| |
|
 |
|
 Abt 1510 - 1592 (~ 82 years)
-
| Name |
Richard AUSTIN |
| Born |
Abt 1510 |
Wickhambreaux, Kent, England  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Buried |
5 Dec 1592 |
Adisham, Kent, England |
| Person ID |
I10323 |
Young Kent Ancestors |
| Last Modified |
4 Mar 2022 |
| Father |
Robert AUSTEN, b. Abt 1479, Wickhambreaux, Kent, England , d. 26 Nov 1544, Adisham, Kent, England (Age ~ 65 years) |
| Mother |
Elizabeth?, d. Bef 23 Nov 1544, Adisham, Kent, England |
| Married |
Abt 1504 |
Kent, England |
| Family ID |
F3520 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family |
Agnes A’DENNE, b. Abt 1517, Barham, Kent, England , bur. 28 Mar 1588, Adisham, Kent, England (Age ~ 71 years) |
| Married |
1536/1538 |
Kent, England |
| Children |
| | 1. John ^ AUSTIN, c. 25 Dec 1538, Adisham, Kent, England , d. Bef Dec 1592 (Age ~ 53 years) |
| | 2. Edith AUSTIN, c. 2 Sep 1539, Adisham, Kent, England |
| | 3. William AUSTIN, c. 18 Jun 1541, Adisham, Kent, England , d. Abt 1637 (Age ~ 95 years) |
| | 4. Elizabeth AUSTIN, c. 10 Feb 1543, Adisham, Kent, England , d. 6 Jan 1600, Goodnestone-Wingham, Kent, England (Age ~ 56 years) |
| | 5. Anne ^ AUSTIN, c. 17 Mar 1544/1545, Adisham, Kent, England , d. Bef 1565 (Age ~ 19 years) |
| | 6. John ^ AUSTIN, c. 15 Jan 1547/1548, Adisham, Kent, England , bur. 15 Jan 1547/1548, Adisham, Kent, England (Age ~ 0 years) |
| | 7. Alice AUSTIN, b. 2 Mar 1548/1549, Adisham, Kent, England , d. 16 Jul 1600, Goodnestone-next-Wingham, Kent, England (Age 51 years) |
| | 8. Valentine AUSTIN, c. 24 Jan 1551/1552, Adisham, Kent, England , d. Aft Jan 1585 (Age ~ 33 years) |
| | 9. Robert AUSTIN, c. 11 Mar 1553/1554, Adisham, Kent, England , d. Mar 1614, Adisham, Kent, England (Age ~ 60 years) |
| | 10. Thomas AUSTIN, c. 20 Nov 1558, Adisham, Kent, England , d. Bef 13 Feb 1592/1593 (Age ~ 34 years) |
| | 11. Matthew AUSTIN, c. 21 Sep 1562, Adisham, Kent, England , bur. 21 Jun 1640, Wye, Kent, England (Age ~ 77 years) |
| | 12. Mary AUSTIN, c. 9 Apr 1564, Chilham, Kent, England |
| | 13. Anne ^ AUSTIN, c. 9 Jun 1565, Adisham, Kent, England , d. Bef 28 Jul 1567 (Age ~ 2 years) |
| | 14. Richard AUSTIN, b. 12 Jun 1568, Adisham, Kent, England , bur. 20 May 1619, Adisham, Kent, England (Age ~ 50 years) |
|
| Last Modified |
20 Mar 2022 |
| Family ID |
F3101 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
-
| Notes |
- Buried as "householder".
Richard was a yeoman and intervened with his brother, Thomas, against John Bland, rector of Adisham, 1553;2 an appraiser of the inventory of John Austen of Chillenden 1567 (PRC 28/1, f.39r & v); occurs bond Jun 1568 (SAS/A613).
