Establishing a line from John Welles-65 to Cecily York-1253

Question

I am posting this on behalf of Mr Tim Leahy (Leahy-637) who wrote to the England Project asking us to link his direct line back to Cecily of York (York-1253).

We are in agreement with Mr Leahy's line from him to John Wells/Welles-65 (an England Project Managed Profile), but we are having difficulty creating the line back from there to Cecily.

Here is what he sent us [My additions in square brackets]:

Cecily York, Princess of England 1469-1507 Daughter of Edward IV, King of England (York) [ York-1253 her second husband was John, 1st Viscount Welles,  Welles-194]

Sir Robert de Welles (paternity unresolved) 1484-1558 [no Wikitree profile, I have been unable to find any information about him]

Thomas Wells, père, Baron Welles of Stourton 1512-1558 [There is a Thomas Wells/Welles who lived in the parish of Stourton with the same dates on Wikitree, Welles-43, he was formerly attached as a father for Welles-65, but disconnected by the England Project due to lack of evidence]

John J. Wells 1537-1618 [Welles-65 of Ringstead, Northampton - no middle name on Wikitree]

Isabel Wells 1565-1635 [Wells-166 - she emigrated to New England after the death of her husband Simon Tuttle. This profile is managed by the PGM Project. The links between Isabel, her father John and husband Simon are confirmed by the wills of John and Simon.]

I would be grateful for any assistance in finding sourced evidence for the line as given, or any alternative pathway. In particular, evidence is sought for the existence of Sir Robert de Welles, who on FindAGrave has a wife Elizabeth or Alice Goodrich - parents given as Baronet William Edward Goodrich and Lady Jane (Williamson) Goodrich. The title of baronet must be mistaken as these only started to be created by 1611, but there may be something to work on there.

Cecily's profile is also far from complete - she had at least two daughters who died young by John Welles, and two other husbands who need research.

I will be around intermittently this weekend to reply to comments. 

Many thanks, Jo, England Project Managed Profiles

Answer 1

Robert de Welles is not the son of John Welles, 1st Viscount Welles.  I would call this a long disproved line.

From my notes with a little history thrown in:
John Welles, 10th Lord Welles and 1st Viscount Welles.  He was a younger son of Lionel Welles, 6th Lord Welles by his second wife Margaret Beauchamp.  The 7th Lord Wells was his older half brother, Richard.  Richard’s son succeeded as Robert, 8th Lord Welles who died without issue (beheaded after being captured in battle 19 March 1469/70).  Robert was succeeded by his sister Joan, 9th Baroness Welles.  On her death shortly before March 1474/75, John Welles should have become Lord Welles at this point, but his nephew Robert, 8th Lord Welles was retrospectively attainted for treason with all lands and titles forfeited.  In 1483, he took part in the rebellion of Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke Buckingham.  The goal originally was to depose Richard III, and restore Edward V to the throne.  Edward V was the brother of John Welles’ eventual wife Cicely of York and one of the infamous Princes of the Tower (said to have been murdered by Richard III in the Tower of London}.  On the failure of the rebellion he fled to Brittany, and he too was subsequently attained by parliament and stripped of all lands.  However, while in exile he provided good service to the crown in several overseas adventures and returned to England in the company of Henry Tudor, the future king Henry VII.  Henry VII married Cicely’s sister, Elizabeth of York.  In 1485, he was knighted by Henry Tudor near Milford Haven and subsequently his attainder was reversed and he was restored to all lands and titles including that of Lord Welles which had originally been lost by his nephew.  He was also in 1485 created Viscount Welles.  He was nominated as Knight of the Garter in 1486.  He married Cicely of York between Nov. 1487 and Jan. 1487/88.  In 1488, he was granted all of the lands of Lord Lovel, and in 1492 the castles of Caerleon and Usk.

John Welles and Cicely of York (or Plantagenet if you like) had 2 daughters.

Elizabeth affianced (by papal dispensation) to Thomas Stanley, 2nd Earl of Derby in 1498 but she died that year without issue before the marriage could take place.

Ann who died young and in the lifetime of her father.

He died without issue surviving 9 Feb. 1498/99 at St. Sithes Lane, London and was buried in Westminster Abbey.  He left a will dated the day before his death 8 Feb. 1498/99 in which he left everything to his wife.   On his death the title of Viscount Welles became extinct and the title of Lord Welles fell into abeyance.

As you can see, John Welles, 10th Lord Welles certainly did not have a surviving legitimate son – he would have been heir to a large amount of lands and titles.  Even an illegitimate son would have greater land holdings than the Welles of Whichford, Warwickshire.  No children at all are mentioned in his will. There is no known connection between the Lord Welles and Robert of Whichford.  Also, Robert is a possible but not proven father of Thomas Welles of Whichford.

