The Shrewsbury peerage case and how branches of the Talbot family fought over old titles and lands

The Talbot Arms in Rugeley became the Shrewsbury Arms after Lord Talbot became the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1860 … it is now called ‘The Shrew’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I was saying in a posting yesterday how the intricacies in the family trees of the Talbot and Chetwynd families are difficult to untangle, and produce many obstacles and problems for genealogists and family historians.

The Shrewsbury Peerage Case (1858-1860) was a landmark case before the House of Lords in a dispute over the succession to prestigious titles in both England and Ireland and to vast estates in Staffordshire and other parts of England. The decision by the House of Lords in the case established legal precedents in peerage law and estate inheritance.

The Earls of Shrewsbury were the premier earls in both England and Ireland, and their string of titles include Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Waterford and Earl of Wexford. The titles dated back to mid-15th century, when the celebrated warrior John Talbot was made the first Earl of Shrewsbury in 1442 and first Earl of Waterford and Wexford in 1445. The earls also held the hereditary title of Lord High Steward of Ireland, an office that traditionally allowed them to carry bear a white staff at the coronation of the monarch.

John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1445 … a detail from the Talbot Shrewsbury Book … note the white talbot at his feet to the left

George Talbot (1719-1787), 14th Earl of Shrewsbury, had succeeded his uncle in 1743. George had no children, and when he died, he was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Talbot, as the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1812, Charles Talbot to lay out the extensive gardens at Alveton Lodge, Staffordshire, which had been in the Talbot family since the 15th century and would become Alton Towers.

When the 15th earl died, the titles were inherited by his nephew John Talbot as the 16th earl. When the principal home of the Talbot family at Heythrop, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, was destroyed by fire in 1831, he moved to Alton Towers.

John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers, commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, including Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The 16th earl was a noted patron of the architect AWN Pugin. This John Talbot married Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), daughter of William Talbot of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, Mary (O’Toole) in Bath on 27 June 1814, and both branches of the Talbot family were patrons of Pugin and his church building programmes in Staffordshire and Co Wexford.

Maria died on 6 June 1856, in Paris, France, at the age of 61, and was buried at Alton Towers. Maria and John were the parents of three children, a son who died in infancy, and two daughters:

1, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), born on 29 May 1815, married Prince Filippo Andrea Doria-Pamphili-Landi, and died in Rome on 18 December 1858, aged 43.

2, John Talbot (1816-1817), their only son, born 27 November 1816, died 20 March 1817 in Paris.

3, Lady Gwendoline Catherine Talbot (1817-1840), born on 5 December 1817 in Cheltenham, married Prince Marcantonio Borghese, and died in Rome on 27 October 1840.

John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, died from malaria in Naples on 9 November 1852. Because he had no surviving sons, he was succeeded as the 17th Earl of Shrewsbury by his second cousin once removed and his adopted heir, Bertram Arthur Talbot, according to the rules of male-preference primogeniture. Bertram was the great-grandson of George Talbot, a younger son of Gilbert Talbot (died 1711), second son of the 10th Earl of Shrewsbury.

The Tame of the Talbot family and the Earls of Shrewsbury has gives name to pubs and inns throughout England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Bertram, who has been described as having a mild disposition, was an invalid with delicate health. He had been informally adopted by the 16th earl and he was a Knight Commander of Malta, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pope Pius IX. He was also about to be nominated a knight of the Order of Saint Patrick.

When Bertram succeeded to the title in 1852, he was still under age, and when he. Having reached the age of 21, he took his seat in the House of Lords in February 1854, and he began proceedings to claim the office of Hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland, a claim that was referred to the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords.

Bertram arrived at Lisbon hoping to travel on to Cintra, and accompanied on the trip by Anne Talbot from Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, a sister the late Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, Father Charles Brierley Garside (1818-1876), his domestic chaplain, and Dr Mervyn Crawford, his personal doctor. But their plans were delayed by an outbreak of cholera in Lisbon. Bertram moved into the Hotel Braganza, where his symptoms deteriorated rapidly. Bertram died on 10 August 1856 in Lisbon at the age of 23; he was unmarried and childless, and left no direct Catholic successor.

The arms of the Talbot family, Earls of Shrewsbury, represented on the doors of Saint Giles’s Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Talbot family tree is widespread, with many branches, and when Bertram died it became difficult to disentangle the tree and to identify clearly the heir to the family estates and titles. His will reflected his staunch Catholicism by making the inheritance of the Talbot family estates conditional on the heir being a Roman Catholic.

The 17th earl believed he was the last descendant in the male line of the first Earl of Shrewsbury and so he tried to leave much of his extensive property to a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. Without a Catholic heir, the terms of Bertram’s will devolved the properties were to devolve to two prominent Catholics, Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps de Lisle (1809-1878) and Lord Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard (1855-1947), a son of the Duke of Norfolk. To conform to the terms of Bertram’s will, Edmund later changed his name by royal licence and was known from 1876 to 1922 as Lord Edmund Talbot.

But Bertram’s will was contested by relatives, and there were four separate contenders for the title of Earl of Shrewsbury, the associated titles and the Talbot family estates:

1, Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, the primary contender for the titles and estates, who also held the titles of Viscount of Ingestre and Baron Talbot. Bertram Talbot and Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot were so distantly related that their shared ancestor was nine generations back: John Talbot, who died in 1549. He was a descendant in the male line of Sir Gilbert Talbot (died 1518), third son of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury.

2, The Duke of Norfolk, as guardian of the interests of his infant son, to whom Bertram Talbot had tried to bequeath Alton Towers.

3, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), known as Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi, the only surviving child of John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury.

4, Major William Talbot (JP (1789-1861) of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, who traced his ancestry back to William Talbot, fourth son of George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury. His sister, Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), had married John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1814, and he was an uncle of Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi.

The ‘Great Shrewsbury Case’ was heard by the House of Lords, and hearings began in 1857.

The Shrewsbury Chapel in Sheffield Cathedral was built in the 16th century to house the Tudor monuments of the Earls of Shrewsbury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When Earl Talbot’s printed document formally asserting his claims to the earldoms of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford was laid on the table of the House of Lords it ran to 41 pages of genealogical and other matters. The House of Lords referred it to the committee of privileges on 9 May 1857.

After a long and expensive legal case, the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords ruled in 1860 in favour of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, who then became the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford. He was also awarded much of the family estates. The Committee of Privileges rejected the rival petitions from Major Talbot, the Duke of Norfolk on behalf of his infant son, and Princess Doria Pamphili, who was dead by then, having died in Rome on 18 December 1858.

A further suit was heard in the Court of Chancery for possession of the Talbot estates at Alton Towers and other places in Staffordshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Berkshire. Legal costs depleted the intended legacies, reducing Phillipps de Lisle’s share to £11,000, and so thwarting the 16th Earl's efforts to preserve Catholic control over his family patrimony.

Saint Michael’s Church, Brereton, was Saint Michael’s Church was built on a site donated by Charles Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot, father of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot and 18th Earl of Shrewsbury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The protracted litigation, lasting many months, resulted in exorbitant costs that eroded intended bequests. Phillipps de Lisle eventually received only £11,000 of his £40,000 legacy after legal expenses.

