Saint Briavels & Clearwell Manor

Saint Briavels Hundred in Monmounthshire

It has taken me twelve years to understand with some degree of confidence the English roots of the 3rd governor of Virginia, Governor Thomas Dale, who died in 1619. The reader should remember that estates in this period tended to follow family lines by inheritance and/or marriage. Dale’s widow held property on the lower tip of the Eastern Shore called “Dale’s Gift,” and at her death that property was partially inherited by Richard Hamby, whose sister (possibly niece) was married to Francis Throckmorton, Lady Dale’s nephew. Richard Hamby led us back to Thomas Dale of Alford (died 1571), whose property adjoined the Willoughby property, a portion of which was farmer by Captain John Smith’s father, George Smith.

As we studied the land holdings of Lady Dale’s family, we found that they were centered in Saint Briavels Hundred in the Wye River Valley, where we found land held by both the Littletons and Whittingtons, both families related to Lady Dale. Of course, descendants of both of these families became quite well established on the lower Eastern Shore.

The 1619 will of Governor Thomas Dale left few clues other than the four overseers named. The four were Sir William Throckmorton, the Earl of Southampton, Sir Thomas Smythe and William Cooke. In this one location of Saint Briavels Hundred, we were able to link all four of the overseers via families with property interests here.

In Saint Briavels Hundred, are located Clearwell Manor, Saint Briavels Castle and Estate, Lydney Manor, and Bream Parish, where another earl of Worcester, John Tiptoft[i] once lived at the manor of Le Bayly. The famous old knight, Sir Thomas de la Dale, was a personal retainer of John of Gaunt, and his son intermarried with the Tiptofts at Tickencote Hall in Rutland. Sir John Tiptoft was the guardian of the grandson of the famous old knight, Sir Thomas de la Dale, and Tiptoft’s widow named as her heir, her niece, the wife of an earlier Thomas Baynum. The grandson of the old knight Sir Thomas Dale was married to the first cousin of Sir John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.

Our first clues were cryptic notes archived in the Dale portfolio in the London Genealogical Society regarding a 1609 deposition given by a John Dale, in which he named his father as Edward Dale. The deposition had to do with Clearwell Manor as a result of the death of a later Sir Thomas Baynum, whose son-in-law was Sir William Throckmorton, brother-in-law of Governor Thomas Dale. William Throckmorton was the first of four overseers named in Dale’s will.

In the same sitting in London, we also found another note that a Mary Somerset married an Edward Dale. The Somersets resided at Raglan Castle, a famous castle also above Saint Briavels connected to the Wye River.

Saint Briavels Castle

The Crown leased a portion of Saint Briavels Castle to Jacquette of Luxembourg, the widow of the grandson of John of Gaunt, the man that Thomas de la Dale served as a personal retainer. Fifty years later, the Crown then leased Saint Briavels to Thomas Baynum, and renewed the lease to his son Christopher Baynum in 1498, and the Baynums remained there until 1528 when an insider with King Henry VIII was awarded a lease for Saint Briavels. This Henry VIII insider was Sir William Kingston (died 1540) who held many critical positions ranging from Esquire of the Body to key military assignments including Captain of the Tower at the time of the execution of Anne Boleyn. Kingston’s son was the notorious Sir Anthony Kingston who we will read of later in the Dudley Conspiracy. William’s daughter, Bridget Kingston married Sir George Baynum of Clearwell Manor, and we are about to read about his descendants at Clearwell Manor.

Sir William Kingston married the widow Anne Berkeley of Stoke Gifford. The Standard Bearer for King Henry VIII in 1539, the same year that Kingston died, was Sir John Berkeley of Stoke Gifford, who was the great grandfather of Lady Dale, wife of Governor Dale. The Manor of Stoke Gifford overlooked Bristol from a commanding position, and Bristol, the home of a very wealthy family of Dales, was just across the river from where the Wye River emptied into the Severn. Governor Dale’s wife was Lady Elizabeth Throckmorton of the Throckmortons of Tortworth, and her mother was Elizabeth Berkeley of Stoke Gifford. In our research, there were several other manors across England that continued to appear, and the following connects many of them. Her first husband was Sir John Gyse. Their son by the same name married into the Grey family of Wilton, located at the head of the Wye River. Young Gyse’s sister-in-law was another Mary Somerset; aunt of the Mary Somerset we believe married Edward Dale.

