# The Boynton family and the family seat of Burton Agnes/The Early Owners of Burton Agnes

THE EARLY OWNERS OF BURTON AGNES
THE EARLY OWNERS OF BURTON AGNES.
In Domesday Book, under the heading "Terra Regis," we find—"In Burton, with the three berewicks of Grenzmore (Gransmoor), Arpen (Harpham), and Buitorp (Boythorpe), are 25 carucates of land to be taxed, which 15 ploughs may till. These Morcar held in the time of King Edward for one manor and the value then was £24. One farmer, at present pays ten shillings to the King. To this manor belongs the soke of these lands, Langtoft, Haisthorp, Thwing, Brompton and Thomholm. In all these are 25 carucates to be taxed, which 14 ploughs may till. It is now waste.
From the subsequent entry it would seem that directly after the returns of the survey had been arranged and transscribed at Winchester, a fief was made up, chiefly in Cleveland and mostly out of land as yet reserved by the King, and given to Robert de Bruis. In the East Riding Earl Morcar's lordship of Burton, with soke and berewicks was given to him. It continued to be held in capite by the Bruis family and their successors, the Thwengs and Lumleys; the sub-tenants—the Stutevilles, Merlays, Somervilles and Griffiths—of these great families concern us.
Roger de Stuteville, a younger son of the Roger de Stuteville who fought in the battle of the Standard, was probably the builder of the earliest work at the Hall, in the basement of the building to the west of the present mansion. According to a document still preserved at Burton Agnes, this Roger had a son Ancelm, who died without issue, and five daughters, Alice, Agnes, Isabell, Gundreda and one who ​was a nun. Alice became the wife of Roger de Merlay the I, son of the Founder of Newminster Abbey in the County of Northumberland (1137). Roger de Merlay was succeeded by a second Roger, and he again by a third Roger, who had two daughters, Mary, who became the wife of William de Graystoke, and Isabel, who was married (1274–5) to Robert de Somerville, of Wichnor, in Co. Stafford. Burton Agnes thus came to the Somerville family, while the Northumberland property went mostly to William and Mary de Graystoke. Robert and Isabella had two sons Sir Roger and Philip. These two sons appear to have died without male issue. Roger de Somerville founded the chantry of the Blessed Virgin in Burton Agnes Church in 1314. There is a licence in Mortmain to Roger de Somervyle for a fine of 40 shillings to grant two messuages, two bovates, sixteen acres of land and a rent of twenty loads of turf in Burton and Thyrnom to a Chaplain who shall celebrate service daily at the altar of the Blessed Mary in Burton Agnes Church, for the soul of the said Roger, for the souls of Maude, late his wife, deceased and of his father and mother, brothers and sisters, ancestors and relatives, and for the souls of John de Eure, and of all faithful deceased, dated 17th October, 7 Edw. II (1313). In 1317 he obtained licence to translate the body of his wife Maude to the "new ala adjoyning the Church of Burton Annays." His tomb is against the north wall of this chantry.
