Frances Petre

This is not the same Frances White who married Dr. Richard Wells in Virginia. Anyone who thinks she is, is making a really bad guess.

From the House of Commons Journal, Volume 2 - 08 April 1642 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=14#sec-a15

White's Pass.

Ordered, That Rich. White, of Hutton in the County of Essex, with the Lady Catherine his Wife, and George, Jerome, Charles, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Francis [sic!] White, their Children, shall be licensed by this House to be transported into France, together with Three Men Servants, and Three Maid Servants (whose Names are also particularly to be inserted in the Warrant) and to transport their Trunks of Apparel, and other necessary Provisions: And the Searchers are required to take care that no prohibited Commodities be exported by them.

From France the family continued on to Rome, where Lady Catherine died, on or about October 31, 1645 (according to her epitaph, see above - it also gives her age as 38 and states that she left eight children).

The "Francis" White in the pass must be Frances Petre, as no son Francis is recorded of this couple and any other Frances would be about the same age as Frances White Wells' oldest children.

In a report for Anthony R J S Adolph, Research Dept., Achievement Ltd, 79-82, Northgate, Canterbury , Kent CT 1-1BA. The main evidence comes from the Essex Recusant, Journal Vol. 17#1, of the Essex Recusant Society. Where Father Godfrey Anstruther abstracted the wills of Benjamin Petre, Frances Petre his mother, formerly White, and her husband John Petre. "Benjamin Petre, alias White, Bishop... was the eldest son of John Petre, Esq. of New House on Cooksmill Green, Writtle, Essex, by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of John Pinchon of Writtle. Born August 10, 1672, he lost his mother in 1678 and his father took a third wife, Frances White, from whom Benjamin derives his alias. She was the daughter of Richard White and Catherine, daughter of Richard Weston, first Earl of Portland. Frances was sister of Jerome White who served Mary of Modena and was given a jewel by Prince Rinaldo, a Jewel which Jerome bequeathed to Frances (Vol. II, 348)." (Frances' husband John was the son of Lord John Petre and Mary Waldegrave, and grandson of Sir William Petre, secretary to Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.)

Note: the "Prince Rinaldo" referred to would have been either Cardinal-Prince Rinaldo d'Este of Modena (1618-1672), who was Mary's great-uncle, or her very young uncle Rinaldo (26 April 1655 – 26 October 1737), son of her grandfather's third wife and only three years older than she. Like her great-uncle (his uncle), he was then in the priesthood, which he left in 1694 to become Duke of Modena as the nearest surviving male claimant.

Barnes, Robert W. "The Robert White Family." British Roots of Maryland Families II, Genealogical Publishing, 2002, pp. 240-242. Gale Genealogy Connect, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GENVRL&sw=w&u=azgcldo&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX4106200161&asid=45f8b0f55d183b3dd3370adbdeea481e. Accessed 1 Nov. 2017.

(According to this ^^, she is the same Frances White who married Dr. Richard Wells in Virginia.) Dude didn't check his dates - Maven