Anne Farrington

FARRINGTON, Henry (by 1471-1549/51), of Farington, Leyland and Worden, Lancs.

Family and Education

b. by 1471, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir William Farrington of Farington by Alice, da. of (Richard or Sir William) Ashton of Croston. 'm. (1) Anne, da. of (Sir Alexander or William) Radcliffe of Ordsall, wid. of Thomas Tyldesley, ?7s. 2da.;' (2) by 1536, Dorothy, da. of Humphrey Okeover of Okeover, Staffs., 1s. suc. fa. 1501. Kntd. 30 May 1533.1

Biography

The Farringtons were an old Lancashire family, which had held land from Evesham abbey since the reign of Edward II, Penwortham priory in Lancashire being a dependency of Evesham. At his death in 1501 Sir William Farrington held lands in Farington partly of Evesham and partly of the 1st Earl of Derby. Four years later Henry Farrington acquired a number of duchy of Lancaster stewardships in the area. He was present at the funeral of Henry VII.3 ....

His own position in the county and standing at court would probably have been enough to secure Farrington’s return to Parliament in 1529 but it is evident that he could count on Derby’s support. Like his fellow-Member Andrew Barton, he was also related to the sheriff, Sir Alexander Radcliffe, who was perhaps his father-in-law. Of his experience as a Member there is but a single glimpse: on 18 June 1534 one of his younger sons, Robert, appealing to Cromwell for help in obtaining a benefice, complained that he had been unable to proceed to his doctorate at Cambridge because his father had been at great cost at the Parliament and had as yet ‘nothing allowed of the county and divers other ways so charged that he is not able to help me as he was before’. Robert was apparently later disinherited by his father as a married cleric. Farrington was active as a justice of the peace throughout the years of this Parliament, attending sessions 12 times. He probably sat again in 1536, and may have done so in 1539 and 1542, when the names of the Lancashire knights are unknown.5 ....

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from age at father’s death, VCH Lancs. vi. 63. Vis. Lancs. (Chetham Soc. cx), 114; J. B. Watson, ‘Lancs. gentry 1529-58’ (London Univ. M.A. thesis, 1959), 291 seq. There are discrepancies between the pedigree given by Watson and those elsewhere. Chetham Soc. xxxi. pp. xx, xxiv; LP Hen. VIII, vi.
• 2. Statutes, iii. 87, 171; Palatine Note Bk. ii. 222; LP Hen. VIII, vii, viii; CPR, 1553, p. 360; DL3/18/F1; Somerville, Duchy, i. 290, 505; HMC 6th Rep. 444; Chetham Soc. xxxi. p. xxiii.
• 3. VCH Lancs. vi. 63; HMC 6th Rep. 444; Chetham Soc. xxx. 75n; LP Hen. VIII, i.
• 4. LP Hen. VIII, iii, vi, xi; H. H. Leonard, ‘Knights and knighthood in Tudor Eng.’ (London Univ. Ph. D. thesis, 1970), 74, 158; Chetham Soc. xxxi. p. xxiii; n.s. xix. 121.
• 5. SP1/84/224-5 ptd LP Hen. VIII, vii, 852; VCH Lancs. vi. 63.
• 6. LP Hen. VIII, xii; Chetham Soc. xxxi 74n; xxxi. pp. xixn, xxii; lx. 182-8.
• 7. Chetham Soc. xxxi. pp. xviii, xxv; Watson, 292; HMC 6th Rep. 447.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/fa...
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William Farington in 1474 acknowledged that he held lands of the Abbot of Evesham by the service of 14s. yearly. (fn. 14) He was made a knight in the Scottish expedition of 1482, (fn. 15) and died in 1501 holding messuages and lands in Farington partly of the abbot and partly of the Earl of Derby, by rents of 5s. 1d. and 8d. respectively; also lands, burgages, &c., in Ulnes Walton, Leyland and Preston. His heir was his son 'Henry, then thirty years of age. (fn. 16) Henry had been married to Anne Radcliffe of Ordsall, by whom he had three sons—William, Thomas and Robert.' He married, as his second wife, Dorothy Okeover, and by her had a son William. A pedigree was recorded in 1533. (fn. 17) He was about the same time one of the commissioners for the suppression of the monasteries, (fn. 18) and was made a knight at Anne Boleyn's coronation in 1533. (fn. 19) Sir Henry's eldest son William died before him, leaving an only child, Joan; the second son, Thomas, also left a daughter; the third son, Robert, had been educated at Cambridge (fn. 20) and instituted to the rectory of North Meols (1530–37), his father having purchased the presentation, and then had forsaken the clerical life and married. (fn. 21) As he is said to have been in holy orders, this marriage could not have been valid by any law. Sir Henry appears to have been so offended that he settled his hereditary manors on his granddaughter (fn. 22) Joan, while the estate of Worden in Leyland which he had purchased was given to his youngest son William, ancestor of the Faringtons of that place. (fn. 23)

