Sir John St Leger, Kt., MP

John St. Leger (died 1596)

Sir John St. Leger (died 1596), of Annery in the parish of Monkleigh, Devon, was an English politician. Sheriff of Devon in 1560, he was Member of Parliament for Dartmouth, Devon, in 1555-1558, Devon in 1559–1563, Arundel, Sussex, in 1563-1571, Devon again in 1571-1583 and Tregony, Cornwall in 1584-1585.[2] He was knighted in 1544.

He was the son of Sir George St. Leger (c.1475-1536), of Annery, by his wife, Anne Knyvett, daughter of Edmund Knyvett. His paternal grandparents were Sir James St. Leger, of Shipton, and Lady Anne Butler, heiress of Annery, daughter of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormonde[citation needed] and great-aunt of Queen Anne Boleyn. One of his great-uncles was Sir Thomas St Leger (c.1440-1483), the husband of Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter (1439-1476), sister of Kings Edward IV and Richard III. His great-grandfather was Sir John St Leger (c.1404-1442) lord of the manor of Ulcombe in Kent, whose three sons Randolf (or Ralph), Thomas and James, all made advantageous marriages. The manor of Ulcombe had been held by the family from the See of Canterbury from shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066, during which a St Leger knight is supposed by tradition to have supported William the Conqueror with his hand on disembarking from his ship at Pevensey.[3] The name was Latinised to de Sancto Leodegario.

He married Catherine Neville, daughter of George Neville, 5th Baron Bergavenny and according Virgoe (1982) left two sons[4] (only one according to Chope (1917)[5]) and four daughters:

• John St Leger, eldest son, a soldier in Ireland, died unmarried and in poverty
• Dudley St Leger, possibly illegitimate[6]
• Mary St Leger, the eldest, who married Sir Richard Grenville (1542-1591) of Stowe, Kilkhampton, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon, the famous captain of Revenge.
• Frances St Leger, who married John Stucley (1551-1611), of Affeton, Devon[9] and was the mother of Sir Lewis Stucley[10]
• Margaret St Leger, who married Richard Bellew of Ash, Braunton and Alverdiscott, Devon. A heraldic mural monument to Richard Bellew and his wife Margaret St Leger survives in Braunton parish Church.
• Eulalia St Leger, who married firstly Edmund Tremayne of Collacombe, Devon, and secondly Tristram Arscott (1544-1621) of Tetcott, Devon, the latter who bought Annery from his father-in-law John St Leger.[9][11]

Under a royal grant dated 10 June 1543 "John St Leger, King's servant" acquired the following former monastic lands following the Dissolution of the Monasteries:[12]

• Canonsleigh Priory in the parish of Burlescombe, site and demesne of.
• Priory manor of Hockworthy.
• Torre Abbey, site and demesne of, subject to a 21-year lease granted at Dissolution to Hugh I Pollard of King's Nympton.[13] St Leger sold it in 1543 to Hugh Pollard.[14]
• Manor of Cullompton, formerly held by Buckland Abbey.
• Manor of Upton Weaver (or Higher Upton) in the parish of Cullompton, formerly held by St Nicholas's Priory, Exeter.
• Other non-monastic property in Devon
• Small landholding in Cornwall.

The lands were exchanged with the king for other lands of St Leger, with an excess balance paid by him of £116 9s 9d.[15]

Despite accumulating much land, he became encumbered with debts and parted with many of his estates. He died "a poor man"[2] and on the death of his son John without progeny the St Leger family of Annery was extinguished. However, another line descended from Randolf St Leger (d.1470), Sheriff of Kent and one of his great uncles, father of Sir Anthony St Leger (d.1559), KG, Lord Deputy of Ireland, whose descendants were created Viscount Doneraile, later inherited the manor of Eggesford in Devon.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_St._Leger_(died_1596)

