William Eure

Notes:

Sheriff of Yorkshire, 1482-83.

Family/Spouse: Margaret Constable. Margaret (daughter of Robert Constable and Agnes Wentworth) died before Jul 1497. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Ralph Evers.

Ralph married Muriel Hastings on 18 Jan 1482. Muriel (daughter of Hugh Hastings and Anne Gascoigne) died before Jan 1516. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Elizabeth Willoughby about 1503. Elizabeth (daughter of Christopher Willoughby and Margaret Jenney) was born about 1483. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He was slain in the Battle of Ancrum Moor, part of the 1542-51 War of the Rough Wooing.

Ralph married Margery Bowes before 1529. Margery (daughter of Ralph Bowes and Elizabeth Clifford) died after 1566. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Lancelot Mansfield. Lancelot was born about 1533 in of Skirpenbeck, Yorkshire, England; died after 20 Sep 1563. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of London, England

Notes:

Burgess (M.P.) for Beverley, Yorkshire. Queen's Surveyor. B.A., Peterhouse College, Cambridge, 1572-3.

He was described as a resident of London in 1582, but the 1587 pedigree attached to the grant of his father's crest called him "of Huton on Derwent", Yorkshire.

From Robert Charles Anderson, John C. Brandon, and Paul C. Reed, "The Ancestry of the Royally-Descended Mansfields of the Massachusetts Bay" (citation details below):

Cotton Mather, in his biography of the Rev. John Wilson, identifies the father of the immigrants as "Sir John Mansfield, master of the Minories, and the Queen's surveyor." This identification has always been troublesome, as it includes some inaccuracies. The immigrants' father was an "esquire," a step below the dignity of knighthood, but above gentleman. Evidence has been found, however, to confirm that John Mansfield was intimately involved with royal mining interests, and was Queen's surveyor -- at least in Yorkshire.

When Mather used the word "Minories," he must have intended the word "mineries," or mining operations. The 3rd Earl of Huntingdon held mines and lands in Dorsetshire, having purchased various mining interests from James, Lord Mountjoy. John Mansfield was the Earl's "servant, and at one stage his lessee of the Canford mines, near Poole, Dorset. Lord Mountjoy was heavily indebted to creditors, and various interrogatories were taken in May 1582 concerning his sale to Huntingdon. "John Mansfield, and W[illia]m Bird, all of London," were among men examined on behalf of the Earl on May 17, 21, 24, and 31, and June 1, 1582. "John Mansfield of London" was also examined on 14 or 15 June.

John Mansfeild, Clement Draper, and Richard Laycolte received lands, rents and liberties in Brownsea Island, Dorset, with the advowson, by permission of license dated 1 April 1581. John Mansfelde, Richard Laicolte, Clement Draper, and Edward Mead complained to the Privy Council on 4 January 1581 that Edward Lane [of Blackfriars, London, 1582], John Lane, and others had "wrongfullie dispossessed them of two their workehouses for allum and coppres, called Allam Chyne and Okemans in the countie of Dorset." The various examinations "touching matters in conroversie betwene John and Edward Lanes and John Mansfelde" were delivered to the servant of the Earl of Huntingdon on 27 May 1582. On 12 September 1592, Clement Draper wrote to the Queen, pleading that he had "been detained in prison 12 years against all right, by practice of the Earl of Huntingdon, John Mansfield, his deputy, and Richard Laycolt, who have taken away his goods, which, with other losses, amount to 10,000l; his good name, dearer to him than his life, is rooted out by their false reports." He further claimed that "Mansfield, for 4l., got a protection under the Great Seal to defraud him and others of their goods....The Earl, the better to defend his own quarrel against Lord Mountjoy, has got into his hands...the writer's [Draper's] deeds and writings concerning his estate in the mines, and detains them. The Earl, in May 1583, covenanted that the mines should be maintained and set to work." John Mansfeld/Mansfyeld, with Clement Draper, had brought suit against others in the Court of Star Chamber, but later John sued Clement Draper in Chancery.

John Mansfield's career in politics reached its pinacle in 1593, when he represented Beverley, Yorkshire, in Parliament. He is not known to have had personal connections at Beverley, so the seat was likely procured through the influence of his lord the Earl of Huntingdon or cousin Lord Eure. As one of the burgesses for Yorkshire boroughs, he was appointed to a committee on cloth 23 March and to another concerning weirs 28 March 1593. In 1597, by which time he was serving as a Justice of the Peace for the North Riding of Yorkshire, John Mansfield offered himself for election to Parliament at Scarborough, but though he was recommended to the bailiffs and burgesses by the Archbishop of York, and had the support of his prospective fellow burgess, Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby, his nomination was not accepted by the borough authorities.

Queen Elizabeth I on 8 February 1597/8 granted John Mansfield "the office of collector of the rents and revenues of the dissolved monastery of St. Mary's, York," and more importantly, "the surveyorship of the Queen's lands in the North Riding of Yorkshire." The Crown had extensive honours and holdings in Yorkshire. John Mansfield set about to prove his proficiency by making an unusually thorough and careful survey of the manor of Settington, Yorkshire, compiled between 17 and 21 March 1599/1600. Mansfield obviously took great pains in producing this detailed document, probably an attempt to demonstrate abilities superior to those of a rival who had received many benefits for little effort. John alluded to this in his plea to the Lord Treasurer in his introductory remarks to one copy of the survey:

It is my hard fortune whilest other men receyue great rewardes for small deserts I must hold my selfe happy not to be disgraced after good seruyce done. Good my Lord excuse me for thus writyng. I haue chosen to depend on your lordship onelye. When your lordship shall please to gyue me over I wilbegone as forsaken by all. I will equall my selfe to all in this[,] never any did nor shall performe more honest dutyes to your Lordship then I will.