Clowerwall [Clearwell] Manor

Clearwell Manor is located not too distant from the Throckmorton family home at Tortworth. Clearwell was located three miles south of Monmouth, and sixteen west of Gloucester, in the parish of Saint Briavels. Clowerwall was the original name; it was changed to Wellington, and then later became known as Clearwell. Clearwell parish church is where the Baynums, and several generations of Throckmortons are buried. The adjoining hamlet of Newland once belonged to a William Baynum who lost it to the crown in the sixth year of King Edward III, but the Baynums would later acquire and hold Clearwell. Baynum’s father-in-law, Admiral William Wynter also resided in this same immediate area at Lydney Manor. Clearwell passed by marriage to Sir William Throckmorton, the first overseer of the will of Governor Thomas Dale, and Dale’s brother-in-law. The family debt left by Lady Dale’s father was overwhelming, and Baynum Throckmorton, Lady Dale’s nephew, eventually sold Clearwell. It was sold to the husband of a cousin, but that man, Sir Horace Vere, was a famous soldier from the Low Countries and had fought alongside Governor Thomas Dale. In Fact, Vere’s brother, Sir Richard Vere, was commander of the Low Countries and responsible for reinstating Thomas Dale as a commander.

George Baynum of Clearwell

Sir William Kingston’s son-in-law was George Baynum of Clearwell, the son of Christopher Baynum (1478-1557) and Joan Morgan. Baynum remarried “Cicely” Gage, daughter of Sir John Gage, another famous soldier of Henry VIII, who kept Gage’s portrait in one of his palaces. Her sister Alyce Gage married Sir Anthony Brown. Sir John Gage married the daughter of Sir Richard Guildford who returned to England with Henry, Earl of Richmond, to claim the throne. Richard Guildford, William Brandon, and Anthony Brown had been among Henry Tudor’s (Henry VII) most trusted supporters living in exile with him. It was son Anthony Brown, husband of Alyce Gage, and Anthony’s step-brother William Fitzwilliam, 1st Earl Southampton, who were executors of the will of Sir William Kingston. Anthony’s granddaughter married Sir Henry Wriothsley, 3^rd Earl of Southampton, the second overseer of Governor Dale’s will.

The sisters had a brother named Edward Gage, and his son Anthony Gage married an Elizabeth Dale, presumably related to the Edward Dale who gave testimony for Thomas Baynum. Through the Gage family, George Baynum was related to the Earl of Southampton and William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, of nearby Raglan Castle.

Netherley Manor

Because the Clearwell Manor inheritance was so important, we noted that another daughter of Thomas Baynum, Joann Baynum Vaughan, inherited Netherley Manor[ii], which is the adjoining parish. Netherley was held by Robert Greyndour and passed to Robert's daughter Elizabeth, who married firstly Reynold West, Lord la Warre, and secondly John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, before she died in 1452. John Tiptoft held the estate until his death in 1470 when it reverted to Elizabeth's heir Alice, the wife of Thomas Baynum. The heirs of the old knight, Sir Thomas de la Dale, had been assigned John Tiptofts as his guardian, and this information placed the Baynums as distant kinsmen of the De la Warres, and Sir Thomas de la Warre, who was the first governor of Virginia. Governor Thomas Dale was the third governor of Virginia, and his friend Thomas Gates was second.

Admiral William Wynter of Lydney Manor

Lydney was the name of this entire region before it became known as Saint Briavels, and a major manor there was Lydney Manor. Thomas Baynum’s wife was the daughter of the famous Admiral William Wynter, Lord of Lydney Manor, and was most famous for his role in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Admiral William Wynter was involved as a business partner with Sir Francis Drake for many years in English exploration and privateering.

The admiral’s father, John Wynter, was Surveyor of the Navy under Henry VIII. Father’s 1545 will named as friends; Sir Anthony Denny (brother-in-law of Sir John Gates), Sir Anthony Brown, the same man who was an executor of the will of Sir William Kingston and who so frequently connected us with the Baynums and Throckmortons, and Sir Thomas Henage who was a brother-in-law to Nicholas Wilson, son of Dr. Thomas Wilson. Gates we will discuss later, and Wynter’s sister, Agnes, married Thomas Wilson of Lincolnshire who was born at Strubby Manor, which we later found in the possession of Thomas Dale of Alford, father of the Edward Dale we believe married Mary Somerset. Thomas Dale of Alford was married into the same Hamby family that inherited Governor Dale’s lands in Virginia upon Lady Dale’s death.

