{20} Edward III Descents for Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Bt (1605-1672)

Gower of Stittenham coat of arms
[Barry of eight, argent and gules;
overall a cross-flory sable]
Image from European Heraldry

Another ancestor of the author and poet George Villiers (1891-1942), husband of Marjorie Howard, was Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Baronet of Stittenham.

Sir THOMAS GOWER, 2nd Baronet of Stittenham, MP Malton 1661-72, b. 1605; d. Stittenham Hall, Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire, bur. 3 Sept. 1672 St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton, est. son of Sir Thomas Gower, 1st Baronet of Stittenham (1584-1651, descended from Edward III - see Generation A11 below) and Anne D'Oyly (c.1585-1633, descended from Edward I); m. 1st, ELIZABETH HOWARD, b. c.1610;  d.s.p. by 1631, dau. of Sir Philip Howard[*1], heir of Naworth Castle (1581-1616, descended from Edward III) and Margaret Caryll (b. c.1585, descended from Edward I); m. 2nd (settlement 29 Sept.) 1631, FRANCES LEVESON, b. 1614; d. 1661, bur. St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton[*2], yr. dau. and co-heiress of Sir John Leveson, heir of Whornes Place (c.1588-1614) and Frances Sondes (d. by 1640, descended from Edward III), and had issue, three sons and two daughters.

Issue of Sir Thomas and Frances (Leveson) Gower:

1) THOMAS GOWER, bap. 25 Oct. 1632 St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton; d. in infancy, bur. there 5 Nov. 1632.

2) ANNE GOWER, bap. 5 Jan. 1637 St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton; d. in infancy, bur. there 1 Feb. 1637.

St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire

3) EDWARD GOWER, Heir of Stittenham Hall, bap. 7 Aug. 1638 All Saints Church, Helmsley, Yorkshire; bur. 24 Jan. 1668 St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton; m. (lic. 25 Apr.) 1663, as her 1st husband[*3], DOROTHY WENTWORTH, b. c.1643; bur. 20 Jan. 1679 St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton, only dau. of Thomas Wentworth of North Elmsall Hall (1619-1653, descended from Edward III) and Agnes Bellingham (1616-1668, descended from Edward III), and had issue, one son and two daughters.

Issue of Edward and Dorothy (Wentworth) Gower:

3A) FRANCES GOWER, b. 1664; d.s.p., bur. 25 Nov. 1690 St Clement Danes, London; m. 13 Feb. 1690 St Oswald Church, Fulford, Yorkshire, as his 1st wife, Sir JAMES WOOD, 2nd Baronet of Bonnytown, b. c.1662; d. 3 May 1738, son of Sir John Wood, 1st Baronet of Bonnytown (c.1638-1693) and Lady Anne Ogilvy (descended from Edward III)[*4].

3B) Sir THOMAS GOWER, 3rd Baronet of Stittenham, bap. 2 Nov. 1665 St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton; d. unm. 28 Oct. 1689 Dundalk, co. Louth, Ireland.

3C) DOROTHY GOWER, bap. 18 Feb. 1668 St Helen Church, Sheriff Hutton; d. in infancy, bur. there 24 Feb. 1669.

4) Sir WILLIAM LEVESON GOWER, 4th Baronet of Stittenham, M.P. Newcastle-under-Lyne 1671-79, 1689-91, b. c.1647 (aged 9 in 1656); d. 22 Dec. 1691 Trentham Hall, Staffordshire, bur. 2 Jan. 1692 St Mary & All Angels Church, Trentham; m. by 1669 Lady JANE GRENVILLE, b. 23 Aug. 1653 Stowe House, Kilkhampton, Cornwall, bap. same day St James Church, Kilkhampton; d. 27 Feb. 1697, bur. 13 Mar. 1697 St Mary & All Saints Church, Trentham, est dau. of John Grenville, 1st Earl of Bath (1628-1701, descended from Edward III) and Jane Wyche (c.1634-1692, descended from Edward III), and had issue, three sons and two daughters.

5) FRANCES GOWER, bap. 13 Mar. 1654 St John the Baptist Church, Ripe, Sussex; d. unm., bur. 17 Apr. 1698 Westminster Abbey.

