The Burkes and the Burghs

+7 votes
174 views

Burke's Extinct tells the sad story of how Sir Thomas Burgh jr married Elizabeth Owen, but she bestowed her affections on another.  Her kids weren't his, and were declared bastards by a Parliament with nothing better to do.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aU9jAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA99

We're then told that Sir Thomas married Alice and had some kids of his own, including his heir William.  The book goes on to say that William's son Thomas was summoned to Parliament from 1563.

Other sources disagree about the 2nd marriage.  The father, Thomas sr, died in 1550 and his successor William is said to be his younger son, not his grandson.  This line is followed by Cokayne

https://dcms.lds.org/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE83371 (Big PDF download)

This William married Katherine Clinton and had Henry (killed in a duel), Thomas (heir) and John.  John has a memorial in Westminster Abbey, in very non-Tudor language, which says who his parents were and says he died in 1594 at age 52 ("fighting the enemy", though really it was another duel.)

This would imply that Thomas was born before 1542, which fits with the writs of summons from Jan 1563.

The only fly in this ointment is that their mother's admon was dated 1622.  But sometimes these things could be delayed.

But by the time Vicary Gibbs was doing the 2nd edn, it was known that there wasn't any delay - the lady was buried in 1621.

http://www.archive.org/stream/completepeerageo02coka#page/422/mode/2up

Which makes it unlikely that she was having sons in 1541-42.  However, the alleged writs to Thomas from 1563 were bogus.  Dugdale had evidently spotted there was something wrong, and supposed that they must have been sent to William really, but he was miscalled Thomas.  In fact William lived until 1584 and Thomas was only 26 then.

So now we're left with the puzzle of how William's heir Thomas born around 1557 has a younger brother John born in 1542.

Anybody got the Complete Peerage 2nd edn additions and corrections volume?

WikiTree profile: William Burgh
in Genealogy Help by Living Horace G2G6 Pilot (633k points)
The note in CP blames Dugdale's 'trusted assistant' - and John is certainly a mystery! Who are G.B. and M.P. in the signature at the bottom of the memorial?
Obviously fans.  Possibly not descendants, as they don't mention any wife and kids.

1 Answer

+3 votes

I reviewed the CP Corrections volume XIV in the reading room & there's no corrections for Burgh regarding your question.

Volume IV has many Peerage Cases in Appendix H along with  list of the peerage titles which were called out of abeyance. In 1916, three coheirs of Burgh, Cobham (of Kent) and Strablogi petitioned together and the resolution on Burgh on pp. 745-747 granted it to Lt. Col. Alexander Henry Leith. The Burgh case and explicitly Strablogi, along with later note from G.E.C  about Abeyance in general seems to indicate that in his editors opinion that these were two examples of ancient honours by writ that never actually existed.

by Kirk Hess G2G6 Mach 7 (72.0k points)
More CP correction proposals here: http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/cp/
That's great, thanks!
Many thanks for the lookups.  Makes it hard to know what to do with them.  We know we haven't got the truth but we don't know which bit isn't true.

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