941 ft, "^ 1)257 UC-NRLF B 3 573 S7T =2?:^:--^ c^^.^^^-^-(^^^S^^ » * • -^ POPE: ADDITIONAL FACTS CONCERNING HIS MATERNAL ANCESTRY. BY ROBERT /dAVI£S, F.S.A., ti; K LETTEK TO MB. HUXTEK, AUTHOR OF THE TRACT ENTITLKO '■ POi-Ji: ; HIS DESCENT AND FAMILY CONNECTIONS." It is one of the most pleasing offices of the genealogist to trace tlie descent and to show the alliances of Genius. Hunter's South Yorkshire, vol.ii, p.i2&7. LONDON: JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, 36, SOHO SQUARE. M.DCCC.LTIII. POPE: ADDITIONAL FACTS CONCEENING HIS MATERNAL ANCESTRY. BY ROBERT DAVIES, F.S.A., Ii\ A LETTER TO MK. HUNTER, AUTHOR OF THE TRACT ENTITLED "POPE; HIS DESCENT AND FAMILY CONNECTIONS." It is one of the most pleasing offices of the genealogist to trace the descent and to show the alliances of Genius. Hunter's South Yorkshire, vol.ii. p. 297. LONDON: JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, 36, SOHO SQUARE. M.DCCC.LYIII. " Let any one bethink him how impressive the smallest historical fact may become, as contrasted with the grandest fictitious event ; — what an incalculable force lies for us in this consideration; — the thing which I here hold imaged in my mind did actually occur; was, in very truth, an element in the system of the All whereof I too form part ; had therefore, and has, through all time, an authentic being ; is not a dream, but a reality !" — Caeltle's Essays^ vol. iii. p. 43. 0-4 / ip^ POPE. My dear Sir, In that section of the interesting and valuable tract you have recently given to the world, which treats of the maternal ancestry of Pope, you suggest the possibility of "ascending a generation above '^ Lancelot Turner, the uncle of William Turner, the Poet^s maternal grandfather. Having had the good fortune to discover this higher step in the genealogy of the Turners, and to obtain some additional information respecting several mem- bers of the family, I beg to be permitted to commu- nicate to you, in this form, the facts which have come to my knowledge. The descent of the maternal ancestors of the illus- trious Poet may be traced to a source whence many families among the present aristocracy of Yorkshire have originally sprung, — the trade or commerce of the city of York. M585G38 'n '^- 4 POPE. At York^ in the reign of King Henry VIII., Robert Turner carried on the business of a wax- chandler, which, before the Reformation, when this commodity in various forms was profusely and con- stantly used in the celebration of religious services, was a lucrative and important occupation. Had he not been a person in good circumstances, and be- longing to the higher class of tradesmen, he would scarcely have brought up his son to one of the learned professions. In the year 1553, "Edward Turner^ skryvener,'' son of Robert Turner, wax-chandler, being entitled by patrimony to be admitted to the city franchise, was duly enrolled upon the register of York freemen. This Edward Turner was the father of Lancelot Turner; and what you have hazarded as a probable conjecture with regard to the son,* is quite true as regards the father: he was connected with the Council of the North ; and there can be no doubt that great part of the property he possessed at the time of his death had been acquired by the influence and emolu- * " Perhaps as probable a conjecture as is likely to be made is, that he was connected with the Council of the North, or a successful practitioner in that Court." — Pope Tract, p. 29. POPE. i^ ments which arose from his official connection witli that court. We have decisive evidence of his having been one of the officials of the Council of the North in a circumstance Avhich is recorded upon the minutes of the proceedings of the corporation of York. Being a freeman of the city, Edward Turner was liable to serve municipal offices ; and it may be regarded as a proof of the estimation in which he was held by his fellow-citizens, that they thought him a proper person to sustain the dignity and responsibility of the office of sheriff of the city. In October, 1562, he received an intimation from the corporate body, that they intended to elect him to be one of their sheriffs for the ensuing year. When this was made known to the Lord President and Council of the North, Mr. Secretary Eymis " went in all haste '' to the common hall where the corporation were assem- bled, and told them that '' Edward Turner was a clerk to the Council, and they must not make him sherifiP," The citizens did not deem it expedient to act in opposition to the wishes of the Council thus peremp- torily expressed. They abandoned their design of 6 POPE. electing Mr. Turner sheriff, and he was never after- wards called upon to bear that or any other office in the corporation."^ It was of more importance to him to retain the favour of the Council, than to accept a municipal appointment which was attended with no profit, and might have interfered with the due dis- charge of his official or professional duties. The Mr. Secretary Eymis who is here spoken of, Avas Thomas Eymis, Esq., one of the chief func- tionaries of the great Court of York for nearly thirty years. A gentleman by birth, and, doubtless, a lawyer by profession, he was first constituted a mem- ber of the Council of the North, and appointed to the important office of its secretary, by the commis- sion under which the Earl of Shrewsbury was made Lord President in the 4th year of King Edward VI. After the accession of Queen Elizabeth, under the commission which appointed the Earl of Rutland Lord President, and under the subsequent commis- sions issued in that reign, he continued to hold the office of Secretary, and was also Keeper of the Queen's Signet. From the alarm shown by Mr. Secretary Eymis * Another person of the same name was sheriff of York in 1571. POPE. / when he heard that the efficiency of Edward Tumer^s services as clerk to the Council was in danger of being impaired by his advancement to civic honours, it seems probable that the appointment he held was that of one of the clerks of the seal,* the duties of which would be more immediately under Mr. Eymis's superintendence. It is obvious, however, that the office, whatever name it bore, was of great respect- ability, and placed the holder of it upon a footing of friendly intercourse with numerous persons of family and distinction, members of or connected with the Council, who at that period constituted the highest class of society in York. Edward Turner's place of residence was in the centre of the city. The house in which he lived and died, stood in that part of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, which was then called Stayngate, but is now known as Saint Helen's Square. This and an adjoining mansion occupied by Lady Beckwith (the widow of Sir Leonard Beckwith, Knight, one of the Council of the North), and several other houses situate in the adjacent streets, were his property. * Among the numerous officers of whom the court consisted were two called Clerks of the Seal.— Toeee's MSS. 8 POPE. Some of them he had most probably inherited from his father. In the year 1562, when the corporation of York contemplated making him sheriff, Edward Turner was a married man, and the father of a family. The earliest register book of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, which commences in the year 1568, records the baptism of two of his younger children : " Lucy Turner, daughter of Edward Turner, gentle- man/^ was baptized on the 2<^th of February, 156ii^ and a son, named Edward, on the ]2th of August, 1570. Another son, named Martin, of whom he speaks in his will as his youngest son, must have been born a very short time before the death of his mother, an event which is thus entered in the same register : — " Mistris Turner, wife of Edward Turner, ^ gentleman, buried l^th June, 1571.