HISTORY SLIGHTS IT – HOME OF GEORGE WASHINGTON’S ANCESTORS IN ENGLAND
Unmistakable traces of the distinguished family to be found in the village of Wickhamford, near Stratford-on-Avon – grave of Penelope, daughter of Colonel Henry Washington, in the parish church – little accurate information to be obtained in regard to them.
Probably there is no subject on which the leading encyclopaedias are more at fault than in regard to the origin of the family of which George Washington was the most illustrious member. The “British” attempts to connect it with two different counties in England (both wrong), and then gives it up as if in despair, while the “American” dismisses it in short order as if it were not worthy of investigation. Both admit that the family was of English origin, however, and there is no room for doubt in regard to the precise spot in England where the ancestors of the “Father of His Country” lived and died. The topic is naturally one of great interest, all the more so as the places occupied by the Washington family in the old country are near the spot where Shakespeare was born and where his remains are buries.
There are two points that beyond dispute were occupied by members of the Washington family. They may be described as situated at the extremities of a curved line less than 35 miles long, near the middle of which Stratford is situated. The shorter section of about 14 miles lies in the valley of the Avon, the river that has been immortalised by association with the great English bard. Its source is a spring in a garden at Naseby, 697 feet above the sea level, the place where was fought, June 14 1645, one of the great battles between Charles I and the parliamentary forces. From that point the Avon runs southwest across Warwickshire to the birthplace of Shakespeare, thence to Evesham, little more than 12 miles if measured on a straight line, and on to Tewkesbury where it falls into the Severn. The terminal points of the Avon lie in Northampton and Worcester shires, and the whole course of the stream is dotted with points of historic interest. Aug 14 1265 Evesham was the scene of a military massacre, which the historians have dignified by the name of a battle, won by the man who subsequently occupied the throne of England as Edward I. Less than three miles from this point repose the remains of some distinguished members of the Washington family in the village of Wickhamford, near the old stage road from Evesham to Oxford.
The other site is Sulgrave. It is situated just over the Nothamptonshire border, near the town of Northampton, and 22 miles nearly due east from Stratford. This was the home of the family for several generations. It has been described as such sparingly, perhaps the best account being in J Tom Burgess’ “Historic Warwickshire”. The Worcestershire site has hitherto escaped notice, being in an out of the way place, fully a quarter of a mile from the main turnpike road above referred to, and three miles distant from the nearest railroad station on one of the newer lines in the United Kingdom, which is but little patronized by Americans.
In the time of Henry VIII, Lawrence Washington of Wharton in Lancashire left his native village to find a home in the town of Northampton, where in the year 1531 he became Mayor. He engaged in the wool trade, then the great business of the midland counties, and after a successful career in that line of effort retired with his family to Sulgrave, where he obtained a grant of land that had formerly belonged to the monastery of St Andrews and erected thereon a manor house as the seat of his family. He lived there until the time of his death, Feb 19 1583, in the 26th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, leaving a family of seven daughters and two sons. Of the latter Robert inherited the family estates and Lawrence appears to have adopted the law, which was the Lancashire occupation of his father. Twelve months previously Lawrence, then entered as a member of Gray’s Inn, purchased lands at Whitacre Inferior in the County of Warwick, which he sold six years later to a poor Leicestershire squire, George Villiers, whose son, as the Duke of Buckingham, became the favorite of James I and the companion of King Charles.
Lawrence settled at Great Brington, half a dozen miles from Northampton, on the edge of Althorpe Park, the seat of the Spencer family, between whom and the Washingtons more than one marriage had occurred. Ruin came upon the Washington family early in the 17th century. In 1610 the estates were sold and Lawrence left Brington, his remains being taken there for interment six years later. He left two sons, of whom Sir John, of South Cave, died in 1624, leaving three sons, the second of whom was named John. All of them seem to have fought in the civil wars on the side of the King. In 1657 John became disgusted with the Commonwealth and, with at least one of his sons, left England for Virginia. The chronicler says: “He took with him the insignia of his race, the mullet and the bars of his shield, and the spread eagle of his crest”; and that “in many of the church windows on the Northamptonshire border the familiar red bars and mullets attest the importance of the family”.
