Lawrence Bathurst I

From Ancestry Message Board 2008 re. Lawrence Bathurst accessed 2010 2008 , England

LAWRENCE BATHURST in 1461 - a warning

For anyone seeking information about Lawrence, this is a warning about the historical "garbage" to be found posted by fraudulent or uninformed amateur genealogists on popular websites. There is ONLY ONE root source of information about him - a pedigree drawn up by the College of Arms in 1636. No older documentary record has ever come to light. Without this pedigree we would not even know that he ever existed. It records that, for his support of the deposed King Henry VI (who was defeated in the Wars of the Roses), he suffered under the Act of Attainder of 1461 (meaning his Bodehurst estate was confiscated). It shows a son and grandson but tells us absolutely nothing more about Lawrence. Furthermore, this early part of the document was based only on family memory of events almost 200 years earlier - for which reason, as modern research has proved, it contains serious errors. The pedigree gives no birth or death dates for these earliest generations. They are unknown. The first recorded date we have is the burial of Lawrence's grandson Lawrence - at Staplehurst, 22 Apr 1549, aged 92. Careful analysis of peripheral data leads to these estimated birth years: father Richard c1390, Lawrence c1415, son Lawrence c1435, and grandson Lawrence c1457. Novices should note that "c" preceding a date stands for "circa", which means "about". Omission of it implies an exact date, not an approximate one; many incorrect dates appear on websites etc because this important qualifier has been ignored by transcribers. Errors are also due to ignoring an event's description as "probable" or "possible"; omission of such key words presents it as historical fact, instead of pure conjecture. For centuries the family believed that Lawrence's loyalty to King Henry also cost him his life, since indeed many Royal supporters were killed. However, although possible, there is no evidence to prove it. It is often stated that that he was killed in 1461, but that is simply the date of Parliament's Act of Forfeiture and Attainder by which the Yorkists confiscated their defeated opponents' properties. The Battle of Towton was fought in 1461, so someone guessed he was killed there - and put it on the internet as fact. Because the worst massacre of Lancastrians occurred following the Battle of Hexham in 1464, alternative guesswork claims he was killed at that time. No evidence exists, though, to show that he fought in any of the war's battles and it is safe to assume he did not. Lawrence was a wealthy man in a politically influential family. His support of the King's cause was undoubtedly financial. Someone in cyber space recently chose to describe him as Sir Lawrence, a pure fabrication. He was not a Knight. In turn this fiction has led to an utterly ludicrous chat-room debate about the method by which he was put to death (even assuming he was). Please, fairy tales have no place in history. Here's another website falsity about Lawrence. There was an Agnes Bathurst who, for various reasons, might possibly have been his widow. When this possibility was mentioned to a certain incompetent genealogy enthusiast he put it on the internet as fact. Consequently there are genealogists today whose data bases wrongly show Lawrence married to Agnes. For the record: the earliest known spouse in this old genealogy was Godleve, daughter of Robert Chapman, wife of Lawrence III. (Many websites have these names misquoted). She was buried at Staplehurst on 30 Nov 1547. The earliest recorded Bathurst marriage was in 1539. NEWCOMERS SHOULD DISBELIEVE ANYTHING ABOUT LAWRENCE THAT PURPORTS TO AMPLIFY THE ABOVE-EXPLAINED EXTREMELY LIMITED FACTUAL BIOGRAPHY. MORE IMPORTANTLY, IGNORANT PEOPLE SHOULD STOP INVENTING INFORMATION WHERE NONE EXISTS. John Bathurst, Family Historian since 1948. Member, Society of Genealogists, UK.