Bond in £66 13s 4d to perform covenants in SAS/A612
This record is held by East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO)
See contact details
Reference: SAS/A613
Title: Bond in £66 13s 4d to perform covenants in SAS/A612
Description:
William Kinge, clerk, with Richard Austen of Adisham, Kent, yeoman, and Gregory Bradshaw of Kingston, Kent, yeoman, to the dean and chapter
Date: 14 Jun 1568
Held by: East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office (ESBHRO), not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Richard Austin was born Wickhambreaux c. 1512; m. Adisham
1536 or 1538 Agnes a’Denne (b. Barham, Kent, 1520; d. Adisham, where
buried on 28 March 1588), a lineal descendant of Robertus de Den,
‘pencerna’, or butler to Edward the Confessor, and daughter of Thomas
Denne by his second wife Margaret Naisshe (see sub Denne of Denne Hill).
Richard Austen, widower, was buried Adisham 15 Dec 1592 (will dated 1587
pr. CCC 1592, ref PRC32/37-89, leaving Communion cup to Adisham
Church)
My Facebook posts concerning this Richard and his forebears:
1. To Charo Duff: Elizabeth Austin's parents were Richard Austin and Agnes a'Denne. He was born circa 1510 at Wickhambreaux. I descend through Elizabeth's brother, Matthew Austin.. I have Richard Austin's Will, as well as those of his father and grandfather. The family was middle class with wealth expected of the middle class. There are no titles or peerages in this Austin line.
2. To Charo Duff: First, the wife of Robert Austen, of Adisham, was not buried nor died on or about 25 Oct 1538. That Elizabeth is clearly defined in the Parish Register of Adisham as being a child. The death/burial of Robert Austen's wife is unknown but can be dated at sometime between 1514, the calculated date of the birth of her last child but before 23 Nov 1544, the date of Robert Austen's Will. Also, in every reliable source Robert Austen's wife's name is unknown. So, there is even no clear evidence that her name was Elizabeth. As Richard's first daughter is named Edith and his second daughter is named Elizabeth and as Agnes a'Denne's mother's name is also unknown, Richard's wife could be either Edith or Elizabeth. Only finding her mentioned as an Austen in her own father's Will will prove what her name was.
Anyone who has connected her to a Dutch woman and then claims that woman to be a noblewoman is entirely wrong. Her father Peiter was not a nobleman, either. He was a castellan of the Loevestein castle in the what is now the Netherlands. Usually the duties of a castellan consisted of military responsibility for the castle's garrison, maintaining defences and protecting the castle's lands, combined with the legal administration of local lands and workers including the castle's domestic staff. If this was a true connection to Robert Austin KAS would have the details. A search of their website through the Google site search confirms the opposite through the absence of any such information. Additionally, the Adisham article researched and written by Edward Hasted fails to mention any of the Austen's by name even though they rented Court-Lodge on the manor. Had there been a noble connection Hasted would definitely have mentioned that connection. The article can be read on British History Online.
Now, the children of Robert Austen and his wife: there are many baptisms of Austen children between 1538 and 1580 in the Parish Register of Adisham. Many of those baptisms do not specify a parent's name - there were at least 3 other Austen brothers having children at the same time. However, the births attributable to Richard and Agnes can be reasonably calculated based on the early baptisms and the later ones that specify Richard as the father. I have attached a screen shot of my own tree that shows the children with their baptism dates - I'll have to do this in two screen shots as there are so many children. Children whose names contain a ^ symbol indicate those who died as children or without children of their own.
3. To Charo Duff: There was a Sir Robert Austen but he was from Tenterden and firmly rooted at Hall Place in Bexley. He was born circa 1595 and died in 1660.
Sir Robert Austen is mentioned in KAS article "Bexley: The Church, Hall Place and Blendon" pp 370-371, online at https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/.../Vol.018.../018-38.pdf
"On the east wall of the north chancel is the monument of the next owner of Hall Place, Sir Robert Austen, who came from Tenterden. He buried here, in July 1653, two of his children, Thomas and William. Created a baronet in July 1660, he served as sheriff of this county in 1660 and 1661. He died in 1666, aged 79. The monument mentions, but does not name, his first wife, Margaret Williamson, who only surviving child Elizabeth became Lady Dacres of Cheshunt. His second wife, Ann Muns, is named on the monument; she survived the baronet for twenty-one years..."