^^ I have found o^r^n^ no clue whatever to the discovery of the name of this < ^ '*^,/ Is-dy, or of any other particulars relating to her. -try, ^;A^»^*^ 'A few months after the usual period of mourning had passed, the widowed husband took unto himself a second wife. On the 22nd of September, 1572, ^^Mr. Edward Turner and Mrs. Jane Fale" were married at the church of the parish of Saint Michael POPE. 9 le Belfrey, in York. Mrs. Jane Fale was the widow of Mr. Thomas Fale, who for more than twenty years was town-clerk of York, and died in the month of March, 1571, /-W-^ /^.x^a^u /^^yo-/. i-^^.^^ In the year 1573, Mr. Turner purchased of William Wentworth, of Killingwicke, a plot of ground near to his own residence, which had been the churchyard of the demolished church of Saint Wilfred.* Of thirty householders of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, who, in the year 1574, were assessed to the relief of the poor, Edward Turner paid the highest rate. The amount, when compared with modern experience, seems ridiculously small : it was no more than fourpence. But this was in the very infancy of poor-rates, and, with one or two exceptions, the aldermen of the city were the only persons who contributed so large a sum as sixpence. A few years later, Mr. Turner had to lament the loss of his early friend and patron, Mr. Secretary Eymis. He died on the 19th of August, 1578; and * The mansion in the street now called Lendal (formerly Ald- conyngstrete), which was built by Dr. Wintringham, an eminent physician, in the early part of the last century, and is now appro- priated to the use of the judges at the assizes, stands upon part of the ancient churchyard of Saint Wilfred, which in the sixteenth century was the property of Edward Turner. 10 POPE. in his last will we find a token, although it be but a slight one, of his regard for the person who had so long shared his official labours. During his long tenure of the influential and lucrative office of Secretary to the Court at York, Mr. Eymis had accumulated great wealth. He appears to have participated largely in the distribu- tion by the crown of the ecclesiastical property in Yorkshire which was confiscated at the Eeformation. His estate at Heslington, near York, where he built for his own residence a stately mansion, consisted chiefly of lands which had belonged to the Hospital of Saint Leonard and the Priory of Saint Andrew, two of the religious houses at Y^ork. He had pos- sessed himself of the estates belonging to a collegiate foundation at Lowthorpe in the East Riding. He was lessee under the church of York of the prebend of Bugthorpe in the same riding, and owner of the manors of Bugthorpe and other adjacent places; and he had obtained a grant from the crown of the tithes of Clifton, near York, which belonged to the rectory of Saint Olave in Mary gate. He must have been remarkable for the state and splendour of his do- mestic establishment, having a house in the Minster POPE. 11 Close at York^ and another in the Savoy at London; and two country houses^ one at Bugthorpe, and the other at Heslington,* The last will of Mr. Eymis was executed on the first day of the year in which he died. In this docu- ment the name of Edward Turner occurs twice: first, in his disposal of a house and close of land, without Monk Bar, York, which he states that he had purchased of "Edward Turner, gentilman"; and secondly, in a bequest of which I must speak more at length. The testator gives a life interest in nearly the whole of his estates to his wife Eli- zabeth; but he does this by means of numer- ous separate devises, intailing the various parts of his property, after her death, upon his nephews, Thomas Eymis, William Eymis, Richard Eymis, John Eymis, William Thynne, and Sir John Thynne, * In his houses at York and Heslington the rooms were hung with costly tapestry, and the buffets laden with gold and silver plate. He states in his will, that his plate weighed 759 oz. The Heslington mansion, a short distance from York, was standing nearly as Mr. Eymis left it, until a few years ago, when it was almost wholly rebuilt by the late owner, Yarburgh Yarburgh, Esq. The principal front still remains without much alteration, and presents an admirable example of the sumptuous style of domestic architecture that pre- vaOed in the reign of Queen EUzabetli. 12 POPE. Knight,^ varying the order of succession, and intro- ducing into some of tlie limitations the names of the younger sons of his nephew, Sir John Thynne, and his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Neville, Knight, and of two or three other persons, of whom Edward Turner is one. The tithes of Clifton, which the testator states that he held for a term of years by a grant from the Queen, he gives, after the death of his wife, to five of his nephews for their lives successively ; and if they all die before the expiration of such term of years, he bequeaths the same tithes to "Edward Turner, gentilman, and his assigns, during the residue of the years then to come, if he live so long;" and if not, then "to my friend Robert Man, gentilman," in a similar manner, with the * The testator was the son of Thomas Eymis, Esq., of Church Stretton, in Shropshire, by Joyce or Jocosa, sole daughter and heir of Humphrey Gatacre, of Gatacre, in the same county, esquire of the body to King Henry YI. The testator's only sister, Margaret Eymis, married Thomas Thynne, Esq., and was the mother of William Thynne, and Sir John Thynne, Knight. She appears ulti- mately to have become the heir of both her father and her brothers, and thus to have carried all the wealth of the Eymis's and Gatacres into the family of Thynne. From Sir John Thynne, the nephew of Mr. Eymis, who built the magnificent mansion of Longleat, in Wiltshire, the Marquesses of Bath are lineally descended. POPE. 13 ultimate bequest to "Henry Pulleyne^ my servant." The will was proved at York^ on the 20th of !March, 1578-9, by the testator's widow, Elizabeth Eymis, the residuary legatee and sole executor.* ]\Ir. Edward Turner did not long survive his patron and superior in office, Mr. Secretary Eymis. He died in the month of December, 1580, and was buried in the church of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, of which he had been for many years one of the principal inhabitants. A few weeks before his death he executed his last will. It is dated the 27th of November, 1580, and was proved by Lancelot Tui-ner, the eldest son and one of the executors, on the 31st of January, 1581. After the usual pious introduction, the testator, who describes himself "Edward Turner, of the cittie of Yorke," without any addition, gives to his wife, Jane, for her life, all such lands, &c., as she had already set forth for her * On a plain tomb in York Minster was once this epitaph : — + " Here lyeth the body of Thomas Eymis, esquier, one of her Majesty's counsell estabhshed in the north parties, and secretary and keeper of her Highness signett appointed for the said Counsell, who married Elizabeth, on^ of the daughters of Sir Edward Nevill, Knight, and departed out of this Hfe to the mercy of God the xixth day of August, An. Dom. 1578." — Ehoracwrij p. 49G. 2 14 POPE. jointure. He then proceeds to make the following disposition of his real estate : — " To Lancelot Turner, my son, all my lands in possession and reversion, except a tenement and garthinge in Stanegate, to him and his heirs males ; with remainder to Phillippe Turner, my son, and his heirs males; with remainder to Thomas Turner, my son, and his heirs males ; with remainder to Martyn Turner, my son, and his heirs males; with remainder to my ow^n right heirs." The following bequests show that the testator^s personalty was of a costly description : — "To my son, Lancelot Turner, my dolphyn of gold; to my wife, all such gold rings and gold tablets as she hath in possession ; to Philhpp Turner, my son, my ring hoop of gold ; to Thomas Turner, a ring of gold, with a graven death^s head in it, weighing about 40^.; to INIartyn Turner, a gold ring, with a death's head of stone in it ; to Margaret Willowbie, a round gold ring of 12^. price, which lieth in my study amongst other my rings ; to Elizabeth Martyn, a gold ring in a purse, in my far study; to Katherine Turner, a ring of an angel weight; to Margaret Willowbie, 100 marks in consideration of such reckoning as POPE. 15 is between her and me ; to Elizabeth Martin, £10 over and beside £6. ISs. 4c?. which I owe of the 100 marks that I promised to her husband for her marriage goods; to Katherine Turner, .