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HEN. VII.

Garter.

GARTER, PRINCIPAL KING AT ARMS.

Edw. IV.-SIR JOHN WRYTHE, Knight.

The origin of this, like many other illustrious families, is unknown. Perhaps Sir John was related to John Writh, yeoman, who was a witness to the will of Oliver St. John, Esq., dated March 2, 1496. At a very early age he was brought to the court of Henry V., who made him Antilope pursuivant extraordinary, afterwards Rouge-croix in ordinary, and then Faucon herald (not Leopard, as Weaver, from Lant, says) which office he received from Henry VI. He was appointed Norroy, Jan. 25, 1476, and created on Candlemas-day following by Edward IV. which monarch also, upon the death of John Smert, gave him the place of Garter, July 16, 1478, being the highest post in the heraldic department. He was the third who had enjoyed the office. It laid the foundation in his family for that superiority which the Wryths so long enjoyed; such as the Ashwells before had, and the Dethicks and St. George's have since obtained. He had £40 yearly settled upon him, payable out of the petit customs of London. He gave security, with others, for the payment of a rent reserved to the Crown out of lands granted to Gloucester king at arms. At Richard III.'s coronation he attended officially. That Sovereign gave him a new patent, dated 30th November, in his first year, confirming the payment of his salary out of the petit customs of London, with letters to the keeper of the royal wardrobe for his annual livery. I have supposed that he had for some reason been a discontent in the latter part of Richard's reign, and I think this confirmed, by it appearing that he had received nothing from the 22d of August preceding. By others this is supposed to indicate the royal displeasure; but, in my opinion, it evinces, that as he had resigned in the late reign, he claimed to no more than was due to him upon his being restored to his office: the unsettled situation' after Henry's accession was sufficient to account for his not being paid so regularly; besides such who were in the College, and fell under Henry's displeasure, never were restored, and one of them was even attainted; nor should it be forgotten, that his Majesty ordered a tabard or robe for him to wear at his coronation, and gave him £80 for his reward. Next year he was sent to the King of the Romans; in his third year to Ireland; in the following one, to Bretagne. In the sixth of this reign he took the M order

Garter.

HEN. VII. order of the Garter to the King of the Romans, Maximilian, afterwards Emperor of Germany: he also attended the ambassadors of that potentate from Dover to London. He again went to Bretagne, to take security for money lent by Henry to the Duchess. In the 7th Henry VII. he was sent to the Duke of Burgundy, soon after in great haste to Calais, Guisnes, and other places upon the Continent, and the 9th of this reign to the King of France with the Garter. As his son calls him Sir John, it is reasonable to suppose he was knighted; but the time is not specified by any, and some do not credit his son's veracity in calling him a knight.

Garter made his will, March 25, 1504, which was proved April 30 following. He was buried in the choir of St. Giles' church without Cripplegate, London. Over his body was laid a large marble stone, called " a fair tomb," with his effigies and epitaph in brass inlaid. Both were taken away before Weaver's time, and now the whole is gone. He must have been a very old man at his death, as it was more than sixty years from the time of his having been created a pursuivant. Having no paternal arms, he took Azure, a Cross Or, between four Falcons Argent, in memory of his having been Falcon herald. He often varied his crest, if not his arms, but he always made the former allusive to his office; his motto was "Humble and Serviceable." In compliment to him, who had been at the head of their incorporation, the Herald's College have adopted his arms as their own, changing the colors.

Mr. Dallaway, in his elegant work, has given a portrait of Sir John on horseback, taken in 1511, "from a Tournament-roll in the Herald's College." He is represented in a brown or sad-colored robe, and over it his tabard, a verge or sceptre in his hand, and upon his head is a hat or cap, which, from his great age, he had obtained a licence to wear.

Garter married thrice; first Barbara, daughter and sole heir of John de Castlecomb, or as he is by some called, Januarius de Castlecomb, alias Dunstanville. Mr. Parsons gives us this inscription, still remaining upon

his

grave-stone, within the rails of the chancel of Badlesmere church, in Kent, beneath where a brass plate of her effigies had been affixed

"Hic jacet Barbara, quondam uxor Johannis Wrythe, "Filia et hæres Joannis Castle-combe, de Ecland, in comitatu Wilts, quæ obijt "Die Octobris, A. Dòi. 1480. Cujus aiæ propitietur Deus.”

This

This marriage greatly augmented the riches and honor of Garter; for her father was son of Henry, son of Nicholas, son of Robert, son of Nicholas, son of John, son of Walter Dunstanville, by Ursula, Baroness Castlecomb, the third of four daughters and co-heirs of Reginald Earl of Cornwall, surnamed de Dunstanville, one of the illegitimate sons of Henry I. The Dunstanvilles obtained the name of Castle-comb, from having built a seat, castle-wise, at Comb, whence the place was called. Castle-comb, to distinguish it from Comb-Bussel, and at length gave, or rather superseded, the surname of its owners.

His second wife was Eleanor, daughter of Thomas Arnold, Esq. by Agnes his second wife, and sister and sole heir of Richard Arnold, Esq. She was buried in the choir of St. Giles', Cripplegate, and had this inscription upon her grave-stone :

"Elienor, wyff of John Wrythe, Esquier, doughter of Thomas Arnold, Esquier”

His third marriage was with Ann, daughter of - Mynne, probably a relation of Mr. Mynne, York herald.