Sir Henry died about 1550, (fn. 24) when Joan succeeded, and the manor descended to her daughter Dorothy Beconsaw, who married Sir Edmund Huddleston of Sawston. (fn. 25) Farington appears to have been leased or mortgaged to a cousin, Anthony Huddleston, whose son Joseph in 1609 purchased it. (fn. 26) The new owners, who adhered to the Roman Catholic religion, (fn. 27) had several distinguished ecclesiastics in the family. One of them was Joseph's second son John, born at Farington in 1608; he assisted Charles II in his flight from England after the overthrow at Worcester in 1651, and then becoming a Benedictine monk was from 1660 to 1698 chaplain at Somerset House to Queen Henrietta Maria and then to Queen Catherine. It was he who in 1685 reconciled the dying king to the Roman Church. (fn. 28) ....

Footnotes

21 The facts are stated in pleadings in 1543 by Anthony Browne of Abbess Roding in Essex and Joan his wife, daughter and heir of William son and late heir-apparent of Sir Henry Farington, who was still living. It appeared that in 1512–13 on the marriage of William with Isabel daughter and co-heir of John Clayton of Clayton a rent from a tenement called the Brex (see Leyland) was settled upon them, and had descended to Anthony and Joan. This and more important estates were now claimed by Robert Farington, gent., third son of Sir Henry, under forged deeds. It is mentioned that Thomas Farington, the second son, had already died without male issue; he had married Cecily Radcliffe. (For some letters relating to this marriage see Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 2–4.) Sir Henry himself deposed that he had made no estate of any of his manors, &c.,whereby they should not descend to his heir-apparent Joan wife of Anthony Browne, but he had given an annuity of £4 to his son Robert, who also had a pension from North Meols rectory. Thomas Farington also had been at variance with his father, and had endeavoured to marry his daughter Alice to Sir Robert Hesketh's son, but Sir Henry had stopped the match. Robert Farington was described as 'of Samlesbury,' and forty years of age. A decree was in 1544 made in favour of Anthony and Joan Browne. See Duchy of Lanc. Plead. Hen. VIII, xiii, B 18; xiv, F 10; Decrees and Orders, Hen. VIII, vii, fol. 327.

Anthony was Joan's second or third husband.

From: 'Townships: Farington', A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 6 (1911), pp. 61-65. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=53071 Date accessed: 03 June 2012.

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• 'Anne RADCLIFFE
• Father: William RADCLIFFE of Ordsall (Sir)
• Mother: Jane TRAFFORD
• 'Married 1: Thomas TYLDESLEY of Wardley (Sir)
• 'Married 2: Henry FARINGTON of Wednacre (Sir)
• http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/RADCLIFFE3.htm#Anne RADCLIFFE3
• ____________________

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References

• http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Probate/PROB_11-50-19.pdf “ The testatrix [Joan Farrington] was the daughter and heir of William Farrington (d. before 1536) by Isabel Clayton, the daughter of John Clayton, esquire, of Clayton, Lancashire. William Farrington (d. before 1536) was the son of Sir Henry Farrington (d.1549?) by his first wife, Anne Radcliffe, the daughter of Sir Alexander (or William) Radcliffe of Ordsall, widow of Thomas Tyldesley. For Sir Henry Farrington, see the History of Parliament entry at: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/fa... 1471-154951