Ten funerals and a wedding
It is an unfortunate fact that, Hedingham excepted, during the first two decades of the reign of King James, history has recorded a great deal more about the deaths and final testaments of members of the Trentham family than it has about their living activities. And it is a particularly tragic fact that, over the two decades that follow the death of ffrancis Trentham, a series of early deaths would blight the succession of the Trentham line.

The years 1603 to 1605 were particularly brutal for the Trenthams. Aside from the mourning that accompanied the death of Edward de Vere, ffrancis and his wife Katherine faced a succession of small tragedies. With five healthy sons (Thomas, Christopher, William, ffrancis and Anthony) and three healthy daughters (Grace, Vere and Katherine), their son Richard was baptised on 25 Aug 1603 and was buried two days later. The following year, their son Robert, baptised on 2 September 1604, was buried less than a month after that.

And then came a particularly hard blow. At the age of only thirty, ffrancis’ younger brother Thomas Trentham IV was buried at Rocester on 25 April 1605. Having graduated at Balliol, Oxford, in 1591, perhaps the highlight of his career had come when, on 30 November 1601, as a Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme, he may well have gathered with over 150 other Parliamentarians (history has not recorded their names) in the great Council Chamber at Whitehall and witnessed one of Queen Elizabeth’s most notable speeches – known ever since as the ‘Golden Speech’. The speech was the Queen’s response to the Commons having effectively forced her to end the centuries old tradition whereby the sovereign had the sole privilege of allocating monopolies in imported goods as highly lucrative patronage to her courtiers. Being a highly skilled political operator, she saw the direction in which the wind was blowing and, rather than have Parliamentarians curtail her Royal Prerogative by introducing a Commons bill, the Queen – rather like Churchill after Dunkirk – was able to turn a severe setback into a triumph:

“I do assure you there is no prince that loves his subjects better, or whose love can countervail our love. There is no jewel, be it never so rich a price, which I set before this jewel: I mean your love. For I do esteem it more than any treasure or riches ... And though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown, that I have reigned with your loves.”

Of the many bequests in Thomas’ will, perhaps the most interesting fact we can deduce is his intimate knowledge of King’s Place, and bequests to three of his Sneyd cousins and to Sir John Stanhope and his son are also indicative of the closeness of these families:

“I give unto my mother [Jane née Sneyd] my principall and best frende, from whom I acknowledge all that I have One hundred poundes w’ch remaines in her owne handes, Item I give unto my deare and welbeloved sister the Countesse of Oxenford One hundred poundes...Item I give unto my Lorde of Oxenforde [Henry de Vere] my litle stoned horsse, for whose prosp[er]ity I have, and ever shall pray soe longe as I have breath...Item I give unto my welbeloved brother Mr ffrauncis Trentham esquire my grey geldinge...Item I give unto my welbeloved cosen Mr William Sneade as a token of my love my dammaske Rapyre and dagger with a girdle and hangers to the same...Item I give unto my cosen Mr Raph Sneade an old guilte Rapyre which I much estemed for the goodnes, Item I give unto my cosen Mr Thomas Sneade my russet Spanish rapire, Item I give unto my loving nephew Mr John Stanhope [see tomb, below right] my Trunck with all that remaines within it which standes at my Lady of Oxenfordes house at Hackney within the wardrobe...I have ever founde Sir John Stanhope [see tomb, above right] my favourable and lovinge brother, soe nowe in the like testimony of my ever assured affection unto him I doe give unto him five poundes, trusting he will more measure the assured good will of the giver than the mean[n]es[s] of the guifte...”

Yet even amid these scenes of mourning, life carried on for ffrancis Trentham. In 1605, he decided to buy the 750 acre estate of Westwood Grange situated in delightful countryside about two miles west of the thriving market town of Leek close to the Staffordshire border with Derbyshire. Interestingly, this new estate was sited on the same river Churnett that flowed along the western edge of Rocester. Westwood Grange had been founded by the Cistercian monks of Dieulaclres Abbey (pronounced, d’yer-le-cress) at Leek by the year 1291. Sampson Erdeswick, in his ‘Survey of Staffordshire’ seems to have travelled directly from Rocester to Dieulacres when he made the following note, “Churnett, passing from the head, through one of the barrennest countries I know, hath not any place worth the naming till it come to Dieu Le Cresse, an abbey founded by the last Ranulfe, earl of Chester.” So taken with this new estate was ffrancis, that he seems to have considered it a second home rather than simply owning it as an absentee landlord for, in the same year, his eighth son Ralph was baptised at Leek Parish church, though he too would be buried within the year.

By 1610 ffrancis seemed to be continuing the pattern set by his forefathers of expanding his land ownership and taking his civic duties seriously. In this year he took his seat in Parliament as Staffordshire Shire Knight and, in the following year, he served his second term as Sheriff of Staffordshire. Yet from this time on, there is a marked change of mood. Josiah C Wedgwood, in his brief biographical note on ffrancis, declares that “he retired from Parliamentary life at the close of this Parliament ‘through infirmity’.” In 1615, most unusually, ffrancis also retired from the Staffordshire Bench – of all the prominent Staffordshire JPs, ffrancis is unique in not continuing until the year of his death. Also, on 7 October 1617, in a letter to Walter Bagot, ffrancis is full of excuses as to why he would not be able to lead his Rocester men to the muster at Lichfield.

I have often wondered, too, whether another death in the family that would have been most grievous for ffrancis was a contributory factor in his disengagement with public affairs – the death of his sister Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of Oxford to whom he was clearly devoted. As for Elizabeth, in her will (dated 25 November 1612) she asks “to be buried in the Church of Hackney within the Countie of Middlesex, as neare unto the bodie of my said late deare and noble lorde and husband as maye bee, and that to be done as privatelie, and with as litle pompe and ceremonie as possible maye bee. Onlie I will that there bee in the said Church erected for us a tombe fittinge our degree.” The funeral took place on 3 January 1613 and, whether or not such a tomb was ever erected, there is certainly no sign or record of it today.

