WELLESLEY PEDIGREE.
(Vol. vi., pp. 508. 585.)
There is an anxiety to obtain further particulars on this interesting subject, and I have searched my Genealogical MSS. Collections for such; the result has extended farther than I could have wished, but, while I am able to furnish dates and authorities for hitherto naked statements, I have inserted two or three links of descent not before laid down.
A member of the Somersetshire Wellesleighs is said to have accompanied Henry II. to Ireland.
Walleran or Walter de Wellesley, living in Ireland in 1230 (Lynch, Feud. Dig.), witnessed a grant of certain townlands to the Priory of Christ Church about 1250 (Registry of Christ Church); while it is more effectively stated that he then "endowed the Priory of All Saints with 60 a. of land, within the manor of Cruagh, which then belonged, with other estates, to his family, and that he gave to the said priory free common of pasture, of wood and of turbary, over his whole mountain there."
His namesake and son (according to Lynch, Feud. Dig.), "Walran de Wylesley," was in 1302 required, as one of the "Fideles" of Ireland, by three several letters, to do service in the meditated war in Scotland (Parl. Writs, vol. i. p. 363.), and in the following year he was slain (MS. Book of Obits, T.C.D.). The peerage books merge these two Wallerans in one.
William de Wellesley, who appears to have been son to Walleran, was in 1309 appointed Constable of the Castle of Kildare (Rot. Pat. Canc. Hib.), which he maintained when besieged by the Bruces in their memorable invasion of Ireland, and their foray over that county. For these and other services to the state he received many lucrative and honourable grants from the crown, and was summoned to parliament in 1339. In 1347 he was slain at the siege of Calais. (Obits, T.C.D.)
Sir John de Wellesly, Knight, son of William, having performed great actions against the O'Tooles and O'Byrnes of Wicklow, had grants of sundry wardships and other rewards from the year 1335. In 1343 he became one of the sureties for the appearance of the suspected Earl of Desmond, on whose flight Sir John's estates were seised to the crown and withheld for some years. (Lynch's Feud. Dig.)
His successor was another John de Wellesley, omitted in the peerage books, but whose existence is shown by Close Roll 29 & 30 Edw. III., C. H. He died about the year 1355.
William Wellesley, son of John, was summoned to great councils and parliaments of Ireland from 1372; he was also entrusted by the king with various important commissions and custodies of castles, lands, and wards (Patent Rolls C. H.). In 1386 he was Sheriff of Kildare, and Henry IV. renewed his commission in 1403.
Richard, son and heir of William de Wellesley, as proved by Rot. Pat. 1 Henry IV., Canc. Hib., married Johanna, daughter and heiress of Sir Nicholas de Castlemartin, by whom the estates of Dangan, Mornington, &c. passed to the Wellesley family; he and his said wife had confirmation of their estates in 1422. (Rot. Pat. 1 Henry VI., C. H.) He had a previous grant from the treasury by order of the Privy Council, in consideration of his long services as sheriff of the county of Kildare, and yet more actively "in the wars of Munster, Meath, and Leinster, with men and horses, arms and money." (Rot. Claus. 17 Ric. II., C. H.) In 1431 he was specially commissioned to advise the crown on the state of Ireland, and was subsequently selected to take charge of the Castle of Athy, as "the fittest person to maintain that fortress and key of the country against the malice of the Irish enemy." (Rot. Pat. et Claus. 9 Henry VI., C. H.) In resisting that "malice" he fell soon after.