Hall Farm in Stittenham, the Georgian-era farmhouse built on
the site of the Gowers's Stittenham Hall

[*1] The peerage works, including Collins Peerage (3rd Edn, 1756), Burke's Peerage (107th Edn, 2003), county histories such as Nicholson & Burns's History & Antiquities of Westmorland & Cumberland (1777), the entry for Sir Thomas Gower in HOP, and even Selections From the Household Books of Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle (1878), p. 295, all agree: Elizabeth Howard, the first wife of Sir Thomas Gower, was the daughter of Sir William Howard of Naworth Castle (d. 1644) and his wife Hon. Mary Eure (d. 1638), and the sister of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle. But a look at the dates for the individuals in question show it to be impossible. Sir William Howard of Naworth Castle was born 1603, his wife Mary Eure was born in Sept. 1602, and they were married in 1621. Their second son, Charles Howard, the future Earl of Carlisle, was born 4 Feb. 1628. The household accounts of Lord William Howard of Naworth in 1633 have an entry for a black hood purchased for Elizabeth, the daughter of his grandson and heir Sir William Howard. So there certainly was an Elizabeth Howard who was a daughter of Sir William Howard and Mary Eure, likely born at some point in the mid-1620s. There were also purchases made that same year (1633) for her sister Mary Howard (later wife of Sir Jonathan Atkins). Sir Thomas Gower was born 1604, and the settlement for his marriage to Frances Leveson, his second wife, was dated 29 Sept. 1631, so it is impossible for him to have previously married Elizabeth Howard, the daughter of Sir William Howard and Mary Eure, who was still an unmarried child in her grandparents' household in 1633. Sir Thomas's first wife clearly belongs a generation earlier, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Howard and Margaret Caryll, and sister of the Sir William Howard born in 1603. Entries from the household books of Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle in 1621 document purchases made for Alethea and Elizabeth, daughters of his deceased son and heir Sir Philip Howard. But all of the peerage works state that this Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Sir Philip, was married to Bartholomew Fromond of Cheath in Surrey. This, however, is another error. The VCH Surrey article on Cheath shows that Elizabeth, widow of Bartholomew Fromond of Cheath (who died by 1650), married "William Howard of East Cheath" as a second husband. Also, the Fromond pedigree in the Visitation of Surrey (the 1530/1572/1623 combined volume) shows the wife of the same Bartholomew Fromond to have been "Susan, d. of James Thatcher of Preshaws in com. Sussex," while the pedigree of Fromond in Manning & Bray's History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey  Volume 2 (1809) shows Bartholomew's wife "Elizabeth Myn" with second husband William Howard. So it certainly seems that Bartholomew Fromond did not marry Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Philip Howard, heir of Naworth Castle, & Margaret Caryll. This leaves her available and the perfect age to have been the first wife of Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Baronet, and dead without issue by 1631. As to what became of the Elizabeth Howard, daughter of Sir William Howard of Naworth Castle & Mary Eure, who has for so long been misidentified as wife of Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Baronet, I haven't yet discovered.

[*2] The ODNB entry for Sir Thomas Gower gives his second wife Frances Leveson the birth and death dates of 1614-1661. Their daughter Frances Gower, in her will written 15 Oct. 1697 and proved 6 May 1698: "Item I leave the sum of one hundred pounds to be played out by my own Executor in executing a Tomb or Monument in the Church at Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire remembrance of my dear father Sir Thomas Gower and the Lady Frances my Mother who lie there buried." Frances (née Leveson) Gower was only an infant at the death of her grandfather Sir John Leveson (1556-1615), who promised her a dowry of £3,000 in his will. It was due to this marriage that the Leveson estates of Trentham Hall in Staffordshire and Lilleshall Hall in Shropshire eventually came to the Gower family in 1669.

