My Ancestral Haunts

The question "Where did you come from?" can be answered with reference to geography, religion, or, in this case, genealogy.  When I travel, I generally follow the logic of the Major General in Pirates of Penzance.  I may not know whose ancestors they were, but I am happy to adopt them as my own during my sojourn.  But I have a different relationship to the UK.  I do know some of my ancestral lines due to the diligence of my mother's research, and I partly came on this trip to understand them and their "haunts"--to see England and Scotland through their eyes.

We have been fortunate to find links to several royal lines, fortunate not because it gives us greater status, but because their records and histories were kept.  Indeed, many of our unknown, hard working ancestors may well have been better people and more noble and brave in their daily acts than their rulers.  So, it was more with curiosity than pride that I looked into the peephole of history to find the place of "my people."

My family is very Norman.  We descend through William the Conqueror who was victorious in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.  The Normans were  Vikings who settled in Northern France in the 800s, but through William's wife, Matilda, we go back through early Merovingian and Carolingian  kings and nobles of France to Charlemagne and back into the shadowy past to Antenor I, King of Cimmerians, who lived in the Black Sea area about 400 BC.  We descend from William the Conqueror's grandson, King Stephen, as well as his granddaughter, Empress Matilda, who plunged England into a long civil war as they fought each other for succession, only to be resolved by allowing Matilda's son (Henry II) to become king upon the death of Stephen (1154).  To the dismay of Eleanor of Aquitaine, the wife of Henry II, he had a number of illegitimate children, including another of our ancestors, William Longespee, the First Earl of Salisbury (see Salisbury post).

We share the Norman heritage of the Lyon family at Glamis Castle whose most famous descendants are the late Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II.  We also share ancestry with the Dukes of Leeds in Yorkshire.  Sir William Hewitt and his son-in-law Sir Edward Osborne, both served as Lord Mayors of London during the reign of Elizabeth I.  Sir Hewitt was the Sheriff of London in 1553 and was charged to carry out the execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband.  He was mayor during the coronation year of Queen Elizabeth I.  Sir Osborne, who had rescued his future bride (Hewitt's daughter) when she fell in the Thames off London Bridge as an infant, was mayor in 1583 and MP in 1586.  He was one of 12 merchants given exclusive rights to trade with the Ottoman Empire and once hosted a renowned dinner on Sir Francis Drake's ship.

Colonel Gerard Fowke of Gunston Hall, Staffordshire, England, was a Gentleman to the Bed Chamber (close, trusted friend) to the ill-fated Charles I, but resigned his post in the Royal Army and headed for the new world about the time Charles I literally lost his head (beheaded) in 1649.  Fowke then married Ann, the daughter of our Jamestown settler, Adam Thoroughgood.  The Fowkes came through the line of the Scottish king, William I, The Lion, who invaded Northumberland and was captured besieging Alnwick Castle (before the Percy's) by the troops of our other ancestor Henry II.  William I died at Stirling Castle in 1214 (see posts).  Another Fowke ancestor was Geoffrey De Say, one of  the English barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta in 1215.  Following another branch, we connect back through Henry I, II, and III and King John, the very one our Magna Carta ancestor rebelled against.

 But my family is also very Anglo-Saxon, descended from the Wessex kings, back through Alfred the Great (848 AD) and Old King Coel (yes, he really lived) who was born about 125 AD.  It was the death of our Saxon ancestor Edward the Confessor in January 1066 that led to the disputed succession, causing William the Conqueror to invade and fight my Saxon ancestors.

But we are also Scots--Highlanders and Lowlanders.  Edward, the Confessor, married his daughter to Malcolm III, King of Scotland, the son of Duncan I who was murdered by Macbeth.  Malcolm III was the father of David I "The Saint" who built the oldest structure still standing at Edinburgh Castle, but was killed  in battle near Alnwick (see prior post)   Moving forward, there is Robert the Bruce who, after being inspired by a persistent spider spinning a web in a cave, secured the independence of Scotland in the battle of Bannockburn in 1314 at Stirling Castle (next post) against my English ancestors. We are also a part of the MacDonald of the Isles clan, a fierce native Highland group with Gaelic/Viking, Pict and Scotti roots.  Though Highlanders, the MacDonalds stood proudly with Robert the Bruce (our Norman-descended Lowlander) at Bannockburn, but later joined the migration of Protestant Scots to Northern Ireland during the religious persecutions.

Going back, we find  FitzWalter, the 1st High Steward of Scotland, (1105) whose father came from France with the Normans.  He became the founding ancestor of the Stuart kings of Scotland and England.  His descendants and those of our other Scots fought and married descendants of Norse, Finnish, and Swedish kings who lead all the way back to to Yngvi, King of Turkey, in 193 AD and Godwulf of Asgard, Eastern Europe, in 80 AD (where is that?).   Some claim Yngvi was a descendent of King Priam of Troy.  So is there a speck of Trojan in me? And we are just beginning to search the heritage of Lord Fitzgerald of Ireland.   However,  by the 17th and 18th centuries, all of our known English, Scot, and Irish ancestors had packed up their rich heritage, hopes, and possessions for  a treacherous journey across the sea to an unknown future.  They were among the adventurous early settlers in the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maine.  I found out recently that some of our early Maryland ancestors came from Yorkshire, so we can claim to be Yorkies as well.

So, yes, I found ancestral haunts most everyplace I went on my journey. Stepping back from my personal peak into history,  I marvel that all of these warring factions have finally been peacefully united through their descendants. And now I stand, uniquely a composite of all of these and other individuals, blended with my own life choices and eternal spirit,  contemplating what I have to contribute to the legacy of  "my people."

Photos:  Bayeux Tapestry of William the Conqueror; King Henry II; William Longespee; Elizabeth I; Charles I;  King John and Magna Carta; Alfred the Great; St. Margaret's  Chapel, Edinburgh Castle; Robert the Bruce at Stirling Castle;  King Priam