In a footnote
"In 1654-5, February 14, the manor of Chelsea was sold to him and two others as trustees for the daughters and coheirs of James, Duke of Hamilton, the Ladies Ann and Susan, for GB1185. In 1660 Sir Robert Austin united with others in conveying the manor of Chelsea to Charles Cheyne (Faulkner's History of Chelsea, i, 3288, 330)."
4..Response from Charo Duff: I guess everyone else's trees are rubbish on ancestry too as that's where I've got most of the information...
My response: That's right. Very few actually take the time and trouble to do their own research in primary sources. Having been a professional historical researcher and genealogist since 1990 I can tell you that people just simply copy from other trees. I have also lectured on this very subject. It was bad enough in 2012. Now, the errors are beginning to pile up exponentially. The problem is not only contained on Ancestry, but on MyHeritage, and FamilySearch, which is even one step more serious as strangers can change your own tree.
4. In response to Charo Duff and her incessant posting of Austens in Benenden: These individuals are from Benenden. I have no information on this group of Austens. They are not directly connected to the group of Austens at Adisham and Wickhambreaux., the earliest of whom that is known is Robert born circa 1430s.
All I can say is do your own research in primary sources and follow the Genealogical Standards of Proof as onerous and pedantic as they are. They can be read on the BCG Certification website.
5. To Charo Duff: The discussion above related to the incorrect assignment of a knighthood to Robert Austen of Adisham (born ca 1479-bur 26 Nov 1544) who was the grandfather of Elizabeth Austen who married William Henniker (settled in Goodnestone-next-Wingham). The discussion had nothing to do with your 5th great-grandparent.
To add to the proof of the Elizabeth Austen a) being the daughter of Richard Austen and Agnes a'Denne and b) that this Elizabeth Austen married William Henykar [sic], here is the excerpt from the Will of Richard Austen:
IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN, the 21st day of May and in the thirty year of the reign of our sovereign Lady Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen of England, France and Ireland, defender of the faith, et cetera, I RICHARD AUSTEN, of the parish of Adisham, in the County of Kent, yeoman, do make and ordain this my last Will and Testament in manner and form following:
...
Item, I will unto ELIZABETH HENYKAR, my daughter, one cow.
...
PROBATE made at this court before Stephen Lakes, Commissary, the 13th day of February A.D. 1592 upon the oaths of WILLIAM SMYTH and VALENTINE AUSTEN, and MATHEW AUSTEN Executors.
[Source: Consistory Court of Canterbury, Will, Consistory Court of Canterbury (England, Canterbury: Canterbury Cathedral Archives), PRC32/37-89, Will dated 21 May 1592, Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Canterbury, Kent,, England.]
|
-
| Sources |
- [S90] Will, Consistory Court of Canterbury, Consistory Court of Canterbury, (England, Canterbury: Canterbury Cathedral Archives), PRC32/37-89, 21 May 1592.
Will of Richard Austen of Adisham, yeoman, 21 May 1592.
IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN, the 21st day of May and in the thirty year of the reign of our sovereign Lady Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queen of England, France and Ireland, defender of the faith, et cetera, I RICHARD AUSTEN, of the parish of Adisham, in the County of Kent, yeoman, do make and ordain this my last Will and Testament in manner and form following:
First, I do willingly and with a free heart render and give aperegne in to the hands of the Lord my God, my spirit, which he of his fatherly goodness gave unto me when he fashioned this my body in my mother's womb by this means making me a living creature, nothing doubting but that this my Lord God for his mercy's sake set forth in the precious blood of his dearely beloved son, Christ Jesus, our alone saviour and redeemer, will receive my soul into his glory and place it in the company of heavenly angels and blessed saints.
And as concerning my body, even with a good will and free heart I give it over commending it unto the earth whereof it came, nothing doubting but that according to the article of our faith at the great day of the general resurrection when we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, I shall receive it again by the mighty power of God wherewith he is able to subdue all things unto himself, not a corruptable mortal, weak and vile body as it is now, but an uncorruptable mortal, strange, perfect and in all points like unto his glorious body my Lord and saviour Christ Jesus.
And as concerning my worldly goods:
First, I will unto the poor people of the parish of Adisham twenty shillings to be paid by mine Executors within three months after my decease.
item, I will unto the use of the parish of Adisham the communion cup which I bought.
