Top How can we explain the low fine of £600?
I have pondered long over this problem and suspect that it hinges on what protests Richard might have made against either of these claims, the legitimacy of which was obviously proved to the satisfaction of the court. He had access to some of the top lawyers in the county and the country and must have had some hope of winning or at least negotiating, or he would presumably have settled out of court. He had four main facts or arguments in support of his case.
(1) He had not ‘stolen’ these lands, or benefited from sequestration, but had been legally presented with all the Standish of Duxbury lands that he did not own already and had a document to prove it (the 1647 document given in his biography). This had been accepted in good faith by all concerned at the time.
(2) The second is the very reason given for this grant to him by widow Margaret, namely that he and his family had been so good and helpful to her and her family, not only financially, it seems, but in a myriad other ways. Contemporary wills indicate that he had adopted the role of pater familias not just of his own immediate family, but also a few stray females of the Duxbury Hall family. One of these was widow Margaret; another was maiden aunt Ellen, sister of Alexander (1570/1-1622), who survived until 1649, after all the adult males in her family had died out; and yet another was Anne, who expressed deep affection for Richard in her will (28 January 1651) and left money to buy a horse for little Richard, his son and heir, baptised just seven days before. In fact, affection for and admiration of Richard oozes out of all local contemporary reports. He would certainly have had no problem, it seems, in calling up any number of character witnesses.
(3) This would at least have been a strong negotiating point in keeping any potential losses to a minimum, as all could have contributed to proving how much of his own money had been invested in supporting the family, and that he was the one who had administered the lands for many years.
(4) The final reason was the one which he must have hoped would be accepted in his case against “Alexander gent”: that he, Richard, was in fact descended from a much earlier younger brother and so for this reason alone was ahead of “Alexander gent” in line of succession. He knew this and I know this (from the Visitation Pedigree of 1613), but the contents of the Standish of Duxbury Muniments alone do not provide the proof. The only Visitation Pedigree presented by his branch of the family had been in 1613, which clearly showed that the family knew they were descended from Sir Hugh, and Richard knew as well as I know that this can only have been the one knighted at Agincourt, who was the only Sir Hugh ever in the family. Unfortunately, as so often with VPs, any details more than three or four generations back from the person presenting it often tended to go a little wonky, and in this case two generations had been missed out. This was very understandable, as the same names were repeated generation after generation. However, it must have been very difficult for Richard to prove exactly which Sir Hugh he was descended from, and he did not have the benefit of the research by Baines in the 19th century of all Standish knights in the French wars nor of Farrer and Porteus in the 20th century into the origins of the first Hugh Standish of Duxbury. The VP of 1567 of the senior line (Family A) did not reveal a younger brother Hugh at more or less the right time. If by any chance he had a copy of Sir Hugh’s coat of arms, this would have shown in any case that he was a first son – his father Hugh was therefore almost certainly a son of John, at the Battle of Neville’s Cross. Sir Hugh may or may not have been confused in family memory with father Hugh, who had the unfortunate fate of being among the thousands who died of dyssentery at Harfleur, thus not making it to Agincourt. (A simplistic descent of both families is given in Colonel Richard’s biography and a family tree showing all the early soldiers in my articles.)
I am not fighting for my estates, as Richard was, nor trying to prove a theory, but merely searching for a plausible explanation for the low estimate of £600, on the basis of what we know. One explanation for Edward May not insisting on the inheritance of all the manors and lands by “Alexander gent” and settling for compensation was perhaps that Alexander felt totally committed to his life in Duxbury Massachusetts and had no intention of returning to Lancashire. Another possible explanation is that the judges might well have taken all Richard’s arguments into account before coming to their decision along the following lines: Richard had indeed acted honourably and in good faith all along, (had had no word from Myles since before the Civil War?), was actually in possession (did ‘possession is the better part of the law’ apply then?), and although he could not prove that he had a better claim than “Alexander gent” his traditional ancestry might well be true (confirmed by everyone else in the family and in Duxbury?). Taking all this into consideration, Richard could remain in possession, but should pay nominal compensation to the claimant who, under other circumstances, would indeed have been entitled to his ancestors’ estates. At this point, having examined Richard’s actual assets and annual income, the sum of £600 was agreed on by both parties. At the very least this accounts for all the facts.
Or maybe the explanation lies elsewhere? Should anyone wish to pursue Farrer’s references in the Feet of Fines bundles, examine all other documents mentioned above, and provide a more plausible explanation, I would be the first to accept this. I fear, however, that the only real hope of shedding further light would be in the discovery of Edward May’s papers and I, for one, would not have the first clue where to start searching for this particular needle in which haystack. Good luck to anyone who might.
So much for the 1655 case. We are still left with the anomalies surrounding Gilbert in 1657.