The other beneficiary, Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard, was the second son of the 14th Duke of Norfolk. He was known as the Hon Edmund Fitzalan-Howard and later as Lord Edmund Fitzalan-Howard until 1876, and then as Lord Edmund Talbot from 1876 and 1921. He was the principal beneficiary in Bertram Talbot’s will, provided he took the surname and arms of Talbot, which he did in 1876. However, the legal litigation and contests over the titles and the terms of the wills, eventually left Edmund with only scattered minor lands.

He was the Conservative MP for Chichester from 1894 to 1921. On 27 April 1921, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the first Roman Catholic to hold the office since 1685 during the reign of James II. His appointment was made possible through the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

He returned to the use of his paternal name in 1921, shortly after being made a peer in his own right with the title of Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent, a day after his appointment as Lord Lieutenant. However, he was in office for only a year and a half. The post was abolished when the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, and he was replaced by the Governor-General of the Irish Free State and the Governor of Northern Ireland. He died on 18 May 1947 at 91, and was succeeded in his titles by his only son, Henry.

Dublin Castle … Lord Edmund Talbot, later Lord Derwent, was the last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Shrewsbury peerage case drew attention to the tensions the creation of religious stipulations in wills and statutory inheritance rules that seemed to continue to favour Protestant lines of descent in the decades immediately after Catholic Emancipation. The verdict also served to emphasise underscored the legal primacy of bloodline inheritance over testamentary conditions favouring religious affiliation in 19th-century peerage law.

The 18th Earl of Shrewsbury had an eventful naval career. He had been a senior naval office, commanding the Philomel at the battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827, and eventually became an Admiral in 1865 and naval ADC to Queen Victoria. He was also MP for South Staffordshire (1837-1849). With his new titles he also became Hereditary High Steward of Ireland, and took part in the installation of the Prince of Wales as a Knight of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1868. As Earl of Shrewsbury, he was also Earl of Waterford, while, interestingly, his wife Lady Sarah Elizabeth Beresford (1807-1884), was a daughter of the Marquess of Waterford.

When the 18th earl died, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles John Chetwynd-Talbot (1830-1877), as the 19th earl. This was the first time in over 200 years, since the death of the 11th earl in 1667, that the title of Earl of Shrewsbury had passed from father to son.

The 20th earl created a scandal in Victorian England by eloping with a married woman, Ellen Miller-Mundy. They were later married, but after he died in 1921, another bitter court battle over the estate was fought by his widow Ellen and his grandson, John Talbot, 21st Earl of Shrewsbury, who claimed his grandfather was not of sound mind when writing his will and won a court settlement.

Today, the titles are held by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 22nd Earl of Shrewsbury, who succeeded his father in 1980. He was suspended from the House of Lords for his part in a lobbying scandal in 2022, and was barred from carrying out his family’s role at the coronation of King Charles in May 2023. Since then, he was suspended again for making false travel expenses claims and using a House of Lords rail season ticket for non-parliamentary business.

Ironically, the present Earl of Shrewsbury is also known for selling off alluring but meaningless titles such as ‘deputy lord high stewardship of Ireland’. Some years ago, Manorial Auctioneers were offering the title of the ‘Barony of Dungarvan,’ Co Waterford. Later, this supposed feudal barony was back on the market again with an online business known as nobility.co.uk. Although the Barony of Dungarvan was granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1446, it is doubtful that the title still survives as any kind of legal entity.

There is no territorial Barony of Dungarvan in Co Waterford, yet the site was offering the ‘Barony of Dungarvan, Ireland,’ along with the titles of ‘Baron and Baroness,’ and said it was ‘once held by Earl of Shrewsbury, Premier Earl of England and High Steward of Ireland.’ Potential buyers were told that ‘the list price’ for this title was once £45,000, but the selling price had been reduced to £20,000.

Lord Shrewsbury also called in recent years for a change of law so daughters can inherit hereditary titles from their parents. If such a change had been made before the ruling in the Shrewsbury case in 1860, Lord Shrewsbury would not hold his present titles, and they might be held by some Italian prince or princess, or by a member of the Talbot family in Co Wexford.

The Talbot Hotel, Wexford … remembering the link between two branches of the Talbot family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Chetwynd divorce trial that was a society sensation and scandal beyond Lichfield and Staffordshire in the 1860s

Longdon Hall, between Lichfield and Rugeley … at the centre of a sensational divorce case in 1864-1865 (Photograph: Longdon Hall School)

Patrick Comerford

With my recent return visits to Rugeley, Brereton, Stafford, Wolseley, Lichfield, Tamworth and other parts of Staffordshire, I have written about the Chetwynd family, the supposed murder by Dorothy Chetwynd of Sir Walter Smyth, the elderly husband who was three times her age, and the complete lack of historical evidence or primary sources for the stories in local lore of that murder or of Dorothy’s alleged execution by being burned at the stake.

Those stories of the Chetwynd family also led me to further genealogical and historical research into other family stories, and I came across stories of one branch of the Chetwynd family in Rugeley who were direct descendants of the Comberford family of Comberford Hall and the Moat House on Lichfield Street, Tamworth.

This branch of the Chetwynd family included another Dorothy Chetwynd who was a nun in Bruges, a 17th century; a 17th century MP for Stafford; and an 18th century MP for Lichfield who ran up heavy debts and whose funeral was delayed for weeks by his creditors.

Another branch of the Talbot family were given the title Earl Talbot, donated land for Saint Michael’s Church in Brereton, and gave their name to many places in the Rugeley area, including the Talbot Arms, associated with the ‘Poisoner of Rugeley’ William Palmer. After one Earl Tabot also became Earl of Shrewsbury, the pub became the Shrewsbury Arms, and is now known as ‘The Shrew’.

When I was writing about these stories of the Chetwynd and Talbot families, I referred to another marriage involving the Chetwynd and Talbot families that resulted in a sensational divorce case in 1865, and promised then to tell that story another evening.

William Henry Chetwynd (1811-1890) is remembered as one of the parties in the sensational Chetwynd v Chetwynd divorce case in 1864-1865, a case that highlighted Victorian attitudes to marriage, divorce, morals scandal, women’s rights and roles, children’s protection and family law.

William lived at Longdon Hall, halfway between Lichfield and Rugeley, where his income came from his family’s large landed estates and farms and from horse trading. The family estates were centred on Brocton Hall, their ancestral seat with 700 acres in Staffordshire, but also included Grendon Hall in Warwickshire, and the Bishton Hall estate inherited through the Sparrow family.

William was born on 17 September 1811 at Brocton Hall, Staffordshire, the family seat of the Chetwynd baronets. He was the second son of Sir George Chetwynd (1783-1850), 2nd baronet, and his wife Hannah Maria Sparrow of Bishton Hall, Staffordshire. Sir George succeeded to his father’s title and estates in 1824, and William Henry Chetwynd’s elder brother, Sir George Chetwynd (1809-1869), succeeded as the third baronet when their father died in 1850.

William Henry Chetwynd spent his childhood at Brocton Hall, which was largely rebuilt around 1815. He married the aristocratic Blanche Mary Talbot (1836-1898) at Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, then a fashionable venue for society weddings in London, on 15 August 1854.

