Randulph de Calverhall

Tenant 1319. Married Margaret, daughter of Peter Pigot, of Willaston, County Salap.

"Then follow several generations of the de Calverhalls, among them Roger de Calverhall, until the male line as tenants of the manor of Calverhall became extinct, and the estate descended to Agnes de Calverhall, daughter and heiress, who married Hugh Dod, of Edge, whose family possessed Calverhall Manor until 1850." (J.M. Runk)
"But we find in 1327 William le Bercer, at Hallon in Warfield, County Salap. His son Roger le Barker, of Hallon, married Alice ..." (J.M. Runk)

Randulph de Calverhall was among the last of the de Calverhall family at Calverhall and it is around this time that the family name is changed to "le Barker" or "Barker". This seems to coincide with political troubles in the reign of Edward II and later writers speculate that the family fell afoul of the rulers and fled to the south.

"The name of this family first appears in the records of the manor of Hallon towards the close of the reign of Edward II. The firs member named is WILLIAM LE BARKER, and it seems highly probable that he was a member of another family which had been situated in the north of the county, and being driven thence through the political troubles of that time, had obtained land in Hallon, and assumed the above name [Barker] for purposes of concealment. This appears from the evidence of the Visitations of the County, which all commence the genealogy of the family with Randulph de Calverhall, and afterwards continue the line as BARKER alias CALVERHALL, or COVERALL. NOW, CALVERHALL was a member of the ancient Manor of ADDERLEY, near IGHTFIELD, and from the history of that Manor, it appears that it was held "in capite" of the king, by Bartholomew de Badlesmere, in the time of Edward II. This Baron had the misfortune to displease Isbella, the imperious Queen of that monarch, when, as Governor of Ledes Castle in Kent, he refused admission to her retinue, on the way to Canterbury. So great was the displeasure of that Monarch, that he pursued the unfortunate Baron with unrelenting hostility, until he was finally beheaded, and all his estates forfeited to the Crown. It seems probable that at this time, the undertenants shared in the disgrace of their lord, and that one of them, WILLIAM DE CALVERHALL, fled from the north of the county, and reappeared at HALLON under the assumed name of WILLIAM LE BARKER. At all events this person is found in possession of the Manor of Hallon, and was succeeded in the early part of the reign of Edward III. by his son, 'ROGER LE BARKER, who died in the year 1368, seised of this manor, which upon his death vested in Alice his wife, for in 1369 she settled half a messuage and nook of land upon each of her sons, William and Roger..." (Samuel Benjamin James).

"It seems then that the early history of the family may have been somewhat as follows. In those tumultuous years when Edward II was fleeing through the West of England from his Queen and his Barons, a son of Ralph de Coverall came from the North to the South of Shropshire, and settled at Hallon, taking, we know not why, the name of le Barker. A hundred years later one of his descendants went to Aston, while another returned to the North, and obtaining property at Colchurst, not far from Calverhall or Coverall, where his forefathers had lived, he very naturally assumed the name of Coverall as an alias. Double names were fairly common in the Middle Ages as they are now, but while nowadays the old and new names are hyphened, they were then connected by the word alias for a few generations, after which one or the other was usually dropped. So it was that for a time the Barkers of Colchurst and Wolverton in North Shropshire styled themselves alias Coverall, and called their ancestor so at the Visitation, though it does not appear that this designation was ever actually used either at Worfield, Claverley, or Hopton Castle, where it would have had no associations." (need to find the source of this quote -- according to http://www.vnla.com/vnl/gen/mcq/Barker.htm it may have come from "The Barkers of Aston" written by A. L. Barker, M.A. in 1932)

Also may be known as : Ralph COVERALL

Sources

• Visitation of Gloucestershire (1682-)1684 (Google eBook) 1854.
• Barker Family website
• Biographical and genealogical history of the state of Delaware Volume 1 (Google eBook) by Runk, J.M. & Co. 1899. Not in copyright.
• Worfield on the Worfe, in and near Severn valley, a brief history (Google eBook) by Samuel Benjamin James. 1878. Out of copyright.