Wynter’s sons sailed with Francis Drake, and the admiral was a primary investor in Drake’s voyages. William Wynter got into several political scrapes, both the Lady Jane Grey affair and Wyatt’s Rebellion, and was jailed in the tower after both, but released. His fellow conspirators, Anthony Kingston of Saint Briavel’s Castle, and John Throckmorton of Tortworth were not so lucky, and were executed along with Sir Edward Rodgers, whose daughter was Lady Dale’s stepmother. William Wynter sailed in the 1558 fleet and had taken the post of his father, defending England against a French advance into Scotland. The impending threat of the fleet was apparently the reason for his release rather than innocence.

Admiral Wynter also bought the two manors near Lydney, “Warwick Manor” and “Shrewsbury Manor,” from William Herbert on May 12, 1561. He also owned the manors of Wyck, Pirton, Newent and Kingsweston, which he bought from Sir William Berkeley. William Wynter was designated to become the constable of Saint Briavel’s Castle after William Herbert, but died before Herbert relinquished that post, but William’s son, Edward Wynter, became constable of Saint Briavels.

Sir Edward Wynter

Son Edward Wynter fought under Christopher Carleill in the same 1585 Drake voyages that his other son, Nicholas Wynter, was killed during Drake's attack on Cartagena de las Indias. Thomas Gates, 2^nd Governor of Virginia had been Carleill’s lieutenant on that same voyage, and fought alongside Edward Wynter in the raid on the Spanish Fort Augustine. Son William Wynter married Eleanor Huntley, and her brother married Elizabeth, the daughter of William Throckmorton of Tortworth, Lady Dale’ uncle.

Son Edward Wynter (1560-1619) most interested us because of his age. He was an apprentice to his father during voyages to support the Irish military effort in 1580, and then sailed with Drake in the 1585 voyage. Edward returned that year with booty worth a staggering £600,000, and afterwards fought as a volunteer with Maurice of Nassau and Henry IV of France against the Spanish. In 1595, he married Anne Somerset, one of four daughters of Edward, 4th earl of Worcester, of nearby Raglan Castle.

Sir Thomas Smythe, Treasurer of the Virginia Company

Admiral William Wynter’s wife who died in 1573 was the daughter of Thomas Langton, whose family supposedly had ties to families involved in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace. Their family lived at Langton for several centuries adjacent to Aswarby Manor[iii] where the Carres of our research lived, and where we located a “Mary Somerset.” Most importantly, the Langton family connected Admiral Wynter to the third overseer of Governor Dale’s will, Sir Thomas Smythe, Treasurer of the Virginia Company a well as the supervisor of Governor Thomas Dale.

Admiral William Wynter, like his kinsman Customer Thomas Smythe, was deeply involved in the first phases of English exploration. His name appeared in most of the English sea battles, and he was a privateer working the Gold Coast of Africa in the late 1550s, perhaps with eight or nine slavers, while Smythe’s father, “Customer,” and Andrew Judde, incorporated the first stock company, the Moscovy Company, to find a northern passage to the East Indies.

Another early explorer working the African Coast, Thomas Wyndham, died at sea about 1553, but his crew returned with a fabulous treasure, which excited the merchants in England. Wyndham descended from John Wyndham of Norfolk who married the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, son Thomas Wyndham was Vice Admiral of England under Henry VIII, and it was his niece who married, secondly, Sir Francis Drake. His descendant was Thomas Wyndham, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who later built Clearwell Castle near Clearwell Manor in 1725.

One source reported that Admiral William Wynter died in 1589 after the battle against the Spanish Armada as a result of a wound received from recoiling cannon. Ironically, it was Wynter who altered the type and tactics of the cannon used that allowed the English ships to sit safely back and fire upon the armada. Son William Wynter, who was married to Lady Dale’s cousin, was serving aboard a ship from the port of Bristol, as was a John Dale who might have been the same John Dale giving testimony in 1609 regarding Baynum’s Clearwell. We also were never able to determine if Felicia Wynter, wife of the Mayor of nearby Bristol, was his aunt, but we were interested because Felicia Wynter married Henry (William) Dale (died 1512) of Bristol whom most previous researchers had reported linked to Governor Thomas Dale.