The manor of Settrington had been granted to Matthew, Earl of Lenox, and his wife Margaret, in 1544, but was later returned to the Crown. John Mansfield, "Crown Surveyor," was ordered to make a survey of the manors of the late Margaret, Countess of Lennox. These documents are dated February 1600/1 to July 1601, when Mansfield died. He made the surveys as part of a northern tour, likely drawing up the results after his return to London.

Family/Spouse: Mary Hobson. Mary (daughter of William Hobson and Mary) died between 1587 and 3 Feb 1592. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

John married Elizabeth before 3 Feb 1592. Elizabeth died before 10 Feb 1634; was buried on 10 Feb 1634 in St. Michael Cornhill, London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Gateway ancestor, one of LD's five (so far).

From Robert Charles Anderson, John C. Brandon, and Paul C. Reed, "The Ancestry of the Royally-Descended Mansfields of the Massachusetts Bay" (citation details below):

Of Elizabeth (Mansfield) Wilson, not much is known. She was very unwilling to come to New England; as Mather writes, she had to be "perswaded over into the difficulties of an American desart," arriving two years after her husband. In May 1631, Margaret (Tyndal) Winthrop told how Mr. Wilson "can not yet perswad his wife to goe, for all he hath taken this paynes to come and fetch hir. I maruiell [marvel] what mettell she is made on. shure she will yeald at last, or elce we shal want him excedingly in new england." Later the same month, Mrs. Winthrop again mentioned Elizabeth's distaste for the trip; she was "more auerce [averse] then euer she was." Mrs. Wilson finally arrived in Massachusetts in 1632. Her dislike of the voyage to New England, and her unhappiness at hearing of the death of her eldest son, whom she did not long survive, are almost all that we know of her character and life.

Elizabeth married Rev. John Wilson before 1617. Rev. (son of Rev. William Wilson and Elizabeth Woodhall) was born about 1591; died on 7 Aug 1667 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Anne married Robert Keayne on 18 Jun 1617. Robert (son of John Keayne) was born about 1594; died on 23 Mar 1656 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Rev. married Sarah Hooker before 1649. Sarah (daughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker and Susannah Garbrand) was born before 21 Feb 1630; was christened on 21 Feb 1630 in Broomfield, Essex, England; died on 20 Aug 1725 in Braintree, Norfolk, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Mary married Rev. Samuel Danforth on 5 Nov 1651. Rev. (son of Nicholas Danforth and Elizabeth Barber) was born in Sep 1626 in Framlingham, Suffolk, England; was christened on 17 Oct 1626 in Framlingham, Suffolk, England; died on 19 Nov 1674 in Roxbury, Suffolk, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

According to Robert Charles Anderson, John C. Brandon, and Paul C. Reed (citation details below), he and Sarah Dudley ultimately divorced "because of Sarah's increasing religious fanaticism".

From The Great Migration Begins (citation details below):

Some considerable pain entered Gov. Dudley's last years as his daughter Sarah and her husband Benjamin Keayne necessitated one of the colony's earliest divorces. Stephen Winthrop says "My she Cosin Keane is growne a great preacher" in a letter from London 27 March 1646. In a letter dated London 18 March 1646/7, Benjamin Keayne writes to Thomas Dudley:

Honored Sir, That you and myself are made sorry by your daughter's enormous and continued crimes, is the greatest cause of grief that ever befell me, and the more because her obstinate continuance in them is now to me by her own letter made as certain...I never gave her the least just cause or occasion to provoke her to them...she has not left me any room or way of reconciliation. And therefore as you desire, I do plainly declare my resolution never again to live with her as a husband. What maintenance yourself expects I know not. This I know (to my cost and danger) she has unwived herself and how she or you can expect a wife's maintenance is to me a wonder...

Ezekiel Rogers passed some of the gossip on to John Winthrop in a letter dated Rowley 8 November 1647:

...I thought myself bound to acquaint you that there is not a little discourse raised, and by some, offence taken, at the late divorce granted by the Court. How weighty a business that is, as I need not tell you, so I would humbly desire that some course may be taken so as to clear the court's proceeding, as that rumors might be stopped, and letters of mistake into England prevented...

The news from England in the words of Brampton Gurdon Sr. put another light on things, as he wrote from Assington 6 June 1649 to John Winthrop:

...Here goes some speech of a N.E. couple that lately came from thence the husband first, and then the wife followed after with what goods she could get together but we heat all her goods miscarried and she escaped only with her life. The man was Cane's son a cloak seller in Birching Lane, whose mother was Mr. Willson's sister. The woman is returned to N.E. and resolves there to take another husband. I hope your laws will not tolerate such wicked actions.

Benjamin married Sarah Dudley before 1639, and was divorced in 1647. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]