Roger Dale, Collyweston & Birkhead Dale

Roger Dale of Collyweston

Roger Dale, who has long been thought related to Governor Dale, had two direct kin with the highly unusual name of Birkhead, and very near the Pierrepont estate, at Gamston Manor, a Reverend William Birkhead spent the decade of the 1620s in litigation against the lord of the Gamston Manor, John Holles, 2nd Earl of Clare. Grace Pierrepont remarried the earl’s son, Sir Gilbert Holles, 3rd Lord Clare, and it was noteworthy that Gilbert’s father was married to the daughter of Sir Horace Vere, Governor Dale’s old boss who purchased Clearwell Manor. This William Birkhead was also referred to as Birkitt and Birkett in those same journals. It was his older brother, the Puritan Edward Birkhead who we found at Twickenham, and it was Edward’s wife or sister who sold Thomas Skipwith land at Twickenham; Thomas was a brother-in-law to Major Edward Dale of Virginia history.

Birkhead Dale

Birkhead Dale first appeared in the will of a Roger Dale in 1553 where he mentioned his son, John Dale of Trentham, and his grandsons Roger Dale and Birkhead Dale. Then we again found Birkhead Dale as the son of Roger Dale (will administered 1622) of Tixover Manor in Rutland.

As we were reading through the disbursement journal[i] of the Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester we came across Sir Horace Vere, and others like the Earl of Essex, Leicester’s step son, who we knew were associated with Governor Dale. Lady Dale’s father, Sir Thomas Throckmorton, had the privilege of being only one of six pallbearers to be named to carry Leicester’s casket in his great state funeral.

A “Robert Birkett” was in the Low Countries with Leicester, and he was later identified in footnotes as Sir Robert Burdett (1558-1603) of Bramcote. Investigation revealed that he was married to Mary Wilson, daughter of Dr. Thomas Wilson formerly of Strubby Manor. Wilson’s patron had been Leicester’s father. Burdett’s daughter married Sir John Bowes of Elford Manor, another location that ties to Roger Dale of Tixover. Although this Robert Burdett resided at Arrow Manor in Warwickshire, the Burdett family had once been at Legsby Manor (Edward Dale 1571) for several centuries. Our guess is that Sir Robert Burdett may be the namesake for Birkhead Dale, son of Roger Dale of Tixover.

---

[i] “Household accounts and disbursement books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester” edited by Simon Adams. Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, University College, London, 1995, and located in the Virginia Historical Society.