Blanche was born on 14 November 1836, a daughter of the Revd Hon Arthur Chetwynd-Talbot (1805-1884) and Harriet Elizabeth Frances Hervey-Aston (1815-1845) and a niece of Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, and a granddaughter of Charles Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot. She was baptised on 4 January 1837 in Ingestre by her father, who was the Rector of Ingestre, and later Rector of Church Eaton and a rural dean in the Diocese of Lichfield. Blanche and William were distantly related: a distant ancestor, Charles Talbot (1685-1737) had married Catherine Chetwynd, and inherited the estates of the Ingestre branch of the Chetwynd family.

William Henry Chetwynd and Blanche Mary Talbot were married in Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, on 15 August 1854 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At the time of their wedding, William was 42 and Blanche was 17, an age difference of 25 years. William later alleged that at the time of their marriage Blanche was two months pregnant by another man. He claimed in court during their divorce hearings that he knew this, but that he had gone ahead with the wedding regardless, claiming he had saved her from social disgrace.

Despite these repeated allegations, I have found no records of a child born within seven months of their marriage, although they were the parents of two children:

1, Florence Chetwynd (1856-1936), born in February 1856. She married her distant cousin Lord Berkeley Charles Sydney Paget, a son of Henry Paget 2nd Marquess Anglesey, on 5 June 1877.

2, Arthur Chetwynd (1857-1926), born on 22 July 1857, died on 15 August 1926.

As their relationship deteriorated , there were allegations of mutual infidelity, cruelty and financial mismanagement, exacerbated by Blanche’s secret decision to become a Roman Catholicism in 1862 and her independent dealings in horses and loans.

In December 1864, Blanche petitioned the Divorce Court for the dissolution of their marriage on grounds of her husband’s adultery with servants and cruelty, including claims that he forced her to perform menial tasks, used abusive language, and ill-treated animals and children in her presence.

William denied the charges and filed a recriminatory suit, accusing her of adultery with a prominent barrister Henry Matthews and a theology student named Nichols. The only evidence for these alleged infidelities were entries in her private diary revealing intimate feelings toward Matthews and criticisms of her husband.

Due to its complexity and the Christmas season, the trial lasted for many days, and because of its lurid details it attracted widespread press coverage. The evidence included anonymous insulting letters written by William Chetwynd and intercepted correspondence.

The judgment, delivered in Chetwynd v Chetwynd (1865), granted the divorce despite recrimination, finding William Chetwynd guilty of adultery and Blanche Chetwynd guilty of adultery based on the entries in her diary. In a landmark decision on child welfare, the court deemed both parents unfit and awarded custody of the children to third parties, reflecting shift in the Victorian era towards prioritising minors' moral protection over parental rights.

The divorce case heard how Blanche Chetwynd slept on the stairs or was forced to flee Longdon Hall

The case heard how early discord was reflected in petty arguments, such as a dispute in 1854 over Blanche's supposed tardiness at breakfast and another following her late return from a hunt at Beaudesert, where Chetwynd accused her of disrespecting him and suggested she find another place to live.

The rift to deepened by the late 1850s, with further financial pressures. Blanche was accumulating debts over £2,000 against William’s annual income of £1,200 through buying and selling horses at fairs, often borrowing from dealers at high interest rates secured by her family connections.

Rumours of mutual infidelities were supported by periods of separation and temporary relocation, including Blanche’s secretive departure from Longdon Hall. A pivotal escalation came in 1862, when Blanche became a Roman Catholic without her husband’s knowledge. She fled in distress to the home of the Revd James William Knight (1820-1878), Headmaster of Lichfield Grammar School (1859-1866).

Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and Earl Talbot … negotiations on behalf of the Talbot and Shrewsbury interests facilitated a brief reconciliation

Negotiations involving her family solicitor, Mr Nicholson, acting for the Talbot and Shrewsbury interests, facilitated a brief reconciliation, but trust was eroded once more by anonymous harassing letters, later shown to have been written by William. Blanche finally filed for divorce in late 1864 on grounds of her husband’s alleged adultery and cruelty. William countered with claims of his wife’s infidelity.

The case of Chetwynd v Chetwynd began in late 1864 in the Divorce Court, presided over by Sir James Wilde, and continued into February 1865. Evidence was heard over several days, drawing extensive media attention for their salacious details.

Blanche claimed her husband had been guilty of great cruelty, had taught their children to spit in her face and to call her foul names, had locked her out of the house or forced her to sleep on the stairs, threatened her with a horsewhip and a pitchfork, had been guilty of repeated acts of adultery with his female servants and had lived with the children’s governess, Helen Booth.

Servants who were called to court alleged William’s repeated adultery with female domestic staff at Longdon Hall, as well as acts of cruelty such as teaching the children to insult their mother and spit in her face, and locking her out of the house at night.

The witnesses who gave evidence on her behalf included the Revd James Knight, a family acquaintance and master of the Grammar School, Lichfield. He had known Blanche since she was a child and William since 1856. Knight recalled Blanche’s distressed state during visits to his home in 1863. She sought safety at night in Knight’s house in Lichfield before returning to Longdon Hall. But she returned to Lichfield to seek safety in Knight’s home a second time.

Detectives and hotel staff corroborated William’s extramarital liaisons, detailing a pattern of infidelity and domestic abuse.

William’s defence, was led by Sir Henry Hawkins, a prominent barrister and later a controversial judge. William sought to bar the divorce under the doctrine of recrimination. When he took the stand, he refuted allegations of violence, cruelty and neglect and claimed his wife had left home without notice for religious reasons and managed independent horse dealings that incurred debts exceeding his annual income.

He alleged Blanche was pregnant when they married, and that he was not the father of the child but that he ‘removed her from disgrace’. Excerpts from Blanche’s private diary were read into evidence, revealing her intimate feelings for Henry Matthews, a family friend. These including passages on unrequited love, passionate encounters, and moral turmoil, which Hawkins argued demonstrated her own adulterous intent.

Witnesses, including hotel proprietors, placed Blanche with Matthews, and separately with Nichols, in compromising situations, including sharing a bed at the Falcon Hotel in Birmingham in December 1863.

Cross-examinations highlighted inconsistencies in witness accounts, with William portraying himself as a victim of Blanche’s extravagance. He accused his wife of associating with what he saw as low company, including ‘horse dealers’ and ‘pig jobbers’ at fairs. Part of William’s evidence included claims that his wife had called him ‘Dear Old Billy.’ There was laughter in the court when lines were quoted from a ballad well-known in Staffordshire, ‘The Wednesbury Cock’ but that William had confused with Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians.

The co-respondent in William Chetwynd's counter-petition, Henry Matthews, was implicated through letters and diary entries suggesting improper intimacy, although there was no direct testimony from him.

Despite the mutual accusations, the court found Chetwynd’s adultery proven beyond doubt, while his recriminatory claims against his wife were deemed insufficient to bar relief, as her journal was evidence of intent but not of consummated acts.

On 25 February 1865, Sir James Wilde granted a decree nisi to Blanche, awarding costs against her husband, and ordering alimony payments to Blanche. The court also deemed both parents unfit and awarded custody of their children to third parties, reflecting emerging child welfare principle. They were put in the care of William’s elder brother, Sir George Chetwynd.

The Schoolmaster’s House (left) at the old Grammar School on Saint John Street, Lichfield … it is now the home Lichfield Discovered (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Following the case, William Henry Chetwynd returned to live at Longdon Hall, between Lichfield and Rugeley. There he lived a more secluded lifestyle without his children, and was a Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire. He married a second wife, Mary Parkin, on 7 December 1875 at Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, the same church where William and Blanche were married 21 years earlier. William died at Longdon Hall on 5 July 1890, aged 78, and was buried at Saint Michael and All Angels Church, Colwich, near Longdon Hall.