Item, I will unto EDYTHE HOFFEHAM, my daughter, one cow.
Item, I will unto ELIZABETH HENYKAR, my daughter, one cow.
Item, I will unto ALICE RICHARDS, my daughter, one cowe.
Item, I will unto every one of my sons and daughters children that be my godchildren, one ewe a piece.
Item, I will unto ROBERT AUSTEN, my son, my silver goblet.
Item, I will unto RICHARD AUSTEN, my son, twenty wethers.
Item, I will unto JANE COSBY a seam of wheat and a seam of barley and two pewter platters and two pewter dishes and two saucers and two paid of sheets.
Item, I will unto STEVEN AYTON, my servant, one seam of barley.
The residue of all my moveable goods, my debts being paid, my funeral expenses discharged and my legacies performed, I will unto MATHEW AUSTEN, my son whom I make my sole Executor of this my last Will and Testament and I make VALENTINE AUSTEN, my son and ROBERT AUSTEN, my son, Overseers of this my last Will and Testament.
PROBATE made at this court before Stephen Lakes, Commissary the 13th day of February A.D. 1592 upon the oaths of WILLIAM SMYTH and VALENTINE AUSTEN, and MATHEW AUSTEN Executors.
- [S84] Dictionary of National Biography (Great Britain), Vols. 1-22, Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed., (London, England: Oxford University Press, London, England, 1921-1922.).
Bland, John (d. 1555), protestant martyr
by Thomas S. Freeman
© Oxford University Press 2004–14 All rights reserved
Bland, John (d. 1555), protestant martyr, was born at Sedbergh, Yorkshire, and was educated by Roger Lupton, the provost of Eton College, before becoming a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of MA in 1536. According to John Foxe, Bland was at some point in his career the teacher of Edwin Sandys, a fellow Yorkshireman and alumnus of St John's, who went on to become archbishop of York. In 1537 Bland was presented to the living of Ospringe, Kent, which was in the gift of St John's. In Kent he came under the wing of Christopher Nevinson, the archbishop's commissary; in 1541 Bland received the substantial archiepiscopal living of Adisham, Kent, from Nevinson. Bland made his presence felt not only in his livings, but throughout the diocese. In the winter of 1542–3, in addition to stripping his church at Ospringe of images and furnishings, he preached in Faversham, Canterbury, and the surrounding area, denouncing images, fast days, prayer to saints, and other ‘superstitious’ practices. He also repeatedly preached that confession was unnecessary. At the same time, Bland was associating with protestant radicals, including some with direct ties to the Anabaptist Joan Bocher. (Significantly, when Bland was arrested a decade later, some Kentish freewillers would rally to his defence.)
How radical Bland's own views were is hard to determine. He was accused of making some statements in 1542–3 which pushed against the envelope of prevailing English protestant orthodoxy: that the mass was just a remembrance, ‘that in the christening of children priests be murderers’, and that the term Trinitas was not scriptural but was coined by Athanasius (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 128, pp. 67, 69, and 71). On the other hand, it is difficult to believe that Bland would have retained the support of both Nevinson and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer had his religious radicalism been too pronounced. The patronage of Cranmer and Nevinson, along with Bland's outspoken protestantism, made him a natural target for religious conservatives in Kent, and in the spring of 1543 his heresies were denounced to the king, as part of the conspiracy against Archbishop Cranmer which became known as the prebendaries' plot. Almost immediately the protestants in Cranmer's circle rallied round Bland. Nevinson resigned to him a prebend which he had held, and Rowland Taylor and Ralph Morrice, two zealous evangelicals closely associated with Cranmer, stood surety for the payment of first fruits for Bland's new living. Bland himself preached a defiant Palm Sunday sermon at Adisham, in which he denounced the hallowing of palms and other traditional ceremonies. In his sermon Bland also claimed that he had been commanded to preach on these topics by certain members of the privy council. Nevertheless, he was indicted for heresy on 27 September 1543, although the case against him disintegrated once it became clear that Cranmer retained Henry VIII's support.