€30 over and besides her child^s portion ; to Johan Willowbie, 405., and to Anne, Elizabeth, and Thomas Willowbie, /. 20^. each ; to my wife, the tithes of corn and hay at Bishopthorpe during her life ; to Martyn Turner, my youngest son, twenty marks yearly, out of the annuity of £20 granted unto me from William Chamberlayne, Esq., and Leonard his son,"^ for his bringing up at the University, and I commit him to the tuition of my wife, to be ruled and ordered * These Chamberlaynes were a younger branch of the ancient Oxfordshire family of that name. It appears from the pedigree they recorded at the Heralds' visitation in 1584, that the William Chamberlayne named in Edward Turner's will was the first who settled at Thoralby, in Yorkshire. It is very probable that he, or his son Leonard Chamberlayne, was in some way or other con- nected with the Council of the North, which might account for the circumstance of their having granted an annuity to Edward Turner. Thoralby Hall is in the parish of Bugthorpe, of which Mr. Secretary Eymis was the proprietor. Francis Chamberlayne, Esq., the eldest son of Sir Leonard Chamberlayne, Knight (as he is styled in the pedigree), by his first wife, the daughter of Sir William Middleton, Knight, of Stockeld, near Wetherby, was living at Thoralby in 1584. Sir Leonard's second wife was Katherine, daughter of Koger Cholmeley, Esq., of Brandsby, a sister of Lady Beekwith, the tenant of Edward Turner. 16 POPE. by lier^ who I trust will be his good mother, and see all his things ordered for his most benefit ; to my son, Lancelot, my years in the tithe of Braken-on- the-Wold, by grant from the Queen's Majesty; to Thomas Turner, the tenement and garthing in Stanegate; to my son, Philip Turner, my years in my lands in Clifton which I have by grant from the Queen, and my right in the Howe close without Walmgate Bar; to my well-beloved cousin, Mr. Henry Maye, the moiety of my leasehold lands in Kexbie township, for that he in truth did disburse the one half of the money for the obtaining of the leases — the other moiety I give to my children, Edward, Martyn, and Katherine Turner; to my daughter, Margaret Willowbie, my years in a close in Scoreby, paying out of it to my sister, Alice Hall, widow, 40^. yearly ; to Lancelot Martin, my son-in- law, a gold ring of the value of 40^. I will that all the ^waynescott, sealings, portalles, binkes, cundetts for conveying of water,' &c. in my now dwelling- house, and within the house of the Lady Beckwith, be heirlooms. To my wife, a stoke of corn which I estimate to be twenty quarters of barley ; £30 from one Hunter, for the fine or gressam of a tenement POPE. 17 and lands of my said wife in Tockwitli -, and a grey ambling nag which she nseth to ride upon, and calleth her own nag, which I esteem at the value of £4. To the right worshipful and my singular good mistress, Mrs. Eymis,* one old ryal ; to my good * Few person3 who have visited our noble Minster will have failed to notice, affixed to the south side of one of the massive piers which support the central tower, a monumental brass engraved with the portraiture of a prim old lady in the starched ruff and pinched- up coif of the days of Queen Elizabeth. The inscription beneath it informs us that this is the effigy of Elizabeth Eymis, widow, late the wife of Thomas Eymis, Esq., deceased, who was one of the gentlewomen of the Queen's privy chamber, and daughter of Sir Edward Nevill, Knight, one of the privy chamber to King Henry the Eighth. Mrs. Eymis, " the singular good mistress " of Edward Turner, did not long survive him. In her last will, which is dated the 31st of Januaiy, 1584-5, she desired, if she died at York or Heslington, to be buried in the Minster of York, nigh her late hus- band ; and she ordered her executors to provide a stone of marble to be set upon a platt, v^ith superscription of her descent, and also the arms of her late husband and her own, graven thereupon. Had her injunctions been implicitly obeyed by her executors, her monument would have shared the fate of that of her husband, and of nimiber- less others which have long since disappeared fi'om the nave and aisles of York Minster. Her epitaph, being written in brass instead of marble, has escaped the wear and tear of nearly three centuries. It is not irrelevant to my subject to introduce here a few of the bequests contained in her will. To " my good Lord of Huntingdon" she gives "one portingue of gould"; to "my good ladie his wife," her best silver tankard, double gilt ; to her brother. Sir Henry Nevill, Knight, sl-e gives her great goblet of silver with a cover, and to her brotlior, Edward IS'evill, Esq., her "Jewell of gould with the unicorne homo .^/A^'^/-< , 18 POPE. c^^v friend Mr. Thomas Sandes_, my coUsin Henry Maye, "^^"^ and his wife, an old angel each ; to my cousin y^.'U^-i^^ Thomas Jackson, and my niece Jane Crosethwaite, .^. /. each a French crown ; to each of the children of my 7-^ late brother-in-law, John Hall, 5^. ; to Edmund V Jyi ^^'^ aiid his wife, 5^. each ; to Mrs. Maltus, an il(r^ ■ English crown ; to Mrs. Wood, of Kilnwick, a gold in the same, maid lieke a shippe, and a gilt canne of sylver"; to her sister "Frogmorton, my best tuftafitie gowne " ; to her very good friend, Mr. Pailer, "a tankard of silver, parcel gilt" ; to Alice Hall, " ojie morning gown" and 20^. ; and to her god-daughter, Elizabeth Darley, one silver spoon. The residuary legatees and executors are Eobert Man, and Francis Nevill, the son of Edward K'evill. Witnesses — William Payler, Anne Payler, Thomas Wanton, Alice Darley, John Stevenson, Katherine Blenkarne. We have here one or two facts showing the intimacy that subsisted between the families of Edward Turner and Mrs. Eymis. AUce Hall, one of her legatees, was the widowed sister of Edward Turner ; E-obert Man, her executor, was one of the supervisors of Edward Turner's will ; Katherine Blenkarne, one of the witnesses of Mrs. Eymis' s will, was a daughter of Edward Turner ; John Stevenson, another witness, was most probably the person of that name who married Margaret Willowbie, another daughter of Edward Turner. Mrs. Eymis had reason to be proud of her descent. Her father. Sir Edward Nevill, a younger brother of George Nevill, Lord Aber- gavenny, was a distinguished ornament of the court of Henry YIII. in its palmiest days. He was one of "the noble troop of strangers" who formed the royal masquing party when the King visited Wolsey, and first saw Anne Boleyn. A few years after that event, he in- curred the displeasure of the suspicious Henry, and was brought to the scaffold upon a charge of being implicated in the pretended conspiracy of Cardinal Pole and his brothers. POPE. 19 ring^ or two old angels; to Agnes Walker, of Saint Nicholas, 3^. 4c?. The residue to my Avife, and Lancelot Turner, Margaret Willowbie, and Elizabeth Martin, my children, whom I make executors; my very good friend, Mr. Thomas Wood of Kilnwicke,^ * A monumental brass to the memory of the testator's " very good friend, Mr, Thomas Wood," is still' preserved iu the church of Kilnwick Percy, near Pocklington, in the East Kiding of York- shire, where he was buried in the month of October, 1584. The inscription has not, I believe, been printed : — *' Thomas Wood Grentilman, who in warfare hath be, He fought in Scotland, in Roy all armyes thre, Lyeth now buried, in this grave hereunder. Of Bulloign when it was English, Clerk comptroller ; Of the Ward Court, sixe and twenty yeres together Depute Eeceyvor ; of Yorkshire once eschetor ; Cierke of the Statut, in London noble cytye ; Collector of Selby, with tenne pound yerely ffe. For thought wordes or deeds which to God or man were yll, Of bothe he askt forgyveness with glad hart and will. He buylt th'owse hereby, and this churche brought in good case : God grant his wyfe and sonnes to passe a godly race. — Amen." In the seventeenth century, Mary Wood, the grand-daughter of this Thomas Wood, and the niece and heiress of his eldest son, Barney Wood, married Sir Edmund Anderson, Baronet, and car- ried the estate- of Kilnwick Percy into that family, by whom it was long enjoyed. Kilnwick Percy is now the beautiful seat and domain of Admiral the Honourable Arthur Buncombe, M.P. The Rev. M. A. Lawton, vicar of Kilnwick Percy, has obligingly favoured me with a copy of the above inscription. 