The Chetwynd case was an early instance where the Divorce Court exercised broad discretion in fault-based proceedings. The finding of mutual culpability led to a rare outcome where neither party was deemed the ‘innocent spouse’, resulting in the denial of custody to both parents and placing their children with third-party guardians, illustrating an emphasis on marital fault extending to parental rights.

The case also reflects the privileges afforded to the upper classes in accessing the divorce court, while families with limited resources often endured marital discord without formal dissolution because of financial barriers. The case highlights entrenched gender and class norms, with women’s private thoughts subject to more rigorous scrutiny and questioning than men’s actions, and reinforcing the patriarchal double standards of the time in family law.

Because of the development of a popular media and cheaper newspapers, the case acquired popular notoriety and was a greater source of gossip not just in Staffordshire, but across the world, compared, for example with another divorce case in the same part of Staffordshire a century earlier, involving Sir William Wolseley who married Ann Whitby in 1752, a sad story I recounted in recent weeks.

Brocton Hall, near Rugeley and Stafford … home to generations of the Chetwynd family of Rugeley

Whatever happened to the principal characters in the Chetwynd divorce drama?

William Chetwynd died at home in Longdon Hall, in 1890, and was buried nearby in Colwich. His property, including Longdon Hall, passed to the children of Blanche and William, Florence and Arthur. Arthur Chetwynd continued to live at Longdon Hall and to manage the estate; Lord Berkeley Paget died at Longdon Hall on 25 November 1913, and Florence died there on 26 May 1936. The family title and Brocton Hall were eventually inherited in 1938 by Arthur’s son, Sir Arthur Henry Talbot Chetwynd (1877-1972).

Blanche never married again, and died on 15 July 1898. Her half-brother, Canon Arthur Henry Chetwynd-Talbot (1855-1927), was later a Prebendary of Lichfield, Provost of Denstone College, Uttoxeter, and the Rector of Edgmond, Newport, Shropshire. Her uncle, Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot (1803-1868), 3rd Earl Talbot, eventually succeeded as 18th Earl of Shrewsbury in 1856, and those titles have continued with his descendants. Those descendants included John George Chetwynd-Talbot (1914-1980), 21st Earl of Shrewsbury and 6th Earl Talbot. He sued for divorce in 1958, but Judge Charles A Collingwood refused the application in 1959, and he did not get a divorce until a subsequent case in 1963.

The Revd James William Knight, the kindly and concerned Master of Lichfield Grammar School who offered Blanche refuge on at least two occasions, was later Sub-Warden of Saint Paul’s College, Stony Stratford (1873-1875). He died on 26 August 1878, at Car-Colston Vicarage, Nottinghamshire. The Schoolmaster’s House at the old Grammar School on Saint John Street, Lichfield, where he lived is now home to the local history group Lichfield Discovered.

William Chetwynd’s counsel, Sir Henry Hawkins (1817-1907), later 1st Baron Brampton, became a controversial judge and was known as a severe ‘hanging judge’. His sisters included Susanna Hawkins who married William Comerford Casey of Cork and Liverpool. He was a cousin of the Revd Edwards Comerford Hawkins (1827-1906), of Saint Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, London, father of the writer Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, author of The Prisoner of Zenda.

I have yet to identify the theology student or seminarian named as a theology student named simply as Nichols.

The co-respondent, Henry Matthews (1826-1913), was a prominent Roman Catholic and a Conservative politician. Matthews never took the stand at the Chetwynd case, and so it seems ironic that he made his name at the Bar for his examination of witnesses, especially Sir Charles Dilke in a sensational divorce case in 1885. He was MP for Dungarvan, Co Waterford (1868-1874), and later for Birmingham East (1886-1892), and he was the Home Secretary (1886-1892) throughout the Whitechapel Murders, some of which are attributed to Jack the Ripper. He was given the title of 1st Viscount Llandaff in 1895 and died unmarried in 1913 at the age of 87.

The intricate and puzzling details of the Chetwynd and Talbot family trees in Staffordshire and Wexford is a tangled web that continues to fascinate me. The story of how the Chetwynd-Talbot branch of the family in Rugeley and Brereton managed to convince their peers that they were the rightful heirs to the titles of Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Waterford and Earl of Wexford is another genealogical riddle that I hope to try to unravel or disentangle on another evening.

Henry Matthews (1826-1913), the co-respondent in William Chetwynd's counter-petition, later become Home Secretary and Viscount Llandaff … he never married

Further Reading:

HE Chetwynd-Stapylton, The Chetwynds of Ingestre, being a history of that family from a very early date (London: Longman & Green, 1892)

The memorial stone in Saint Mary’s Church, Ingestre, for Blanche’s uncle, Henry Chetwynd-Talbot (1803-1868), 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and 3rd Earl Talbot

Two Oxford war heroes with many interesting family connections with Ireland

Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse is commemorated by a paving stone depicting a pair of Victoria Crosses outside Saint Peter’s College, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Patrick Comerford

As I was wandering around Oxford almost aimlessly earlier this month, I stumbled unexpectedly upon a plaque to Noel Chavasse that reminded me of the connections between a distinguished Oxford clerical family and a family with an interesting role in life in Ireland.

Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse (1884 -1917) was a medical doctor, an Olympic athlete, a war hero, and one of only three people to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice – indeed, the only man to be awarded the VC twice during World War I.

During the Battle of Guillemont in 1916, he was hit by shell splinters while rescuing men in no-man’s land, but continued in his heroic throughout the night under a constant rain of sniper bullets and bombing. He carried similar heroic acts at Passchendaele in 1917, becoming the most highly decorated British officer in World War I, although he died of his wounds on 4 August 1917.

Noel Chavasse was the younger of identical twin sons of the Rev Francis Chavasse, later Bishop of Liverpool and founder of Saint Peter's College, Oxford. His twin brother, the Revd Christopher Maude Chavasse (1884-1962), was also an Olympic athlete, was decorated with the Military Cross (MC) during World War I, and later became Bishop of Rochester.

Christopher and Noel Chavasse were born at Saint Peter-le-Bailey Rectory on New Inn Hall Street, Oxford, where their father was Rector. They both attended Magdalen College School in Oxford, followed by Liverpool College, before going on to Trinity College Oxford.

During his medical training, Noel Chavase had a placement at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. He is commemorated by more war memorials in the United Kingdom than any other individual: 16 have currently recorded by the National Inventory of War Memorials, including two paving stones in Oxford, each depicting a pair of crosses: one outside Saint Peter’s College and one near Magdalen College School.

Christopher and Noel Chavasse were born at Saint Peter-le-Bailey Rectory on New Inn Hall Street, Oxford, now part of Saint Peter’s College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022) (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

The twin’s father, Francis James Chavasse (1846-1928), was the Rector of Saint Peter-le-Bailey in Oxford when they were born at the Rectory. Later, after being Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and Bishop of Liverpool, Bishop Chavasse returned to Oxford in 1923, and moved back into the vacant rectory of Saint Peter-le-Bailey on New Inn Hall Street.

