Elizabeth (Fiske) Barnard (1558)

Born 1558 in Suffolk, England

Ancestors

Died [date unknown] in England

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Biography

Elizabeth was the daughter of Robert and Sybil Gold Fiske; she was baptised at either Fressingfield or South Elmham Saint James ca 1558. She married Robert Barnard "of Custrich Hall" in Warley, Essex. ^[1]

86.' v. ELIZABETH, b. in England; m. Robert Bernard. It will be remembered that Robert and Sybil Fiske, of whom their descendants were accustomed to speak with respect as Protestant confessors in the reign of Queen Mary, had beside the four sons a daughter Elizabeth, who married Robert Bernard, who was a farmer of the estate of Custrick Hall, in Wecky, County Essex, which he held of Sir Edward Coke, the lord chief justice. And, having mentioned this marriage, Candler brings before us a genealogical fact of great curiosity and importance. It is that a daughter of this Bernard married a Locke, and was the mother of John Locke, who writing about 1660, he describes simply as "John Locke, M.A."

Very little is know of Locke's father, but, any one who has written on his life has not had the slightest knowledge of the mother to whom we owe this eminent man. The mother of Locke was brought up among the more zealous Puritans of the Counties of Essex and Suffolk, and heard from her infancy stories of religious persecutions. She must have seen near connections of her family leaving their native homes to find, as they supposed, security and peace in a distant land, and the feeling thus engendered in her mind we may easily believe to have been communicated to her son, who in due time became the great defender of the principles of the utmost tolerance in dealing with men in force of conscience and religious opinion.

This is a digression, but perhaps it will not be unacceptable to see the name of so illustrious a person now for the first time placed in public in family connection with so may of the --; Puritan settlers in New England. Bernard stood in the relation of great-uncle to Candler, who records the facts which I have not brought from their hiding place, and to all the Fiskes who laid the foundation of the families of that name in the New England states. John Locke (grandson of Robert Fiske), English philosopher, was born at Wrington, Somersetshire, Aug. 29, 1632, died at Oates, a country seat in Essex, Oct. 28, 1704. The moderate inheritance of his family was considerably reduced during the civil wars, in which his father was a parliamentary captain.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Moriarty, G. Andrews. "Genealogical Research in England. The Fiske Family. "New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 88, 1934. Page 267.(Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2018.) https://www.americanancestors.org/DB202/i/11709/267/23521867
2. ↑ Fiske and Fisk family : being the record of the descendants of Symond Fiske, lord of the manor of Stadhaugh, Suffolk County, England, from the time of Henry IV to date, including all the American members of the family (1896)" https://archive.org/details/fiskefiskfamilyb00pier p.40