20 POPE. Robert ]\Ianj Thomas Blenkharne^ John Stephenson, and Thomas Smithson, supervisors/^ It does not appear that the testator's wife, who survived him^ had borne him any children. By the aid of his will the issue of his previous marriage may be placed in the following order : — 1. Lancelot, the eldest son. For copious informa- tion respecting him, we are indebted to your researches. 2. Philip, the grandfather of Edith Pope. ^C^/..t;,Y^-f , 3. Thomas. In the year 1580, "Thomas Turner, goldsmith, son of Edward Turner, gentleman,^^ -^*<>t^-^>y ^ ^^g admitted to the city franchise. "^ 4. Margaret, married, in her father^s lifetime, to uc? '-'-^ ' a person of the name of^Willowbie. After his "^ "( ^-Uar-c^/^^ death she married John Stephenson,* one of .?- ^ /fcU^,^, ^^ supervisors of her father's will. J'y^^.^y. * John Stephenson was the owner of a " capital messuage'' in Coney-street, York, which was occupied by himself and Kalph ^***^ ^ Rokeby, Esq., one of the secretaries of the Council of the North, and ^ J^\*^ ? which was at one time distinguished by the sign of the Bear, and afterwards of the Golden Lion. In 1614, Margaret Stephenson ZZ^.^^ 1 ^ and her son, John Stephenson (the nephew towliom Lancelot Turner /^ ^ bequeathed all his books, except his song-books), sold the messuage "' /C/ ^^ Thomas Kaye, who established there an hotel which he called tlie George Inn, a name it retains to this day. J^t1^^l>l4. POPE. 21 5. Elizabeth, married to Lancelot jMartin at the [^'-^^-f Church of Saint Helen Stonegate, on the 17th of July, 1580. Thomas Martin, the London apprentice, to whom Lancelot Turner gives a legacy of .£200, was their son. It appears from the will of Lancelot Turner, that she was after- wards the wife of a person named Hustler. 6. Katharine, a minor at the time of her father^s death. She afterwards married Thomas Blenk- arne, another of the supervisors of his will. C-^^^^f ^-^ 4^- 7. Lucy, baptized 24th of Februarv, 1569. As she ^<^/A is not named in her father's will, she most probably died young. 8. Edward, baptized 12th of August, 1570. ^'^i Caitc^^ % 9. ^Iartin, the youngest child, about nine years old when his father died. ^^^^V ''^'^' -^^^^-- ^^J^- ^Irs. Jane Turner lived several years after she became the widow of Edward Turner. Her last will is dated the 11th of December, 1588. The bequests it contains, are very numerous, and I will mention only such of them as seem to be pertinent to our present inquiry. '^ To my god-daughter, Jane Nev* ton, the wife of 22 POPE. Miles Newtoiij* gentleman, one angel." Jane Newton was one of the daughters of Ambrose Beckwith of Stillingfleet, the brother of Sir Leonard Beckwith, whose widow, Lady Beckwith, was the neighbour and tenant of Edward Turner. You have shown us that Thomasine Newton, Edith Pope's mother, was the grand- daughter of Miles Newton and Jane Beckwith.f '^To my son-in-law, Martin Turner," 5^., and a tablet of gold which was his father's. " To Phillip Turner and Edward Turner, my sons-in-law," 20.9. each. " To my daughters-in-law, Elizabeth Martin, wife of Lancelot Martin, and Katherine Blenkarne, wife of Thomas Blenkarne," gold rings. " To John Stephenson, my son-in-law, and Margaret Stephen- son, my daughter-in-law," small legacies ; and " to my sister, Alice Hall, an angel and my black gown furred with cunny." Among the other legatees are the following * Miles Newton was the name of the town- clerk of York who died in 1550, and was succeeded in that office by Thomas Fale, the first husband of the testatrix. He was very probably the same person who is named in the Newton pedigree of 1585 as the grandfather of the Miles Newton who married Jane Beckwith. t Po;?e Tract, p. 32. POPE. 23 persons of distinction, then resident in York and the neighbourhood : — Mr. Henry Slingsby, afterwards Sir Henry Slings- by, Knight, Vice-President of the Council of the North; and Mrs. Frances Slingsby his wife, daugh- ter of William Vavasour of Weston, Esq., by Eliza- beth, sister and coheir of Roger Beckwith, Esq., eldest son and heir of Sir Leonard Beckwith. Mrs. Jane Wood, widow of Thomas Wood of Kilnwick Percy gentleman (of whom I have pre- viously spoken), and Mr. Barney Wood, their son. Mrs, Hiiliard, wife of William Hilliard, Esq., Recorder of York, afterwards Sir Wm. Hilliard, Knt. Mr. John Jenkins (whose son was afterwards Sir Henry Jenkins, Knight) , and his wife, and Margaret, their daughter. Mrs. Darley, the wife of Mr. John Darley of York.* * Mr. John Darley, of York, and of Kilnhurst in the West Eiding, was a younger son of William Darley, Esq., of Butter- crambe, near York. His wife was Alice, daughter of Christopher Mountfort, Esq., of Kilnhurst. Mr. John Darley bought the manor of Kilnhurst of his wife's brother, Lancelot Mountfort, Esq. Vide Hunter's SoutJi, Yo'rJcshire, vol. ii. p. 49. Mr. Darley's town residence was in Coney -street, and it is very probable that he was officially connected with the Council of the North. His daughter, 24 POPE. Lady Beckwith, and her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. George Harvie,"^ and Mrs. France s^ his wife. The testatrix appointed John Darley and William Allen^t draper, executors, and Mr. William Bushell and Mr. William Hilliard, supervisors of her will, which was proved at York on the 30th November, 1589. She was buried on the 9th of September preceding, in the church of Saint Michael le Belfrey; it being her testamentary wish to be interred near to her first husband. I now pass to the third generation of the Turners ; and I will speak first of Philip Turner, w^ho was the second son of Edward Turner, and the direct ancestor of the great Poet. ' In the year 1586, Philip Turner was admitted to the franchise of the city of York, as the son " of Edward Turner, gentleman. In the register of I ^/f^'^y.^,^' ' Elizabeth, the god-daughter of Mrs. Eymis, married, for her second '^'^ and third husbands, Sir Edmund Sheffield and Sir" William Sheffield, y\ /^ '." sons of the Earl of Mulgrave, who was made Lord President of the yij^^'^ '^ . North upon the accession of James I. ^'^^*y^/(ffi * Greorge Hervey of Merks in the county of Essex, Esq., married c<^<^i )f Frances, one of the daughters of Sir Leonard Beckwith. ^- '"^ 5i> ^ William Allen married Jane Beckwith, sister of Sir Leonard ^ ""^/^ Beckwith. He was an aldennan of York, and Lord Mayor in POPE. 25 freemen he is called a merchant, implying that he was a member of the chartered company of Mer chant Adventurers, Avhich was then constituted of the hio-hest class of York citizens. On the 18th of January, 1590, at the church of Saint Helen Stonegate, ^' Phillippe Turner and Edeth Gylminge was maryed." This lady was the mother of William Turner, in remembrance of whom he gave to his daughter Edith her pretty Saxon christian-name, and it cannot be uninteresting to inquire a little about the family to which she be- longed. The name of Gylminge is of rare occur- rence in our local annals. In Mr. Drake's volume it appears only once ; but I believe that the " William Gylmyn ^' whom the historian"^ places at the head of a list of the freeholders of York who were present at the election of two representatives in Parliament c^vCy^i on Oct. 28, 1584, was the father of Edith Gylmiugt^^^^;^ who married Philip Turner, as he unquestionably was of Christian Gylminge, who, at the same parish Jx^y^^^ church, on April 9, 1599, became the first wife of George Ellis, Esq., afterwards Sir George Ellis, Knight, a member of the Council of the North, ^^-^^^ ^ Ehoracuifi, p. 3oS. ^ jr/3ji 26 POPE. Ui^" ^^^'^'^ Gylminge was a vintner, — in modern phrase, a wine-merchant. In the sixteenth century the vintners were among the most opulent of the York ^^ ^■^' tradesmen, no person being permitted to sell wine ^r-tl without having an annual license from the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. In the year 1583, William / Yw Gylminge was one of the eleven persons to whom this privilege was exclusively granted. Henry Ctc-T^ Maye, whom Edward Turner names in his will as his cousin, and w^ho was an alderman, and lord mayor in 1586, was another of these eleven vintners. ^^ ^,/. William Gylminge died in the year 1591. In his '/<:^^'^- will, dated Jan. 28, 1590-1, he mentions his son ■^.nn^' James, and his daughters Joan and Christian. The a^i^,.v--/ 7 name of his daughter Edith does not appear; and I can only account for the omission, by supposing that she had received her child^s portion twelve months before, when she became the wife of Philip Turner. Robert Gylminge, a merchant and goldsmith at York, was the brother of William Gylminge. He died in the year 1580; and from his will * it may be * The will of Eobert Gylminge is dated April 20, 1571. " I be- queath my soule to Almightie God and to all the celestial company of Heaven." He makes his wife, Nicholas his son, Mary, Agnes, POPE. 27 inferred that he was engaged in large comraercial transactions, as he gives to his wife and children all his goods '^*'on this side the sea, or beyond the seas." Soon after the marriage of Philip Turner to Edith Gylminge, I find him living in the parish of All Saints Pavement in York, a part of the city which was then inhabited by many of its princi- pal merchants. In this parish he continued to reside several years, and became the father of a numerous family. The baptismal register contains these entries : — 1592, Oct. 3. — Lancelot, son of Philip Turner. '"^,..^. ,s 1593, Nov. 3. — Frances, daughter of Philip Turner. ^;J^wL^ 1594^ Feb. 26.— Martha, daughter of Philip Turner. J^^^^ 1^96, April 14.— Katherine, daughter of Philip '^^•^ Turner. ^:^^t'^. 1597, June 7. — William, son of Philip Turner, [ -^ "p- 1598, Oct. 9.— Philip, son of Philip Turner. 1603, Dec. 4.— John, son of Philip Turner. Meriall, and Jane, his daughters, his executors ; and his brother William Gylminge, and William Alleyne, draper, supervisors. Proved .Tune 25, 1580. 28 POPE. In the spring of 1604, that dreadful scourge, the " Pestilence of the Plague/^ which, in the preceding year, had almost desolated the metropolis, made its appearance at York, and continued to rage with unabated violence in every part of the city for several months.* Edith, the wife of Philip Turner, and three of his children, were victims of this fatal visi- tation. The mother died first: the register of All Saints Pavement records her burial on July 9, 1604. The death of her daughters, Martha and Katherine, quickly followed. Both were buried on the 23rd of the same month. John, her infant son, did not long survive his mother; he was buried on the 19th of December. c/i^.^^^^^^ After this period I have not met with the slightest i.*^.//s^ trace of Philip Turner, or of any of his surviving ^ yii^^ children, except William, who, we now discover, was -^"^ / not his first-born son. From the christian-name given to Philip's eldest boy, it is pretty certain that he was the godson of his uncle Lancelot, and had he lived to the age of maturity would have been pre- * Mr. Drake states, that in the year 1604, the number of persons who died of the plague in York, was 3512. Eloracum, p. 121. The parish of All Saints Pavement lost more than one-third of its population. POPE. 29 ferred to his younger brother. We must conclude, therefore, that his early death made way for William to become the oldest surviving son of his father, and the heir presumptive of his uncle, who, as we learn from your pages,"^ having no children of his own, ultimately by his will established this nephew in the possession of the bulk of his fortune. It was but a short time previous to the occurrence of the calamity which deprived Philip Turner of his wife and three of his children, that Lancelot Turner became the owner of Towthorpe. An acute critic,t who has taken great interest in all matters connected with the genealogy of Pope, suggests, as ^'more than probable, that Lancelot Turner himself acquired the property which enabled him to make the purchase of the manor of Tow- thorpe.^^ But the fact seems to be, that he had obtained the means of making that purchase by con- verting into money part of the property bequeathed to him by his father, in the sale of which he had prevailed upon his brother Philip to join. Prior to * Pope Tract, p. 31. t See Athenmim, Nov. 21, 1857. 30 POPE. the year 1602^"^ they had sold to Robert Watterhouse, Esq.j the ancient churchyard of Saint Wilfred, and the buildings that stood upon it; and in January, 1604, "Lancelot Turner and Philip Turner of York gentlemen, sons of Edward Turner late of York gentleman, deceased,^^ conveyed to John Smith and John Sharpe, two York tradesmen, all the remaining property which had belonged to their father, situate in the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, consisting of nine dwelling-houses which stood in the several streets of Stanegate, Ald-Conyng-strete, Blake-street, and Davygate. About this time Lancelot Turner was making purchases of copyhold cottages and land at Tow- thorpe; and from his having sold his paternal property in York, to enable him to become the lord of the manor of Towthorpe, and from his manifest desire to enlarge the borders of his domain there, it might be reasonably inferred that he had some ancestral attachment to that place. There can be no doubt that a family of the same name, who were * In his will dated 8th Dec. 1595, Thomas Buskell of York, Esquire, speaks of his " house wherein I do now dwell, which I pur- chased of Lancelot Turner of York gentleman." POPE. 31 small landed proprietors, had long been settled there. The baptism of John, son of the Robert Turner, of Towthorpe, of whose will you give some account,* is entered in the parochial register of Huntington, on Jan. 11, 1600-1. Robert, the testator, was buried at Huntington on Sept. 30, 1626. In April, 1642, Richard Turner, doubtless the son and executor of Robert, suiTcndered copyhold land at Strensall, the manor to which Towthorpe is appendant, to William Turner, doubtless his son, and the grandchild to whom Robert bequeaths " the little brown whie.'^ Nothing can be more probable than that Robert of York, the father of Edward and the grandfathet- of Lancelot, sprang from this respectable if not opulent family of Turner of Towthorpe, and, accord- ing to a practice very common in those days, had been transplanted from the country to be brought up to a trade in the town. I have now to bring to your notice a remarkable circumstance which occurred in the earlier part of the life of Lancelot Turner. You need not be reminded of the bitter persecution of Nonconformists that prevailed in the northern * Pope Tract, p. 28. 32 POPE. comities whilst tlie Court of York was under the presidency of the Earl of Huntingdon; and the strict watchfulness which the civil authorities were specially required by the Government to exercise over all persons suspected of any attachment to Popery. At the commencement of the year 1594, the magi- strates of York were called upon by the Lord President and Council of the North, acting in obedience to instructions received from the Privy Council, to make diligent inquiry as to the number of gentlemen resident within their jurisdiction who w^ere sending, or had sent, their children abroad under colour of learning languages. In the answer which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen returned to the communication from the Lord President, they certified that Martin Turner, son of Edward Turner of York gentleman deceased, went over the seas about three years before — that he was then at Venice at the University, and learning of languages there — and that he was relieved and maintained by one Lancelot Turner of York gentleman, his brother.