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The Baronetcy of the Skellingthorpe Vavasor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
On 22 June 1631 the government of Charles I issued Letters Patent proclaiming Captain Sir Charles Vavasor of Skellingthorpe, Lines., a baronet. The grant of honors to Sir Charles Vavasor was among the most distinctive made in England during the seventeenth century. By its special terms, Sir Charles became the first baronet (of approximately 285) to receive rights of precedence—in spite of parliamentary statutes opposing such rights. A clause of precedency declared the title retroactive to 29 June 1611, and that, in turn, made Sir Charles's father, Sir Thomas Vavasor, who had died in 1620, a baronet post mortem. The baronetcy of Sir Charles Vavasor is also unusual as one of the few which did not depend upon the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, as the only one created during the whole of 1631, and as the last one created before the eve of Civil War.
The competition for honors among the gentry is an important element in the social history of early seventeenth century England, and a factor in the complex origins of the Civil War. The full dimensions of that competition can be illuminated by studying the motives of individual families, and the processes by which they achieved their titles. The Skellingthorpe Vavasor make an especially interesting study because of the unusual distinctions which attend their title.
Heretofore, however, paucity of evidence made it nearly impossible to reconstruct the quest for honors of the Skellingthorpe Vavasor. The evidence did show that before he died in 1620, Sir Thomas Vavasor sought the title of baronet without success, and that eleven years later, Sir Thomas's son, Charles, finally received a baronetcy with precedency. The intervening years, 1620-1631, had to be filled with conjectures about Charles Vavasor's motives, timing, and patronage, and also with some conjectures about why the government granted him honors of dubious legality.
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References
1 Public Record Office, Patent Roll #2563 of 7 Charles I, as cited by the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Creation of Baronets, 1611-1646, 47th Report (1886); Cokayne, George E., The Complete Baronetage, 5 vols. (London, 1902), 2:78.Google Scholar
2 A statute of 18 Henry VI declared illegal the pre-dating of Letters Patent, and one of 31 Henry VIII fixed the precedency of peers “according to the ancienty and times of their creation.” The Patent to Sir Charles Vavasor violated the spirit of both laws, if not the letter.
3 Rev. Canon A.R. Maddison, Lincolnshire Pedigress, Harleian Society Publications, old series, 117 vols. (London, 1903), no. 51:641 ff. mentions a John Marshall as chamberlain of the west ward of Lincoln in 1622. His father and brothers were sheriffs in Lincolnshire during the first third of the century. In all likelihood he is the same who attested the Helmic Indenture.
4 No record of John Wray's death is contained in the parish records of Metheringham, and the bishop's transcripts of the parish records of Glentham, John Wray's home parish, are missing for 1629-1630 according to Ms. M. Beel, Administrative Assistant to the Lincolnshire Archivist.
5 The Hazelwood Vavasor were conspicuously Catholic. Sir William Vavasor of Hazelwood spent time in Newgate prison for refusing to take the oath of allegience to Protestant king James, (London Sessions Records, 1605-1685, Catholic Record Society, 56 vols. [1934], 24:71 ff.)Google Scholar. One of Sir William's daughter became a nun, and later abbess, of a Benedictine house at Cambrai, (Records of the Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation at Cambrai, 1620-1793, Catholic Record Society [1913], 13:39; [1914], 14:182.)Google Scholar, and Sir William's son and principal heir. Thomas, reportedly had to pay £150 per annum to Kings Charles I for his recusancy (The English Baronetage, 4 vols. [London, 1741], 2:134Google Scholar), Sir Thomas Vavasor of Skellingthorpe on the other hand numbered among his kinsmen one of the most prominent Anglican apologists, Bishop Morton of Lichfield-Coventry (Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report no. 12, part 2:87).
6 Calendar of the MSS of the Marquis of Salisbury, HMSSC, part 5:357; part 8:314; part 9:303, 447; part 12:183-185; part 15:323-324.
7 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 26 October 1603. For his duties as Knight Marshall Sir Thomas received the modest wage of 10s per day (CSPD, 4 Nov. 1604). In addition he received monies for feeding important prisoners entrusted to his care (CSPD, 24 May 1604), £1000 for discharge of functions connected with the port of London (CSPD, 12 Jan. 1604), and one half of the sums he was able to recover for the crown from his discovery of illegal land purchases made during the previous reign (CSPD, 26 Oct. 1607).
8 Sir Thomas's wife, Mary, was the daughter and heiress of John Dodges of Cope, Suffolk, and the widow of the London Haughton, Alderman Peter (Allegations for Marriage Liscenses Issued by the Bishop of London, 1520-1610, Harleian Society [London, 1887], no. 25:238Google Scholar; and Rev.Maddison, Canon A.R., Lincolnshire Pedigrees, Harleian Society [London, 1904], no. 52, 3:1028)Google Scholar. The oldest of their three sons was named Thomas (and pre-deceased his father), the second was Charles, and the youngest was William. William would eventually inherit from Charles and eclipse him in military reputation. See Hutton, Ronald, The Royalist War Effort, 1642-1646 (New York, 1982), 112–119Google Scholar for a description of William Vavasor's military career. Two daughters, Anne and Mary, completed the family.
