Alexander De Greene De Boketon

Not the husband of Lady Isabella Pembridge

---

• Alexander de Boketon1
• M, #23312, d. aft 1202/3
• Alexander de Boketon died aft 1202/3.
• Family
• Child
  • Walter Boketon+ d. aft 1273/4
• Citations
• [S4382] Unknown author, Wallop Family, p. 376.
• From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p776.htm#i... __________________________
• Alexander Greene de Boketon
• Birth: 1181 Boughton, Northamptonshire, England
• Death: 1236 Boughton, Northamptonshire, England
• Lord Alexander assumed a surname after his chief estate de Greene de Boketon, i.e., the Lord of the Park of the Deer Enclosure.
• A green in the early day was a park. Boketon is an old, old word meaning the buck's ton, or paled-in enclosure.
• Centuries ago the terminal syllable, ton, had lost its original sense and meant a town. So that Boketon, still used in the original sense, shows that Lord Alexander came to an estate named long before and noted for its extensive parks and deer preserves. Boketon became Bucks, Buckston, and later Boughton, its present name. It lies in Northampton.
• For five generations the de Greenes spoke Norman-French. They were a family that delighted in athletic sports.
• They hunted, hawked, and attended tournaments, played games of tennis, cricket, and bowls. All of them in their generations were noted for their fine bowling alleys, two or three of which were the finest in England.
• Charles I was arrested at Althorpe, where he had gone to bowl, and this once belonged to the Greenes.
• Alexander had a passionate love of horticulture that has throughout these seven centuries dominated his entire line of descendants. *There is probably no other English speaking family today that has so many members that delight in beautiful home grounds and in flowers and fruit and finely kept farms.
• In 1215, when the English Lords forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, there were only seven barons that adhered to John and Lord Alexander de Greene de Boketon was not one of them.
• Therefore, he must have been one of the two thousand nobles who put their united protests in the hands of twenty-five lords who presented the Magna Carta to the king and forced him to sign that document that guaranteed both the lives and the property of his subjects from arbitrary spoliation.
• One of the signers was Saer de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, whose great-great granddaughter, Lucie de la Zouche, married Sir Alexander de Greene's great-great grandson, Lord Thomas.
• Family links:
• Spouse:
• Isabel de Cantilou De Grene De Boketon (1192 - 1236)*
• Children:
  • Walter Greene de Boketon (1206 - 1272)*
• Burial: Unknown
• Find A Grave Memorial# 71912270
• From: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=71912270 ______________

Alexander's great grandfather was one of the Norman nobles who invaded England with William the Conqueror. King John bestowed the estate of Boughton in Northampton upon him. He was made a knight at the King's court by King John as the 1st Baron de Greene de Boketon.

_____________________

From: http://karens.familytreeguide.com/getperson.php?personID=I11991&tre...

This is the first Lord De Greene. He is the fountainhead of the Greene line and recieved his power and titles as a reward from King John in 1202. He was a Knight of King John's court and the great-grandson one of the Norman Nobles who invaded England with William the Conqueror in 1066. John bestowed the Estate of Boughton in Northhampton as a reward for going to Normandy in 1201 and putting down the uprising of Count De La March. This event precipitated from the King taking the Count's state arranged bride Isabelle in 1200. He had ordered his Nobles to put down the uprising, but they refused. He confiscated thier properties and gave them to the loyal knights who performed this task for him. The Boughton Estate was very large with the ranking of a Baronage. 6,000 acres min. were required to have this title. This property was much larger. Halstead said that at one time the Greenes were the largest landowners in the kingdom.

Alexander De Greene De Boketon assumed a surname of his chief estate. De Greene De Boketon, i.e. the Lord of the Park of the Deer Enclosure. A green in the early days was "a park". Boketon is an old, old word meaning the bucks' (bokes) ton or paled-in enclosure. For a long time De Greene De Boketon was used on all official documents over time it was shortened to De Greene. During he reign of Henry IV, 1422-1471, with the attendant French wars, the Patriotic De Greenes dropped the patrician "De" as too Frenchy in sound for Englishmen, as they now considered themselves.

