John Wise Esq. (1429 - 1505)

Born 1429 in Sydenham House, Marystowe Parish, Devon, England

Ancestors

Husband of Thomasine (Fulford) Wise — married 1463 in Sydenham, Damerel Parish, Lifton Hund., Devon, England

Descendants

Died 30 Nov 1505 at about age 76 in Mount Wise, Sydenhma Damerel Parish, Devon, England

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John Wise, Esq. of Sydenham, Devonshire, England, was born in 1429 at his father's manor of Sydenham in Marystowe Parish, county of Devon, in southwestern England. He was the son and heir of Thomas Wise and his wife Margaret Britt, b. in 1404, daughter and heir of Robert Britt (aka Robert Brett), a wealthy landowner at Stottiscombe, in the county of Devon. Margaret is said to have died in 1429, obviously from complications surrounding her only son's birth.

Margaret (Britt) Wise, however, because she was a rich heiress, played a key role in her son's good fortune as he inherited a large estate in the parish of Stoke Damerel from her, near to the city of Plymouth. When he came of age, he built an impressive manor house there and named it "Mount Wise;" it became the seat of the Wise family for the next 150 years. The parish was renamed "Sydenham Damerel" in honor of the family's earlier seat.

John Wise, Esquire, married Thomasine Fulford, b. 1444 at Great Fulford, Devonshire, in 1463. She was the daughter of Sir Baldwin Fulford a celebrated knight and Crusader (1443-1444) who had been the Vice Admiral of England under King Henry VI. He was ambushed and killed in 1461 when Henry VI, of the House of Lancaster, was deposed by King Edward IV of the House of York, in an early stage of the civil war known as "The War of the Roses," that raged for 3 decades in the mid-late 15th Century in Britain.

Thomasine and John Wise had 2 children:^[1]

1. Alicia Wise, b. ca. 1466; m. John Russell, Esq., b. 1452. Their son John Russell was later named the 1st Earl of Bedford^[2]
2. Oliver Wise, b. ca. 1468; m. Margaret Tremayne ^[3]

Sir John Wise managed to retain his lands and positions during this very turbulent period of English politics as the Houses of Lancaster and York fought for the crown. He died around 1505, shortly after Henry Tudor vanquished and killed the hunchbacked King Richard III (of York) in 1489 at the Battle of Bosworth, becoming King Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch of England. His wife also died in 1505, according to at least one family genealogy. ^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ "A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain ...", Volume 1, by Sir Bernard Burke & Ashworth Peter Burke. A Google book.
2. ↑ [1]
3. ↑ The Visitations of the County of Devon: Volume 1, pg. 791, ed.: John Lambrick Vivian. A Google book.
4. ↑ The Keller Family Tree - Thomasine Fulford

See also:

• "Our Royal Titled Noble & Commoner Ancestors " - John Wyse Research by Martyn Lewis, Portland, Oregon.