The issue of Sir Richard de Wellesley by Johanna were William Wellesley, who married Katherine ——, and dying in 1441 was succeeded by his next brother, Christopher Wellesley, whose recorded fealty in the same year proves all the latter links; his succession to William as brother and heir, and the titles of Johanna as widow of his father Richard, and of Katherine as widow of William, to dower off said estates. (Rot. Claus. 19 Henry VI., C. H.) At and previous to this time, another line of this family, connected as cousins with the house of Dangan, flourished in the co. Kildare, where they were recognised as Palatine Barons of Norragh to the close of the seventeenth century. William Wellesley of Dangan was the son and heir of Christopher. An (unprinted) act of Edward IV. was passed in 1472 in favour of this William; and his two marriages are stated by Lynch (Feud. Dig.): the first was to
Ismay Plunkett; the second, to Maud O'Toole, was contracted under peculiar circumstances. The law of Ireland at the time prohibited the intermarriages of the English with the natives without royal licence therefor being previously obtained, and not even did the licence so obtained wash out the original sin of Irish birth; for, as in this instance, Maud, having survived her first husband, on marrying her second, Patrick Hussey, had a fresh licence to legalise that marriage. It is of record (Rot. Pat. 21 Henry VII., C. H.), and proves the second marriage of Sir William clearly: yet it is not noticed in any of the peerage books, which derive his issue from the first wife, and not from the second, as Lynch gives it, that issue being Gerald the eldest son, Walter the second, and Alison a daughter.
Gerald had a special livery of his estate in 1539; Walter the second son became Bishop of Kildare in 1531, and died its diocesan in 1539 (see Ware's Bishops); and the daughter Alison intermarried with John Cusack of Cushington, co. Meath. (Burke's Landed Gentry, Supp. p. 88.)
Gerald, according to all the peerage books, married Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1483, and had issue William, his eldest son, Lord of Dangan, who married Elizabeth Cusack, of Portrane, co. Dublin, and died previous to 1551 (as I believe is proveable by inquisitions of that year in the office of the Chief Remembrancer, Dublin), leaving Gerald, his eldest son and heir. An inquiry taken in 1579 as to the extent of the manor of Dangan, finds him then seised thereof (Inquis. in C. H. 23 Eliz.). Previous to this he appears a party in conveyances of record, as in 1564, &c. He had a son Edward (not mentioned in the peerage books), who joined in a family conveyance of 1599, and soon after died, leaving a son, Valerian Wellesley. Gerald himself died in 1603, leaving said Valerian, his grandson and heir, then aged ten (Inquis. 5 Jac. I. in Rolls Office), and married, adds the Inquisition; and Lynch, in his Feudal Dignities, gives interesting particulars of the betrothal of this boy, and his public repudiation of the intended match on his coming to age. This Valerian is traced through Irish records to the time of the Restoration; he married first, Maria Cusack (by whom he had William Wellesley, his eldest son), and, second, Anne Forth, otherwise Cusack, widow of Sir Ambrose Forth, as shown by an Inquisition of 1637, in the Rolls Office, Dublin.
William Wellesley, son and heir of Valerian, married Margaret Kempe (Peerage Books), and by her had Gerald Wellesley, who on the Restoration petitioned to be restored to his estates, and a Decree of Innocence issued, which states the rights of himself, his father, and his grandfather in "Dingen." This Gerald married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Dudley Colley, and their first daughter was baptized in 1663 by the name of Margaret, some evidence, in the courtesy of christenings, of Gerald's mother being Margaret. (Registry of St. Werburgh's.) Gerald was a suitor in the Court of Claims in 1703: he left two sons; William the eldest died s. p., and was succeeded by Garrett, his next brother, who died also without issue in 1728, having bequeathed all the family estates to Richard Colley, second son of the aforesaid Sir Dudley Colley, and testator's uncle, enjoining upon said Richard and his heirs male to bear thenceforth, as they succeeded to the estates, the name and arms of Wellesley.
This Richard Colley Wellesley married Elizabeth, daughter of John Sale, LL.D. and M.P., by whom he had issue Garrett Wellesley, born, as the Dublin and London Magazine for 1735 announces, "19th July," when "the Lady of Richard Colley Westley was delivered of a son and heir, to the great joy of that family." This son was father of the Marquis Wellesley and of the Duke of Wellington!
John D'Alton.
48. Summer Hill, Dublin.