A century after this migration the great-grandson of John Washington was a Colonel under Gen Braddock and – but the world knows the rest. It does not know, however, that the red striped bars of the Washington family arms, with the star-like mullets “borne in chief” bear a strikingly suggestive resemblance to the original American flag.
The Wickhamford Parish Church stands on the side of a lane that is lined by mulberry trees. It is a structure so small that but for its tower it might be easily mistaken for a stable. A view of its exterior would not lead one to suppose that the church has anything more inside than the humblest pews and altar, and its interior is a real surprise. It contains two life-size recumbent figures in alabaster placed side by side, around which are grouped eleven marble statues about half the adult size. The following is a copy of the inscription above the junction of the arches:
Here lyeth the Body of Sir Samuel Sandys Kt, eldest son to that famous prelate Edwyn, Archbishop of York, who dyed the 2nd of September Anno Domini 1626, aged 63. And also of Mary his wife, descended of the ancient family of the Culpeppers, who was buried Jan 28 1629.
This does not tell anything of the Washington family, but the curator of the church, who is also the sexton and the parish clerk, is authority for the statement that these persons were related to the Washingtons, probably by marriage. And at the feet of these recumbent figures, on the north side of the altar is a tombstone that bears a long inscription Latin, of which the following is a translation:
Sacred to the memory of Penelope, daughter of that most distinguished and renowned soldier, Col Henry Washington. He was descended from Sir William Washington, Knight of the county of Northampton, who was high in favour with those most illustrious princes and best of kings, Charles I and Charles II, on account of his gallant and successful military achievements, both in England and Ireland. He married Elizabeth of the ancient and noble stock of the Packingtons of Westwood, a family of untarnished loyalty and patriotism. Springing from such famous ancestry, Penelope was a diligent and devout worshipper of God. To her mother (her only surviving parent) she was a great consolation. To the sick and needy she was an exceptionally ready and generous benefactress. Humble and chaste, and wedded to Christ alone, from this transitory life she departed to her spouse, Feb 27, Anno Domini 1697.
So it would appear that at least some members of the Washington family were prominent up to and perhaps long after the departure of John for the United States. It is difficult to understand the attraction that could have drawn any of them to Wickhamford, unless it were the silk mill industry, which once flourished there but has died out, like the stage coach, with the advent of the railroad. Early in this century there were five of these silk mills in that part of the country, one of them at Wickhamford, another at Bidford, on the Avon below Stratford. At these establishments the work done was simple. It consisted in reeling off the silk and making it up into skeins for shipment to other parts of the country, where it was used for the manufacture of ribbons, sewing silk, etc. No small part of the latter came back to Evesham, where it was distributed weekly to hundreds of women each of whom had at home a sewing frame on which she stitched kid gloves by hand for the manufacturers, who supplied the material ready cut for stitching.
Evesham is one of the most remarkable of all the remarkable spots in England. It was so rated as early as AD 703 when Eoves, a swineherd, reported that he saw a celestial vision there. That drew attention to the place. A monastery was soon founded by pious churchmen, who accepted the report and possibly believed it. A town grew up around the monastery, and the abbey waxed so powerful, as well as rich, that when about 1150 a Baron named Beauchamp undertook to plunder it, the abbot not only excommunicated him and his retainers but razed his castle and made a burial ground of the site. Four centuries later the abbey possessed no less than 15 manors in Worcestershire, six in Gloucestershire, three in Warwickshire, two in Northamptonshire, and numerous other “rents, lands and advowsons”. Outside of Oxford and Cambridge there was once no such assemblage of religious buildings in England. But very soon after the crowning structure had been completed, “a right sumptuous ad high square tower of stone”, King Henry VIII, renowned alike for being the husband of six wives ad the arch enemy of the faith of which the Pope had dubbed him “defender”, came down like a wolf on the fold. The lands were confiscated, and in the absence of revenues the buildings went to decay, the result being that little of them all now remains except that “high square tower”, which resembles London column in one respect, as it “like a tall pully rears its head and lies” about the greatness of the abbot (Litchfield) who caused it to be erected.