Thomas St Aubyn I (abt. 1455)

Ancestors

Descendants

Biography

Thomas's year of birth is just an approximate guess.

The St. Aubyn ancestry has been badly scrambled by 19th-century secondary sources.

It appears that Geffrey St. Aubyn married Elizabeth Kemyell (d. 1400), heir to Clowance and Helegan, in 1380^[1]; but this marriage has been "shifted" by several sources to the 15th century, while stating that Geffry was the son of Guy St Aubyn who married Alice Sergeaux and died shortly thereafter, around 1405 (giving the early St. Aubyns of Clowance a descent from King Edward I). However, at this point there seems to be no evidence that this particular Guy had any children, or that he was of Clowance.

Geffrey II St. Aubyn of Clowance, presumably son or grandson of the earier Geffrey, married Alice, heir of John Tremere of Tremere in Lanivet, sometime in the 15th century. However, "Tremere of Tremere, in Lanivet,--Ended in the male line, by the death of John Tremere, in the latter part of the fourteenth century. One of his daughters and co-heiresses, was married to St. Aubyn, and died in 1400. Arms--Argent, three reaphooks, their bows conjoined in fess, sable.^[2]

Presumably this second Geffrey was the father or grandfather of Thomas St Aubyn of Clowance, who married Maude Trenouth (1456-1512).

There are monuments for each of these three couples in the parish church at Crowan, together with monuments for several later generations of St. Aubyn couples of Clowance.^[3]

The St. Aubyn lineage in Betham's Baronetage (1802) has several errors. Two stand out: both Guy (#2) and Geffrey (#3) are identified as the sheriff of Cornwall in 1399. Also, Piers Kymyell (grandfather, not father of Elizabeth who married Geffrey St. Aubyn), married the daughter and coheir of Richard Helegan, not Richard Sergeaux. Vivian's Visitations of Cornwall gives a different origin for this family, and separates Richard Sergeaux from the Clowance branch of the St. Aubyns, but maintains the impossible chronology of Betham's Baronetage (p. 424), which is quoted below:

"From Guy de St. Aubyn, a younger brother of St. Aubyn, or, as they have sometimes spelt their name, St. Albyn, of Alfoxton, in Somersetshire, who settled in Cornwall...

"2. Guy, his son and heir (afterwards knighted) was sheriff of Cornwall, 22 Rich. II [1399].

"3. Geffrey St. Aubyn, brother of John, was high sheriff of Cornwall in 22 Ric. II [1399] and living 1 Henry IV [1400]... He married Elizabeth, daughter of Piers Kymyel, of Clowance, in Cornwall, (and of ----, his wife, daughter and coheiress of Sir Richard Sergeaux, Knt. sheriff of Cornwall 12 Richard I) and left one son,

"4. Geffrey, who enjoyed his father's inheritance 5 Henry VI [1427] and having married Alice, daughter and co-heir of John Tremere, left one son,

"5. Thomas, who flourished 5 Edw. 4 [1465] and married Matilda, second daughter and co-heiress of John Trenowith, of Fentongalleth, in Cornwall, Esq., by whom he had one son,

"6. Thomas, who was high sheriff of Cornwall, 37 Henry VIII [1547].."^[4]

It seems impossible that a man who was an adult in 1465 could be the father of a man who was sheriff in 1547.

Sources

1. ↑ Clowance, which reads: "Clowance is an estate at the centre of Crowan Parish.... The St Aubyn family owned Clowance for many years and six of them were also Sheriffs of Cornwall. In 1380 Geoffrey St Aubyn was married and some time afterwards was granted a licence for a chapel at Clowance."
2. ↑ Charles Sandoe Gilbert, An Historical Survey of the County of Cornwall, Vol. 2, Part 1, p. 206.
3. ↑ A Bibliographical Account of the Principal Works Relating to English Topography: v. 2. Middlesex - Nottinghamshire (Google eBook), by William Upcott (1818), p. 93.
4. ↑ Betham's Baronetage of England (1802) vol. 2 (google book), pp. 424-25

Acknowledgments

Thank you to John Schmeeckle for Aubyn-9 creating St Aubyn-9 on 16 Dec 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by John and others.