The Heyshams of Yealand Conyers

Henry made England a great nation that could deal on an even level with France and the Empire. However, he broke with the Catholic Church over his divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, the aunt of the Empereor. He then established the Church of England with himself as its head.

Importantly, the north and west of England, being much more conservative than the cosmopolitan southeast, remained strongly Catholic in attitude and practice.

Henry eventually married, and made Queens of, six women. Catherine of Aragon (the mother of Queen Mary), Ann Boleyn (the mother of Queen Elizabeth), Jane Seymour (the mother of King Edward VI), Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Paar. The following rhyme tracks their individual fates: Divorced, Beheaded, Died. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived.

While life at court was turbulent, Henry's reign was one of stability and growing prosperity for his people. The nation's population finally began to grow.

The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Henry's third wife. He was a sickly boy who died young.

The elder sister of Edward VI, she was the daughter of Henry VII and Catherine of Aragon. Known as Bloody Mary, she made many martyrs in her attempt to re-establish the Catholic Church in England. She married King Philip of Spain, but they had no children. Calais, the last English possession in France, was lost during her reign. In this defeat England was finally forced to turn away from her dreams of an empire in Europe to that of a empire of the sea.

Called Gloriana. She was one of the greatest monarchs of all time, and was so attested by even her great enemy, the Pope. She brought the realm good government, good coinage, and, most importantly, peace. Her rule created the basis for the country's great leap forward in economics, military power and artistic achievement.

After the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Spanish King, Philip, sent the great Armada to subdue England and bring the country back to the Catholic faith. This force was destroyed in a series of fleet actions and by bad weather. The populace was exhilerated by this achievement.

The first attempts were made to colonize America, but without success.

King of Scotland and son of Mary Queen of Scots. He gains the English throne through a sister of King Henry VIII.

Charles was an ineffective King, stubborn when he should be conciliatory, irresolute when he should be strong. Religious conflicts accelerated and the Parliament, feeling its strength, confronted the King over its perogatives. In 1642 the English Civil War broke out. See The History Of The English Civil Wars for more information on this period.

1645 Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentary troops defeated King Charles' army at the battle of Naseby.

1649 Charles I beheaded. Parliament proclaimed the Commonwealth.

1651 Charles II invaded England with a Scottish army to reclaim the throne. He was defeated and fled to the continent.

In the 17th century Warton Parish included, in pretty much a straight line from south to north, the villages of Carnforth, Warton, Yealand Conyers, Yealand Redmayne, and Yealand Storrs. Yealand Conyers, left, is on a plateau above Yealand Redmayne. About 4 miles southeast is Aughton and the Highfield estate of another Heysham family, and about five miles south is Halton.

The generations listed below are approximations.

"Heisham, Robert, of Nether Kellet, Lancs. . . . Alleg. 1627" - from Index to Wills in Diocesan Registery, "A List of Freeholders in Cheshire." Nether Kellet is a township about halfway between Halton and Warton, in Bolton-le-Sands parish. The Highfields are just southeast.

Also from the Diocese is a case between a Thomas Underwood and Ellen Key. There was apparently a child born to Ellen, which she claimed belonged to Thomas. Thomas saw it otherwise and brought in witnesses, of whom Robert was one.

27 July 1564. "Robertus Heisham, parochie de Weuerham [minister of Weuerham, in Cheshire], etatis lx annorum, novit partem actricem de puericia, et Elenan Key similiter.
Ad primum articulum, nexcit deponere.
Ad ij articulum, This deponent saiss, that Elene Key, articulate, Did ride behinde a young man about Corpus Chrisit daie was xij moneths; and when they came to a suspicious place, the[y] light both; and ther horse was rayned in the midest of the Lane; and they went both ouer a stele, and backside a hedge, very suspiciously . . .", and so forth, including a claim by Robert that Ellen had "a very evill Name in the Cuntrye." - from "Child-marriages, Divorces, and Ratifications, &c. in the Diocese of Chester" by Frederick James Furnivall.

