Again, there was certainly a further marriage connection and a probably blood relationship between the Morleys, Mounteagles, and Wards through the great House of Neville.
(We may be sure that a young nobleman like the fourth Lord Mounteagle would be glad to recognise the Wards of Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale as “Cousins” if such were the fact, and to treat them in every respect as being on an equality with him.)
Therefore the combined Evidence so far gives us this conclusion: —
That a Christopher Wright was the brother-in-law of Marmaduke Ward, of Mulwith, in the Parish of Ripon.
That Marmaduke Ward was of the same place — Mulwith (or Mulwaith) — as a person named Thomas Warde, who was married in a church in York in the year 1579, and whose wife died in the year 1590, and whose burial is recorded to this day at Ripon Minster.
That a Christopher Wright, most probably the brother-in-law of Marmaduke Ward, and thus most probably the connection of Thomas Warde, was residing at Newby, near Mulwith,[78] in the Parish of Ripon, between the years 1594 and 1596 inclusive, and in the neighbourhood of the City of Ripon, and within the boundary of its parish, from the year 1589 to 1601.
That Marmaduke Ward’s son, William, had an uncle who lived at Court.[A]
That the Wardes were connected with, and related to Lord Mounteagle by common family ties.[79]
[A] The fact that a Christopher Wright who lived at Newbie in 1596, and at Skelton (Newbie itself is in the Parish of Skelton) in 1601, when he called one of his children “Marmaduke,” raises a strong presumption, I maintain, that this Christopher Wright was the brother-in-law of Marmaduke Ward.
At this time there was also a Francis Wright at Newbie, and a John Wright at Grantley. They may have been the children of John and Christopher Wright, the uncles of John and Christopher Wright, the Gunpowder plotters. And, of course, it is possible that the Christopher Wright who lived in Bondgate, Newbie, and Skelton between the years 1589 and 1601 may have been a cousin or other kinsman of Christopher Wright the plotter, or even of different families altogether. But in the Register of Welwick Church are the following entries of Burials: “13 October 1654 ffrauncis Wright Esquire and 2 May 1664 ffrauncis Wright Esquire” (communicated by the Rev. D. V. Stoddart, M.A., Vicar of Welwick), entries which tend to prove that the Newby Wrights and the Plowland Wrights were one and the same persons, and, therefore, of one and the same clan.