I don’t think anything has improved upon the detailed study of "The English Ancestry of Gov. Thomas Welles of Connecticut," by Lemuel Aiken Welles ''NEHGR'' 1926 vol. 80 p. 279-305.

Comments

Thanks Joe - is there anywhere where that article by Lemeuel Aiken Welles can be read online?

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There was a typo in the reference which is now fixed (year 1926, not 1929).

If you can't find it elsewhere, the article was reproduced in full here:

https://archive.org/details/knowlesfamilyofe00libb/page/n149/mode/2up?q=thomas+welles

I have also found it on ancestry.com and AmericanAncestors.org.

Note that this line is trying to tie in the Welles family of Ringstead, Northamptonshire to the Welles family of Whichford, Warckshire - this is also incorrect.  Specifically, John Welles-65 of Ringstead was not a son of Thomas Welles-43 of Whichford.  The will of Thomas Welles along the administration of his estate, and a complex lawsuit which details the family connections all exist - Thomas did not have a son John.

Thomas Welles-43 is not proven to be the son of Robert Welles-114.  It is just a possibility based on the dates being right.

Robert Welles-114 is definitely not a son of John, 1st Viscount Welles-194 as explained above.

Essentially this line is broken at every single generation.

For modern professional research on the family see: 
Mathews, Barbara Jean. The Descendants of Governor Thomas Welles of Connecticut and his Wife Alice Tomes, Volume 1, 3rd Edition (Connecticut: Welles Family Association, 2015).  http://tinyurl.com/otk5wwx  Incorporates and supersedes all previous work on the family. 180, 214, 254

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Thanks Joe - the link to the article on archive.org is very useful (unfortunately the pages from 291 onwards are lost from this scanning!). The village of Whichford which contained the parish church is only 4 miles from Burmington (the land involved in the Chancery case). The hamlet of Stourton which is given as the birth and death place of Thomas Welles-43 is halfway between the two, and was originally in the parish of Whichford.

Answer 2

The Wikitree profile for existing father of Thomas Welles-43 is Robert Welles-114 said to born 1485 and with no death date. On examination this profile has previously had a link as the son of Cecily York-1253.

Comments

Asserting that Robert de Welles is not the son of Sir John Welles, KG, 1st Viscount Welles does not move the issue forward.  There is no doubt that Sir John is not his birth father.  What is not in dispute is that Robert de Welles is the son of Princess Cicely.  Linking Robert to John Wells (1537-1618) does not turn on his being related by blood to Sir John but, rather, linking John Wells to Thomas Welles, Baron Welles of Stourton (1515-1558), who appears to have been accepted as the son of Robert.  If that link is established, the connection to Princess Cicely is confirmed. Googling John Wells will elicit links both to the son of Thomas and to the mystery John in the Wikkitree profile. Both were born the same year in Ringstead and both died there on 25 March 1618.  If anyone can access the death records in Ringstead, it might show John's parents; or, alternatively, that of Robert -- or his will --  which might give names and dates of birth of his children.  (According to findagrave.com, Robert is buried St. Michael's, Whichford, Stratford-on-Avon District, Warwickshire, England.)

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"Asserting that Robert de Welles is not the son of Sir John Welles, KG, 1st Viscount Welles does not move the issue forward." 

It is pretty much the entire issue.

"There is no doubt that Sir John is not his birth father.  What is not in dispute is that Robert de Welles is the son of Princess Cicely. "

Absolutely not.  There is no evidence that Cicely of York had any surviving children (outside of one pedigree which is unsupported by any primary evidence).  I really have no idea how you can claim Robert de Welles is not a son of John Welles but is a son of Cicely.  It makes no sense, and more importantly there is no evidence to support it.  If you are conceding that Robert was not a son of John Welles, then he also cannot be a son of Cicely.

"Linking Robert to John Wells (1537-1618) does not turn on his being related by blood to Sir John but, rather, linking John Wells to Thomas Welles, Baron Welles of Stourton (1515-1558), who appears to have been accepted as the son of Robert.  If that link is established, the connection to Princess Cicely is confirmed."

Thomas Welles was not Baron Welles of Stourton – no such title exists.  We know next to nothing about Robert Welles of Stourton.  We know a Robert Welles was taxed in Stourton in 1523 on goods valued at 40s.  That’s it.  Nothing else.  Thomas was not and is not accepted as the son of Robert.  It has been suggested that he could be the father of Thomas Welles who was taxed in Stourton in 1542 based solely on the dates being about a generation apart.  But there are no wills, no baptisms and no court records connecting the two men.  You are saying that the grandson of Edward IV, a son Princess Cicely, and a 1st cousin of Henry VIII went unrecorded in the primary records, and lived in complete obscurity.