He was instrumental in founding Saint Peter’s Hall in 1928, and church took on the combined role of the parish church and a college chapel. The first master of Saint Peter’s Hall was the Revd Christopher Chavasse. Saint Peter’s Hall became a full Oxford University college in 1961, the parish was merged with Saint Ebbe’s and the church became the college chapel.

The Chavasse family was rooted in the West Midlands but originally came from south-east France in the 17th century. The family was close, and the twins were closely related to the Chavasse families in Ireland.

Claude Chavasse (1886-1971), who was just two years younger than the twins, was also born in Oxford and was one of the Irish nationalists rounded up in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in 1916.

Brendan Behan is said to have based the character ‘Monsewer’ in The Hostage on Claude Chavasse.

Claude first came to the attention of the authorities when he was stopped by a police sergeant in Co Cork in February 1916 and gave his name in Irish. He was arrested and spent two nights in prison in Macroom, where he alleged he was beaten for refusing to speak English.

He was arrested again after the Easter Rising and took part in a hunger strike in the prison. He took the Republican side in the civil war, taught at Scoil Acla on Achill Island, and remained active in the Irish language movement until his death in 1971. His sister Marguerite also attended Scoil Acla and through her friendship with the Trench family persuaded Switzer’s in Dublin to sell Achill knitting produce.

Colonel Kendal George Fleming Chavasse (1904-2001) from Co Waterford, played a distinguished role in Tunisia and Italy in World War II, and commanded the Royal Irish Fusiliers 2nd Battalion in Italy, Egypt and Palestine.

I remember him from my childhood in Co Waterford, when he was an innovative farmer, a founder member of the Irish Farmers’ Association and was involved in West Waterford Hunt and the Dungarvan Show. He was the longest-serving lay reader in the Church of Ireland and a member of the General Synod.

His son, Henry Perceval Kendal (Hal) Chavasse (1933-2022) of Cappagh House, between Cappoquin and Dungarvan, was once the British military attaché in Mexico and Panama, and then in Columbia. When he retired and returned to west Waterford, he was the forestry manager at Lismore Castle and a farmer, and for many years he was the treasurer and ‘the voice’ of the annual Dungarvan Show. He died earlier this year on 21 February 2022.

Teampol na mBocht or the Church of the Poor, at Altar or Toormore, west of Schull, Co Cork … Canon Claude Lionel Chavasse was rector in 1934-1940 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Claude Lionel Chavasse (1897-1983) also fought in World War I before graduating from Exeter College, Oxford, Oxfordshire, and studied for ordination at Saint Stephen’s House, Oxford. He was ordained in 1929, and was the Rector of Teampol-na-mBocht, west of Schull, Co Cork (1934-1940), of Mallow, Co Cork (1940-1944), and Baltinglass, Co Wicklow (1957-1967). In retirement, he lived in Lemybrien, outside Dungarvan, Co Waterford.

I have fond memories of his daughter, Judith Mary Chavasse (1933-2018), who was an encouraging parishioner in Saint George’s Church, Balbriggan, when I did regular Sunday duty in the Holmpatrick and Balbriggan Group of Parishes.

She trained as a nurse at Saint Thomas’s in London, and returned to Ireland, becoming head of nursing in University College Dublin. Judith was a visionary and a great thinker. She led the development of nursing towards its recognition as a profession and academic discipline in Ireland, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by TCD.

After her retirement in 1996, she moved to Balbriggan, where was an active parishioner in Saint George’s, securing heritage grants for its restoration.

Earlier this year, a special service on 19 June 2022 marked the opening of the Judith Chavasse Centre – formerly Saint George’s School – in Hampton Street, Balbriggan. The guest preacher was a former parishioner, the Revd Trevor Sargent, now Rector of Bunclody, Co Wexford and a trustee of the Anglican mission agency USPG.

When Saint Peter’s parish was merged with Saint Ebbe’s, Saint Peter’s Church became the chapel of Saint Peter’s College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2022)

Why is the coat-of-arms of the Earl of Lichfield used to sell fake French titles online?

Why is the coat-of-arms of the Earl of Lichfield being used to sell so many fake French titles online?

Patrick Comerford

I have written in the past about sites that claim to sell manorial titles such as lord of the manor, or fake French and Italian titles such as count, baron or duke.

Many of the sites selling the supposed titles of Scottish lairds claim they to sell plots of land in Scotland that give owners a claim to a lordship. But they are selling nothing more than novelty gifts, with ornate and decorative pieces of paper that any 10-year-old could design on a laptop and ham-fisted instructions on how to change your name by deed poll – advice better given by a qualified lawyer.

At most, they amount to no more than harmless, good fun, and may help to conserve a large forest and tract of Highland in Scotland. They do not warn you that using the ‘titles’ in Scotland could, at best, make you the butt of laughter, and, at worst, end up with a case in the Court of the Lord Lyon, the authority on all matters heraldic and genealogical in Scotland.

But there is little novelty to or fun about the sites that claim to sell manorial baronies, feudal lordships and supposed French and Italian titles of nobility.

Some years ago, Manorial Auctioneers were offering the title of the ‘Barony of Dungarvan,’ Co Waterford. Later, this supposed feudal barony was back on the market again with an online business known as nobility.co.uk.

Although the Barony of Dungarvan was granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1446, it is doubtful that the title still survives as any kind of legal entity. Despite the fact that there is no territorial Barony of Dungarvan in Co Waterford, the site was offering the ‘Barony of Dungarvan, Ireland,’ along with the titles of ‘Baron and Baroness,’ and said it was ‘once held by Earl of Shrewsbury, Premier Earl of England and High Steward of Ireland.’

Potential buyers were told that ‘the list price’ for this title was once £45,000, but the selling price had been reduced to £20,000. ‘A snip at the price,’ I hear you saying.

Now I seen that the same site is using the coat-of-arms of the seventh Earl of Lichfield – the photographer Patrick Lichfield – to sell fake titles in France. This is the same coat of arms that in the past has decorated a popular pub in Lichfield, the Earl of Lichfield Arms on Conduit Street, known to many people in Lichfield as the Drum.

The Earl of Lichfield Arms has been described as ‘one of the most compact pubs in the whole of Staffordshire.’ The premises had been bought by the Anson family, Earls of Lichfield, by the 1840s, and was renamed the ‘Earl of Lichfield Arms.’

The coat-of-arms outside the Drum was that of Thomas Patrick John Anson (1939-2005), 5th Earl of Lichfield, the photographer known professionally as Patrick Lichfield. In 1975, Patrick Lichfield married Lady Leonora Grosvenor, elder daughter of the 5th Duke of Westminster. She is remembered in a number of monuments and plaques that bear her name in Lichfield. The couple were divorced in 1986; he died on 11 November 2005 and was buried in the Anson vault at Colwich.

This coat-of-arms represents the Earl of Lichfield on the left, and the Grosvenors of Westminster on the right. So, this sign dated from the period 1975-1986.

The coat-of-arms of the Earl of Lichfield once on the wall of the pub (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The very same coat-of-arms is being used by the site nobility.co.uk to sell an unlimited number of supposed French titles online. On first reading, I might even be forgiven for thinking that the site is not selling a fake French title but an actual French countess.

For example, they claim to have unlimited availability of a ‘French Count & Countess’ for $20,000. They say the sale price was reduced this year (2021) from a list price of £300,000 to £15,000, with a saving of £285,000 (95%).