* The curious facts thus disclosed appear to me to admit of only one explanation. We discover that in * Corporation Archives. POPE. 33 the year 1591, about twelve months after the death of Mrs. Jane Turner, his father^s widow, Lancelot Turner took the extraordinary step of sending his brother, a youth of nineteen, into Italy. We have seen the desire of the father, as shown by the testa- mentary provision he made for his son Martin, whom he probably designed for one of the liberal professions, that this his youngest boy should be brought up at the university. His solemn injunction to his widow, that she should be " a good mother to the boy and see all things ordered for his most benefit," was, no doubt, piously fulfilled. We cannot imagine, that when Edward Turner, an officer of the Council of the North, spoke of the university, he had the most remote idea of his son being brought up at a Popish college. Yet we find that Lancelot Turner, the moment he became the youth's natural guardian, sent him abroad, and placed him at the University of Venice, which was then notorious for being the very centre and hotbed of Jesuitism,* * It appears that during the latter part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, many of the Roman Catholics of York and the neighbour- hood chose the city of Venice for their place of refuge, In the year 1581, a person named Richard Collinge or Cowling, and his brother Thomas, the sons of Ralph Cowling, a York tradesman, who was a 34 POPE. The conclusion seems inevitable^ that Lancelot Turner was himself a Roman Catholic, and adopted Popish recusant, were sent over sea. and ultimately Richard CoUinge found his way into Italy. Several years afterwards he returned to this country, and, apparently whilst he was visiting his friends and relatives in Yorkshire, corresponded with a person abroad, whom he addresses thus : — Al Molto Magnijico Signori il Slgnore Giulio PiccioU, a Venezia. One of his letters to this person, supposed to have been written in the year 1599, which was intercepted by the Grovernment of Elizabeth, and is now preserved in the State-Paper Office, contains the names of several persons connected with York and Yorkshire. The most remarkable passage relates to the arch- conspirator Gruye Fawkes, who must have been sojourning at Venice at that time. " I entreat your favour and friendship for my cousin- germane Mr. Guydo Fawkes, who serveth Sir William, as I under- stand he is in great want, and your worde in his behalfe may stande him in greate steede. he hath lefte a prettie livinge here in this countrie, which his mother, being married to an unthrifty husband, since his departure I think hath wasted awaye, yet she and the rest of our friendes are in good healtli," The writer's relationship to Fawkes was most probably through the Harringtons, of whom he also speaks: — "Let him tell my cousin Martin Harrington that I was at his brother Henry's house at the Mounte, but he was not then at home ; he and his wife were all well, and have many pretty children." By " the Mounte " is meant Mount St. John, near Thirsk, where a branch of the family of Harrington was then resident, one of whom, William Harrington, a seminary priest, was executed at Tyburn, Feb. 18, 1594. Chaloner^ part i. p. 304. Mrs. Ellin Fawkes, the grandmother of Guye, was a Harrington. By her will in 1570, she bequeaths a gold ring to William Harrington, her brother Martin's son. CoUinge names several other persons then at Venice to whom he is commissioned by their relatives in England to send messages ; some of whom, one caniiot doubt, had emigrated from that part of the kingdom to whicli POPE. 35 the most effectual method of having his brother Martin educated and established in the same faith. Nevertheless, we have some evidence that at a later period he outwardly conformed to the religion of the State. One of the important facts you have he himself belonged. He makes special mention of I). Worthington, " whose brother hath sent a letter unto him;" and of D. Kellison, who he wishes to know that "his brother Valentine is in good health." Dr.Worthington, one of the translators of the Douaj Bible, and Dr. Kellison, were successively presidents of the English College at Douay. The letter, which is without date, is subscribed " Yours in Christe, Kicharde ColHnge." I am indebted to my friend Mr. John Bruce, Y.P.S.A., for acquainting me with the exist- ence of this document, which Mr. Lemon, of the State-Paper Office, very obligingly allowed me to peruse. Guye Fawkes was not the only native of York who was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. Edward Oldcorne the Jesuit, who assumed the name of Hall, and was the companion of Father Garnett at Hendlip and in the Tower, was the son of John Oldcorne, a brick- layer at York. He was sent abroad about the year 1584, and was first placed at the College of Douay whilst it was stationed at Eheims. He was afterwards at Eome, where the General of the Jesuits admitted him into their society. Chaloner, part ii. p. 485. He was executed at Worcester, April 7, 1606, as a partaker in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy. Jardine, p. 210. A name in Collinge's letter, partly obliterated, seems meant for Oldcorne, and renders it probable that he was then one of the English residents at Venice. We may be sure that when Lancelot Turner despatched his youthful brother to Venice, he knew that he was not consigning him ■wholly into the hands of strangers. In the list of the Romish Priests and Jesuits resident in and about London in 1624, the name of Tm'ner occurs once. — Mokga>''s Fhoenix Britannicus^ p. 437. 36 POPE. brought to light concerning liim is_, that the royal grant of Towthorpe was made to him just before the Queen's death. Had he then been an avowed Roman Catholic,, or even suspected of recusancy^ he would scarcely have obtained such a grant from the Govern- ment of Elizabeth. The documents you refer to^ showing his residence at York after the accession of James I., testify that he then stood well with the municipal authorities. I may add, by way of corro- boration, that in January, 1612, when the royal treasury was empty, and the Ministers of James resorted to the expedient of raising money for the necessities of the State, by sending privy seals into the country, Lancelot Turner was one of " twenty able commoners '^ of York, whom the Lord President and the Lord Mayor, upon private conference, se- lected as persons of sufficient ability to lend money to the Crown upon that security. The touching incident recorded in the nuncupa- tive codicil made by Lancelot Turner in his dying moments,"^ shows the close personal friendship which * " On Monday next after Twelfth Day, 1620, he revoked nun- cupatively the gift of the clock to Su* William . A Iford, saying, ' he forgets his old friends,' and gives it to his nephew, William Turner. To this were witnesses, Thomasine Newtoifj, Henry Dent, and Alice POPE. d/ must have subsisted between him and Sir William Alford; and this gives plausibility to a conjecture^ that their families were connected by some tie of relationship : possibly the first wife of Edward Turner was an Alford. The christian name of Lancelot, which Edward Turner bestowed upon his eldest son, and which was afterwards given to his eldest grandson, had been a favourite name with the Alfords. The first occupier of ]\Ieaux Abbey, after the dissolution of monasteries, was Lancelot Alford, Esq., who died in 1562, and was succeeded by his nephew, Sir Lancelot Alford, who obtained a grant of the site of the monastery in 1586, and was knighted by King James 1., at York, in leOS."