Mary's accession, and Cranmer's consequent disgrace, left Bland dangerously isolated. On 3 September 1553 Bland got into a dispute with John Austen, one of his churchwardens; when Austen tried to remove the communion table from the church at Adisham, Bland, with the support of Edward Isaac, a stalwart protestant JP, instituted legal proceedings against him. On 26 October, Thomas Austen, another churchwarden, demanded that Bland rebuild the altar and pay for the restoration of a rood loft he had destroyed. Bland refused. The conservative faction in Adisham procured a priest from a neighbouring parish to celebrate mass. But on 28 December Bland disrupted the planned service and vehemently denounced the mass as an invention of Antichrist. He was assaulted by the churchwardens and then arrested, along with Laurence Ramsey, the former parish clerk of Adisham and a close ally of Bland's. (And perhaps significantly, Ramsey had been a freewiller as late as 1551.) Bland (who was also denounced as a married priest) and Ramsey were both taken to Canterbury, where they were released under bond.
If this had been merely a local dispute the matter might have ended here, but Bland's past came back to haunt him. In late February 1554, Sir Thomas Moyle, one of the former leaders of the prebendaries' plot, who had organized the accusations of heresy against Bland in 1543, ordered that Bland's bail be revoked. For the next year an elaborate cat and mouse game ensued as Bland was re-released on bail, then arraigned in an ecclesiastical court, then transferred to the county sessions, and finally transferred back to spiritual jurisdiction. The object of this manoeuvring was to keep Bland detained, so that he could face heresy charges the moment that the statute criminalizing heresy, which had been repealed in the previous reign, was re-enacted. Having been informally examined by Nicholas Harpsfield, the archdeacon of Canterbury, Bland was examined in the chapter house of Canterbury Cathedral on 21 May 1554. This remarkable session, which took place almost a year before Bland was actually tried for heresy, demonstrates the importance the diocesan authorities attached to this case. A particularly striking feature of this examination was that Cyriac Pettit, a layman (who had been deeply involved in the prebendaries' plot), took the lead in interrogating Bland. A little over a month after this ordeal, Bland was interrogated at the county sessions by Sir Thomas Moyle and Sir John Baker (another of the leaders of the prebendaries' plot).
In February 1555, with the heresy statute finally re-enacted, Bland was interrogated for a final time by Sir John Baker, and then transferred to spiritual jurisdiction. Richard Thornden, the suffragan bishop of Dover, and a long-standing adversary of Cranmer, took charge of Bland's protracted trial in the spring of 1555. Bland was condemned on 25 June 1555. He was burnt at Canterbury on 12 July, along with—in vivid, if not necessarily intentional, symbolism—another Edwardian cleric and two radical protestants. To a remarkable degree, Bland's career epitomizes the early Reformation in Kent. The staunch support and implacable enmity Bland attracted as a particularly active agent of evangelical reform are indications of the passions that would make Kent a burnt-over district, both literally and figuratively, by the end of Mary's reign. A belated but not insignificant sign of the changing of the old order in the county was a payment of 5s. made in the spring of 1576 by the chapter of Canterbury Cathedral to ‘John Blande whose father was brent to help him withall’ (Canterbury city and cathedral archives, misc. accounts, 40, fol. 451r).
THOMAS S. FREEMAN
Sources J. Foxe, Actes and monuments (1563) · CCC Cam., MS 128, pp. 7–8, 14, 67–71, 105–7, 119, 135–6, 243–5, 255–6, 263, 267, 270 [LPH, 18/2, 291, 295, 311–12, 320–21, 323–4, 351–4, 357–9] · Bland to his ‘sister’, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, MS 261, fol. 62r–v · Venn, Alum. Cant. · Cranmer's register, LPL · exchequer, first fruits and tenths office, composition books, TNA: PRO, E 334/2, fols. 52r, 139r · C. Burrage, The early English dissenters in the light of recent research (1550–1641), 2 vols. (1912) · Canterbury city and cathedral archives, misc. accounts, 40, fol. 451r
© Oxford University Press 2004–14 All rights reserved
Thomas S. Freeman, ‘Bland, John (d. 1555)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2608, accessed 5 Aug 2014]
John Bland (d. 1555): doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2608
|
|
|
|