"Heisham, alias Chambers, Agnes, of Bolton by the Sands, K . . . 1600" - from Wills in the Archdeaconry of Richmond. I assume this means that Agnes Chambers had married a Heisham, perhaps Robert, above. Bolton-le-Sands is just west of Nether Kellet.

Possibly an Uncle of John Heesom. "Mr. Will. Heeshem" had two children baptized at St. Oswalds church in Warton Near Lancaster. These were Margret Heeshem, of Warton, and Geffory Heeshom, of Borwick. Will could have been a brother or cousin of Richard.

A Gulielmus Heysham de B., also as Guliemus Heysham of Borwick, died and was buried at St Oswald, Warton Nr Lancaster, Lancashire, England on 26 February 1671/2 - from the Parish Register of Burials, 165301704.

The daughter of William Heeshem. She was christened on 1 November 1661, in Warton. There was a Margret Heeshem [Heesham] who married Leonard Jackson in 1690 in Lancaster, but I can't be certain this was her.

The son of William Heeshom. He was christened on 10 April 1664, in Borwick.

"Christenings in 1664.
.effory [Jeffory] s. of Will: Heeshom of B. . . . . . . 10 Apr:" - from "Publication, Volume 73" of the Lancashire Parish Register Society

Robert Heesom of Capernwray was born in 1657. Capernwray is just southeast of Warton, and the next village south of Borwick. Note also that it is just north of the Highfield estates of William Heysham (c1540) and his sons.

"Heesom, Robert, of Capernway (?) 1701" - from "List of the Wills Now Preserved in the Probate Court, Chester, From the Year 1701 to 1720 Inclusive." This may be a link to the Heesom family that became so numerous in Cheshire county in later centuries. His wife was Ann. Their children included,

(19) John Heisham, son of Robt. Heisham & Ann, was christened on 26 December 1686 in Over Kellet, Lancashire, England. John Heisham, son of Robt Heisham, was buried on 19 July 1687 - from the Bolton-Le-Sands Parish Register.

(19) William Heisham, son of Robt Heisham & Ann, was christened on 8 July 1688 in Over Kellet, Lancashire, England. A Will Heysham married Agnes Hudson on 1 January 1716 in Bolton-Le-Sands.

(19) Deborah Heesom, daughter of Robt Heesom, was buried on 6 Mary 1700 - from the Bolton-Le-Sands Parish Register.

(19) Deborah Heesom, daughter of Robert Heesom of Capernwray, was christened on 20 November 1700 in Over Kellet, Lancashire, England - from the Bolton-Le-Sands Parish Register.

Alice Heysham was born in about 1655 in Bolton-Le-Sands. She married Robert Barker on 15 July 1676. She was buried on 3 April 1712 in Bolton-Le-Sands.

Richard must have been a successful farmer, or estate-man, in order to be able to afford to send his son, Thomas, to school for an advanced degree.

". . . Hessham, Thomas, Adm. at KINO'S [Kings College?], c. 1345 [1745?]. Perhaps V. of age 17. S. of Richard, of Warton, Lancs. Scholar, 1733; Previously matric, from Brasenose, Oxford, May 13, 1727, Matric. 1734; BA 1735-6. Ord. deacon (Norwich) Sept 1734; Priest, July, 1736 . . ." - from "Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates" by John Venn

King's College, left, is at Cambridge. The college was founded in the 15th century for boys from Eton. The connection with Eton remained strong for many years and it was not until 1865 that the first non-Etonian undergraduates arrived to study at King's. Thomas, however, would have been a post-graduate student.

Brasenose College is at Oxford. It is pictured on the right as it would have appeared in the 1670's.

Mary Heysham, spinster, married Francis Anderton, tailor, both of Sedbergh parish, on 12 April 1733 in Sedbergh, Yorkshire. Bondsman: James Inman, grocer, of Sedbergh. - from "Marriage Bonds for the Deaneries of Lonsdale, Kendal, Furness and Copeland." Sedbergh is on the borders of Yorkshire and Westmorland. Francis Anderton was born in 1700 in Sedbergh and was buried on 7 January 1740/41. This was Francis' second marriage. "Francis Anderton, of Sedbergh, clothier, and Eliza Tyson, of Birk Hagg, p. Kendal, spr." had married on 14 November 1721.

