Alexander (Zouche) de Greene (abt. 1181 - 1236)

Born about 1181 in Harrington, Northamptonshire, England

Descendants

Died 1236 at about age 55 in Broughton, Northamptonshire, England

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Biography

Sir Alexander DeGrene or de la Grene, De Boketon Lord of Boketon

This is the first Lord De Greene. He is the fountainhead of the Greene line and received his power and titles as a reward from King John in 1202. He was a Knight of King John's court and the great-grandson one of the Norman Nobles who invaded England with William the Conqueror in 1066. John bestowed the Estate of Boughton in Northhampton as a reward for going to Normandy in 1201 and putting down the uprising of Count De La March. This event precipitated from the King taking the Count's state arranged bride Isabelle in 1200. He had ordered his Nobles to put down the uprising, but they refused. He confiscated their properties and gave them to the loyal knights who performed this task for him. The Boughton Estate was very large with the ranking of a Baronage. 6,000 acres min. were required to have this title. This property was much larger. Halstead said that at one time the Greenes were the largest landowners in the kingdom.

Alexander De Greene De Boketon assumed a surname of his chief estate. De Greene De Boketon, i.e. the Lord of the Park of the Deer Enclosure. A green in the early days was "a park". Boketon is an old, old word meaning the bucks' (bokes) ton or paled-in enclosure. For a long time De Greene De Boketon was used on all official documents over time it was shortened to De Greene. During the reign of Henry IV, 1422-1471, with the attendant French wars, the Patriotic De Greenes dropped the patrician "De" as too Frenchy in sound for Englishmen, as they now considered themselves. All the Greene lines trace their ancestry back to this head of the line. The heraldry, which since 1147 has required proof of ancestry thorough their great-grandparents share the Bucks Triplit on a field of Azure. This is one of the ancient lines of England.

Alexander was a Knight and the 1st Lord of Boketon. He was born Abt. 1181 in County Northampton, England, which was then part of the new 'Holy Roman Empire', and died Abt. 1236 in Boughton (aka Boketon), County Northampton, England but what is now Greene's Norton, County Northampton, England. His spouse is presumed to be a Lady Isabelle De Cantilupe, daughter of Sir William De Cantilupe. One of their sons was named Walter De Boketon, is said to have been born Abt. 1200 in County of Northampton, England, and died Abt. 1275 probably also in England. To date, Walter De Boketon's spouse is unknown. In the year 1202, the English King John (of Plantagenet line ~1199-1216) bestowed the estate of Boketon (now Boughton) on Sir Alexander De Boketon, a knight in his court. The following year (1203), Alexander de Boketon recovered the advowson of the Church of St. John the Baptist at Boketon (a seigniorial right of the Lords of Boketon) against Simon de Hecter and Simon de Boketon.

Alexander, a younger son of the de la Zouche family, was given an estate and title as a "Great Baron" by King John of England in 1202 AD. The estate was that of Grene de Boketon. Walter de Boketon, was in the Seventh Crusade in 1244. Walter's son, John Grene de Boketon, died in the next crusade in 1271 leaving a year old son, Thomas, who became Sir Thomas de Grene (married Alice Bottisham). Then came Sir Thomas de Grene (b: c1288) who married Lady Lucy de la Zouche, his relative.

Lord Alexander assumed a surname after his chief estate de Greene de Boketon, i.e., the Lord of the Park of the Deer Enclosure. A green in the early day was a park. Boketon is an old, old word meaning the buck's ton, or paled-in enclosure. Centuries ago the terminal syllable, ton, had lost its original sense and meant a town. So that Boketon, still used in the original sense, shows that Lord Alexander came to an estate named long before and noted for its extensive parks and deer preserves. Boketon became Bucks, Buckston, and later Boughton, its present name. It lies in Northampton. For five generations the de Greenes spoke Norman-French. They were a family that delighted in athletic sports. They hunted, hawked, and attended tournaments, played games of tennis, cricket, and bowls. All of them in their generations were noted for their fine bowling alleys, two or three of which were the finest in England. Charles I was arrested at Althorpe, where he had gone to bowl, and this once belonged to the Greenes. Alexander had a passionate love of horticulture that has throughout these seven centuries dominated his entire line of descendants. There is probably no other English speaking family today that has so many members that delight in beautiful home grounds and in flowers and fruit and finely kept farms. In 1215, when the English Lords forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, there were only seven barons that adhered to John and Lord Alexander de Greene de Boketon was not one of them. Therefore, he must have been one of the two thousand nobles who put their united protests in the hands of twenty-five lords who presented the Magna Carta to the king and forced him to sign that document that guaranteed both the lives and the property of his subjects from arbitrary spoliation. One of the signers was Roger, Earl of Winchester, whose great-great granddaughter, Lucie de la Zouche, married Sir Alexander de Greene's great-great grandson, Lord Thomas.

