Michigan

Angeline married Arthur Hamilton Pearsall on 3 Jun 1906 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan. Arthur (son of William Augustus Pearsall and Angeline Quigley) was born on 11 Dec 1883 in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan; died in Apr 1974. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1922, Michigan

Edythe married William Ellsworth Palmer on 15 Feb 1951 in Cook County, Illinois. William (son of Claude Hutchinson Palmer and Grace Elizabeth Howell) was born on 24 Oct 1922 in Indianapolis, Marion, Indiana; died on 11 Mar 2005; was buried in Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, Elwood, Will, Illinois. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: (Private). [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]