His name appears in the proffers of service for the Scottish war made at the muster at Carlisle in 1300. In 1315 he appears among the knights summoned by Archbishop Greenfield to a Council of War at Doncaster, and in 1318 he made an agreement with Archbishop Melton to furnish the contingent required of the Archbishop for service in Scotland. ​He was Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1323. He died in 1337, and was succeeded by his brother Sir Philip de Somerville, who died in 1355, leaving two daughters. By the marriage of the elder daughter Joan de Somerville with Rees ap Griffith, both Wichnor and Burton Agnes passed to the Griffith family. Originally of Welsh extraction, they claimed descent from the princes of North and South Wales of the 10th century. They appear to have been settled in Staffordshire as early as the commencement of the 13th century, where they gave their name to the village of Clayton Griffith, near Newcastle-under-Lyne. Sir Rees ap Grifftth was succeeded by a second Sir Rees, Thomas and John, none of whom appear in Yorkshire history, and as they were buried at Polesworth, in Warwickshire, Alrewas and Tatenhill in Staffordshire, we may conclude that they lived principally at Wichnor. Both Thomas and his son, Sir John, were High Sheriffs of Staffordshire in the reign of Henry VI, though Sir John scarcely seems to have been distinguished as a law abiding subject if we are to believe the complaint the King's forester of Alrewas made to the Chancellor of England—"how that Sir John Griffith, which is a common hunter and destroyer of the King's game, in despite, shame and reprofe of the said suppliant, brake the Kynge's parke of Barton, and there slewe and carried away by nyghtes tyme two grete buckes and the hedis of them set at Kjmges Bromley, oon upon the yate of the said forst', and another upon the butte in myddes of the town, with a scomeful scripture of ryme wrytten in Inglissh sowed in the mouthes of the buckes hedis," and how, when the unfortunate forester disapproved of these doings, Sir John "sent his servants with evil intent to have slayne the said suppliant, who prays for suerte of the pees in savation of his lyfe."
​This Sir John died in 1471, but long before his death he had leased the manor of Burton Agnes to his son, Walter Griffith and Joan his wife, for their lives, and by a subsequent deed released it in fee. This son Walter seems to have taken after his father in mischief, for he picked a quarrel with Martin de la See of Barmston, which cost at least one life and serious injury to many more. Sir Walter was at Burton Agnes as early as 1457, and probably that portion of the building over the early basement to the west of the present Hall is his work. It was in 1457 that he and his wife Joan had leave to have an oratory for a year. He died in 1481, and was buried under "the great tomb before the altar of the Blessed Virgin," with his first wife Joan Neville, a great granddaughter of John of Gaunt. His name occurs in the Pardon Roll of 1472, from which it appears that he took the Lancastrian side, as we should have expected from his connection with the elder house of Neville (his first wife was cousin of Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland, and his brother, Sir John Neville, who was slain at Towton). His second wife (who survived him and afterwards married Sir Gervase Clifton) was Agnes Constable, of Flambrough, sister of the "little Sir Marmaduke," who, when 71 years of age, rendered with his four sons distinguished service at Flodden. Agnes's will provides that her body "be buried (in) Anesburton Church in the chauntre closett therin, by our Lady, as my sonne knawthe"; she leaves to her son Griffith "all hangynges of chambres, hall and parlour, etc., at Burton and all leides and vessells, etc., and other such stuf as I had when 'I kept howse ther'; to Margaret Ussher she leaves "ye beid house yt she dwelles in at Burton during her lyfe, and she to have yearly Xs. to fynd her wyth yf she kepe her a wydow. Also in lyk maner to Janet Houpe. And to Janet Yong I gyf ye (house) she dwelles in lykwise and to have ​iijs iiijd by yere, if my son relief her wt. potage as I dyd; and if he do nott, then I will yt she also have Xs. during her lyve and a wydow, and thus after ye rate, if my son kepe house, sumtyme and sumtjmie not."
Her son, the second Sir Walter Griffith, was knighted in Scotland in 1497 by the Earl of Surrey when he repelled the invasion of James IV at the time of Perkin Warbeck's insurrection. He was High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1501, and at the time of his death in 1531 he was Constable of Scarborough Castle. His will, which is full of interest, provides that his body "be beried in the new Chappell, annexed to the Churche of Sancte Martyn at Annas Burton, where my ladie, my moder lieth." He wills that "a priest be wadged to pray for the leth of my soull, my fader's and moder's—in the Church and Chappell of Annas Burton, where my said moder is beried, for the space of fortie yeres after my decesse, and to have yerely for his wages eight marces, supposing that by such space as thies yeres shal be ended myne heires, of there charitable mynd will devise for the helth of theire soulls and ours in likewise; and so from heire to heire for ever, so to be continued, whiche I pray God grante them grace for to do, according to the good example of my moder that this did begyn." He refers to lands in Wales which he sold to Sir Ryse ap Thomas, Kt., a fact of which we are reminded by some modern glass in the Church.
