Robert H. Pollard, I

Birth: 1580 Devon, England Death: 1640 Devon, England

CEMETERY UNCONFIRMED***

• **UNDERGOING RESEARCH 07/2016***** The mystery continues....

CONCERNING A ILLEGITIMATE SON from "History of Parliament" show 3 daughters and an illegitimate son:

Sir John Pollard Family and Education b. 1527/28, 1st s. of (Sir) Richard Pollard of Putney Surr., London and Forde Abbey by Jacquetta, da. John Bury of Colliton, Devon. m. Catherine, at least 3da.; at least 1s. illegit. suc. fa. 10 Nov. 1542. Kntd. 10 Nov. 1549.

SEE:http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/po...

• **Illegitimate Son of Sir John Pollard 1527-1575 of "Combe Martin" by recorded "Prudence"; died 1593?? Is this illegitimate son the "Robert Pollard of Ways I" the father of Robert II that migrated to Virginia Colony ca. 1630-40's?? The dates don't bare this out. However, the date of birth for Robert I could be wrong.

Robert Pollard born 1580? d. 1640 in Pollard Castle, Devon, England, Great Britain (Way)Married?? Lady Margaret Barrett?Bassett?Ayring (de Ayring) b. 1582 d. 1639 Pollard Castle, Devon, England / Way(e) Wales - Memorial# 119279800 ??

• ***Recorded in the Sir George Amorye (d. 1598) (Amory, Amery, Emery) family concerning Whitechapel manor that a one woman named "Prudence" was quote "widow of Sir John Pollard of Combe Martin" married Robert Damore; brother of George Amorye. George Amory's wife Margery was of the Ayre or Eyre family of Atherington. There is also family BASSETT involved. All names from the Bishop's Nympton area and all known to each other well. i.e. Pollards, Amory, Bassett (NOT Barrett) and Ayre/Eye. Sir John so far has only been found to have married a one "Cathrine" and no one else.

Is this the father of the one "Robert Pollard of Ways" that migrated to Virginia Colony ca. 1630-40's?

SOURCE: National Archives, North Devon Record Office, South Molton Records B264, Whitechapel Estate and the families associated with it 1609–1990
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INTRODUCTION - Because of the religious upheaval these men were embroiled in, and perhaps aided, at the time,(see: "Dissolution of the Monasteries") the history of the Pollards listed below should be noted as a matter of great historical significance, if not for their roles in English authority but, at least, for their irreversible acts and future movement. The "Act of Supremacy" (1534), which gave King Henry VIII supreme authority over the Church of England while separating it from the Papal, together with two subsequent "Suppression Acts" (1536 & 1539), drove violent divisions in society and all halls of religious worship. No person went unaffected, including those within the hierarchy of government and the families thereof. The authoritative measures taken by Parliament beginning in 1534 became extremely brutal and, all too often, murderous. It also became generational and, in many cases, transformed once peaceful and close relatives into bitter enemies of no resolution. The violence was particularly cruel to the north and in the west; Devon/Devonshire, Ways/Wales; the ancestral lands of the Pollard family. Under the crown authority with reward, and British colonization of America not withstanding, the horrific circumstances of the time were most certainly the primary reasons for a few prominent Pollards migrating to America and Barbados.

POLLARDS; ONWARD TOWARDS AMERICA - Robert b. 1580 could very well had been the illegitimate son of Sir John Pollard (1st son of Sir Richard the 2nd son of Sir Lewis) whom he had a son with a one said "Prudence" (d. 1593) that married a Robert Damore after the death of Sir John. OR, if the dates could be verified, he could be the son of Robert Pollard (buried on Sept 26, 1576 at the manor of Knowstone and 4th son of Sir Lewis Pollard).

