Lady Anne Cresacre

• Daughter of Edward Cresacre and Jane Basset
• The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Volume 15, page 5.
• Anne Cresacre West Find A Grave Memorial

Married

• Married: (1) John More (only son of Sir/St.Thomas More) in December 1529.
• Married: (2) George West on 13 Jun 1559 in Barnbrough, Yorkshire, England.

History

Anne Cresacre, the last of that name, married John More (only son of Sir/St.Thomas More) in December 1529.

Through this marriage Barnburgh Hall and Estate passed into the possession of the More family who held it for the next three centuries during most of which time they were in residence there.

John More died in 1547 and his widow, Anne, re-married 12 years later, a George West of Aughton and Aston, near Rotherham, Yorkshire. Shortly after she married George West, her daughter, also called Anne married the son and heir of George West, thus mother and daughter married father and son. After thirteen years of married life with her second husband, the Cresacre heiress again became widowed, her husband dying on June 12th, 1572.

A brass to the memory of AnneCresacre is to be found on the wall of the Cresacre Chapel in Barnburgh Church and seems to hold some mystery. When first made this brass would probably hang in the Hall as it is not of the ecclesiastical style one usually meets with in churches. The inscription is in Latin and one or more words have disappeared, the brass having been cut away. Why?

A translation is :

" Anne the only daughter and heiress of Edward Cresacre of Baronburgh near Doncaster in the County of Yorkshire, Esquire, was married to John More, only (son and heir) of Thomas More Knight, formerly Chancellor of England, which Anna departed this life December 2nd 1577 age 67."

In spite of constant harassment, persecution and, for some imprisonment, the direct more line (i.e. sons and heirs with the name 'More') remained Catholic down to the last of the line, Thomas More, a Jesuit priest who died in 1795.

John was born at the „Old Barge‟ in Bucklersbury, London, in 1509. He married Anne Cresacre in December 1529. Anne was the only child of Edward Cresacre of Barnborough, Yorkshire, and his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Basset of Fledborough, Nottinghamshire. Anne was born at Barnborough between 2nd December 1511 and 21st April 1512. When her father died in 1512, age twenty-seven, Anne, his sole heiress, became a Ward of the Crown, a wardship which was eventually bought by Sir Thomas More c.1523. John More and Anne had eight children: 1. Thomas More II (1531-1606): Eldest son and heir. See below. 2. Augustine More: Born at Chelsea on Tuesday 5th August 1533. Recorded as having died while young. 3. Edward More: Born at Chelsea on Saturday 13th August 1535. Edward may have married, and had a daughter Anne. However, there is no record of his marriage or the baptism of any children in the parish register of Barnborough, Yorkshire, where he lived most of his adult life. Edward conformed to the Church of England in later life. He was buried at St. Peter‟s Church, Barnborough on 2nd May 1620. 4. Gerome More: Named as fourth son in the family‟s „Book of Hours‟ where only his death (with no date) is recorded. Probably born stillborn or died soon after his birth in 1537. 5. Thomas More III: Born on Tuesday 2nd July 1538. Usually known as Thomas More the younger. Became a Minister (Priest) in the Church of England, but no record of his ordination or place of ministry survives. It is known from his older brother‟s will (1606) that he married and had three children: Cyprian, Thomas and Constantine, and that he died before 1606. However, family researchers have never discovered the name ofhis wife, the birth years of his children or any other details of the family. His uncle, Cresacre More, writing c.1616-1620 said that he was very poor and that he had brought his children up in no commendable profession. Cresacre also said that, at that time, the only son still living was the eldest (Cyprian). [Note: A Pedigree of the family published in 1873 says that Thomas‟ descendants went to Norfolk and then to America The source of this information is not recorded, and no documentary evidence as to which descendant/s was/were involved, or when, or where, he/she/they went to America has so far been produced. Some internet sites claim that Thomas married a Martha Brooks, born c.1540, and that they had a son, Thomas William Moore. Martha Brooks is said to have been the daughter of Sir Robert Brooke and his third wife Dorothy Gatacre. This however does not accord with the documented history of the Brooke family concerned which shows that Martha Brooke (not Brooks), the eldest daughter of Sir Robert and Dorothy, was baptized at Claverley, Shropshire on 9th September 1545, and that she married a Christopher Digon.] 6. Bartholomew More: Born on Tuesday 10th February 1530. Said to have conformed to the Church of England, to have been unmarried, and to have died young of the plague. 7. Anne More: Born on Tuesday 12th April 1541. Married John West, son of George West of Aughton and Aston, Yorkshire, at St. Peter‟s, Barnborough, on 6th September 1559. Anne and John West had four children: i. Jane: Baptised at St. Peters, Barnborough in August 1560. ii. Anne: Baptised at St. Peter‟s, Barnborough on 28th August 1561. iii. Barbara: iv. Godfrey: Married Catherine Revel at Hansworth on 25 May 1579. Catherine was the daughter of Thomas Revel of Stannington. 8. Francis More: Born 29th December 1546. Recorded as having died when still a child. John More died in 1547, and Anne devoted herself to brining up her young children at Barnborough. On 13 June 1559 she married George West of Aughton and Aston, near Rotherham, Yorkshire. George was the son of John West of Aughton, and Anne, daughter of Ralph Eyre of Offerton-in-the-Peak, Derbyshire. Anne was George‟s second husband. His first wife (by whom he had two children, John and Elizabeth) was Jayne Trygot of Kirkby, Yorkshire. After their marriage George and Anne lived at Barnburgh Hall. They did not have any children. George West was buried at St. Peter‟s Church, Barnborough on 12th June 1572. Anne was buried in the church on 2 December 1577.

Source: © Martin Wood 18th November 2008. [Documentary evidence for the details given in the Pedigree may be found in my book “The Family and Descendants of St Thomas More”. Published in the UK by „Gracewing‟. April 2008. ISBN 978 0 85244 681 2.]

Anne, the widow of John More, was the second wife of George West. She was not the mother of Elizabeth Levitt. Elizabeth was George's daughter by his first marriage to Jane Trigot/Trygot.

St Thomas More's son, John More (by his first wife Jane Colte) was considered "little better than an idiot" by Wood, according to St Thomas More's biographer, Roper. In 1529, John More married Ann Cresacre (1511-1577), the heiress of Edward Cresacre of Barnborough, Yorkshire.

References

• http://www.disnorge.no/slektsforum/viewtopic.php?p=262317