Elizabeth then, having given instructions regarding her personal debts, composes a long list of bequests in which her gold and silver plate and her wardrobe feature prominently. Her more expensive items are given to her son Henry:

“to bee kepte by him as a remembrance of my motherlie love unto him my roape of great pearle, my new jewel, my thirteene diamond buttons, and all those rich garments, cloakes, bedding, and houshould stuffe, fyne diaper and damaske lynnen.”

It must have been particularly distressing for her mother Jane (neé Sneyd) to have seen two of her children buried within so short a space of time and Elizabeth bequeathes “unto my deare and lovinge mother my silver cawdle cuppe my litle guilte bell my silver fruite dishe with the foote, and my blacke satten gowne cutte and laced.” Jane herself was buried at Rocester on 17 July 1616. Of her brother ffrancis she says,

“and whereas I have had of my said brother Trentham the some of foure hundred poundes for divers yeeres past, and have given him noe allowance for the same, I doe therefore in recompense thereof give unto him two hundred markes of lawfull English money, and alsoe the sume of twoe hundreth poundes more for a legacie.”

And then she bequeathes the rest of her wardrobe:

“Item, I give to my lovinge sister the Ladie Stanhope [see portrait, right], my ffifteene new peeces of silver vessell my black velvet gowne laced, my blacke satten gowne, my blacke taffitie gowne w’th silver lace, my blacke and silver chamblet gowne, my crimson velvett petticote and my kirtles of white cloth of silver ... Item, I give unto my sister Trentham [either Dorothy or her sister-in-law Katherine, wife of ffrancis] my borders of rubies and diamondes, my white satten gowne, my playne black satten gowne, my petticoate of cloth of gould and my kirtle of white satten with gould lace ... Item, I give unto Vere Trentham my goddaughter my jewell enamelled with redd and dyamondes in it ...”

In between this procession of entries in parish burial registers, there is at least one occasion for celebration – the marriage of ffrancis Trentham’s son and heir Sir Thomas Trentham V Kt to the twenty-one year old Prudence Eyre which took place at Bakewell in Derbyshire on 17 April 1620. Having been admitted to the Inner Temple in 1613 and having received his knighthood in 1616 at the age of twenty-five, Sir Thomas’ status as a most eligible bachelor was confirmed on the day of the wedding when the bride’s father, Thomas Eyre of Hassop Hall, paid ffrancis the enormous dowry of £2,200 (worth around £350,000 today), recorded thus in ffrancis’ acquitance note:

“Bee it knowne unto all men by these persons that I ffrancis Trentham of Rocester in the countie of Stafford Esq doo acknowledge my self to have had and received of Thomas Eyre of Hassop in the countie of Derbie Esq the just and whole some of Two Thousand and Two hundred pounds of lawfull money of England for and in consideration of a marriage made and solemnised between Sir Thomas Trentham knight sonne and heir of the said ffrancis Trentham and Prudence Eyre daughter of the said Thomas Eyre...”.

Four months later, on 15 August 1620, the great Ralph Sneyd – uncle of ffrancis and Elizabeth, builder of the great red-sandstone hall at Keele and trustee of the de Vere estate – was buried in the church at Wolstanton, though his tomb, unlike the magnificent carved alabaster tomb of his father Sir William, has unfortunately not survived to the present day.

Bringing to a close this remarkable chapter in the history of this remarkable family, ffrancis Trentham was buried at Rocester on 13 October 1626. In his will, dated 25 November 1619, he leaves £1000 each to his daughters and confirms the clause in the Countess of Oxford’s will in which she bequeathed £500 to her favourite niece Marie. A full transcript of ffrancis' will can be downloaded here: ffrancisTrentham-will.pdf

ffrancis had already entailed his entire Rocester estate to his son and heir Sir Thomas Trentham V Kt and successive male heirs. It is also very significant that his nephew Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford, predeceased ffrancis (dying in 1625 at the siege of Breda) and that the entire de Vere estate passed to ffrancis and his heirs as a consequence of Henry dying childless. A comprehensive survey of the estate of ffrancis Trentham at his death will be presented in the third and final part of this essay. The Earldom of Oxford itself, shorn of its family seat of Castle Hedingham for the first time in its long history, passed to Henry’s cousin Robert de Vere, son of Hugh de Vere.

Readers will remember that my research into the Trentham family proceeds on the hypothesis that, if any of Edward de Vere’s literary papers have survived until the present, following the Trentham line offers the best chance of discovering them, thereby solving the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

We have now seen that Elizabeth Countess of Oxford was in possession of Edward’s papers when she moved from King’s Place to Castle Hedingham. Following her death, we have also seen that the de Vere estate papers came into the possession of her brother ffrancis, the principal trustee of Oxford’s estate. Perhaps we’ll never know who Oxford’s literary executor was – the person to whom he confided his wishes for, not only the publication of the nineteen plays that remained unpublished at his death but also his wishes regarding the posterity of his name and reputation. With such evidence as we have of Elizabeth Trentham’s remarkable skill as a writer, perhaps Oxfordians may care to hypothesise that it was she who began the process which led to the publication of the First Folio – which occured two years before the death of her brother ffrancis. Whether or not Oxford asked for proof of his authorship to be passed down the family, it would only take a few fragments of his manuscript material to have got mixed up among the estate papers for proof of his authorship to have survived.

In the third and final part of this Trentham family history, we will explore all the many houses in England where these papers may have ended up as we follow the Trentham line to its exticnction.

Copyright 2007 Jeremy Crick.