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• Sir John St. Leger1
• M, #85233, b. circa 1515
• Father Sir George St. Leger1 b. c 1484
• Mother Anne Knyvett1 b. c 1482
• Sir John St. Leger was born circa 1515 at of Annery, Devonshire, England.1 He married Catherine Neville, daughter of Sir George Neville, Lord Abergavenny, Constable of Dover Castle, Warden of the Cinque Ports and Mary Stafford, circa 1540 at England.2
• Family Catherine Neville b. c 1520
• Citations
• [S61] Unknown author, Family Group Sheets, Family History Archives, SLC.
• [S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 95.
• From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p2837.htm#... ___________________
• John St. Leger1
• M, #1058, b. circa 1520, d. 8 October 1596
• Last Edited=12 Nov 2013
• John St. Leger was born circa 1520 at Annery, Monkleigh, Devon, England.2 He was the son of Sir George St. Leger and Anne Knyvett.2 He married Lady Catherine Neville, daughter of Sir George Neville, 3rd Lord Abergavenny and Lady Mary Stafford, circa 1540.1 He died on 8 October 1596 at Devon, England.2
• He lived at Annersley, Devon, England.1
• Children of John St. Leger and Lady Catherine Neville
  • Mary St. Leger2 d. 1623
  • John St. Leger2
  • Charles St. Leger2
  • Daniel St. Leger2
  • Elizabeth St. Leger2
  • Ulalia St. Leger2
  • Margaret St. Leger2
  • Jane St. Leger2
  • Frances St. Leger+3
  • Catherine St. Leger2 b. 1572, d. 1620
  • Dudley St. Leger2 b. 1578, d. 1627
• Citations
• [S8] BP1999 volume 1, page 17. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S8]
• [S4567] Bill Norton, "re: Pitman Family," e-mail message to Darryl Roger LUNDY (101053), 6 April 2010 and 19 April 2011. Hereinafter cited as "re: Pitman Family."
• [S37] BP2003 See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]
• From: http://www.thepeerage.com/p106.htm#i1058 ____________
• John St. LEGER of Annery (Sir Knight)
• Born: ABT 1520, Annery, Monkleigh, Devon, England
• Died: 8 Oct 1596, Devonshire, England
• Notes: See his Biography.
• Father: George St. LEGER (Sir)
• Mother: Anne KNYVETT
• Married 1: Catherine NEVILLE ABT 1540
• Children:
  • 1. Frances St. LEGER
  • 2. John St. LEGER
  • 3. Charles St. LEGER
  • 4. Daniel St. LEGER
  • 5. Elizabeth St. LEGER
  • 6. Ulalia St. LEGER
  • 7. Margaret St. LEGER
  • 8. Catherine St. LEGER (b. 1572 - d. 1620)
  • 9. Jane St. LEGER
  • 10. Mary St. LEGER
  • 11. Dudley St. LEGER (b. 1578 - d. 1627)
• Married 2: Martha SCUDAMORE
• From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/STLEGER.htm#John St. LEGER of Annery (Sir Knight)1
• The details in this biography come from the History of Parliament, a biographical dictionary of Members of the House of Commons.
• http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/JohnStLeger1.htm ___________
• ST. LEGER, Sir John (by 1516-93/96), of Annery in Monkleigh, Devon.
• b. by 1516, 1st s. of Sir George St. Leger of Annery by Anne, da. of Edmund Knyvet. m. by June 1535, Catherine, da. of George Neville, 5th Lord Bergavenny, at least 2s. 4da. suc. fa. 1533/37. Kntd. 1544/1 Oct. 1547.1
• Offices Held
  • Commr. relief, Devon 1550, musters 1569; j.p. 1554, q. 1558/59-d.; dep. lt. Devon and Cornw. 1558, Devon 1569; sheriff, Devon 1560-1.2
• John St. Leger was only a boy when his father and grandmother arranged that he should marry a daughter of the wealthy royal favourite Sir William Compton; the bride was to bring a dowry of £2,346 and both families were to settle lands on the couple. The marriage did not take place, seemingly because Catherine Compton died, and it was replaced by a match with Catherine Neville, a granddaughter of the 3rd Duke of Buckingham. St. Leger was married by 1535 and within two years he had livery of an inheritance comprising lands in nine counties. He served in the French campaign of 1544. According to Sir William Paget, Henry VIII on his deathbed chose St. Leger for creation as a baron, but the Council revised the King’s plan after his death.3
