The Monsons, Heneages, and Wrays came into prominence in the sixteenth century. The seventeenth witnessed the Civil War, which rivalled the Wars of the Roses in its effects on families and their estates. A new class sprang up as the old families succumbed to the fines and sequestrations which befell them as a consequence of being on the Royal, i.e. the losing side. On turning to the list of High Sheriffs after the Restoration this is very evident. In 1670 Thomas Browne of Saltfleetby, of a family which was distinctly a yeoman one before the Commonwealth, served that office. The names of Lodington, Hatcher, Rothwell, Toller, all belong to families which had only recently risen from the ranks of the yeomanry.
With the eighteenth century the same change may be observed. Henry Andrews, High Sheriff in 1728, was of a family which had grown rich in trade. Joseph Banks of Revesby, High Sheriff in 1736, was a successful attorney; so also was Coney Tunnard in 1737; while St. John Wells, in spite of his aristocratic Christian name, had been a tanner. Richard Popplewell in 1740 belonged to an Isle of Axholme family of no high standing; so also Henry Herring in 1744. To multiply more instances would be needless.
But the eighteenth century witnessed also a change almost as striking as that produced by a convulsion like the Civil War; and this was the formation of a great estate on the North Lincolnshire Wolds which engulfed a number of manors belonging to impoverished families sinking under the weight of mortgages and incumbrances. In 1763 Charles Pelham of Brocklesby died childless, leaving his estates, which during his long life had been greatly increased, to his great-nephew Charles Anderson of Manby, who was then a child. During his minority the trustees bought up, by degrees, what at last constituted a magnificent property, greater than that of any other family in Lincolnshire. But this was not done without the inevitable disappearance of many families of the lesser gentry.
It has often been noted as a disastrous circumstance that the yeomanry, as a class, has vanished out of the country, and certainly the contemplation of the long list of those under that category, who contributed towards the defence of the country against the Spanish Armada in 1588, gives rise to many reflections and regrets. It may also be a subject of reflection how many of what might be called the lesser gentry have also ceased to exist. Here and there a small manor-house, now turned into a farmhouse, attests the previous habitation of an ancient family which never perhaps rose to the rank of what is now called a county family, but which had been in the county a great deal longer than many who were much higher in the social state. The name of Newcomen suggests, of course, the idea of a “Newcomer,” but the race under the name of “le Newcomen” were in Lincolnshire as early as the twelfth century. They never rose to be High Sheriffs, nor were any knighted, but they put out several branches which all possessed landed estates, and sent to Ireland a branch which was graced with a Baronetcy and Viscountcy. Not one of these branches is now to be found. The very name in Lincolnshire is almost extinct.
In writing the above paper one is conscious of not having by any means done justice to the subject. To give an exhaustive list of all the old families in this county, and to trace their fortunes, would be absolutely beyond the scope of this paper. All that can be done is to give a sketch of those families which still survive in the male line after the vicissitudes of several centuries. They are not numerous. Others, such as the Turnors of Stoke Rochford, the Sibthorps of Canwick, the Nelthorpes of Scawby, came in with the Commonwealth. A multitude sprang up in the eighteenth century, and have been largely recruited in the nineteenth. It may be questioned whether Gervase Holles would recognise many of the names which would meet his eye in the lists of magistrates. It is still more open to question whether a herald of 1562 would not “respite for further proof” a good deal of modern heraldry. To bear another man’s coat-of-arms because you happen to be of the same name would scarcely pass muster with a sixteenth century herald, but it is an innocent appropriation by no means uncommon at the present day.
I may add a word on the subject of the extinction of old mediæval families. Are they really extinct? Names are found among the peasantry which at first sight suggest a negative to that question, but I have never yet met with an authentic instance of such descent. The one that occurs to me as most probable is that of the Bushey family. Families of that name were at Leverton, Leake, and Friskney three hundred years ago, and doubtless there are descendants in the male line. The name Bushey is identical with Bussy; in fact, the pronunciation of the name at the time of the execution of Sir John Bussy, Richard II.’s favourite, in 1398, was undoubtedly Bushey, as the punning rhymes made upon it by writers of that day testify, e.g.—
“Ther is a busch that is forgrow,
Crop hit welle and hold it lowe,
Or elles it wolle be wilde.”
There is therefore some ground for supposing that these yeoman families may have descended from cadet branches of this race which held so high a position in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though positive proof is wanting.