Quoting prices in three different currencies makes no sense to me. Nor does the claim that ‘property owners can Buy this Title through our independant (sic) Loan providers.’ If you are foolish enough to buy this ‘title’, you could end up paying ‘as little as £152 per month’ over 10 years, or ‘as little as £276 per month’ over five years. Check out the exorbitant interest rates yourself.

They also include a ‘Loan Warning’ that says: ‘By adding a 2nd or 1st Loan on a property, if the payments are not kept up you could lose the property if you do not pay the monthly payment.’

The same site is also offering what they claim are French titles of ‘Baron’ and ‘Baroness’ for $12,000 or £9,000, reduced from £300,000, ‘Duke’ and ‘Duchess’ for $26,000 (£25,000), again reduced from £300,000, and ‘Prince’ and ‘Princess’ for $162,000 (£120,000), also reduced from £300,000.

All offers say their titles can be bought ‘through our independant (sic) Loan providers.’ None explains why the same price reduction does not apply across the board – potential princes are getting a poor reduction compared to would-be barons – nor do they explain the different currency conversion rates applied to the different ‘titles.’

The coat-of-arms of the 5th Earl of Lichfield is being used to promote fantasy French titles at exorbinant prices

Indeed, they do not explain either why the coat-of-arms of Patrick Lichfield and his wife are being used to promote these fantasy titles. They have nothing to do with the Anson family, still less with the pub on Conduit Street, Lichfield.

The site claims the titles were ‘Granted By Prince Franks Descendants (sic) of the Franks Merovingian Charlemagne dynasty.’ They say, ‘His Royal Highness Prince Franks is of direct descendant to the kings of the Franks and as such has inherited “Fons Honurum” (the right to grant Titles of Nobility).’ Presumably they mean fons honorum.

Apart from the mathematical, grammatical and spelling errors, I wondered about the genealogical, heraldic and historical errors too. Provenance is of the utmost importance when buying antiques or works of art. But when I tried to find out who Prince Franks is, I was redirected to a Wikipedia page on the Kings of the Franks.

As anyone knows from watching Who Do You Think You Are?, the mathematical probability is that if anyone who visits that site is a descendant of Charlemagne, then everyone is. Prince Franks, for all his pretensions and all his dersire to get the hard-earned cash of the gullible, is either very shy or very reluctant to reveal his true identity.

The site is also claiming to sell the ‘Irish-lordship of Corbeny (Currabinny) Cork … once held by Viscount Boyle of Bandon,’ and that sale includes mineral, hunting and fishing rights.’

They say that the price has been reduced from £45,000 to £22,000 – a saving of £23,000.

Currabinny is a natural forest, near Crosshaven, which would make it difficult to stake a claim to any supposed ‘mineral rights.’ The site also promises in a most incredible way that ‘as Lord you and your friends have the right to go salmon fishing for free in Currabinny’ and illustrates this claim with a photograph of the waterfront at Cobh at night.

Meanwhile, ‘an authentic English pub sign (one-sided) featuring a painting of the heraldic arms of the Earl of Lichfield, entitled: Earl of Lichfield Arms’ is on sale online. It measures 48 inches high, 36 inches wide and 2 inches deep, and is described as ‘A very fine example of vintage advertising artwork, ready for display.’ It is similar to the sign once at the Earl of Lichfield Arms in Lichfield, but also a version of the same coat-of-arms being used to sell those fake French titles.

The on-line seller in Texas is asking for €2,490.28, although the site says the seller may accept €2,117.

It seems a better bargain and more authentic than the bogus French titles being sold at much higher prices using the coat-of-arms of the Earl of Lichfield.

But you might be better off buying me a drink in the Drum. I could pick it up the next time I’m back in Lichfield. And it would be lot more fun that any fake French title.

The Earl of Lichfield Arms on Conduit Street … known to generations in Lichfield as ‘The Drum’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Additional reading:

John Shaw, The Old Pubs of Lichfield (Lichfield: George Lane Publishing, 2001/2007).
Neil Coley, Lichfield Pubs (Stroud: Amberley, 2016).

Keynsham Abbey, its Co Limerick churches, and legends about the Knights Templar in Askeaton

The octagonal tower at Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton … but is there any evidence for the presence of the Knights Templar? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford 2020)

Patrick Comerford

It is a common belief in Askeaton that Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick, was a foundation of the Knights Templar, and that the neighbouring octagonal tower was built by the Knights Templar.

However, it seems, there may be no primary, documentary evidence or sources to show that the Knights Templar ever had a foundation in Askeaton.

On the other hand, I have been challenged by my findings in recent weeks that the Augustinian Abbey of Keynsham in Somerset held Askeaton in the early mediaeval period, along with a number of other parish churches in this part of west Co Limerick, including Askeaton, Ballingarry, Bruree, Croagh, Lismakeera, and, for a time, Rathkeale.

Keynsham Abbey also had close links with successive proprietors of Askeaton Castle until the Reformation. Could it be, I was forced to ask, that Saint Mary’s was a dependent house of Keynsham Abbey, and was never associated with the Knights Templar?

The remaining ruins of Keynsham Abbey, between Bath and Bristol (Photograph: Rick Crowley/Wikipedia)

Keynsham Abbey in Somerset was founded ca 1166 by William, Earl of Gloucester. It was founded as a house of Augustinian canons regular, and continued until the dissolution of the monastic houses in 1539. Keynsham Abbey stood on the south side of the River Avon, where the River Avon meets the River Chew in the Keynsham Hams, an alluvial flood plain with open fields, pastures and meadows, divided by hedgerows and ditches.

This was the site of a fourth century Roman settlement, possibly called Trajectus, that was abandoned when the Roman legions left Britain. The Abbey was built near the old Roman Road that became the Bath Road connecting London with Bath and Bristol.

There was a religious settlement in Keynsham from the ninth or tenth centuries. Some sources say a later mediaeval abbey was established ca 1170, when Bartholomew de Sancto Mauro (Seymour) witnessed the founding charter. Other sources say the main abbey was founded by William de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, in 1166, the year his son Robert de Clare died, traditionally at his son’s dying request, or in the year 1180.

The priests at Keynsham Abbey were Augustinian canons regular and they adopted the rule of the Order of Saint Victor, so that the head of the religious house was always called an abbot, and the house was known as the House of the Canons of Saint Austin and Saint Victor. Other abbeys following this rule included Worspring (also called Woodspring), near Weston-super-Mare, and Stavordale near Wincanton, both in Somerset; Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol; and Wormeley and Wigmore, both in Herefordshire.

At its foundation, the abbey was endowed with the Manor and the Hundred of Keynsham, totalling 9,920 ha (24,520 acres), and the parishes of Brislington, Burnett, Chelwood, Compton Dando, Farmborough, Keynsham, Marksbury, Nempnett Thrubwell, Pensford, Priston, Publow, Queen Charlton, Saltford, Stanton Drew, Stanton Prior, and Whitchurch. It also included many parish properties such as the church of Saint Mary and Saint Peter and Saint Paul and the chapels of Brislington, Charlton, Felton (or Whitchurch), Publow and Pensford.

The abbey also acquired considerable property in Ireland, including the churches at Askeaton, Rathkeale, Lismakeera, Croagh and Bruree in Co Limerick.