• It was not until he was about 40 that St. Leger entered the Commons but he was to sit in every Parliament save one for the 30 years which followed. His election in 1555 may have owed something to the prominent part he had played in the rounding up of the Carew rebels at the beginning of the previous year; this had earned him the thanks of the Queen and a place on the Devon bench. Himself linked by marriage with the Carew and Courtenay families, and returned for Dartmouth with the outgoing sheriff James Courtenay, St. Leger is likely to have enjoyed most support from James Bassett, the court favourite who sat in this Parliament as one of the knights of the shire. The names of Courtenay and St. Leger are conspicuously absent from the list of Members, among them many ‘western’ men, who voted against one of the government’s bills. For the rest of Mary’s reign St. Leger was an active local official, and when early in 1558 Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford was made lord lieutenant of Devon and Cornwall, Sir Thomas Denys and St. Leger became his deputies.4
• St. Leger had both added to and consolidated his possessions in Devon, especially through grants of ex-monastic lands, but in later life he parted with much of his property and he died in the mid 1590s a poor man.5
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/st... ___________
• ST. LEGER (SELLENGER), Sir John (by 1516-93/96), of Annery in Monkleigh, Devon.
• b. by 1516, 1st s. of Sir George St. Leger of Annery by Anne, da. of Edmund Knyvet. m. by June 1535, Catherine, da. of George Neville, 5th Lord Bergavenny, at least 2s. 4da. suc. fa. bet. 1544 and 1547.
• Offices Held
  • Commr. relief, Devon 1550, musters 1569; j.p. from 1554, q. from c.1559, sheriff 1560-1; dep. lt. Cornw. and Devon 1558, Devon 1569.1
• St. Leger inherited considerable west-country estates, and remained an active local official from the reign of Henry VIII to almost the end of Elizabeth’s reign. He conformed to the state church, whether Catholic or protestant, but that his sympathies were with the reformers is suggested by the end Earl of Bedford’s appointing him a deputy lieutenant and by Elizabeth’s making him a visitor for the diocese of Exeter and giving him a rectory and advowson. St. Leger thrice sat as knight of the shire, and came in for Arundel (through his relative the 12th Earl of Arundel) and Tregony (through the Pomeroy family or the 2nd Earl of Bedford). His parliamentary career is of no special interest. He was on the succession committee (31 Oct. 1566), and was one of 30 Commons MPs summoned on 5 Nov. to hear the Queen’s message on the succession. He claimed privilege for a servant 9 Apr. 1571, at a time when he was himself up to his ears in debt, and served on committees concerned with navigation (8 May 1571), Devon harbours (11 May), tanners (11 May), and cloth (8 Feb. 1581).
• On to Mar. 1581 the Lords sent down a bill for the restitution in blood of St. Leger’s two sons John and Dudley (probably Dudley was illegitimate) who had disgraced themselves by ‘certain lewd practices’ including robbery on Hounslow Heath, and had been in the Fleet after a brawl with the sons of Sir John Perrot. John St. Leger became a soldier, and wrote to Walsingham from the Netherlands asking him to persuade his father not to ‘bury himself in so dark a tomb that he leave no light, sign, or mark of his name, house, wife, family and children’. In 1589, when he was commanding troops in Ireland, the Privy Council granted him permission to visit Annery, where his father was ill, and there is a reference to another projected visit in the following year. In 1592 the old man was too infirm to take the oath of allegiance at the Devon sessions, but he was well enough to meet other justices at Barnstaple about the rating for the 1593 subsidy.
• By this time many estates had been sold and St. Leger had been involved in lawsuit after lawsuit over his debts, on which he was paying 20% interest. On one occasion Richard Grenville II brought a case in the stannary courts against one Hilling for saying publicly to one of St. Leger’s servants: ‘Thy master is an old drunken bankrupt knave, a rogue and a rascally villain—and so go tell him’. The picture is one of general disintegration. Nothing is known of the last years of St. Leger’s life, and no inquisition post mortem survives. He died intestate before 7 Nov. 1596, when letters of administration were granted to his daughter Eulalia Arscott alias St. Leger—formerly wife of Edmund Tremayne. She renounced the administration in the following year, no doubt because of the insolvency of the estate. John St. Leger wrote to Salisbury in 1605 ‘if his father had left him that living which his ancestors left him, the world would have more respected him’. He asked that those who had bought Sir John’s lands ‘at so low a rate’ should give him compensation, and this not materializing, the St. Legers disappeared as a landed Devon family.2
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/st... ___________
• Collectanea topographica et genealogica (1834)
