Elizabeth (Clere) Peyton (abt. 1475 - bef. 1546)

Born about 1475 in Ormesby, Norfolk, England

Ancestors

Wife of Robert Peyton — married before 1498 in England

Descendants

Died before 6 Apr 1546 before about age 71 in Isleham, Cambridgeshire, England

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Biography

Elizabeth was the daughter of Robert Clere^[1][2] of Ormesby, Norfolk and Agnes Hopton.^[3][4] Her birth date is uncertain and has been guesstimated, based on the about-1498 birth of her son Robert, and her having been married to a previous husband before she wed Robert's father..

Elizabeth married twice. Her first husband was John Bedingfield.^[3][4] Her paternal grandmother Elizabeth Uvedale, in her 1492 will, refers to her as Elizabeth Bedingfield.^[5][6]

After John Bedingfield's death she married Robert Peyton, son of Thomas Peyton^[2] and Joan Calthorpe.^[1][3][4] The place and date of this marriage are not known, but it was almost certainly before 1498 given her son Robert's probable birth year. They had the following children:

• Robert,^[1][2] said to be 20 in 1518 when his father died, suggesting a birth year of about 1498,^[3][4] and named as eldest child in his father's will, dated 18 March 1500/1^[7]
• John, who married Dorothy Tyndall^[1][2][3][4] and who is named as second son in his father's will^[7]
• Edward,^[1][3][4] named as third son in his father's will;^[7] he is not named in his mother's 1545 will,^[5] suggesting he may have died before then
• Elizabeth, named in her father's will,^[7] who married William Wigston^[1][3][4]
• Margaret, named in her father's will,^[7] who married Francis Jenney^[1][3][4] (the Harleian Society edition of the 1619-21 Kent Visitation gives her husband's last name as Idney^[2])

Robert Peyton died on 18 March 1517/8,^[3][4] appointing Elizabeth as one of his executors.^[7]

Elizabeth was left well off. In 1522 she contributed £140 to a loan (in practice, a compulsory levy) to the Crown:^[8] this was a large sum at the time.

Elizabeth probably died at Isleham, Cambridgeshire, where she and her second husband had their main residence and were buried.^[3][4] There is a memorial for her and her husband in the church.^[9][10] Her and her husband's arms featured in a church window, but this has not survived.^[11]

Her will, dated 21 November 1545, was proved on 6 April 1546. In it she:^[5]

• describes herself as of Isleham, Cambridgeshire, widow of Sir Robert Peyton
• requested burial in the tomb she had made for her husband in the church of Isleham
• named, among others:
  • her son Robert and his wife Frances
  • her son John and his wife Dorothy
  • her son[-in-law] Francis Jenny and his wife (Her daughter Margaret)
  • her son[-in-law] Wigston and his wife (her daughter Elizabeth)
  • her grandchildren John Peyton and Anne Peyton (children of her son Robert)
  • her godson Robert Peyton (probably Robert, son of her son Robert)
  • her godchildren Thomas Peyton and Elizabeth Peyton
  • her goddaughter Elizabeth Wigston (probably daughter of her daughter Elizabeth)
  • her cousin Anne Jarmyn (Anne (Drury) Jermyn)
• appointed as executors her sons Robert and John

Research Notes

First Marriage

Waters' Genealogical memoirs of the extinct family of Chester of Chicheley refers to suggestions that John Bedingfield was Elizabeth's second husband.^[9] This is disproved by her own will, in which she refers to herself as Elizabeth Peyton, late wife of Robert Peyton, and by the 1492 will of her grandmother Elizabeth Uvedale which gives her last name then as Bedingfield, confirming that she married someone with that last name before she married Robert Peyton.^[5][6]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6} John Fetherston (ed.). The Visitation of the County of Warwick in the year 1619, Harleian Society, 1877, p. 380, Internet Archive
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4} Robert Hovenden (ed.). The Visitation of Kent taken in the years 1619-1621, Harleian Society, 1898, p. 66, Internet Archive
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9} Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham, 2nd edition (Salt Lake City: the author, 2011), Vol. III, pp. 354-355, PEYTON 11
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9} Douglas Richardson. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City: the author, 2013), Vol. IV. p. 359, PEYTON 11
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3} The National Archives, ref. PROB 11/31/102, Discovery Centre catalogue entry; transcript on Oxford Shakespeare website, accessed 22 October 2023
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1} Francis Blomefield, 'East Flegg Hundred: Ormesby', in An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 11 (London, 1810), pp. 231-240, British History Online, accessed 22 October 2023
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5} The National Archives, ref. PROB 11/19/81, Discovery Centre catalogue entry; transcript on Oxford Shakespeare website, accessed 22 October 2023
8. ↑ 'Henry VIII: October 1522, 16-31', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 3, 1519-1523, ed. J S Brewer (London, 1867), pp. 1109-1122, British History Online, accessed 22 October 2023
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} Robert Edmond Chester Waters. Genealogical memoirs of the extinct family of Chester of Chicheley, Vol. I, Robson and Sons, 1878, pp. 206-209, Internet Archive
10. ↑ W A Copinger. The Manors of Suffolk, Vol. I, T Fisher Unwin, 1905, pp. 24-25, Internet Archive
11. ↑ A F Wareham and A P M Wright, 'Isleham: Churches', in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire) (London, 2002), pp. 445-452, British History Online, accessed 22 October 2023

Acknowledgements

Magna Carta Project

This profile was re-reviewed for the Magna Carta Project by Michael Cayley on 22 October 2023.

Elizabeth (Clere) Peyton appears in in trails badged in August 2015 by the Magna Carta Project, through his father, from Gateway Ancestor Robert Peyton, through his father, to Magna Carta Surety Barons William d'Aubigné and Robert de Ros and was later identified in badged trails to surety barons Richard de Clare, Gilbert de Clare, John de Lacy, and Saher de Quincy. All of these trails are set out in the Magna Carta Trails section of the Gateway's profile.

See Base Camp for more information about identified Magna Carta trails and their status. See the project's glossary for project-specific terms, such as a "badged trail".