Askeaton Castle … part of the large estates granted to Hamo de Valognes in 1199 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

King John granted large parts of mid-west Limerick to Hamo de Valognes, justiciar of Ireland, in 1199, including Askeaton, Rathkeale and Bruree, an area where the manor of Askeaton held sway. Hamo de Valognes had died by 1207, and his son and heir, Hamo de Valognes, was a minor. King John then granted much of the de Valognes estate to Hugh de Neville in 1207, and other lands in the area to Sir Roger Waspail, who held extensive estates in Dorset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and also owned estates in present-day Co Laois, Co Dublin and Co Kildare.

Waspail, who became Seneschal of Ulster, granted the church of Rathkeale to Keynsham Abbey ca 1213-1226. He died in 1226 and was succeeded by his son, Henry Waspail, who reconfirmed his father’s grant of Rathkeale to Keynsham Abbey ca 1226-1228.

Henry died in 1233 and was succeeded by his brother Roger Waspail, who received a grant of Rathkeale in 1251 and became Deputy Justiciar of Ireland in 1262. He exchanged the manor of Rathkeale with John Maltravers in 1280 for a life interest in the manor of Wolcomb Maltravers, Dorset.

Following Roger Waspail’s grant of Rathkeale, Keynsham managed its new benefice, collecting income and appointing clerics. But the politically unstable situation in Ireland made it difficult to collect revenue.

Some time after 1237, under the direction of John de Bureford, a canon of the abbey and their proctor in Ireland, Keynsham granted the church of Rathkeale and nine dependent chapels and property rights in the cantred of Askeaton to the Bishop of Limerick. These nine chapels were Rathofergus [Rathfergus], Mayntaueny [Moytawnach], Mayryne [Kiltanna], Browry [Bruree], Culbalysward [Howardstown], Karracnefy [Cathernasse and Cahernarry], Mayncro [Croagh], Maymolcally [Kilnecally] and Orosse [unknown].

At the same time, Keynsham granted the church of Askeaton to the Priory of Saint Catherine outside the walls of Waterford. This priory was founded before 1207, and, like Keynsham, it followed the Augustinian rule of Saint Victor.

The ruins of the Augustinian Priory of Saint Mary in Rathkeale … the church of Rathkeale and nine dependent chapels were part of the possessions of Keynsham Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The grants to the Bishop of Limerick benefitted both sides. Keynsham realised capital without the expense of collecting while the bishop acquired another source of income. At the time, Bishop Hubert de Burgh was involved in costly disputes with the pope in Rome and the government in Dublin, and was forced to borrow money from Italian bankers. He had difficulty repaying these loans and interest was accumulating. In 1237, the year he received the Keynsham parishes, Bishop Hubert repaid 160 marks on a loan that included 54 marks of interest.

The early 13th century grant by Roger Waspail of Rathkeale to Keynsham Abbey failed to mention any other parishes. But the grant to Bishop Hubert ca 1237 shows Rathkeale had nine dependent chapels in area that extended from Askeaton to Bruree. The church of Askeaton was not named as a benefice but must have formed part of Waspail’s grant to the abbey. The church in Askeaton was given to the priory of Saint Catherine in Waterford ca 1237. Sometime afterwards, Askeaton was granted to Bishop Hubert of Limerick by the priory. Before 1250, Bishop Hubert granted Askeaton to Keynsham.

An early Vicar of Askeaton, Thomas de Cardiff, is named in 1237, and it is said that Saint Mary’s Church in Askeaton was built in 1291. It is also said that the Knights Templars had a commandery in Askeaton from 1298 until they were disbanded in 1307. But all the available documentary evidence shows Askeaton remained in the hands of Keynsham Abbey and its dependency in Waterford.

Keynsham Abbey also held the parish of Ballingarry from the mid-1200s, and by the 15th century, Ballingarry was the chief parish held by Keynsham, with Askeaton a junior parish. Ballingarry may have been transferred by Keynsham to another religious house in the 13th century, like its other Limerick possessions, but it is also possible that the abbey kept control of Ballingarry without interruption.

From 1294 on, the Abbots of Keynsham appointed attorneys to manage their Irish property, which suggests that Ballingarry and Askeaton were under its direct ownership. These attorneys collected the tithes and incomes from the Limerick parishes and sent the surplus back to Keynsham.

The former parish church in Ballingarry … Ballingarry and Askeaton were owned directly by the Abbots of Keynsham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The barony, castle and manor of Askeaton were held by the late Thomas de Clare, son of Richard de Clare, in 1320.

At the same time, the Abbot of Keynsham held the Rectory of Askeaton in 1320, and the income from the rectory was for the abbot’s own use. The abbey also had the right to nominate the Vicars of Askeaton. The rectory of Askeaton was valued at 16 marks while the vicarage was valued at 8 marks.

The responsibilities of the abbey’s Irish attorneys increased in the early 1320s. But the abbey suffered considerable financial losses in England, its revenues could not meet its needs, and it lost the income from many parishes through fraud, default, theft, the death of cattle, poor crops, flood damage and wars.

Those wars were caused mainly by Maurice FitzThomas FitzGerald, 1st Earl of Desmond, as he tried to acquire the Irish estates of the de Clare absentee heirs. When Thomas de Clare, son of Richard de Clare, died in 1321 without any direct heirs, his possessions were divided between his aunts, Margaret, wife of Sir Bartholomew de Badlesmere, and Maud, wife of Sir Robert de Wells, while the de Clare estates that included the Limerick parishes owned by Keynsham Abbey passed as dower land to Joan, widow of Richard de Clare.

Maurice FitzGerald regarded all the former de Clare lands in Co Kerry, Co Limerick and Co Cork as his by descent, along with those in Thomond. However, the losses suffered by Keynsham in these wars is unknown.

The church ruins at Affane, near Cappoquin … one of the parishes in west Waterford acquired by Kenynsham Abbey in 1413 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

When the Bishop of Bath and Wells visited Keynsham Abbey in 1350, he reported the abbey neglected to keep its gates safely closed, leaving the church ornaments and valuables open to being stolen. Lay people were allowed into the refectory contrary to the rules, nightly offices were irregularly kept, poor financial accounts were kept, estates were let out at low rents, and the title deeds and charters of the abbey were not stored in a secure location. Lay men and women entered the abbey at unlawful hours, the abbey’s staff were involved in stealing, the poor were not being served, and the monks used sporting dogs.

Keynsham Abbey acquired the Rectory of Dungarvan, Co Waterford, from Thomas FitzGerald, 5th Earl of Desmond, in 1413, and with it the right of presentation to 13 parishes across mid-Co Waterford: Affane, Aglish, Clashmore, Clonea, Colligan, Fews, Kilgobinet, Kilronan, Kinsalebeg, Lisgenan, Ringagonagh and Whitechurch.

It has been suggested that Keynsham gave Desmond the advowsons for its Co Limerick parishes in exchange for Dungarvan, but there is no evidence to support this. A document in 1427 shows Keynsham as holding two Limerick parishes, Askeaton and Ballingarry.

The Limerick parishes of Askeaton and Ballingarry were situated in the heart of the earldom. A stable earldom was to the obvious benefit of Keynsham. It would appear that the abbey opened doors for the Earl of Desmond in London and among the regional magnates.