• http://www.archive.org/details/collectaneatopog04londuoft
• http://www.archive.org/stream/collectaneatopog04londuoft#page/321/m...
• . . . Thomas Earl of Ormonde died 8th Aug. 1515, leaving issue Anne and Margaret his heirs.
• To which of these ladies the island was apportioned I am unable to tell. Anne, the eldest coheir, married Sir James St. Leger of Annery, co. Devon, whose only son the issue of this marriage, Sir George St. Leger, had by Ann, daughter of Edmund Knevyt, Esq. an only son Sir John, who, by Katharine daughter of George Lord Abergavenny, had issue : — John and Dudley, who both died s. p. and three daughters, of whom Mary, the eldest, had to her husband the gallant Sir Richard Grenville, of Bideford, co. Devon, Admiral of England, and by him was mother of the equally gallant Sir Bevill Grenville, who died in the cause of Charles I. at Lansdowne, and whose son and heir appears to have held Lundy at his death. If the island descended through this Mary to her grandson, it passed for a time from the family, as will presently be seen. The two other daughters were, Frances, married to John Stucley, Esq. of Affeton, Devon, and Eulalia, the wife, first of Edmund Tremain, Esq. of Cullacomb, Devon ; secondly, of Tristram Arscott, Esq. of Annery. _____________________
• Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families, 2nd Edition ...
• https://books.google.com/books?id=kjme027UeagC&printsec=frontcover&...
• Pg.243
• 14. GEORGE NEVILLE, K.G., K.B., Lord Bergavenny, of Birling, West Peckham, Mereworth, etc., Kent, Abergavenny House, London, etc., Keeper of Southfrith Park, Kent, 1499-1508, Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports, c. 1512-15, Keeper of Ashdown Forest, Kent, 1515, Privy Councillor, 1515-21, son and heir, born about 1469 (aged 16 in 1485). He married (1st) JOAN ARUNDEL, daughter of Thomas Arundel, K.G., K.B., 17th Earl of Arundel (descendant of King Edward III), by Margaret (descendant of King Henry III) daughter of Richard Wydeville, K.G., 1st Earl Rivers, Constable of England, Lord High Treasurer [see ARUNDEL 14 for her ancestry]. They had two daughters, Elizabeth (wife of Henry Daubeney, K.B., Earl of Bridgwater) and Jane. He was summoned to Parliament from 16 Jan. 1496/7 to 5 Jan 1533/4. He served in the wars against France, and was in the Battle of Blackheath in 1497 against the Cornish rebels. In 1506 he was indicted for keeping unlawful retainers, for which crime he was fined the enormous sum of £50,000; he was sentenced in the King's Bench in Michaelmas term 1507. His wife, Joan, died 14 Nov. 1508. In 1509 the king cancelled the debt and allowed him to retain men lawfully for the king's service. He was Chief Larderer at the Coronation of Henry VIII in 1509, and again at that of Anne Boleyn, Queen Consort, in 1533. He was granted the castle and lands of Abergavenny by King Henry VIII in 1512. He married (2nd) before 5 Sept. 1513 (date of fine) MARGARET BRENT, daughter of John Brent, Gent., of Charing, Kent. They had no issue. In 1513 he and his wife, Margaret, sold the manor of Speenhamland (in Speen), Berkshire. She was living in 1515. In 1517 Wolsey threatened to prosecute him for having too many men in his livery. George Married (3rd) about June 1519 [LADY] MARY STAFFORD, youngest daughter of Edward Stafford, K.G., K.B., 3rd Duke of Buckingham (descendant of King Edward III), by Eleanor, daughter of Henry Percy, K.G., 4th Earl of Northumberland (descendant of King Edward III) [see STAFFORD 14 for her ancestry]. They had three sons, Henry (or Harry), K.B., [Lord
• Pg.244
• Bergavenny], John, and Thomas, and five daughters, Mary (wife of Thomas Fiennes, 9th Lord Dacre, John Wotton, and Francis Thursby, Esq.), Katherine (wife of John St. Leger, Knt.), Margaret (wife of John Cheney and Henry Poole, Esq.), Dorothy (wife of William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham), and Ursula. He and his wife attended the king at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. He was imprisoned c.May 1521, and pardoned for misprision of treason 29 March 1522. He was captain of the army in France in 1523. He married (4th) MARY BROOKE (otherwise COBHAM), formerly his servant. They had one daughter. SIR GEORGE NEVILLE, Lord Bergavenny, left a will dated 4 Jun 1535, prove 24 Jan. 1535/6 (P.C.C. 35 Hogen), and was buried in Birling, Kent.
• .... etc. ___________________
• Links
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Nevill,_5th_Baron_Bergavenny

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