"Googling John Wells will elicit links both to the son of Thomas and to the mystery John in the Wikkitree profile. Both were born the same year in Ringstead and both died there on 25 March 1618." 

Googling will bring up no links to evidence based on primary records.  Thomas Welles of Stourton did not have a son John born in Ringstead.  He did not have a son John at all.  The administration of his estate in 1558 shows that he had two children, Robert and Ann who were then under age 21.  There is no connection between the Welles family of Stourton and the Welles family of Ringstead.

"If anyone can access the death records in Ringstead, it might show John's parents; or, alternatively, that of Robert -- or his will --  which might give names and dates of birth of his children.  (According to findagrave.com, Robert is buried St. Michael's, Whichford, Stratford-on-Avon District, Warwickshire, England.)"

Again unsupported by actual evidence.  The earliest burial of a Robert Welles in Whichford was on 29 July 1560.  It is unlikely this is the same Robert Welles who was paying taxes in 1523, though it is possible.  No will for a Robert Welles exists in this time period.

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Thank you for pointing out that "Thomas Welles was not Baron Welles of Stourton  – no such title exists." Where I found that title, I do not know but Thomas is not listed as a Baron Welles (from anywhere).  I've deleted the title from my tree.  

Wikkipedia writes: "Some time in December 1487 John married Princess Cecily of York, the daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, making him a member of the Royal Family. Princess Cecily of York was born on 20 March 1469 in Westminster, England and died on 24 August 1507 either on the Isle of Wight or at Hatfield. The apparent aim of Henry VII was to reward his uncle for loyalty and keep Cecily from marrying a more ambitious man. John and Cecily had three children,Robert Welles (1484-1558) Elizabeth Welles (c. 1489–1498) and Anne Welles (c. 1491–c.1499)." [emphasis provided]

I do not remember where I read that Sir John disavowed paternity of Robert but, given that (a) he married Cicely three years after Robert's birth and (b) Cicely was previously married sometime after 12 October 1482, which marriage "was dissolved sometime in 1486".  It makes more sense for Robert to be Cicely's son by her first marriage than the son of a man she married three years after his birth; see: https://alt.talk.royalty.narkive.com/JXkYgQCg/cecily-plantagenet-s-marriage-to-ralph-scrope-revised-post

familypedia.wikia.org records Cicely as having a son Robert (by Sir John).  geni.com attributes to her a son Robert but via her third husband, Thomas Kyme, and gives no date of birth, whereas other sources say that she had no children by her third husband.  Curiously, findagrave.com attributes no children to her but records Robert as being the son of Sir John.

I suspect that if anyone has insight into the event giving rise to Sir John's disavowing paternity of Robert, there would be confirmation that Cicely was his mother but he was either born out-of-wedlock or to a marriage Henry VII demanded be dissolved.  Either scenario would explain why Robert remains a somewhat shadowy figure.

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Wikipedia is not a source for this.  I would also point out that the page for Cecily says, "Cecily had two children: Elizabeth and Anne Welles, who both died young and unmarried."

The same post by Douglas Richardson that you linked to regarding her first marriage says, "In summary, it appears that Cecily Plantagenet married sometime in 1485 to Ralph Scrope of Upsall. The marriage was evidently brief and childless. It was dissolved sometime in 1486."

A son by Roger Scrope and Cecily would never be called Robert Welles.  He would of course be Robert Scrope.  Step-children did not take their new father's name.

You need to take a step back and ask, is there any contemporary evidence that either John Welles or his wife Cecily of York had a son Robert?  The answer is no, as this whole thing is internet fantasy.

Answer 3

Hello, Just a brief note to say that Cecily did have two children with her husband Mr. Kyme who survived her and did not die childless after her daughters of her second marriage died. They where Richard and Margaret Kyme (or varient spelling) and each married and left just one recorded daughter each. The source data for this is at the College of Arms and is contemporary to Cecily's lifetime and beyond when the Heralds such as 'Dragon Rouge Persuant' in this case would visit known gentry and aristocratic families at interval to update details over the years and update genealogical records.

The Royal College of Arms is stated to have record of the descendants of Cecily's children for a century or so after her death in 1505. That is roughly contemporary to the start of the reign of James VI in 1603, her distant 3x great nephew twice over I make it.

The issue of a child named Robert also attributed variously to her second and third husband is an odd one and not fully explained yet. One romance-history writer Philippa Gregory has suggested she had an early illegitimate child but this is unlikely as she would have been well guarded as the niece and daughter of two kings. We'll have to see what evidece perhaps turns up in the future. I do think it is possible the Wells family was large and two different distant branches may have been confused here.

Comments

See this discussion on soc.genealogy.medieval regarding Cecily and possible children by Thomas Kyme:

C.P. Addition: Thomas Kyme, Esq., husband of Cecily Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward IV 

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Thank you.