By each of these wives he had children; by the first four, by the second three, and by the last two.

1. William, who became York herald, father of Sir Thomas Earl of Southampton, Lord High Chancellor of England, and Knight of the Garter.

2. Sir Thomas, who succeeded his father as Garter.

3. Catherine, married to John Mynne, Esq., York herald.

4. Another Catherine, married first to Richard Horton, afterwards to John Trahern.

5. John, son and heir to his mother Eleanor, Garter's second wife. He died young, and was buried near her remains in St. Giles' church, Cripplegate.

6. Barbara, married to Anthony Hungerford, son of Sir Thomas Hungerford, of Downampney in Wilts, knight. She also was buried near her parents, in St. Giles' church.

7. Agnes, a nun at Sion.

8. Margaret, married first to

Vaughan. Surviving him she had a second husband, whose name is unknown. She also was buried in St. Giles' church, " in the walking before the chapel." She was called, Margaret, dought'. of John Wrythe, Esquier, son of John Wrythe,

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HEN. VII.

Garter.

HEN. VII,

Garter.

"the son of John Wrythe, Esquier." If this is true, it proves the first Garter Wrythe's genealogy up to his grandfather, who was an esquire; it also shews, that he never was knighted, if she did not die before her father, which I presume she did not.

9. Isabel, married first to William Gough; secondly to Jolin Davers, of Worming Hall, in the county of Bucks, Esq. by whom she had four

• sons.

This Garter, by his will, dated March 25, 1504, according to the religious forms then usual, bequeaths his soul to Almighty God, the blessed Virgin, and to all the company of Heaven. He directs his body to be buried in the choir of St. Giles, in Cripplegate, near Eleanor his wife. To the high altar of St. Giles he gives, for forgotten tithes, forty shillings; to every priest of St. Giles' church, who should attend his funeral, dirge, and mass, twenty pence; to the clerk after the same rate; and to four poor men to hold four tapers, and also to six poor men to hold six new torches, each four pence. To his wife, his house in Cricklade, which Henry Horton then dwelt in, with the two shops, to hold during her life, and then to go to his son Thomas, with all the lands that ever were his father's in Salisbury, Cricklade, and Chelworth-Bibery. To Thomas' son, John, a standing gilt cup, which the King of the Romans gave him; to his son Thomas, a gilt flat pix, which was his father's; to his son William, all his lands in Harrow-on-the-Hill, or within Middlesex, that he bought of March king at arms, and in case he died without issue, remainder to his son Thomas and his issue; to his son William all his books of pedigrees; to his son Thomas, all his French books; to his son John Mynne, and his daughter Catharine, his wife, the land which he bought of Wurich, called Dumus, conditionally that they should annex it to their own manor; to his son John Mynne, and to Catharine his wife, he gave a standing covered cup, which he had of Nicholas Coke, and was in the keeping of his son Thomas; also to his son John Mynne a book of statutes which he bought of Punock: to Agnes Writh, a salt, with a cover, which was her godfather's; to Barbara, the fellow of it, the other salt without covering to his two young daughters, his two swagged gilt salts. As the law would (direct) all the lands and tenements in Chichester and Mynly to be divided between his daughters Agnes and Barbara. He gave to Agnes his great pot, that was at Wurick: to Agnes and Barbara

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such

such stuff of household, as his mother had ordained for them. He directed HEN. VII. that all such writings as concerned his cousin Stone should be delivered Garter, to him. He trusted to John Mynne, that he would forbear every year £5 upon his stock, unto the time that £50 be paid to his godson, John Stone, and so doing, he gave him all his whole stock. He made his sons Thomas, William, and John Mynne, his executors, and willed that all the residue of his goods should be divided into three parts; the first part to his wife, and such stuff as she brought unto him, the second part to pay his debts, and to be bestowed for the wealth of his soul by their direction, and the third part to be divided between his children.

This will is very curious: it is given entire, stripped only of its legal redundance. It proves that Garter was not knighted; if he had, he would have so distinguished himself. It proves his name was Writh; it shews that his father was a person of property; and it authenticates the gencalogy we have of his descendants. When his son, Sir Thomas, wished to change the family name to Wriothesley, he obtained his elder brother William's approbation, pretending that they descended from a family of that surname, whose pedigree he produced, which was, that Robert Wriothesley, by Ann, his wife, had William Wriothesley, who marrying Jane, daughter of Hugh Somery, left Robert Wriothesley, who by Lueda his wife, daughter of Henry Palton, had a son named William Wriothesley, who went with Henry V. to the wars in France, and married Nicola, daughter of Peter de Fontanella, sprung from a Norman family. He, however, neither gives dates, places of residence, nor brings down the descent of the last William, to join it with the elder Garter Writh. I have seen several genealogies of the Wriths. None appear to me so valuable as one preserved by the elder Anstis, Garter, as it gives the christian names of several persons allied to them, which others are deficient in. It goes no higher than the father of John Writh, Garter: he is called William, receiver of the Duke of Somerset, one of the Beaufort family, probably Edmund, K. G. beheaded in 1471. He married twice; first Agnes, daughter of R. Wamford, by whom he had no children.

I have been the more particular respecting Garter Writh, because he was father of the College, and one in very great and deserved favor of several Sovereigns. Henry VII. styled him "our trusty and well-beloved," and suitably rewarded his many public services. Whilst travelling, at

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