^ He was the father of Sir William Alford, Lancelot Turner's friend. But another and perhaps the more probable conjecture is, that the intimacy between these two persons had arisen from a community of feeling upon the all-important subject of religious faith; for there can be little doubt that Sir William Alford was a Roman Catholic. Atkinson, who depose that WilHam Turner reminded him that there had been much kindness between him and Sir "William. This was a few days before his death." — Pope Tract, p. 30. * Collectanea Top. et Gen.y vol. iv. p. ITS. 4 38 POPE. In a petition presented by the House of Commons to King Charles the Firsts, in the year 1626, nu- merous persons are named_, holding places of trust and authority, whom the petitioners accuse of being either Popish recusants, or justly suspected of being such. They do not scruple to charge the Lord President of the North himself"^ with being ill affected in religion; and, among other instances, they allege — first, that in the preceding year, the Lord President being certified of divers Spanish ships -of -war upon the coast of Scarborough, his lordship went thither, and took with him the Lord Dunbar, Sir Thomas Metham, and Sir William Alford, and lay at the house of Lord Eure,t whom he knew to be a convict recusant, and did, notwith- standing, refuse to disarm him, although he had received letters from the Privy Council to that effect ; and secondly, that he gave order to Lord Dunbar, Sir Thomas Metham, and Sir William Alford, to view the forts and munition at Kingston -upon -Hull, who made one Kerton, a convict recusant, and suspected to be a priest, their clerk in that service.^ * Eiiianuel Lord Scrope, afterwards Earl of Sunderland. t At Malton. X Pari. Eist. vol. vii. p. 286. POPE. 39 It is well known that Lord Dunbar and Sir Thomas Metham were Roman Catholics. Had Sir William Alford not been of the same religious persuasion, he would scarcely have acted as their colleague on these occasions. The estrangement of which Lancelot Turner com- plained, when he revoked his gift of the clock to his ''good and worthy friend/' may possibly have been occasioned by Sir William's dislike of that outward conformity to Protestantism, which Lancelot had found it convenient to assume in his latter days. Like other country gentlemen, Lancelot Turner had a town-house for his occasional residence, as well as his manor-house of Towthorpe. You show us that in December, 1619, when he executed his last will he is described of Towthorpe ; but you think that the codicil, which is dated a few dajs before his death, was jrobably made at York.* There is no doubt that in his last illness he was residins: in Goodramgate, in the house which his nephew after- wards occupied. Part of the street called Goodram- gate is in the parish of Saint John del Pike, which was then, as it is now, united to the parish of the * Poj)e Tract, p. 31. 40 POPE. Holy Trinity Goodramgate ; and I find in the register-book of the united parishes, an entry of the burial of '' Mr. Lancelot Turner" on Jan. 16, 1620.- / Upon the death of his uncle, William Turner made Towthorpe^ his principal perhaps his only place of abode, and exactly two years after that event. * At a court held by the lords of the manor of Strensall, in April, 1622, William Turner was called as a copyholder of Towthorpe ; and again in April, 1624. Towthorpe is an insignificant and very secluded village, about four miles north of York, a little off the high road from thence to Sheriff Hutton. Nothing is now left of the old manor-bouse ; but near to the spot where it may be supposed to have stood, a not uninteresting object still remains, to caiTy the mind back to the days when Lancelot Turner and his nephew William were the proprie- tors. This is a sort of pleasance upon a small scale — a quadran- gular plot of ground, about fifty yards square, surrounded by a rather broad moat, and thickly planted with fruit-trees arranged with some approach to symmetry — two or three of the outer rows being nut or filbert trees, the rest apple, pear, and plum. The nut- trees are obviously of great age, their stems being sti angely con- torted, and having attained a thickness seldom seen in this part of the country. The other trees have a less aged appearance; and probably a temple or summer-house may have formerly been placed upon the centre of the little island. A building of this kind, with its accompanying moat, was a favourite ornament in the quaint pleasm'e-grounds of the Elizabethan mansion. The moat would doubtless form a useful piscaria^ especially valuable to persons to whom fish was, at certain seasons, an indispensable article of diet. At present, instead of seeing carp and tench, as in former days, quietly gliding through its waters, on approaching the island our POPE. 41 viz._, on Jan. 14, 1621-2, his marriage to Thomasine Newton was solemnized at the little church of the parish of Huntington, in which the township of Towthorpe is situate. The extreme youth of the lady was most probably the cause of the postpone- ment of the marriage (which, as you observe, had evidently been contemplated by the uncle) until the expiration of two years after his death. At that time she could not have been more than fifteen years old. Her father, Christopher Newton, was not of age in 1604, when his father. Miles Newton, died;* and it is pretty certain that he was not then married. In what creed either of the parents of Edith Pope ears were greeted with the harsh croaking of innumerable frogs and toads, the sole inhabitants of the moat. Whilst viewing this now solitary memorial of the past, it was impossible to avoid giving a little license to the imagination, and peopling the tiny pleasance with the forms of William Turner and Thomasine Newton in the happy hours of their courtship and early married life, which were spent at Towthorpe, — she musing over one of the song-books of their uncle Lancelot, which were so significantly reserved by his will for her especial use. What a contrast is the dull and uninteresting and most unpic- turesque plain of the ancient forest of Galtres, in which the country- house of Edith Pope's parents stood, to the glorious vale of the Thames, where her illustrious son solaced himself with his trim garden, his grotto, and his quincunx ! * Miles Newton, of Thorpe, in the county of York, gentleman. 4;d POPE. was educated^ we have no means of ascertaining, but we may reasonably suppose that their religious faith would take its colour from that which was professed by him of whom they were the adopted children. If the Roman Catholic tendency were less manifest in them, we see it abundantly developed in their numerous offspring, of whom a considerable pro- portion, w^e are told, were avowedly members of the ancient church. The origin of that particular regard which Lancelot Turner had for Thomasine Newton remains inexplicable. His having ^^ household stuff at Kil- made his will on May 18, 1604. He desires to be buried in the church of Eippon. He gives to his eldest son Richard the bed- stead which was his grandfather Thomas Collins' s. To his son Christopher, a bedstead which was his (the testator's) father's. He names his wife, Jane Newton; his son, Henry, and his daughters, Katherine, Johanna, Rebecca (to whom he gives the better of the cushions which was her grandmother Beckwith's), Dorothy, and Elizabeth. He makes his children, Richard Newton and Christopher Newton, executors ; and his brother Leonard Beckv.ith, and George Mallory, supervisors. Proved at York, by Richard Newton only, April 8, 1605. Richard was the testator's son by his first wife, Eleanor, daughter of Thomas Collins. Christopher and Henry were the sons of his second wife, Jane Beckwith. According to the pedigree of the Newtons, recorded at the visitation of 1585, the grandmother of Miles Newton, was one of the distinguished family of Roos, of Ingmanthorpe, POPE. 43 burn/^ which he bequeathed to her by his will, would indicate that he had occasionally resided at the house of her parents at that place. The will of either of them might have thrown some light upon these points ; but such documents, if they exist, have hitherto eluded our researches. About thirteen months after the marriage of William Turner and Thomasine Newton, their first child was born. "Christian Turner,* daughter of William Turner of Towthorpe gentleman,'^ was baptized at Huntington on Feb. 19, 1622-23. The second child was a son. On March 30, 1624, " George Turner, son of William Turner of Tow- thorpe gentleman,^^ was baptized at Huntington, This \Tas doubtless one of the youths whose "gentle blood was shed in honour's cause.'