Robert (d. 1576) married Anne (or Agnes) Chichester (d.1541), daughter of Richard Chichester of Hall, Bishop's Tawton and recorded a birth of a son named "Robert" but no dates are yet found. Robert was a brother of Sir Richard Pollard (1505-1542);a Member of Parliament for Taunton (1536) and Devon in 1539 until his death in 1542. Sir Richard was "King's Remembrancer of the Exchequer", a law reporter and assistant of Sir Thomas Cromwell in administering the surrender of religious houses following the "Dissolution of the Monasteries". Robert and Richard were also close relatives of Sir John Pollard (died Aug. 1557); a Speaker of the English House of Commons since 1553. He was relieved on Oct. 21, 1550 from sergeant-at-law and became vice-president of the "Council for the Welsh Marches". He was elected member for Oxfordshire in the parliaments 1553 -1554, and for Chippenham, Wiltshire in 1555. Sir Hugh, son of Lewis and Sir Walter of Plymouth, most assuredly come into play in the lives of kinship Pollards of Virginia and Barbados.

To further uphold the validity of the aforementioned the following has been submitted:

• ***Memoirs and Sketches of the Life of Henry Robinson Pollard; an autobiography. By H.R. Pollard Lewis Printing Company, Richmond, 1923. Chesapeake Bay Book Collection. American Memory, Library of Congress.

"...that the first of our name to appear in this country (America) were two brothers who came from Ireland. A careful study of the country records and dates seems to bear this out, and to give ground for the logical conjecture that the descendants, either sons or nephews we cannot be sure which, of old Sir John, Governor of the Irish province of Munster and staunch loyalist, either remained in Ireland ot fled thither from London in the time of Cromwell. Then later, when the Irish persecutions became so bitter, they fled, in all likelihood, from the hated Protectorate, and came to Virginia, as did so many of the friends of the Stuarts."

...we find the records of Lancaster County (Virginia) that on, Jan. 8, 1656 (just when Cromwell's power was at it's height, Edwyn Conway made an assignment of a land warrant to a certain Robert Pollard, generally presumed to have been the father of Robert Pollard of Bruington. A generation later (1720), there is recorded a royal grant from King George II., "for divers good causes and considerations, but more especially for and in consideration of the sum of twenty-five shillings in good and lawful money paid to our Receiver General of our Revenues in this our Colony and Dominion of Virginia;" of two hundred and fifty acres, near Tuckahoe Swamp in St. Stephen's Parish, King and Queen, to Robert Pollard. This grant is signed by "A. Spotswood," the royal governor.

With the aforesaid Robert Pollard of Bruington, a figures step out boldly and clearly into authentic facts and enact their part definitely upon the pages of history rather than in the annals of tradition."
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The Pollards of Way, while tracing back to the fourteenth century, were brought first into prominence, and their future greatness established, by Sir Lewis Pollard, Justice of the Common Pleas 1511 to 1526. In all notices of him a serious mistake is made as to the year of his death. Foss states that he retired from the Bench in 1526, but lived until 1540 ; and these dates have been adopted in ' Diet. Nat. Bipg.' The will of " Sir Lewes Pollard, militis, Justice of the King's Bench " [sic], is dated 4 Nov., 16 Hen. VIII., and was proved 2 Nov., 1526 ; so that it is evident that he retired from his judicial duties only through death. He was the founder of several lines of the Pollard family. Both the ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' and Foss state that he had no fewer than eleven sons and eleven daughters, four of his sons being knighted. This large family wants confirmation ; possibly many of them died very young. The Pollard pedigree in Vivian's ' Visitations of Devon * (the fullest account of the Pollards of Way of which I have knowledge) gives to the judge six sons and five daughters ; while in his will he mentions four sons only. There is little doubt that the Sir John Pollard knighted in 1553, and mistaken for the Speaker, was one of the sons of Sir Lewis. I shall be glad if further light can be thrown upon the somewhat complicated Pollard lines, especially upon that represented by the Speaker's father Walter Pollard of Plymouth. Also, who was the Richard Pollard who took so active a part in the suppression of the monasteries?

W. D. PINK. Lowton, Newton-le-Willows.
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Richard Whiting (1461-1539) English clergyman and the last Abbot of Glastonbury, presided over Glastonbury Abbey at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Whiting refused to surrender the abbey, which did not fall under the Act for the suppression of the lesser houses. He was executed by King Henry VIII after being convicted of treason for remaining loyal to Rome. He is considered a martyr by the Roman Catholic Church, which beatified him on 13 May 1895.