ALEXANDER de GREENE de BOKETON. b: c1180 d: 1236.

• "Alexander, a Knight at the King's Court, was the great-grandson of one of the Norman nobles who invaded England with William, the Conqueror in 1066. *Baron de Greene de Boketon. *1202: King John bestowed the estate of Boughton in Northhampton. *King John knighted him at the Court. SURNAME: *The custom of the time was the use of first names. Sir Alexander assumed his surname after his chief estate, which was already in exsistence when he went there.

+Wife Unknown. *REF: La Mance;v3,pg 21,22,24,27. Quotes from La Mance. >2. Walter DE BOKETON/1207. There are a number of books on the early family and a lot of data that may or may not be true. I will give you the baisc outline so you will know what you are looking for. The great granson of one of the Knights who came to England with William the Conqueror, was given the ancient estate of Boketon in about 1202. His name was Alexander no last name at that time. When last names were required, this family took the name of their estate, so his son was known as Sir Walter de Boketon, and his son was John de Boketon who was supposedly killed in Palestine during the Crusades in 1271. His son, Thomas de Boketon is supposed to have adopted the name Green because of the beautiful estate where a county fair was established that lasted for over 500 years. While this story may be true, many researchers do not believe this was accurate. Some believe that Thomas de Boketon may have inherited the estate and changed his name, as was the custom when a man inherited the estate of his wife. What ever the case, his son Henry Greene became one of the largest land holders in England and became the Lord Chief Justice of England. It was this Henry Greene that purchased the estate of Norton in 1352 and this was when it became Green's Norton. It was the custom, in fact the law, that the eldest son inherite the estate, but Sir Henry Greene had a second son, also named Henry Greene, and he got permission from the King to divide his estate between his eldest son, Thomas Greene and his second son, Henry Greene. This second son, Henry Greene, born about 1343 also became Lord Chief Justice of England, and also became the most powerful man of his day, since a "committee" was formed to oversee the acts of the King. When the King reversed his decision to allow a cousin to inherite his father's estate, the cousin took the Crown by force and beheaded Sir Henry Greene in 1399 in Bristol, England. Things got really bad in England after that, and the War of the Roses caused many records to be destroyed, not to mention the people who were killed during this time. It is believed that Surgeon John Greene and John Greene of Quidnessett descended from this Greene line. Tom Green

The Greene family is an English and American family, its history being divided into two periods, from 1202 to 1635 in England, and from 1635 to the present in America. In the period for 1630 to 1640, that of the great Puritan Migration into Massachusetts, several men by the name of Greene came to the colonies, most of them settling in New England. Of all these, two of them are of particular interest to us. Both of their names were John, and their wives names were Joan. They were second cousins german, that is, one was the second cousin of the other's father. The elder of these John Greenes settled in Warwick, Rhode Island, after a short sojourn in Massachusetts.He was the founder of the Warwick Greenes, who have furnished more men in public life to the State of Rhode Island than any other family in the state. It is from this family that General Nathanael Greene is descended. (MY NOTE: The "Warwick Greene's" is my direct ancestry.)

The other John Greene settled at Quidnessett and became the founder of the Quidnessett Greenes. These two related families ha ve multiplied so that today, not even the Smiths, Joneses, or Johnsons outnumber them in their native state. It is said to be unwise to speak ill of any Rhode Islander to a Greene because he is sure to be a Greene or a kin of the Greenes! Rhode Island itself might better have been called the State of Greene because of the part the Greene family has played in its entire history from the beginning, the two John Greenes being associated with Roger Williams in the founding of the colony.