^ About two years afterwards, the second daughter was born — Alice, of whom you speak as the wife of Richard Mawhood,t was baptized at Huntington on the 23rd of March, 1625-6. After this time the pa- * Afterwards the wife of Samuel Cooper. Your supposition that she was one of the elder daughters, is thus shown to be correct. — Pope Tract, p. 40. t Foj)e Tract, p. 42. 44 POPE. rochial register of Huntington ceases to yield any information relating to William Turner or his family. • In the same year in which he was married, William Turner made a purchase, with what specific object it is now in vain to inquire, of a house in Stonegate, York. In the deed (dated Nov. 5, 1622) by which the property was conveyed to him he is described "William Turner of Towthropp in the county of York gentleman," Whatever may have been his motive for purchasing a house in York, he did not long retain the ownership of it. By a deed dated June 5, 1626, " William Turner of Towthropp gentleman, and Thomasine his wife," transferred all their interest in the property to William Scott of York merchant, and John Lasinbye of Huntington yeoman. It maybe surmised that Scott and Lasinbye were not purchasers, but merely trustees for effecting some charitable or other purpose not strictly legal, which had soon afterwards been brought into litiga- tion or dispute. On June 3, 1630, William Turner, who was then at York, joined with William Scott and John Lasinbye in an absolute conveyance of the x-^; ^w/' property to Robert Hemsworth and Thomas Hoyle, ?^ AL^ir ^^'^^^^'^^^ ^ -^^*' ^^^■''^^~ POPE. 45 aldermen, and several other persons, also members of the corporation of York. This conveyance is stated to have been made in performance of a decree of the Court of Chancery, dated Feb. 20 preceding, in accordance with an act of Parliament passed in the 43rd year of Queen Elizabeth, intituled ^^ An Act to redress the Misemployment of Lands and Tene- ments theretofore given to Charitable Uses.'^ Of this transaction I will not venture to offer any further explanation. A chasm of ten years now occurs in my chro- nology. I do not again meet with the name of William Turner until the year 1640, when he was once more a resident in York, most probably occupying the same house in Goodramgate in which his uncle Lancelot lived and died. The register of the united parishes of Saint John del Pike and Holy Trinity Goodramgate, contains entries of the baptism of " Judith, the daughter of Mr. William Turner," on July 16, 1640, and of the burial of the same child on Aug. 3 in the same year. The removal of the family from York must have taken place soon afterwards. For an account of the circumstances attending their residence in the 46 POPE. West Riding, I need only refer to your valuable tract* I am unable to give any assistance towards dis- pelling the obscurity in which that period of the history of William Turner is involved, that extends from the month of June, 1626_, when he is described ^' of Towthrope," until the birth of his daughter Judith at York in the summer of 1640. It is clear that he was at York in June, 1630 ; but I have met with nothing to show where he passed the preceding four years or the following ten years. During these fourteen years his wife presented him with two sons and seven daughters; but I have failed to discover the entry of the baptism of any of these children, either at York or at Huntington. U^/^;5A'2< Neither have I succeeded in my attempts to .^ //-^f/^-^ field, M.P. for the city of York, is the present owner '^iUu^^ of the estate, which was purchased, in the early part of the last century, by one of his ancestors, from Sir Charles Dalston, Bart., to whom it had descended * Pope Tract, pp. 34, 35. -^^ o /^J-J-? ^ roPE. from his grandfather, Sir William Dalston, the first baronet of that name. The Dalstons were a Cum- berland family, and Sir William had most probably acquired the Towthorpe estate by his marriage with Anne Bolles, the eldest daughter and coheir of that singular person, Lady Bolles of Heath Hall, the Baronetess, whose curious history is narrated in your interesting '*^ Antiquarian Notices of Lupset, the Heath, and Sharlston/' You state that William Turner was living in the parish of Saint John del Pike at the time of the Heralds' Visitation in 1665, and was one of the persons whom they summoned to appear."^ The visits of the heralds at York took place in the months of August and September in that year; and perhaps you would not have imputed blame to him for having neglected that opportunity of record- ing his genealogy, had you been aware that he was then in his last illness, awaiting a more solemn summons. He died within a month after the date of his will, and was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity Goodramgate, on Oct. 3, 1665. Had the heralds made their visitation at York a few * :Po;pe Tract, p. 26. 48 POPE. months sooner, we should doubtless have possessed their testimony_, that the Turners were entitled to take rank among the gentry of York. But it will now, perhaps, be admitted that no such testimony is requisite. It has been shown by unimpeachable evidence that Edward Turner, the great-grandfather of Edith Pope, was the son of a substantial citizen of York, who flourished in the reign of King Henry YII. ; that, having advanced a step higher in the social scale, he maintained during great part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the rank of a gentleman, and associated upon a footing of equality with the best of the inhabitants of a city which was then " the glory of the North ^^; that, in addition to the property he inherited in the city, he acquired lands of consider- able value in the county, and these he transmitted to his descendants; that his eldest son, Lancelot Turner, by means of his paternal fortune, was ena- bled, at the commencement of the seventeenth cen- tury, to purchase the manor and estate of Towthorpe, and thus attain the status of a country gentleman ; and in that position, dying childless, w^as succeeded by his nephew, William Turner, who " made choice POPE. 49 of, to be the mother of his children/^* of whom Edith Pope was one, a lady who was not only herself of good family, but was (as you have remarked f) allied with several of the higher Yorkshire gentry. That genealogical critic must indeed be fastidious, who would deny the Poet's right to assert that his mother was oi gentle blood and of an ancient family . The baptismal register of William Turner, by which his birth is placed only two or three years earlier than the date you have conjecturally assigned for that event, shows that he was in his sixty-ninth year when he died. His wife survived him nearly sixteen years. " Mrs. Turner, widow," was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity Goodramgate, on Sept. 11, 1681. Administration of the goods of "Thomasine Turner of York,'' who died intestate, was granted by the archbishop's court to her daughter Mary Turner, spinster, on Dec. 2, 1681. From the circumstance of Mary being the sole administratrix it may be inferred that the only surviving son, William Turner, was then absent from York, and that Mary was the oldest of the unmarried daughters * Tide Pope's Letter to a Nohle Lord. t Pope Tract, p. 32. 50 POPE. who hafl remained at home.* But there is no reason to suppose that she had remained there alone. We /l.cf^'nA-^ ' .ra/ * The two daughters who became Mrs. Mace and Mrs. Tomlinson, ,