Royal commissioners, Layton, Richard Pollard and Thomas Moyle, arrived there without warning on the orders of Thomas Cromwell, presumably to find faults and thus facilitate the abbey's closure. Whiting, by now feeble and advanced in years, was sent to the Tower of London. The precise charge on which he was arrested, and subsequently executed, remains uncertain, though his case is usually referred to as one of treason. Cromwell clearly acted as judge and jury: in his manuscript, "Remembrances" are the entries: ""Item, Certayn persons to be sent to the Tower for the further examenacyon of the Abbot, of Glaston… Item. The Abbot, of Glaston to (be) tryed at Glaston and also executyd there with his complycys… Item. Councillors to give evidence against the Abbot of Glaston, Rich. Pollard, Lewis Forstew (Forstell), Thos. Moyle."" Marillac, the French Ambassador, on 25 October wrote: ""The Abbot of Glastonbury. . . has lately, been put in the Tower, because, in taking the Abbey treasures, valued at 200,000 crowns, they found a written book of arguments in behalf of queen Katherine."" As a member of the House of Lords, Whiting should have been attained by an Act of Parliament passed for that purpose, but his execution was an accomplished fact before Parliament met. Whiting was sent back to Glastonbury with Pollard and reached Wells on 14 November. There, some sort of trial apparently took place, and he was convicted of "robbing Glastonbury church". The next day, Saturday, 15 November, he was taken to Glastonbury with two of his monks, John Thorne and Roger James, where all three were fastened upon hurdles and dragged by horses to the top of Glastonbury Tor which overlooks the town. Here, they were hanged, drawn and quartered, with Whiting's head being fastened over the west gate of the now deserted abbey and his limbs exposed at Wells, Bath, Ilchester and Bridgwater.
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In 1554, after Wyatt's rebellion, Wyatt's "head was sett on the gall owes at the park pale beyond St. James, where Pollard and two other were hanged in Chaynes " (Wriothesley, ii. 115)
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In 1549, among the executions following the rising in Devonshire, was that of Welsh, the Vicar of St. Thomas's, Exeter. He had stood by the rebels, but had prevented the burning of the city. This did not save him. A gallows was set up on the top of the church ; the vicar was drawn to the top of the tower by a rope about his middle, and there in chains hanged in his popish appareland had a holie water bucket and sprinkle, a sacring bell, a paire of beads, and such other like popish trash about him, and there he with the same about him remained a long time." Hooker, in Holinshed, iii. 1026.
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In 1549, the two Ketts- were sentenced to be drawn, hanged, and quartered at Tyburn. They were, however, hanged in chains : Robert on the top of Norwich Castle, William on the top of the steeple of Wymondham Church.
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"Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains ouer Beuerlie gate at Hull, and Robert Aske was also hanged in chains on a tower at Yorke." Wriothesley says: "1537. This yeare....Sir Robert Constable was hanged at Hull in Yorkeshire in chaines, Aske was hanged in the cittie of Yorke in Chaines till he died." ' Chron.,' Camden Soc., 1875, i. 65.
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In 1583-4 Niccolo Circignano painted in the English College at Rome frescoes representing the English martyrdoms. Engravings from these frescoes by Giovanni Battista Cavallieri were published in 1584, in 'Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophsea.' Plate 28 represents (not literally) the executions of Carthusians : one portion of the plate is devoted to the execution of Rochester and Walworth. Underneath the plate is the explanatory text: "Two other Carthusians, at York, hang alive, in iron chains from a lofty beam, till their bones, being wasted away, they fall down ('catenis ferreis e sublimi trabe vivi pendent, donee ossibus dissolutis, dilabuntur ' )."

Family links:

Parents:

 John Pollard (1508 - 1575)

Spouse:

 Margaret Bassett Pollard (1582 - 1639)*

Children:

 Robert Pollard (1610 - 1668)*

*Calculated relationship

Burial: Unknown

Created by: W. Pollard Record added: Oct 25, 2013 Find A Grave Memorial# 119279800

Robert Pollard, I Added by: W. Pollard

Robert Pollard, I Added by: W. Pollard

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Family...never forgotten. - Linda Newbrough 

Added: Dec. 11, 2014 

- W. Pollard

Added: Oct. 25, 2013