Ulcombe, Ireland and the St. Legers

ULCOMBE, IRELAND AND THE ST. LEGERS By RIOHARD c. STONE, B.A. THE family of St. Leger, seated at tncombe since the Conquest, produced in the sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries a number of administrators and soldiers who played notable parts in Anglo-Irish history. Of these the most distinguished by far was Sir Anthony St. Leger, K.G. (11496-1559), who is commemorated as follows on a mural tablet in the north chapel ofUlcombe church: SIR .ANTHONY SENTLIGER KNIGHT OF THE MOST HONOR.ABLE ORDER OF TRE GARTER, GENTLEMAN OF THE !'RIVIE CKAM.BER .AND EM:PLOYD IN MOST HONOR.ABLE OFFICES VNDER THE MOST RENOWNED HENRY THE EIGHT A.ND EDW.A.RD TRE SIXT lUNGES, TWICE LORD DEl'VTY OF IRELAND BY WHOSE lt'iEA.NES IN ms ll'IBST GOVERNMENT THJll NOBILITIE AND COMMONS THERE WERE INDVCED BY GENER.ALL AND FREE CONSENT TO GEVE VNTO HENRIE THE EIGHT KING OF ENGLAND IN THAT PROVINCE .ALLSO REGALIA IVRA THE TITLE AND SCEPTER OF KmGE TO HIM AND HIS POSTERITIE FOR EVER WHOSE l'RAEDEOESSORS BEFORE WERE ENTITVLED ONLY LORDES OF IRELAND THIS GR.AV E OOVNCELLOVR AFTER THIS COVRSE OF LIFE SPENT IN THE SERVICE OF THIES TWO RARE AND REDOVBTED XINGES RA YING ENDVRED NEVERTHELESS SOME CROSSES IN THE TYMl!J OF QVEENE MARY .AND YET LIVING TO SEE THE FOELIOIOVS RAIGNE OF OVlt PRESENT PEERLESS QVEENE ELIZABETlt DEPART.ED ANNO SALVTIS 1559 AGED .A.BOUT 63 YEARES Before proceeding to Irish affairs, it will be best to outline briefly the earlier history of the St. Legers, and to note in passing some of their monuments. 'According to tradition', Sir Robert St. Leger supported the hand of the Conqueror when he stepped ashore in England; he later took up his abode at tncombe. Radulph St. Leger fought under Richard I at Acre; three brothers St. Leger were knighted by Edward I for chivalry at Oaerla.verock (1300). Of these Sir Ralph had received under Henry ID the grant of a weekly market at Ulcombe and of a fair to be held on November 1st and the two days following.l Another Ralph was summoned to Parliament in 1344, and his son Sir Arnold in 1376. The latter's younger brother Thomas St. Leger is commemorated by a. fine brass (1408) in Otterden church. 1 R. Furley, History of the Weald of ICent, vol. II (i) (1874), 54. 111 R.C. STONE Presumably, Geoffrey St. Leger, Bishop of Ossory, under whom Kilkenny Cathedral was completed in the years after 1260, was a, member of the family. If so, this was an early and isolated connection with Ireland. John St. Leger, Sheriff of Kent in 1431, married Margery, daughter of James Donnett, of Rainham. The memorial of this James Donnett is a brass inscription (1409) in Rainham church;2 that of John is the brass of a man in armour of the Lancastrian period which is mounted on a board in the north aisle of Ulcombe church.2 (The inscription is missing.) John St. Leger died in 1442, leaving four sons. The eldest, Ralph, was appointed by Edward IV Constable of Leeds Castle in 1470, and died in the same year. His brass is a singularly fine one, and the best of the monuments at Ulcombe. He is shown in armour of the utmost weight and elaboration, his head resting on a helmet bearing the crest of the St. Legers, a griffin passant or. (Their arms, Azure fretty argent, a chief or, may be seen in medieval glass in the east window of the north chapel at Ulcombe and in one of the nave windows at Nettlestead.) His wife Anne (nee Prophete) is depicted in butterfly head-dress and a very low-cut gown. The inscription reads: Orate pro aiabus Radu'f;phi Sentleger Armigeri et Anne uxoris sue qui quide Radulphus obiit undecimo die mensis NovemJJris Anno Dni Millio OOOOlxxO. Quor animabus ppiciet' de' Amen.