The Virginia Washingtons and the Manor of Newton Bomswold

Abstract

The following document preserved at the London Public Record Office, and which has hitherto been unknown to all writers on the Washington pedigree, reveals the remarkable fact that one of the Virginia Washingtons had actually succeeded jure uxoris to part of a manorial estate in Northamptonshire-the county whence the Washingtons originated-some forty years after the date of the family's settlement in America: [Translation] Final Concord made in the King's Court at Westminster within three weeks of Michaelmas, 9 William III. [1697], before the King's Justices there, between Geoffrey Jefferyes, Esq., plaintiff, and Francis Dade, Gent., and Frances his wife and Washington the younger, Gent., and Mary his wife, deforciants, of the moiety of two messuages, two gardens, two orchards, a hundred and twentysix acres of land, fourteen acres of meadow, and thirteen acres of pasture, with common of pasture for all beasts, in Newton Bromswold and Rushden, Northants.; whereof a plea of covenant was summoned between them in this Court, viz., that the said Francis, Frances, John, and Mary acknowledge the aforesaid lands to be the right of the said Geoffrey, as of their gift, and have remitted and quitclaimed the same to him and his heirs forever. Furthermore, on behalf of the heirs of Frances (Dade) and Mary (Washington), they have warranted him and his heirs in perpetuity against themselves and the heirs of the said Frances and Mary: and, in consideration of this grant and warranty, etc., the said Geoffrey has given them the sum of ?160.1 The identity of the and Mary Washington, named in the above final concord, immediately becomes evident both from the mention of Francis Dade and the reference to Newton Bromswold. For it is well established that Capt. Washington of Stafford County, Virginiathe only son of the emigrant Lawrence Washington (1635-1677) by his second wife Joyce-married in 1693 Mary, the and co-heiress of a Virginia neighbor, Col. Robert Townshend, whose elder daughter, Frances, became the wife of Francis Dade of Stafford County circa 1686.2 Moreover, Col. Robert Townshend's tombstone, which still exists at Albion, formerly in Stafford, now in King George County, states that he himself had espoused Mary, daughter to Mr. Needham Langhorne of Newton Brownshall [i. e. Bromswold], Northamptonsheire. Accordingly, there can be no doubt that the John Washington the younger and Mary, his wife, who in 1697 appeared in the King's Court at Westminster to record a sale of property at Newton Bromswold, were identical with Capt. and Mary (Townshend) Washington of Virginia:3 and such an identification has an added interest from the fact that Capt. is known to have acted as guardian of George Washington's father, Augustine, during the latter's minority. This is, of course, the first intimation we have had that Capt. Washington was ever in England; for, although his half-sister, Mary