Sir John de Montfitchet

Maps show that Widdington is in Essex; there are Waddingtons in northern England, not Essex.

REFN: 4359

   [Spicer Family File.FTW]

   The Fitches are one of the Anglo-Saxon families of England which came over from Germany, it is currently supposed at the time the Country was subdued by Hengist and Horsa (about 450 A.D.) and their followers, when the ancient Britons were driven into the mountains of Wales and Cornwall; and the Saxon Heptarchy was formed, as the Essex County has long been the principal seat of the family, it is possible that, or perhaps more families of this name in the host of Erkewin who, as history informs us, having expelled the Britons from this part of the island, settled down upon it with his followers and became recognized as the King of the East Saxons about 530 A.D. There is a traditional legend that the family came to England from Saxony, from a place having a German name meaning in England, Fitch-field. In the records of the Heralds office in London, the genealogy of the Fitch family is quite full, more so than common. In the Heralds visitation to Essex, the family pedigree is traced from sons to fathers, step by step to William, second son of John Fitch who was living in Fitch Castle (in the Parish of Widdington in the northeast part of Essex) in the 22nd year of the reign of Edward I, 1394 A.D. From some of the fragments of the ancient church register of Becking, adjoining Braintrees in Essex, we learn that Thomas Fitch married Ann Penn, August 8, 1611.