March 2023 Newsletter ~ Magna Carta Project
Welcome New Member
Project Profile of the Month: William Skipwith
Team News
Did you know? ...
Welcome New Member Todd Whitesides, who joined the project on 1 February.
Project Profile of the Month: William Skipwith
William Skipwith was the subject of a complaint which shows the blunt nature of some official communications of the time of Henry VIII.
He was born into a Lincolnshire gentry family in about 1488, and made two marriages into other Lincolnshire gentry families. He also had at least two children out of wedlock. His career up to 1536 was perfectly respectable: he was a Justice of the Peace, served on official commissions, and was Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1526-7. He may have represented the county in Parliament in about 1533, and was knighted around that year.
Then, in October 1536, came a Catholic uprising in Lincolnshire, in protest against Henry VIII's religious policy. William - who was loyal to the government - had the misfortune to be captured by the rebels and was constrained by them to put his name to a list of their grievances. Within a few days he managed to get away, and formally submitted to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who was leading the forces quelling the uprising.
The adding of his name to the rebels' demands might have put a cloud on his career, but does not seem to have done so. The government must have been understanding of the circumstances: the next year, 1537, he was made a juryman for the trial of a leading rebel, and in 1539 he was chosen to represent Lincolnshire in the House of Commons, possibly for the second time. That year he was also granted a lease of property of a dissolved Lincolnshire abbey - another sign that he was trusted.
He already had an interest in that abbey, but it had been partially - and outspokenly - contested in 1536. Someone called Thomas Edgare wrote to Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, to complain about William greedily laying claim to his crops. Here is part of the forthright wording: "I would to God the said Master Skipwith his belly and guts were stuffed with all the tithe corn this year gathered in sheaves as it is on the said parsonage, and then I trust he would once rest of craving; for he hath the whole abbey, and yet he would have my said corn besides." It is hard to imagine any formal complaint today being in that sort of language.
Team News
The Admin & Maintenance Team has updated all of the descendant category pages for the surety barons, which now include links to all Gateway Ancestors that Base Camp lists as being in a completed trail to that baron. See the Index of Surety Barons to Gateway Ancestors for links to surety barons and category pages for their descendants.
Did you know? ... that WikiTree will be doing livecasts from RootsTech 2-4 March? Check out this G2G post.