His son and successor Sir George Griffith was, when 21 years old knighted at Calais in 1532, on the occasion of the meeting of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn with Francis I. In 1537 he was on the jury which tried Nicholas Tempest for his part in the Pilgrimage of Grace. One of his daughters married Sir William Clopton, and is represented on the tomb in the Clopton Chapel in Stratford-on-Avon Church.
​Sir George died in 1559, and was succeeded by another Walter Griffith, whose son and successor was the Sir Henry Griffith, who built the present House, who was born in 1558, and succeeded his father in 1574, when he was only 15 years old. In 1583 or 4, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Throckmorton, of Coughton, in Warwickshire, and his wife Margaret, daughter of William Whorwood, Attorney General to King Henry VIII. In 1584 Sir Henry Griffith was made a Justice of the Peace for the County of Staffordshire, and began to build a house by the Trent presumably at Wichnor. He was High Sheriff for Staffordshire in 1593-4, by which time he must have begun building at Burton Agnes, for over the door we see the date 1601, with the initials of himself and his wife, and the dates 1602 and 1603 appear on the heads of the rain water pipes, and also the Griffith crest and badge, the lady's head and griffin respectively. Sir Henry was on the Council of the North in 1599 and 1602, was knighted by King James I at York in 1603, in which year his son and heir, Henry, was born at Burton Agnes. In 1606 he was High Sheriff of Yorkshire. Besides his son and heir he had by his wife Elizabeth two other sons, Walter, his eldest son who died, and Ralph, and two daughters Margaret and Frances.
Sir Henry Griffith died in 1620, and was succeeded by the second Sir Henry, the last of the Griffiths. He was created a baronet in 1627, and was Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1634, and Deputy Lieutenant of Yorkshire in 1638–9. He sided with the King in the first Civil War, surrendered to Fairfax three weeks after Marston Moor, took the National Covenant, and was very heavily fined by Parliament. At his death in 1654, Burton Agnes passed to the son of his sister Frances and Sir Matthew Boynton, from whom it has descended to the present owner.
* ↑ Domesday Book, Rec. Com. Ed. 300. Y. A. S. Journal, Vol. XIII, p. 333.
* ↑ Domesday Book, 3326. Bawdwen, 233. Y.A.S. Journal, IV, p. 406.
* ↑ E.R.A.S. Trans. XXIX, p. 39.
* ↑ MS. at B. A.
* ↑ MS. at B.A., which speaks of Sir Roger and Philip "who now is."
* ↑ Pat. Roll, 7 Ed. II. Pt. I, m. 11.
* ↑ Doc. and Rec. illust. the Hist. of Scot. (Palgrave) I, 215-229.
* ↑ Hist. Papers and Letters from the N. Registers, Rolls S. p. 247. Ditto, p. 278–9.
* ↑ P.R.O. List., p. 161.
* ↑ Inq. p.m. 11 Ed. III (1st Nos.) No. 57.
* ↑ Inq. p. m. 29 Ed. III.
* ↑ MS. Ped. at B. A.
* ↑ Misc. Gen et Her. I. 64.
* ↑ Inq. p.m. 11 Ed. IV, No. 30.
* ↑ Papers at B. A.
* ↑ Misc. Gen. et. Hen. I, 64.
* ↑ Test Ebor. IV. 242.
* ↑ Metcalfs Book of Knights, 31.
* ↑ Langdale.
* ↑ Test Ebor. V. 287.
* ↑ Metcalf's Book of Knights, 62.
* ↑ Y.A. S. Journal. XI. 269.
* ↑ Drake's Ebor. 368.
* ↑ Metcalf's Bk. of Kts., 139.
* ↑ Langdale's List.