9 “Thomas” and “William” seem to have been the most common family names (even among the Hazelwood Vavasor). This “Charles” is the only Charles Vavasor in the period 1580-1660.
10 CSPD, 27 Nov. 1608
11 See Nichols, John G., “The Institution and Early History of the Dignity of Baronet,” The Herald and Genealogist, vol. 3 (London, 1866)Google Scholar; the introduction to Cokayne, G., The Complete Baronetage, vol. 1Google Scholar; and Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641 (Oxford, 1965), 84 ff.Google Scholar
12 Public Record Office, Probate II/136, folios L 11 289-L 11 290.
13 Cokayne, , The Complete Baronetage, 2:78.Google Scholar
14 See Stone, Lawrence, Family and Fortune (Oxford, 1973), pp. 268–286Google Scholar for a discussion of Suffolk's public offices and financial affairs.
15 Using Cokayne's (Complete Baronetage) listing, which contains a handfull of baronets for whom there was no Patent (see note 20 on this matter), at the time of Sir Thomas Vavasor's death, 148 of the 200 authorized baronets had been created. Of them, 95 were created in 1611,2 in 1615,4 in 1617,4 in 1618,15 in 1619, and 28 in 1620, the last of them on 26 July, approximately three months before Sir Thomas died.
16 SirFortesque, John W., A History of the British Army, 13 vols. (London, 1935), 1:168 ff.Google Scholar
17 Glanville, John, The Voyage to Cadiz in 1625, Camden Society, new series, 32 (London, 1883).Google Scholar
18 CSPD, 8 Jan. 1626.
19 Dalton, Charles, The Life and Times of General Sir Edward Cecil, 2 vols. (London, 1885), 2:267–268Google Scholar; CSPD, 27 March 1627.
20 There is some confusion over how many baronets had been created by 1625. In his Complete Baronetage, 1, Cokayne listed 208 baronets for the reign of James I. Nine of them were ones for whom no Letters Patent exist, but whose claim to the honor seemed justified to Cokayne by other evidence. Both Cokayne (1: viii) and Nichols, John (Heraldand Genealogist, 3)Google Scholar discussed the problem and offered explanations for the apparent creations in excess of statutory limit. If one counts only those creations for which Letters Patent survive however, then only 199 baronets were created.
21 Gardiner, Samuel R., History of England, 1603-1642, 10 vols. (London, 1883) 6:98-106, 305–322.Google Scholar
22 Stone, , Crisis of the Aristocracy, p. 94.Google Scholar
23 Dalton, , Edward Cecil, 2:282.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., 2:263-264. Wimbledon used his influence with Buckingham to acquire a baronage for his brother-in-law Sir Nicholas Tufton.
25 Williamson, H.R., George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham (London, 1940), p. 195Google Scholar, quotes a speech by Dr. Turner to Commons on 11 March 1626 in which Dr. Turner asked “Whether recusants in general… be not born out and increased by reason of the Duke's mother and father-in-law being known papists?”
26 SirBurke, Bernard, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire, 35th edn. (London, 1873), pp. 1158–1159Google Scholar. Thomas Vavasor of Hazelwood's mother was born Anne Manners; Buckingham married her younger kinswoman Katherine Manners.
27 Cokayne, , Complete Baronetage, 2:61.Google Scholar
28 For example, Thomas Puckering of Weston waited 17 months before receiving his baronetcy in 1612 (Nichols, , Herald and Genealogist, 3:205, note 1Google Scholar). A different procedure for processing applications then applied; it might have been even swifter than Buckingham's patronage.
29 Dalton, , Edward Cecil, 2:288Google Scholar. Serving girls in the basement of the house at Wimbledon opened a keg of gunpowder by mistake—expecting it to be soap—and their candle ignited it, and the house blew up. Dutch ambassadors, who were staying at the Viscount's house in the Strand, too exuberantly celebrated the news that the Spanish plate fleet had been captured by the Dutch admiral Heyn; the house burned down. Wimbledon later tried unsuccessfully to secure compensation from the Dutch government.
30 Rushworth, John, Historical Collections, second part (London, 1680), 2:83–87Google Scholar contains a list of officers commissioned to recruit for the Marquis of Hamilton. Captain Vavasor was to raise his company in Warwick, Stafford, Salop, and Chester.
31 CSPD, 28 Nov. 1630.
32 CSPD, 17 Oct. 1630. The letter cited here, which in turn mentions the Queen of Bohemia's letter, was written by Sir Charles Vavasor to Privy Council Secretary Dorchester from Eccleshall Castle in Staffordshire—one of the episcopal manors of Litchfield-Coventry. Sir Charles seems to have been staying there with Bishop Morton during the autumn of 1630.