Trentham Hall, Staffordshire in 1880

[*3] Per their 1663 marriage licence, Edward Gower was age 23 and Dorothy Wentworth age 19. Dorothy (Wentworth) Gower m. 2nd Francis Tancred, and had further issue, two daughters. It's clear from the will, dated 28 Oct. 1689 and proved 3 Nov. 1692, of her son Sir Thomas Gower, 3rd Baronet, that Dorothy had predeceased him: "Item, I leave to my two sisters by Mr. Tancred all my personal estate and to him one hundred pounds per annum during life." The entry of 19 Feb. 1678/9 for "Madam Dorothy Tankard wife of Francis Tankard buried" in the Sheriff Hutton parish register (viewed online thru Find My Past) has to apply to this lady. I've been unable to further identify Dorothy's second husband, but the "Anne Tanckreed," daughter of Francis, bap. 25 Aug. 1673 St Michael-le-Belfry, York, may have been one of the two Tancred sisters mentioned by Sir Thomas Gower in his will.

[*4] Frances Gower, not yet married, was left £3,000 by her brother Sir Thomas Gower in his Oct. 1689 will. Collins's Peerage identifies Frances's husband as "Sir James Wood, Colonel of a regiment at the battle of the Boyne in Ireland." Complete Baronetage only gives Sir James Wood one wife, Anne Jones, whom he married in 1731 when aged about sixty, but as his marriage to Frances lasted a mere ten months and was childless, it's not surprising it was overlooked.

Through his father, Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Baronet has two lines of descent from Edward III, as follows.

Edward III had two sons A1 & B1 (see below)
A1) John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340-1399) m. 3) Katherine Roet (c.1350-1403), and had
A2) Lady Joan Beaufort (1377-1440) m. 1) Sir Robert Ferrers, Heir of Wem & Oversley (c.1372-1396), and had
A3) Elizabeth Ferrers (1393-1434) m. John, 4th Lord Greystoke (c.1390-1436), and had

Aske of Aughton coat of arms

A4) Anne Greystoke (c.1417-1477) m. Sir Ralph Bigod of Settrington (1410-1461), and had
A5) Elizabeth Bigod (c.1443-aft.1507) m. Sir John Aske of Aughton Hall (1443-1497), and had
A6) Sir Robert Aske of Aughton Hall (c.1463-1531) m. Elizabeth Clifford (see B7 below), and had
A7) John Aske of Aughton Hall (c.1486-1544) m. Eleanor Ryther, and had
A8) Robert Aske, Heir of Aughton Hall (c.1510-1542) m. 2) Anne Sutton (d. aft.1545)[*5], and had
A9) Elizabeth Aske (c.1537-1571) m. Gabriel Fairfax of Steeton Castle (c.1535-1582, descended from Edward I), and had
A10) Mary Fairfax (c.1564-aft.1608) m. 1) Thomas Gower of Stittenham Hall (d. 1592, descended from Edward I), and had
A11) Sir Thomas Gower, 1st Baronet of Stittenham (1584-1651) m. Anne D'Oyly (d. 1633, descended from Edward I), and had
A12) Sir Thomas Gower, 2nd Baronet of Stittenham (1605-1672)

[*5] Anne Sutton was the daughter of Robert Sutton of Burton (c.1477-1545), and usually said to have been by his first wife Elizabeth Boys. However, there is a possibility, at least chronologically, that she was from Robert Sutton's second marriage, to Margaret Dudley (c.1485-by 1525, descended from Edward III), widowed Lady Gray of Powis.

B1) Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338-1368) m. 1) Lady Elizabeth de Burgh (1332-1363, descended from Edward I), and had

9th Lord Clifford -
see Generation B6

B2) Lady Philippa Plantagenet of Clarence (1355-1377) m. Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March (1352-1381), and had
B3) Lady Elizabeth Mortimer (1371-1417) m. 1) Sir Henry 'Hotspur' Percy (1364-1403), and had
B4) Lady Elizabeth Percy (c.1395-1436) m. 1) John, 7th Lord Clifford (1388-1422, descended from Edward I), and had
B5) Thomas, 8th Lord Clifford (1414-1455) m. Joan Dacre (c.1417-c.1452, descended from Edward I), and had
B6) John, 9th Lord Clifford (1435-1461) m. Margaret Bromflete (c.1436-1493), and had
B7) Elizabeth Clifford (c.1460-bef.1529) m. Sir Robert Aske of Aughton  Hall (see A6 above)

These additional lines complete all of the lines of descent from Edward III for Hon. George Villiers of Portman Square (1759-1827). My next post will cover the Edward III descents for his wife, Hon. Theresa Parker (1775-1856).

Cheers,                         ----Brad