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Danvers Family of St. James the Great, Dauntsey

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Lady Anne Danvers (tomb)
Henry Danvers (monument)
Sir John and Lady Anne (tomb)

The Danvers Family

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For information about the Danvers family a visit to the web site of Gary Danvers and Jane Webster is a must. Lots of pages packed with lots of information about this family. Follow these direct links:

www.geocities.com/garydanvers/Dauntsey.html
www.geocities.com/garydanvers/Gendex.html.

There is information contained in the Wiltshire Collections book about this family. You can see the entire Dauntsey entry at Aubrey, but we have reproduced some bits for this family here.

John Jackson wrote in the 1860s:

: "Of Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers (Earl of Danby) some particulars are given in the narrative of the Murder of Mr. Henry Long, in the Wilts. Archaeol. Mag. Vol. I.p.306. Of Lord Danby, Aubrey says 'He was born at Dauntesey 28th day of June A.D.1573. He was of a magnificent and munificall spirit, and made that noble Physic-Garden at Oxford and endowed it with I thinke Ł30 per annum. In the epistles of Degory Wheare, History Professor of Oxford, in Latin, are severall addressed to his Lordship that doe recite his worth'. (Prior has also some verses on the Earl's liberality to the Botanic Garden). 'He allowed Ł3000 a year for his kitchen only. He bred up severall brave young gentlemen and preferred them; e.g., Colonel Legge and several others, of which enquire further of my Lady Viscountess Purbeck. The estate of Henry Earle of Danby was above Ł11000 per annum: near twelve.'; D. Lloyd says of him; 'He was called, by the Earl of Nottingham, at 25 years of age the best sea-captain in England. Baron of Dauntesey at 30. His instalment as K.G. the greatest solemnity ever known in the memory of man.'; A fine full length portrait of the Earl of Danby by Vandyke, from Lord Orford's collection, now belongs to W.H.H. Hartley Esq. of Lye Grove.; Lord Clarendon's account of the youngest of the three brothers, Sir John Danvers the Regicide, is not prepossessing. Speaking of the King's trial he says 'The two men who were only known to the King before the troubles were Sir Harry Mildmay, and Sir John Danvers, the younger brother and heir of the Earl of Danby. He was a Gentleman of the privy chamber to the King, and being neglected by his brother (Lord Danby) and having, by a vain expense in his way of living, contracted a vast debt, which he knew not how to pay, and being a proud, formal, weak man, between being seduced and a seducer, became so far involved in their counsels, that he suffered himself to be applied to their worst offices, taking it to be a high honour to sit upon the same bench with Cromwell, who employed and contemned him at once: nor did that party of miscreants look upon any two men in the kingdom with that scorn and detestation, as they did upon Danvers and Mildmay.' [Book xi. p.235, 8vo 1826.]"

John Aubrey, writing in the 1660s, had this to say:

: "(The Stradling Family) Here was a Robbery committed at the Mannour howse, on the family of the Stradlings: he (ie Sir Edward), and all his servants, except one plowboy who hid himself, were murthered: by which meanes, this whole estate came to Anne his sister, and heire. She married after to Sir John Danvers a handsome gentleman, who clapt up a match with her before she heard the newes, he, by good fortune lighting upon the Messenger first. She lived at that time in Pater-Noster Rowe at London, and had but an ordinary portion. This Robbery was donne on a Saturday night; the next day the Neighbours wondered none of the family came to Church; they went to see what was the matter, and the Parson of the parish very gravely went along with them, who, by the boy (i.e. the concealed plough-boy) was proved to be one of the company, and was, I think, hanged for his paines."

John Jackson researched Aubrey's notes, and (writing in the 1860s) adds:

: "Of this story the Editor has never been able to meet with any other written account whatsoever, nor in any of his researches relating to Wiltshire has he ever seen even the most remote allusion to it. The tradition however still lives in the parish of Dauntesey; not only vivens, but vivax: though probably now as unlike the original truth, as any tale could well be, that has been flitting from village-mouth to mouth for nearly 400 years. The popular version at present seems to be that the Father had gone to Parliament and had left his wife and son under the Parson's charge; that he and the Parish Clerk committed the murder, as they thought, undetected, but the plough-boy, hidden in the oven, saw and told; that the Parson's name was Cuthbert: and that he was starved to death in a cage on a gibbet in the field close by the Parsonage. As to the Parish Clerk, (entitled of course, professionally, to a less exalted position,) him they bury alive, with his head above ground. All this however presents nothing in aid of Aubrey's story. No such name as Cuthbert appears, either in the list of Incumbents of Dauntesey, or in the general Register of the Clergy of Wilts about the period."

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This page was last updated on 10th July 2007 .