He who steps out into the night finds at first that all is gross darkness, but as he gropes his way, dim landmarks begin to shape themselves out of the darkness. The faint rays of light grow plainer, and the traveller at last walks in a path that has familiar objects to the right and the left to show him how far he has come and in what direction he is going. So in this history, the beginning of the Greene family is shrouded in the night of the unchronicled story of centuries ago. A date or two comes down to us. The hazy figure of Lord Alexander rises like a ghost from his seven centuries of dust. There is a certain branching and widening out of the family. Not until the fourth lord of the line comes more than the name of the Lords de Greene.

All that we really know of the first Lord de Greene may be summed up in this brief paragraph. Alexander, of the House of Arundel, a Knight of the King's court, was the great-great grandson of Alen de la Zouche, the uncle of William the Conqueror and Duke of Bretagne, and the great grandson of one of the Norman nobles who invaded England with William the Conqueror in 1066. King John bestowed the estate of Boughton in Northampton upon him in 1202. John was the ruler of both England and France and apparently awarded Boughton, or Boketon, to Lord Alexander in return for the latter's support during a rebellion that raged in England while the king was in France putting down a similar rebellion there. The exact extent of the estate is not known, but the least a great baron could own and hold his rank was fifty hides of land, i.e., six thousand acres. Halstead, in his Succinct Genealogies, a very rare work done in 1585, says that at one time the Greenes were the largest land owners in the kingdom.

Lord Alexander assumed a surname after his chief estate de Greene de Boketon, i.e., the Lord of the Park of the Deer Enclosure. A green in the early day was a park. Boketon is an old, old word meaning the buck's ton, or paled-in enclosure. Centuries ago the terminal syllable, ton, had lost its original sense and meant a town. So that Boketon, still used in the original sense, shows that Lord Alexander came to an estate named long before and noted for its extensive parks and deer preserves. Boketon became Bucks, Buckston, and later Boughton, its present name. It lies in Northampton.

For five generations the de Greenes spoke Norman-French. They were a family that delighted in athletic sports. They hunted, hawked, and attended tournaments, played games of tennis, cricket, and bowls. All of them in their generations were noted for their fine bowling alleys, two or three of which were the finest in England.

Charles I was arrested at Althorpe, where he had gone to bowl, and this once belonged to the Greenes.

Alexander had a passionate love of horticulture that has throughout these seven centuries dominated his entire line of descendants. There is probably no other English speaking family today that has so many members that delight in beautiful home grounds and in flowers and fruit and finely kept farms.

In 1215, when the English Lords forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, there were only seven barons that adhered to John and Lord Alexander de Greene de Boketon was not one of them.

Therefore, he must have been one of the two thousand nobles who put their united protests in the hands of twenty-five lords who presented the Magna Carta to the king and forced him to sign that document that guaranteed both the lives and the property of his subjects from arbitrary spoliation. One of the signers was Roger, Earl of Winchester, whose great-great granddaughter, Lucie de la Zouche, married Sir Alexander de Greene's great-great grandson, Lord Thomas Greene (5th generation). Maxson Frederick Greene,^[1]

The GREENE family was a branch of the de la Zouche family of whom Gibbon, the historian, said that they had the most royal blood and the most strain of royal blood in all Europe. The Greene's at one time were the largest land owners in all England. They were over fifty times descent of Charlemagne (known as 'Charles the Great, King of the Franks and Emperor of the West'), the greatest man of a thousand years.

There were a dozen decents from Alfred the Great and fifty from Wittekind. They had the blood of Irish, Scotch, Saxon, English, and Bohemian Kings; they came from ancient Parthian Emperors long before the time of our Lord Jesus Christ; regular heathens; Russian rulers; French Kings; Constantine the Great; and Basil the Great, the Byzantine Emperor.

Through the Royal Welsh line, they claimed a double infusion of Jewish blood -- one line from Aaron, the first High Priest; the other from King David himself. Queen Victoria of the same blood firmly believed this. A dozen titular saints, a dozen signers of the Magna Charta, and over thirty crusaders were in this descent.

Alexander, a younger son of the de la Zouche family, was given an estate and title as a "Great Baron" by King John of England in 1202 AD. The estate was that of de Greene de Boketon. Walter de Boketon, was in the Seventh Crusade in 1244. Walter's son, John de Greene de Boketon, died in the next crusade in 1271 leaving a year old son, Thomas, who became Sir Thomas de Greene (married Alice Bottisham). Then came Thomas de Greene (b: c1288) who married Lady Lucy de la Zouche, his relative.