All the Greene lines trace thier ancestry back to this head of the line. The heraldry, which since 1147 has required proof of ancestry thorugh thier great-grandparents share the Bucks Triplit on a field of Azure. This is one of the ancient lines of England.

---

Notes from http://www.geocities.com/pameladhudson/greenehistory.html His spouse is presumed to be a Lady Isabelle De Cantilupe, daughter of Sir William De Cantilupe. Sir Alexander De Boketon and Lady Isabelle are my 22nd maternal great grandparents. One of their son's was named Walter De Boketon. This Walter De Boketon is said to have been born Abt. 1200 in County of Northampton, England, and died Abt. 1275 probably also in England. To-date, Walter De Boketon's spouse is unknown. In the year 1202, the english King John (of Plantagenet line ~1199-1216) bestowed the estate of Boketon (now Boughton) on Sir Alexander De Boketon, a knight in his court. The following year (1203), "Alexander de Boketon recovered the advowson of the Church of St. John the Baptist at Boketon (a seigniorial right of the Lords of Boketon) against Simon de Hecter and Simon de Boketon. Nothing is certain about Alexander's ancestry. Writers have suggested that he may have been the son of Sir William de Cantilupe, that his mother may have been a de Cantilupe, or, as assumed here, that his wife was the daughter of Sir William de Cantilupe (Baron Abergavenny, Steward, Sheriff of Herefordshire).

In 1202, there were only two titles of nobility: earls and knights. The knights were subdivided into greater and lesser barons. The great barons held their estates from the crown. The lesser barons held their estates as a subdivision from an overlord or great baron. Lord Alexander was a great and wealthy baron, and one of the largest land owners in all of England. He had power over his estate like a petty king. In exchange for the power granted from the king, he had to furnish many men for the king's wars, pay a portion toward the dowry of the princesses, and entertain the king when the king was in his territory. In addition, he had to pay homage to the crown. The Lords de Grene paid homage from 1202 to 1506 "by lifting up his right hand toward the king yearly on Christmas Day, in what place soever the king is." (Halstead's Genealogy, 1585). A household account by the steward of Lord Alexander exists that states that his master's household consisted of 166 persons, including the forbisher who kept the armor bright, the fencing master, harper, priest, bedesman or praying man, the almoner who looked after the poor, and the barner who kept the 24-hour fires in the castle in order. Lord Alexander kept an open table, and fed an average of 57 visitors a day. The knights sat with the Lord at one end of the table, and were served the choicest foods. The retainers and commoners sat "below the salt" and ate coarser victuals, or as we say now, "humble pie." The Lords de Grene lived in state. They wore rich apparel, belted with a gold or silver girdle to which was attached a purse, rosary, pen, ink horn, set of keys, and an elaborately chased and sheathed dagger. These accoutrements showed their rank. When they rode, they always wore gold spurs, and their armor was brightly polished and magnificent. They wore robes in Parliament, hats and plumes at court and at the king's coronation, and a crimson velvet cap lined with ermine and having a plain gold band. Their servants wore the Greene livery, which was blue laced with gold. Although they lived in a period of early marriages, the Greene preferred to marry late in life. Nonetheless, they managed to have large families, often more boys than girls. The de Grenes had many purely family superstitions. One of them was their dislike of having a picture made of themselves. Even as late as 1850, some of them would not permit a picture of them to be made. Boughton (fka Boketon) lies a few miles north of the town of Northampton. It was known as an estate before the Norman Conquest (1088). It contained 1,400 acres of good soil. Boughton Manor remained in the Greene family until about 1700, when it was purchased by Thomas Wentworth, third Lord Stafford. It later passed through other hands. In 1822, it was mostly leveled to the ground and a large new house took its place. To this day, the town of Boughton retains the appearance of an ancient town. A walk through the village revealed that the houses had been carefully modernized so as to not detract from the outward medieval appearance of the buildings. In the rural cemetery was found the ruins of an ancient church, a part of the ivy-covered walls still standing. This may be the location of the original parish church at Boughton, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It stood on the green near a famous spring. As early as the time of Henry VIII, it had begun to fall into decay. By 1785, nothing remained but ruins. There seems to be no description of the interior extant. It contained the tombs of some of the early members of the Greene family. Baker, in his History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire presented an account of two of the Greene monuments. One of these bore the arms of Greene and those of allied families of Zouche, Drayton, and Marblethorpe. The other had "a portraiture of a man in a short gowne yt should shew hym a lawyer, having also a s'geant's coyfe. His wyfe also lies in portraiture by him." On this tomb, at the head, were sculptured the arms of Greene; on the south side they were repeated, and near them the Zouch device; on the north, Greene between Zouch impaling Greene, and Reynes impaling Greene, showing marriages with the daughters of Greene, who were probably here interred. At the foot of the tomb was a shield bearing a fess between six crosses patee, the arms of a family not named by Baker, who remarks that this monument had been erroneously assigned to the Greene who married a Marblethorpe; "but, as the Lord Chief Justice was the only one of the family who attained to legal eminence, and his daughter having married Zouch and Reyes, it may with confidence be applied to him." ------------- http://www.geocities.com/pameladhudson/greenehistory.html * The 'Holy Roman Empire', in general usage, the designation applied to an amorphour political entity of western Europe, originated by Pope Leo III in 800 A.D., and in nominal existence more or less continuously until 1806. For purposes of historical accuracy, it should be noted that, in its initial stages, the organization was styled 'Empire of the West' and 'Roman Empire'; and that the epithet "Holy" did not appear in the official title until 1155.

