Samuel More, MP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_More

There is no record of where Katherine lived after Samuel divorced her, or of when and where she died. We presume that she died in 1625, the year when Samuel remarried and proceeded to produce numerous male heirs. We do not know where she was buried.

More came from an old Shropshire family that was already holding the manor from which they took their name in the twelfth century.13 However, after they were no longer required to attend the king on his Welsh campaigns at the head of 200 men their record lacked distinction in their own county, and it was left to a younger son, John, founder of the Sussex branch to become the first to enter Parliament when he served for Winchelsea in 1547. More himself came from another cadet branch. His father, a puritan, reunited the family estates by marrying him off at the age of 16 to his cousin Katherine, eight years his senior. Unfortunately for More, Katherine already considered herself the wife of Jacob Blakeway, a tenant on the More estate and ‘a fellow of mean parentage and condition’, and in 1616 she applied to Hereford consistory court claiming false marriage to More. Unable to produce witnesses to substantiate her claim that she had entered into a pre-contract with Blakeway, her suit failed, leaving More free to prosecute Blakeway for adultery, both in High Commission and the Council in the Marches. Blakeway received a royal pardon in 1618, presumably on condition of giving evidence against his paramour, and in 1619 More was granted a separation from his wife. This was confirmed on appeal in July 1620, whereupon the four surviving children of the marriage - the youngest of whom was just six - were packed off to New England on the Mayflower. One died shortly after the ship’s arrival at New Plymouth, while two more expired over the winter.14

notes

How to get rid of unwanted children? He had connections to the Right Honorable Edward Lord Zouche of St. Maur and Cantalupe, 11th Baron Zouche of Harringworth, a member of King James' Privy Council. Lord Zouche was a Puritan sympathizer, and involved with the London Virginia Company. He arranged with Thomas Weston to put the children in the care of influential members of the Separatist Colony. Samuel More paid £80, an adult passage, guaranteeing them a fair allotment of land, that they would not be seen as indentured servants (thus differing from the Virginia model). He also invested $20 in the overall venture, the profits to go to the most deserving of the children. [51]

Sources

• [51] http://capecodhistory.us/genealogy/family/f937.html#51

Links

• http://www.americanancestors.org/mayflower-bastard-a-stranger-among...
• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=dowfam3&i...
• http://www.cyberancestors.com/cummins/ps38/ps38_335.htm
• http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/mo...

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• page 217 of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volumes 35-36.  July 1905.  "The English Ancestry of Richard More of the Mayflower". Katherine More (52), daughter of Jasper of Larden, married her third cousin, Samuel "the Parliamentarian" More (54) of Linley, son of Richard (44). The children of this marriage are recorded at Shipton, and are the well known More children of the Mayflower company.
• page 364-365 & page 366 of The visitation of Shropshire, taken in the year 1623 by Treswell, Robert; Vincent, Augustine, ca. 1584-1626; Camden, William, 1551-1623; Grazebrook, George, 1831-1917 ed; Rylands, J. Paul (John Paul), b. 1846 joint ed; College of Arms (Great Britain) Published 1889.  Part 2 of 2.  "Moore of Larden and Mounslawe."