Mary Anderton, widow of Francis Anderton, was buried on 2 December 1795 at St. Mary, Lancaster. Abode was listed as Lanc'r, but Notes indicated "from Warton."

A Sir Francis Anderton of Lostock lived at the same time (1680-1760). He was a Jacobite, captured at Preston and tried for High Treason. His brother, Lawrence, received the estates, but upon his death in 1724 they passed to the Blundell family. The Anderton family lived in the Crosby district of Lancashire. They appear to have had the advowson of the vicarage of Garstang. I don't want to create a connection where there is none, but tailor or clothier does not have to mean someone who plied needle and thread. He could, like the draper Robert Heysham, have been a merchant tailor - selling cloth, not mending it.

The church, which is thought to have been first built around 1100, was named for Oswald, the Christian King of Northumbria in the 6th century. The current church was rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was constructed of roughcast stone, designed to protect it from the harsh North Lancashire weather and the winds that blow off Morecombe Bay. The stained glass is modern. See Warton St. Oswald for more information and photographs of the interior.

18 members of the Washington family, forebears of America's first President, were baptized there between 1584 and 1718. Robert Washington built the church tower and the family coat of arms are engraved in stone upon it. The church is proud of its association and flies the American flag every 4th of July.

Records from the Yealand Conyers village church were kept at Warton. The towers on both churches are 19th century.

Described as a "delightful village tucked away in the far north of the county . . . It is a treasure-trove of picturesque stone-built houses and cottages." North of the village of Warton, in the parish of Warton, are the Yealands, a sequence of three small communities named in order Yealand Conyers, Yealand Redmayne and Yealand Storrs. Their names derive from early Lords of the Manor, including Adam de Yealand, Robert de Conyers, and Henry de Redmayne.

The Lords of the Manor in the 17th century were the Middletons. They had first appeared in 1438 when Geoffrey Middleton married Alyson Croft, the heir of the previous Lords. They eventually gained the manors of Yealand Redmayne, Yealand Conyers, Yealand Storrs, and Leighton where they lived, as well as lands in Silverdale and Lindeth. Bordering on the parish were their manors of Over Kellett and Burton, just over the county border in Westmorland. Leighton Hall, the Middletons' mansion home, contained twenty-four firehearths in 1664 when most of the other dwellings in the parish had only one. Leighton Hall was destroyed during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. The current building is of later construction. Yealand was held of the Duchy of Lancaster.

During the Civil War the Middletons backed Charles I and the Royalists while most of their tenants were Parliament men, but even before then the yeomanry of the district, the rising middle-class, had fought with their Lord over customary rights and fees. After the war the battles continued, with the Middletons attempting to regain their feudal rights lost in the conflict. They were largely successful.

In Quaker history Yealand Conyers is part of what is known as "1652 country," the region where the religion got its start in that year. James Fox, the religion's founder, preached in the village which resulted in a strong Quaker movement developing in the surronding districts. A meeting house, the earliest Quaker "church," was built there in 1692. The nearby Quaker school was also of very early construction. It was where Dr. John Heysham of Carlisle got his early training.

See the Yealand Conyers Parish or the Lancashire Parish Portal web sites for photographs of the region.

After the King was beheaded, and after a tumultuous period of Parliamentary rule, the leading general of the Puritan cause, Cromwell, was made Lord Protector. He ruled England through Parliament, but his absoute power over the Army made him a virtual dictator.

Richard lacked his father's political skills and General Monk, one of the Civil War's great generals, engineered the restoration of the House of Stuart.

Charles II led a bawdy court famous for its royal mistresses. It was not famous of its intellect. Restricted in his income by Parliament, the King accepted money from France's King Louis XIV.

Dutch colonies in America were seized and given to Charles' brother James, the Duke of York (hence New York city).

The Quakers found colonies in West Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1675 and 1682.