St. Leger mystery Re: [Richard III Society Forum] Re: Lady Eleanor

Whilst no website is perfect - they are all secondary or even tertiary sources - they do sometimes cotton on first. Castelli cites the Lumley-Conyers dispensation as evidence of their joint Westmorland-Beaufort descent whereas the CP (1931 and 1995) mention it without realising the significance.
I shall now try the other websites and some other people we both know.

PS Message to everyone else - I have a few more "Stafford Line" booklets available for 50 pence plus an A5 SAE or an extra 40 pence. As they are A5 they will not be affected by the changes to UK postal charges.

Stephen

----- Original Message -----
From: mariewalsh2003
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: Lady Eleanor Butler / Talbot


--- In , "Stephen Lark"
<smlark@...> wrote:
>
> --- In , "mariewalsh2003"
> <marie@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Ouch! I hoped to include the old message this relates to, but it
> > isn't here.
> > It goes back to a discussion I had with Stephen some while back
> over
> > Castelli's claim that Anne of York and Thomas St Leger had a son,
> Sir
> > Anythony St Leger. I'm about to chew on some humble pie (just a
> bit,
> > not the whole pie).
> > Castelli gives Anne of York and Thomas St Leger three children:
> > 1. Anthony
> > 2. Anne
> > 3. After their marriage (which must have been after Anne's
divorce
> > came through in 1473): Sir Anthony, born about 1478.
> >
> > In fact, Anne of York had died in January 1476 giving birth to
> > daughter Anne, who was her heir - ie her only legitimate
offspring
> by
> > St Leger, so "Sir" Anthony cannot be theirs.
> > Castelli makes "Sir Anthony" the husband of an Elizabeth Digby.
> > The only knighted Anthony I have on my St Leger family tree (from
> > Burke's Kentish Gentry) has dates 1496 to 1559 and wife Agnes
> Warham.
> > He was a descendant of Thomas's brother Ralph.
> >
> > However (and this is where the humble pie comes in), it looks as
> > though Thomas St Leger & Anne of York may indeed have had an
> > illegitimate son Anthony (born 1464/5), as I just found in the
> > Calendar of Papal Registers a dispensation from the impediment of
> > illegitimacy dated 1st April 1480 for an "Anthony Senytliger" of
> the
> > diocese of Winchester, "who is in or about his sixteenth year, is
> the
> > illegitimate son of an unmarried nobleman and a married woman,
and
> > has been made a clerk. . . "
> >
> > I can't think what other St Leger would have been cheeky enough
to
> > call himself a nobleman in 1480, but Thomas was the widower of a
> > royal duchess. And in 1464/5 he was single and she was married.
> >
> > Marie
> >
> I have learned that Castelli usually only errs when the original
> sources are confused. The second (Sir) Anthony, born two years
after
> his mother's death, is an obvious mistake for a cousin (also
because
> his sister couldn't have been their mother's heir) but the first
one
> is a possibility. Remember that Castelli spotted the significance
of
> the Lumley-Conyers dispensation, which neither the original CP, nor
> yet Volume XIV has done. Wait until I get my hands on it.
>
> PS If you have been away, have you seen the messages about the Earl
> of Harewood, Bertrand Russell etc?

Hi, Stephen. Not yet. I'll definitely take a look later this evening.

I would just like to stress that "Anthony St Leger" may well have
been Anne's son, or he may not. The entry says he was the son of a
single nobleman and a married woman, not a married noblewoman. It
seems to me there are two other possibilities:-
1) Thomas St Leger was the father, but the mother was another married
woman altogether - one without a title (in other words he and the
Duchess hadn't yet become an item);
2) the mother was a Mrs St Leger, or a Mrs Something nee St Leger,
whilst the father was indeed a single nobleman (not Thomas St Leger
at all), and the child took the mother's surname.

I'm a bit draawn to (2), as the parents' names are not declared as
they often are in these cases. If so, it might be possible that the
father was a Woodville. Anthony wasn't a terribly common name in
England, and I don't have any earlier ones on my St Leger family tree
(the Sir Anthony was a generation later and had a Haute mother).

I'm actually starting to creep round to the idea that this young man
maybe wasn't Anne of York's son after all, but I do agree that this
is probably how he got on to Castelli.

I bet a lot more could be discovered if only someone had the time to
do it.

Anyone like to take up the challenge????

Marie

PS I'll be back later with another pontifical gem.