Governor Thomas Dale and Wynter

In the state papers of King James, sometime between August and October of 1610, court records indicate that a Thomas Dale received a grant to the benefit of the recusancy of John Winter (Wynter) and widow (Elizabeth Sheldon) Russell of Worcester. Her husband, Sir John Russell of Strensham (died 1594), had been raised in the household of Sir Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, and was at odds with his neighbors in Worcester, and then separated from his wife Elizabeth Sheldon who was very active as a recusant in the Catholic religion. Sir John Russell fought in the Low Countries under Leicester, in the command of his kinsman and best friend, Sir William Russell of Thornhaugh. We wondered if John Wynter was the ten-year-old son of Captain Edward Wynter of the Drake voyages. Although we did not fully understand the nature of the recusancy grant to Thomas Dale, it did seem to reconfirm his closeness with the Wynter family and Baynum family of Clearwell as well as reconfirmed the ties to William Russell of Thornhaugh. Sir John Russell also acquired Clifford Manor, once part of Tewkesbury, and we located Roger Dale and his wife Mary Dale of Devon and Toddington at Wincombe Abbey near Tewkesbury in 1594. This suggested that Roger Dale of Tewkesbury in 1594 might be the same Roger Dale of Collyweston who acquired Tixover so near Thornhaugh the following year.

The Governor Thomas Dale grant revealed some other interesting facts. In 1701, another Edward Wynter sold Thomas Skipwith, most likely the son of Sir Henry Skipwith, a tract of land at Twickenham. Major Edward Dale of Virginia married into the Skipwith family.

Saint Briavels Parish

Just as I started my story about Governor Dale with Saint Briavels Parish, I will conclude to make a point. There was a hamlet called Mork, on Mork Road between Clearwell Manor and Saint Briavels. The Dale family owned most of Mork as well as the nearby chapel dedicated to St. Margaret which the Dales bought in 1664. Governor Dale and his wife had no children, but in 1688, a Thomas Dale, owner of Mork Farm acquired a fulling mill and a dyehouse built adjoining Mork mill. Apparently, one line of the Dale family continued in Saint Briavels, and our guess would be that they were the same Dales mentioned in the 1609 deposition regarding nearby Clearwell Manor.

The Great House Estate was also on Mork Road, and it later was joined with Clearwell Manor. In 1609, Richard Whittington left this to his son Thomas Whittington[iv], who left it to his son William Whittington. This William Whittington, who died in 1625, left quite a bit of money to various local charities. It was his cousin, Captain William Whittington of Northampton County in Virginia with whom we were so familiar in our Virginia studies. Lady Dale claimed descent from the same family of Whittingtons, as her grandfather, Thomas Throckmorton of Tortworth married Margaret Whittington, daughter of Thomas Whittington of Pauntley Manor, another branch of the Whittingtons of Saint Briavels.

These marriages draw increasing attention to the marriage of Hugh Dale and Margaret Mortimer in 1566 at Saint Martins-in-the-Field as the missing link. The year 1567 is my estimated birth date for Governor Dale. Hugh Dale remarried again in 1568 suggesting that his first wife had died, perhaps in childbirth. There is a great deal of Internet discussion about the Mortimers, but as of this moment they are still in a quandary. The famous old knight, Sir Thomas de la Dale, had once been the guardian of Edmond Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, when Edmond was heir presumptive of England.

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[i] John Tiptoft (circa 1425-1470) studied at Oxford and was made Earl of Worcester in 1449. He was Treasurer of the Exchequer from 1452-1455 and Lord deputy of Ireland from 1456-1457 when he went on a two-year pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his return, he stayed in Italy for two years where he acquired a reputation as a scholar in Latin. Upon his return, Edward IV appointed him Constable of England in 1462 and once again Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1467. Upon his return, he was again appointed Constable of England but when Henry VI was restored, Tiptoft fled, was captured and executed. The title was bestowed to Charles Somerset in 1513.

[ii] Westbury-on-Severn, Manors and other estates, http://www.british-history.ac.uk

[iii] We located a Rev. William Dale in Haworthingham, in 1667, and that is the village adjacent to Aswarby. [http://www.r-alston.co.uk/school.htm]

[iv] Thomas Whittington and George Baynum, father of Thomas Baynum, were listed in the 1542 muster of Gloucester

William Whittington (born 1451) = Elizabeth Arundell, d/o Renfry Arundell of Cornwall

| John Whittington

| Thomas Whittington (born 1488)

| Margaret Whittongton = Thomas Throckmorton