Week 22: At the Cemetery
For 2023, I’m writing responses to the 52 Ancestors in 52 Days prompts provided by Amy Johnson Crow on her ”Generations Café” website and Facebook page.
First, let me tell you a little bit about this church, which we visited during our genealogical research trip to England in September, 2022. The organization that currently manages the church grounds, “Friends of Friendless Churches,” describes St. Mary’s with the following words (https://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/church/st-marys-eastwell-kent/:
St Mary’s was once a fine medieval church on an ancient pilgrimage route to Canterbury and the shrine St Thomas Becket. Situated within the grounds of Eastwell Park, all that remains is a 15th-century tower, a 19th-century mortuary chapel and a slender flint wall linking the two
A picturesque lake created just to the east of the church in the 19th century brought about the collapse of the nave arcade, as the chalk columns sucked up moisture from the earth and crumbled.
In the 1940s, Eastwell Park was taken over by the army for tank training exercises. Shocks from nearby explosions didn’t help the vulnerable structure. But in February 1951, after weeks of heavy rain the nave roof collapsed and took the arcade with it.
Six years later the church was dismantled. The bells were sold for scrap. The monuments found a new home in the V&A. A sad end for this lakeside beauty.
Much mystery remains around this place. In the churchyard, there is a Victorian tomb, which is reputed to be the grave of Richard Plantagenet, an illegitimate son of Richard III. The church registers record his death, “Rychard Plantagenet was buryed on the 22. daye of December 1550”.
We took the church into our care in 1980.
We visited this church to learn more about my 11th great-grandfather John House (1560-1630). He was born in Leicestershire, but after studying at Cambridge he was licensed to serve St. James the Great in Egerton, near Cambridge.
After serving at Egerton, he was assigned to St. Mary’s in Eastwell, where he served until he died in 1630. Most online records say that his burial location is unknown, or that he is buried (along with other reburied remains) at a cemetery about 25 miles from this church. There is no documentary (or other) evidence to support either of these conclusions. Since we were already planning to visit St. James the Great in Egerton, we decided it would be interesting to see what there was to look at in this remote churchyard.
Beneath one of these overgrown graves, however, we made a remarkable discovery. On closer examination, the “whitish stone” that I mentioned above looked like this:
John House’s family is linked to important events in the Puritan Great Migration. The 1610 marriage where John officiated was between his daughter Hannah and John Lothrop, a figure who would become significant as a dissenter in the 1630s.
In 1632, when the Puritan Congregation he was leading in London fell afoul of Bishop Laud of London, who identified with a “high church” position and was generally seen as a dangerous opponent of Puritan clerics like Lothrop – and House before him.
In that year, Lothrop and 70 members of his congregation were arrested while worshipping in a private house. They were imprisoned; Lothrop was held for two years, during which time Hannah died. Several members of the House family were part of Lothrop’s congregation and were arrested with him – including John House’s 24-year-old son Samuel, who was my 10th great-grandfather. When Lothrop and other captive members of his congregation were released in 1634, he and some of his followers – including Samuel and two of his siblings – boarded a ship and fled to Massachusetts.
They settled in Plymouth Colony – first in Scituate and then in Barnstable. Samuel is identified as a ship’s carpenter, and served in several public offices in the early colony, including tax collector and grand juror. Samuel married Elizabeth Hammond in Scituate shortly after he arrived in the colony, and moved several times in the next few years – to Cambridge, then to Barnstable, back to Scituate, and then back to Barnstable. The family was soon to move on to Rhode Island, where they continued their tradition of religious dissent.
l
Such an interesting story and so well written. Thank you!!
Terrific family discovery and story.