Back in 1895 Edmund Jennings Lee concluded to his own satisfaction that Colonel Richard Lee was not a member of some other Lee family posing as a scion of Lee of Coton, including these words: "...Colonel Richard Lee was either of the Shropshire family or an impostor. His descent from that family is attested by one who knew him intimately *and who was an officer of the College of Arms*. He claimed that descent himself and his descendants have done so for 200 years. He was a distinguished gentleman, a loyal Cavalier, and Secretary of State in Virginia. In the face of these facts, until his immediate parentage is proved, it is of course open to any one to argue that he was a gross impostor, but it is not too much to ask that any one who holds that belief should at least give some reason for it. None has hitherto been suggested."
In 1969 Grace McLean Moses suggested exactly that, and was hooted down in near-universal derision. She had made a classic mistake: "same name, gotta be the same man", and been unable to marshal enough supporting evidence - or *any* supporting evidence, really, bar a reasonable age match with the Richard Lee who deposed in Lower Norfolk County in 1641 that he was 32 years of age or thereabouts.
In the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, volume 76, number 4, December 1988, William Thorndale made a similar assertion, this time backed up with a goodly amount of circumstantial evidence - and he was immediately believed. No one bothered to ask how a weaver's son, from a family with only modest amounts of money, could afford to pass himself off as even an impoverished gentleman, and do it well enough to convince not only genuine aristocrats, but a professional herald who would eventually become Bluemantle Pursuivant in the College of Arms and publicly support this supposedly fraudulent claim.
40 pounds a year will not buy that level of education, or even the wardrobe necessary to pull off such a deception - and young Richard Lyes/Lee did not even have access to that much after his father died in 1630. Short of the intervention of a magical boot-wearing cat, the idea requires a rich and unscrupulous sponsor, either in Worcester or in London, with knowledge of the Shropshire gentry and the willingness to put one over on them (which sounds like, and is, the plot of some moderately extravagant thrillers).
It becomes very clear from a reading of the Thorndale article that he convinced himself early on that "this must be the answer", and set about selecting data to support it. Most of what he found shores up the family position of Richard Lyes/Lee in Worcester, but he wound up leaning very heavily on three points: 1) Hancock as Richard Lyes/Lee's mother's family name; 2) an Admiralty deposition of 1654 by a Richard Lee, gent., of London, 34 years or thereabouts, concerning matters observed in Virginia the previous January; 3) the occurrence in the will of John Best of Twyning (Gloucestershire) of a bequests to Richard and Francis "Lea", sons of "Collonel Richard Lea".
Taking the last point first, too much can be made of the bequests, considering that John Best of Twyning made a large number of bequests to all and sundry, relatives, friends, associates, and so forth. It is a very long and extensive will, and relationships between the testator and the legatees are seldom mentioned.
As to the first point, Thorndale assumed that Col. Richard Lee named his fifth son after his mother's family. But he need not have reached back to England for that name, as there actually were Hancocks, and fairly prominent ones at that, in early Colonial Virginia. (No, that name was *not* exclusive to Massachusetts!)
The middle point is the most difficult, but Thorndale does not seem to have considered whether there were any other Richard Lees in the same age group who might have had dealings with both London and Virginia. There were at least two: Richard Lee of Coton, gent., born c. 1622, resident in London, and previously confused with Col. Richard Lee over the matter of the Wraysbury deeds of 1652; and, more intriguingly, the elusive "Colonel" "Richard" Lee of Henrico County, Virginia who married Ann Farley and whose birth year has been guesstimated at c.1620, putting him "on the nose" for "34 years or thereabouts" in 1654. (We're not sure he was a Richard, but it's the obvious way he could have been - as for some time he was - confused with Col. Richard Lee m. Anne Constable.)
Richard Lees were not exactly thin on the ground in Colonial Virginia - the Hotten lists have two, one (age 18) shipping out to St. Christopher ("St. Kitts"), the other (age 22) going to Barbados, either or both of whom may have continued on to Virginia then or later. Cabell Greer adds five more, including a Richard Lee arriving at "Warwick" (Isle of Wight County) in 1636 and sponsored by one Anthony Jones. (Mr. Jones went on to become a Justice and a Burgess for Isle of Wight under the administration of Sir Francis Wyatt.)
The same or another Richard Lee witnessed a land transaction in the same county on 18 July 1636:
THOMAS DAVIS, of Warwicksquacyk to AMBROSE MEADER and JOHN WHITE of the Pagan Shore, 50 acres of land lying in Warwicksqueake, beginning at upper Red Point and extending easterly down the said creek; was given to said Davis by patent 6 day of March 16.33, the land abutting northerly upon said creek and southerly into the main woods, 18 July 1636. Thomas Holt, Richard Lee.
https://genealogytrails.com/vir/isleofwight/wills_abstracts_booka29...
This item indicates two things about this particular Richard Lee: 1) he was 21 or older (thus definitely *wasn't* Richard Lyes/Lee of Worcester) and 2) he was literate (signed his own name).
Then there's that exasperating Richard Lee who deposed in 1641 in Lower Norfolk County that he was "32 or thereabouts"! (He's the one Grace M. Moses fixated on, if you recall.) The future Colonel Richard Lee *was* in Virginia by this time and taking an active part In Gov. Wyatt's administration - and some of the administrative business was conducted in Lower Norfolk County. But, of course, the deposer is *much* too old to be Richard Lyes/Lee *or* the Admiralty deponent of 1654. (He would be just about the right age to have been an unrecorded son of Richard Lee of Coton and Elizabeth Bendy...but how he came to be unrecorded is a very good question.)
All told, Thorndale's case was never as strong as he made it out to be, and further research has only undermined it by tracing the ancestry of Richard Lyes/Lee of Worcester back three generations (father, John Lyes; grandfather, another John Lyes; great-grandfather, Thomas Lee or Lea or Lyes) with no trace whatsoever of any connection to Lee of Coton, Lee of Langley, or any other gentry Lee family anywhere in England. The closest thing to a "connection" is actually a marriage and remarriage chain from Joyce Romney's brother Peter's second wife Elizabeth Machyn to Elizabeth's second husband, one Thomas Best, who may have been a relative of John Best of Twyning (and was more than likely not known to him personally.due to them being at least two generations apart).
