When We Were English, Part LII

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Holymans during the Tudor Era....

Below is a family tree of the Cuddington, Buckinghamshire Holymans from John (d 1521) to Thomas (d 1558) and their siblings.  This important document was prepared by English professional genealogist Anne Holmes with information gathered from the original wills in the Buckinghamshire Archives in Aylesbury.  Click twice on the tree and it should enlarge.

In previous posts we have analysed the estates of John Holyman and his son, John Holyman, both landed farmers who, along with other branches of the family in the village of Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, were leading their generations to higher social and economic status.

These fathers and sons lived in a momentous period of English history during the reigns of Henry VIII (1509-1547), Edward VI (1547-1553) and Mary (1553-1558).  The Protestant Reformation and Henry's love life coincided to produce a revolution in the Roman Catholic Church in England.  The boy king Edward VI, all of nine years old, and his protectors, embraced the revised Christianity of Protestant Anglicanism, what is now known as the Church of England.  When his young life ended, his half sister, devout Roman Catholic Mary, daughter of Henry and Queen Catherine, attempted a Counter-Reformation. 

 

The Holyman family of Cuddington had as a member, The Rt. Rev. John Holyman, a conservative Roman Catholic, appointed Bishop of Bristol in 1554 by Mary Tudor's Cardinal Pole, and who served on the commission that found the discredited Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cramner, guilty of heresy.  Cramner, author of the famous Book of Common Prayer, was burned at the stake in Oxford.  Likewise, our relative, the fanatic Bishop John Holyman, oversaw the immolation for five Protestants during his time in Bristol before both he and Queen Mary died in 1558 of natural causes.

 

In early posts I have written extensively on Bishop John Holyman and his life.  As for now, let us begin an examination of the life of Thomas Holyman who died in the same year as his probable cousin or uncle, the ecclesiastical John, and the Tudor Queen known as 'Bloody Mary'.  Double click on the translation and it should enlarge.

 

  

Line 3 - Thomas Holyman dated his will as the fifth and sixth year of the reigns of King Phillip and Queen Mary Tudor.  This was a very controversial marriage in which the 38 year old Queen married the 27 year old Roman Catholic Spanish Prince Phillip, son of Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. 

 

Mary was doomed to disappointment as her husband found reasons to spend his time in the Spanish Netherlands rather than with her.  She endured a false pregnancy and died early, possibly of uterine cancer.  Most English leaders breathed a sigh of relief when her 25 year old Protestant sister, Elizabeth, succeeded her.  Phillip ceased to be King of England.

 

Ironically Elizabeth's brother-in-law, later King Philip II of Spain, sent his Armada to subdue Protestant England in 1588.  As every English school child knows, the invasion ended in a massive Spanish failure.  A soldier of Queen Elizabeth, who also died that year of 1588, a member of the Queen's Guard, was one of Thomas Holyman's sons - Christopher Holyman, whom I believe to be my 9th great grandfather!  As far as we know, Christopher died of natural causes and not in the war.

 

Line 4 - Thomas described himself as a yeoman, an upgrade socially and economically from the title 'husbandman' that his father and grandfather used to describe their status in life.

 

Lines 6 and 7 - This was a Roman Catholic person's Will.  Note the gifts to the altar of Mary, Mother of Jesus.  The next generation would see a reversion to Protestantism by most English persons, who must have felt religiously whip lashed  by their Tudor monarchs!

 

Lines 7 and 8 - Thomas Holyman asked to be buried in the church, not in the church yard as did his father and grandfather.  Only persons of status were buried under the physical nave or sanctuary.  So as Thomas was moving physically down to this grave, his surviving family was moving up socially!  Unfortunately for us, there is no memorial stone surviving for Thomas.

 

Above, yours truly discusses with family historian Peter Smith and his wife, Maureen, that the Holyman families for generations were baptized in this 13th Century font which rests in a side chapel of St. Nicholas Parish in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, England.  Thomas Holyman's remains may rest under the floor of this church. November 2012 photograph

 





There are countless books on the Tudor monarchs. Some that I have been utilizing for these articles include Carolly Erickson's The First Elizabeth (1983) and Bloody Mary (1978), Diarmaid MacCulloch's The Boy King, Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, Linda Porter's The First Queen of England, The Myth of Bloody Mary (2007) and Alison Weir's Henry VIII, King and Court.

ut your family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at of some of the more difficult to Yes, more on our Thomas Holyman and his family's social rise in the next post....


Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

 Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .

 
Let's save the past for the future! If you have photographs, letters, memorabilia or research you wish to share, please contact me directly at glennhistory@gmail.com. Several of us have an on-going program of scanning and preserving Holyman and related family records. Don't just let family's genealogical work or photographs languish unread and deteriorating in an attic. Write us please and tell us of your items. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you. - GNH

 

When We Were English, Part XVIIIL

by Glenn N. Holliman

Return to England, Part II

In the last post, I began to share the findings of my recent trip to England, and especially the research of professional genealogist Anne Holmes.  My thesis, which Ms. Holmes has endorsed, is that one John Holyman of Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, England (d 1521) was the father of John Holyman, same community (d 1533) and this Holyman was the father of Thomas Holyman, again Cuddington (d 1558).  One of Thomas's sons was Christopher Holliman (d 1588) of Sherington, Buckinghamshire.

It is my thesis that Christopher of Sherington was the father of Thomas Holyman of Bedford, Bedfordshire and the grandfather of Christopher Holyman, who died in Virginia in 1691, the founding father of almost all American Hollimans (and various spellings).  This is a long winded way of saying that John Holyman, d 1521, would be my 12th great grandfather!

We do not yet know the date of John Holyman of Cuddington's birth, but he died in 1521 leaving a will.  As a way of perspective Henry VIII, the great Tudor king, was 30 years old that year and still married to Catherine of Spain.  Henry would forsake his Roman Catholic allegiance to Rome in the 1530s, a decision that would shake the foundations of the country and the Holymans in particular. 

As Ms. Holmes observes, the Holymans were on the rise financially and socially in the 1500s.  One relation, another John Holyman, would be appointed Bishop of Bristol by Queen Mary Tudor, Henry's first daughter, in 1554.  Another ancestor, Christopher Holyman (d 1588 and 9th great grandfather of mine) would marry into the prominent Lee family of Hartwell House fame near Aylesbury.

We have the will of John Holyman (d 1521) which demonstrates the affluence of the expanding family.  We know Holymans had lived in Cuddington since at least the 1440s, and one did not leave a will unless one had wealth to pass on to descendants.

 John's will (below) is available on line at http://www.bucksvoice.net/brs/online-volumes/volumes-11-19/.  The will is found on two pages in E.M. Elvy's (pub. 1975) The Courts of the Archdeanonry of Buckinghamshire 1483-1523 in Vol. 19 of the Bucks Record Society.

What do we learn from this will? 

1. John asked to be buried in St. Nicolas parish cemetery.  It is safe to say his remains are some where in the photograph of the church yard in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire.  The memorials visible date from the late 18th and early to middle 19th Centuries and later, as few outside stones are legible before 1800. Pictured are the author, family historian Peter Smith and his wife, Maureen November 2012.

2. John left a bequest to the 'mother church' of the Diocese of Lincoln of which Cuddington belonged in the 16th Century.  Remember until the 1530s and the upheaval of Henry VIII's divorce, England was Roman Catholic.  However, a Reformation was sweeping western Europe and concerning matters of faith, much was about to change.

3. Daughter Isabell seems to be left only a pot and pan.  Household items were of great value in England at this time, and as later in the American colonies, were often included in wills.  One suspects Isabell was married and cared for by a husband.  Could that husband have been Sir Charles Ryly who was left a bushel of wheat?

4. Son William Holyman, while receiving some land, also inherited 'a grene pot'.  Anne Holmes, whom I sourcie throughout this article, suggests this may have actually been a grain vat, a large vessel or structure used in agricultural work.  Also William, evidently the second son, was left a 'messes', that is a messuage or a dwelling house with a 'yard land', a term for an area of land associated with a building, anywhere from 15 to 40 acres.

5. John Holyman, from whom American Hollimans reading this are descended, received the greater value of the farm land, being  two dwelling houses and two yard lands.

6.Wife Elyn, whose last name unfortunately is lost, received the residue of the worldly goods.

7. Note the witnesses - another Ryly, another 'sir' if you will, suggesting the deceased John enjoyed enhanced community status. Was Isabell the wife of Nicholas or Charles Ryly?  In addition to a John White, John Holyman, presumably my generation's 11th great grandfather, signed the will.   

To Ms. Holmes I owe a debt of continuing gratitude for her interpretations and explanation of the wording of the will.  More of her important insights in the next posts.

 

For a comprehensive listing of Holyman (Holliman and various spellings) ancestors in my 'branch of the tree', please click on the Family Lineage page in the upper right column of this Home page. 

 



 Next, the Will of John Holyman, 1533....