* Anne married as her second husband John Elmbrigge and reappears on their brass at Merstham, Surrey (1473).2 Her third husband was Sir William Peche, but his brass at Lullingstone (1487) shows her not although she survived him. Ralph's brother Sir Thomas reached the peak of social eminence in marrying Anne, sister of King Edward IV, but having participated with other Kentish notabilities-especially the Woodvilles of the Motein Buckingham's unsuccessful rising against Richard III, he was executed in 1483. His daughter Anne married Sir George Manners and was ancestress of the Dukes of Rutland. * Translat ion of inscription to Ralph St. Leger, 1470. Orate pro a(n)i(m)abus Radulphi Sentleger .Armigeri et Anne uxoris sue qui quide(m) Radulphus obiit Undecimo die mensis Novembris Anno D(omi)ni Mill(es)i(m)o CCCCixx0 Quor(urn) .Animabus p(ro)pioiet(ur) de(us) Amen. Pray for the souls of Ralph St. Leger Esquire and Anne his wife whioh ao.id Ralph died Eleventh day of month of November A,D, 1470 whose aouls may God pardon Amen. 1 R. Griffin and Mill Stephenson, List of M1mumentai B'fasses remaininu in the Oount;y of Kent (1922). 112 ULCOMBE, IRELAND A.J.'ID THE ST. LEGERS James, the fourth brother, married Ann, daughter and heiress of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormonde. Her sister Margaret married Sir William Boleyn and was the grandmother of Anne Boleyn-another royal connection. Through his wife Sir James became possessed of Annery in Monkleigh in Devon,3 where he is commemorated by another brass (1509). His son Sir George was Sheriff of Devon tempo 22 Henry VIII, but the grandson Sir John sold Annery. Ralph's heir was another Ralph, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Hawte, of Ightham Moat, and was Sheriff of Kent in 1503. Their eldest surviving son was Sir Anthony, the Lord Deputy of Ireland. Sir Anthony St. Leger was born probably in 1496; at the age of twelve he was sent 'to get grammar learning' in Italy. According to the Dictionary of National Biography, he was agent of Cromwell 'in the demolition of suppressed abbeys'. (His own brother Arthur was Prior of Leeds 1528, acknowledged the royal supremacy in 1534 and, probably well knowing the way the wind was blowing, resigned in favour of Thomas Day, who surrendered the Priory in 1540. No-one can have been surprised when the site and buildings with 323 acres were demised by the Crown to Anthony in the same year. Arthur died as the non-resident Rector of Hollingbourne and was buried there on 22nd May, 1569.)4 St. Leger rose into high favour at Court, and in 1537 was placed at the head of a commission 'for the ordre and establishment to be taken and made touching the hole state of our lande of 􀃙eland'. He arrived in Dublin on 8th September, 1537. After travelling extensively in the Pale, in Tipperary and elsewhere, he reported that Ireland was much easier to be won than to be retained, 'for onelesse it be peopled with others than be there alredy and ·also certain fortresses there buylded and warded, if it be gotten the one daye it is loste the next' (State Papers Henry 8, ii 534, vide D.N.B.). In 1539, Anthony was knighted, escorted Anne of Cleves on her journey to England to marry Henry VIII, and became Sheriff of Kent. Since the discovery of the New World, the strategic importance of Ireland had increased, and with the establishment of a strong centralized government under the Tudors it was inevitable that an attempt would be made to bring the country under more effective English control. At first Henry VIII tried like his predecessors to rule through the great Anglo-Irish nobles, but in the 1530's, after troubles with the Fitzgeralds, Earls of Kildare, whose family had provided several viceroys, English Lords Deputy were appointed in the persons first of Skeffington and then of Lord Leonard Grey. The latter was recalled early in 1540 to face several charges, including one of conniving at the escape of an important Fitzgerald prisoner. a Riadon, Sur•vey of Devon (1811 edition), 276. 'J. Cove Brown, The St(Y("y of Hollirigbourne, (1890), 60. 113 I = Ralph St. Leger j summoned to Parliament 1344 I Sir Arnold= summoned to Parliament 1376 I Ralph= I Sir John T Margery, dau. and heiress d. 1442 of James Donnett Thomas of= Juliana, dau. and Otterden I heiress of Nicholas Pot),1 d. 1408 Joan = Henn• Aucher (or ?.Iary) I Anne, dau. of= l Ralph Bartholomew = Blanche, dau. .John Prophete d. 1470 of Lord Fitzwalter Ra ph - 1 Elizabeth, dau. of Sir John Hawte* I Sir Thomas = i Anne, sister of d. 1483 .King Edward IV Ann = Sir George Manners I d. 1509 Earl of Ormonde Sir James = , Anne, dau. of Thomas But.Jar I John