Wittekind's line of descent is as follows:

Wittekind -- the German hero whom Charlemagne conquered and converted to

Christianity, and married Princess Geva.

Robert the Strong -- the grandson of Wittekind and Geva. He married Adelaide le Debonnaire, the daughter of Emperor Louis le Debonnaire and granddaughter of Charlemagne.

Hugh -- the King maker of France.

Hugh Capet (his son).

King Robert I.

King Henry I of France -- and through their wives from Emperors of Germany, Czars of Russia, Emperors of Byzantine, the early Saxon Kings and William the Conqueror.

Then eight generations more with the Royal Welsh, Spanish, Irish, and Scotch heirs in their veins to Lady Lucy de la Zouche (b: c1279) who married her relative Sir Thomas de Greene (b: c1288).

They remained in the royal line for several hundred years. Saher de He was the founder of the Warwick Greenes, who have furnished more men in Quincey, Earl of Winchester, and one of the Magna Charta Barons, wrested the Great Charter from King John on the field of Runnymede in June of 1215.

The name "Greene" was originally written "de Greene". It appears that the Greene's assumed their name from an allusion to their principal nad beloved manor which was Buckton, Town of Bucks, in the County of Northampton, England. The place was known for the excellency of its soil, its situation, and its spacious and delightful green. From Buckton, they assumed three bucks for their coat of arms. They were Lords of hte Manor and owned many stately castles.

In King Edward the III's reign (1327-1377), Sir Henry Greene (1310-1370) obtained for himself and his heirs the grand of a fair to be held yearly for three days beginning on the vigil of St. John the Baptist. Since that time down to the middle of the nineteenth century this fair was held up on the spacious green which gave name to the Greene family.

In the reign of Henry V (1413-1422), Sir Thomas Greene was warden of Whittlebury Forest, an office which he "held in capite of the King by service of lifting up his hand towards the King yearly on Christmas Day in what place so-ever the King is."

Sir Henry de Greene was the Lord Chief Justice of England, and the ancestor of six Sir Thomas' who succeeded one another on the estate of Northampton without interruption. The last one died in 1506 leaving a daughter, Mathilda or Maude Greene, who married Sir Thomas Parr. Katherine Parr, the daughter of this Sir Thomas Parr and Mathilda or Maude Greene, was the sixth and last Queen of Henry VIII (1509-1547). At her death the estate passed to the Crown, but was restored t othe Greene's in 1550 by a grant from Edward VI (1547-1553) who gave it to his uncle, Katherine Parr's brother, Sir Thomas Parr. This Sir Thomas Parr was a Knight of the Garter.

Robert Greene, Gentleman of Bowridge Hill, Gillingham, County of Dorsetshire, England, was taxed on the subsidy rolls of Henry VIII in 1547 and those of Queen Elizabeth in 1558. (REF: papers from Mrs. William

Name

Sir Alexander de La Zouche, de Grene, 1st Lord of Boketon

Alexander de la Zouche

Birth

1181 Adene Monastery, France

Death

1236 Broughton, Northamptonshire, England

Sources

1. ↑ http://www.paintedhills.org/green_family.htm

• Clarke, Louise Brownell. The Greenes of Rhode Island (Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1903.) Page 22
• Hanaford, Mary Elisabeth Neal. Family Records of Branches of the Hanaford, Thompson, Huckins, Prescott, Smith, Neal, Haley, Lock, Swift, Plumer, Leavitt, Wilson, Green and Allied Families (Rockford, Ill., 1915) Page 264
• Families Directly Descended from All the Royal Families in Europe (495 to 1932) & Mayflower Descendants. Bound with Supplement: http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?f=sse&db=flhg-royalmayflowerdesc&h=427812&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt
• Wiltshire, England, Extracted Parish Records - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2001.Original data - Electronic databases created from various publications of parish and probate records.
• American Genealogical-Biographical Index, Godfrey Memorial Library, Middletown, CT, USA
• http://www.geni.com/people/Alexander-de-Grene-de-Boketon/6000000003086950599
• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=irisheyes&id=I10382
• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=irisheyes&id=I13890