Jane Parke

Biography

Jane Ludwell was the daughter of Philip Ludwell I and his first wife, Lucy (Higginson) Burwell Bernard. In about 1685 she was married to Daniel Parke Jr., for whom her father had acted as guardian. According to the Encyclopedia Virginia, both Jane and Daniel were about fifteen years old when they married. They had two surviving daughters, Frances and Lucy.

Daniel Parke had a son called Julius Caesar Parke, born c. 1692 (perhaps the son of a Mrs. Brown (alias Berry) referred to by Parke as a cousin who came to Virginia with Parke in 1692 and lived with him until 1697). The boy was brought up by Jane Ludwell Parke and was given an inheritance by Parke as "my godson".

Col. Parke abandoned his wife Jane and their two daughters, Frances and Lucy, and returned to England where he managed to get elected to Parliament and to rise in prominence during the war with France of the early 1700s.

Jane (Ludwell) Parke resided at Green Spring Plantation outside of Williamsburg. She died in 1708 in "circumstances owing to his neglect". Her death is recorded in the Bruton Parish Register.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Parke

Colonel Daniel Parke, Jr., son of Colonel Daniel Parke, Sr., Secretary of State of Virginia, and Rebecca Evelyn, was for a time a member of the Virginia Council; was an aide to Marlborough at Blenheim and carried the first news of the victory to England, and as a reward was given the governorship of the Leeward Islands. He left a considerable estate, but it was for years the subject of great trouble and loss to his two daughters, the wives of John Custis and William Byrd. Daniel, Jr. sat on the colonial Virginia Governor's Council from 1695 until 1697. His elder legitimate daughter married John Custis, and his younger married William Byrd, II. Parke served as an aide to John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, and after the Battle of Blenheim carried news of Marlborough's victory to Queen Anne. Winning the queen's favor, Parke was the British Governor of Antigua, in the Leeward Islands, from 1706 to 1710. He was assassinated during a mutiny triggered by his self-enriching enforcement of Stuart imperialism.

… After his death, his estates in England, Virginia and Antigua came under dispute by various claimants who disputed his last will; Parke had acquired extensive debts throughout his life, and his bequests to Julius infuriated his legitimate daughters.[2] His debts were partially transferred onto [his daughter] Frances] who along with her husband [John Custis] spent years contesting their payment, while some of Parke's slaves were transferred to William Byrd II.[18][19][20]

The illegitimate Lucy spent over three decades successfully defending her ownership of Parke's Antiguan estates in colonial courts.[21]

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The grave of Jane Ludwell Parke, wife of Colonel Daniel Parke, Jr.

References

1. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/224431872/jane-parke
2. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ludwell-9 cites
   1. Edward W. Greenfield. “Some New Aspects of the Life of Daniel Parke.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 54, no. 4 (1946): 306–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4245434.
   2. Knight, T. D. Daniel Parke (1669–1710). (2014, February 18). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from < Daniel Park >
3. The Ludwell Blog: News and research on the life, community, and worldview of Colonel Philip Ludwell III. < link >. Green Spring – both the mansion house and the surrounding plantation – sat approximately five miles west of the 1700s capital of Williamsburg, and a few miles north of Williamsburg’s predecessor, Jamestown, the first English colonial capital in North America.