Just an interesting bit of history, apparently our ALEXANDER DE LA ZOUCHE, Lord De Boketon b:c1181 was born under the 'Hohenstaufen Dynasty' with first emperor Frederick I reigning at his birth (c1152-1190, crowned 1155), then emperor Henry VI (1190-1197, crowned 1191). After much research and study I've learned that Alexander's great grandfather immigrated to the British Isles (England) during the Norman invasion of 1066 under William The Conquerer. Alexander was of Norman descent also. SOURCE: Universal Standard Encylclopedia, Vol. 12, Pgs. 4370-4373

---

http://www.geocities.com/pameladhudson/greenehistory.html Alexander was given an estate and title as a "Great Baron" by King John of England in 1202 AD. The estate was that of Grene de Boketon. Walter de Boketon, was in the Seventh Crusade in 1244. Walter's son, John Grene de Boketon, died in the next crusade in 1271 leaving a year old son, Thomas, who became Sir Thomas de Grene (married Alice Bottisham). Then came Sir Thomas de Grene (b: c1288) who married Lady Lucy de la Zouche, his relative. Wittekind's line of descent is as follows: Wittekind -- the German hero whom Charlemagne conquered and converted to Christianity, and married Princess Geva. Robert the Strong -- the grandson of Wittekind and Geva. He married Adelaide le Debonnaire, the daughter of Emperor Louis le Debonnaire and granddaughter of Charlemagne. Hugh -- the King maker of France. Hugh Capet (his son). King Robert I. King Henry I of France -- and through their wives from Emperors of Germany, Czars of Russia, Emperors of Byzantine, the early Saxon Kings and William the Conqueror. Then eight generations more with the Royal Welsh, Spanish, Irish, and Scotch heirs in their veins to Lady Lucy de la Zouche (b: c1279) who married her relative Sir Thomas de Grene (b: c1288).

---

Alexander's great grandfather was one of the Norman nobles who invaded England in 1066 with William the Conqueror. King John bestowed the estate of Boughton in Northampton on him. he was made a Knight of the Kings Court by King John as the 1st Baron de Greene de Boketon.