Sometime before 1427, a new vicar was appointed to Askeaton. Edmund McAdam, had tendered his resignation to Cornelius O’Dea, Bishop of Limerick. The Rector of Ballingarry, John Kyndton, was asked by William, Abbot of Keynsham, to present a new vicar. Kyndton selected James Oleayn, a priest of the Diocese of Killaloe, and Bishop Cornelius instituted Cleayn, despite Gillabertus Ykatyl illegally holding Askeaton for more than a year.

But James Oleayn had doubts about whether the presentation and institution were valid, and petitioned the Pope for papal letters to make good his position. He held Askeaton in June 1427 when he was charged to pay 6 marks in first fruits.

Edmund McAdam later revoked his resignation and recovered possession of Askeaton. But McAdam resigned as Vicar of Askeaton again by 1458, and the public notary of Limerick and other judges gave the vicarage to Thomas Macega. John Maclanchie presented a claim of false possession and took his case to Rome, although the vicarage had not lawfully devolved to the Pope.

Pope Eugene IV sent the case to a papal auditor who favoured Thomas Macega over John Maclanchie. Subsequently, Philip Offlait, a priest of Limerick, brought false charges against Macega and demanded the removal of Macega from Askeaton. Macega appealed to Rome where Pope Nicholas V sent the case to a papal auditor who ruled against Offlait.

The Bishop of Limerick then admitted Macega to Askeaton, but Offlait objected, and faced with a choice between two priests in his diocese, the bishop expelled both candidates and appointed Philip Ocathill, a priest of Limerick, to Askeaton.

Macega appealed to Rome once again, was granted a dispensation from his illegitimacy as the son of unmarried parents, and received a new mandate for Askeaton. The vicarage was valued at 8 marks and the previous Vicars of Askeaton were named as Gilbert Itaschill and William Ymolcorkra, along with Edmund McAdam. It is not known if Macega succeeded to the vicarage or if more appeals were made, and Keynsham Abbey is not mentioned in these cases.

The Rector of Ballingarry was proctor of Keynsham Abbey in 1427 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The rights of Keynsham Abbey’s in Ballingarry were also challenged. Sometime ca 1399-1426, John Fitzgerald of Pobbnesheagh had founded a Franciscan house at Kilshane. In 1488, John Lesse, the minister of the Ballingarry community was in a dispute over tithes.

The vicarage of Ballingarry became vacant ca 1409 with the death of William, son of Thomas Ymalcorkra. The vicarage was then valued at 12 marks. Thomas Saleys alias Cristour, was presented to Ballingarry by Keynsham Abbey as patron of the parish. But Thomas had doubts about the abbey’s authority and petitioned the Pope for a mandate that was issued to the Chancellor of Limerick.

John Kyndton, Rector of Ballingarry, seems to have acted as the abbey’s proctor a in 1427, collecting tithes and income from farming the landed estates.

Gilbert O’Liathain or O’Loan, the Vicar of Ballingarry in 1445, exchanged the parish for Croom with Malachy O’Condoub (O’Conify), with the sanction of the Bishop of Limerick. But Malachy had doubts about the exchange and in July 1445 he received a papal mandate to confirm the exchange. Ballingarry was valued at 16 marks. At the same time, Malachy was made Prebendary of Kilrossanty in Lismore.

Gillacius (or Walter) O’Keyt, a canon of Lismore, became Dean of Lismore and Prebendary of Kilrossanty in 1450, as well as Prebendary of Saint Munchin’s (Limerick) and Vicar of Ballingarry. O’Keyt got a papal dispensation on account of charges of simony, perjury and other irregularities to legitimise these appointments. Keynsham Abbey was acknowledged as holding the right of presentation to Ballingarry and a new claimant emerged in 1452, when William Torriger was presented to Ballingarry by Keynsham Abbey.

Torringer was instituted by John Mothell, Bishop of Limerick, in succession to Malachy O’Conify, but he was opposed by Gillacius O’Keyt, the former vicar. Torriger and O’Keyt both petitioned Pope Nicholas V. The papal auditor judged in favour of Torriger, and issued a perpetual silence on O’Keyt.

O’Keyt surrendered the vicarage to Torriger, but a sentence of excommunication threatened his role as Dean of Lismore. O’Keyt was further reprimanded when he tried to celebrate masses. He petitioned the pope in 1454, and the Bishop of Lismore received a mandate to lift the sentence of excommunication and to restore Okeyt to full cleric status.

O’Keyt filed another petition relating to Ballingarry in 1457, receiving absolution from the pope for simony and a mandate to remain Dean of Lismore.

Matthew (Mahon or Malachi) O’Griffa, a canon of Limerick, received a Papal dispensation because his illegitimacy as the son of a priest. He was then appointed Vicar of Dysert in Killaloe Diocese, Prebendary of Saint Munchin’s (Limerick), Archdeacon of Limerick, and Vicar of Ballingarry in 1458. He was also Dean of Cashel (1455), and later became Bishop of Killaloe (1463-1483).

The financial details of some of Keynsham’s Limerick parishes are disclosed in a papal mandate in 1460. According to Cornelius Ydeayd, a priest of the Diocese of Limerick, the abbey held a number of rectorial tithes in the parishes of Ballingarry and Askeaton. These tithes were not collected by the abbey’s representative, but were leased to lay people who paid a yearly rent. Ydeayd feared they could easily pass to these lay people to the loss of Keynsham, and Pope Pius II asked the Bishop of Limerick to investigate.

Nicholas Wale, a priest of Limerick diocese, was appointed the Vicar of Ballingarry in 1488, and Philip O’Kail was to be removed. William O’Muleoni, a priest of Limerick, became Vicar of Ballingarry and Kilscannell in 1492.

Saint Carthage’s Cathedral, Lismore … Gillacius O’Keyt was Dean of Lismore and Vicar of Ballingarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

As for Keynsham Abbey, Edward I stayed at the Abbey in 1276 on his way from Bath to Bristol. A small town eventually grew up around Keynsham Abbey, and in 1307 Edward II granted the abbey a weekly market on Tuesdays and a yearly fair on the Feast of the Assumption (15 August).

As the centuries progressed, the abbey became embroiled in a number of disputes over monastic life and discipline. When the bishop visited Keynsham in 1350, he found the canons were failing to properly guard and secure the outer gate of the abbey, so that the ornaments of the church and treasures of the house could be easily stolen. The canons were also admonished to keep better household accounts, attend prayers more regularly, and give up luxuries such as hunting dogs and dining abroad.

When the bishop visited again in 1353, he found there was great neglect throughout the abbey. The doors were unguarded, household accounts were not properly kept, prayers were not attended to regularly, and up to two-thirds of the canons were regularly missing community meals and engaging in gaming.

Similar issues arose again in 1450, when the bishop made more complaints about the management of the abbey. Bishop Beckington of Bath and Wells found several poor standards at Keynsham in 1451, but Abbot Walter Bekynsfield was aged and unable to introduce changes. Another commission in 1455 found no improvements and forced the abbot to resign. Thomas Tyler was appointed the new abbot, but resistance was still strong.

When Canon John Ledbury, a leader of this resistance, was transferred to Worspring Abbey in 1458, matters began to settle. But resistance resurfaced, and further commissions were issued in 1458 and 1459.

The fortunes of Keynsham Abbey received a boost in 1495 when Jasper Tudor (1431-1495), Duke of Bedford and Earl of Pembroke, asked to be buried in a tomb within Keynsham Abbey and gave 100 marks to make the tomb. He was a maternal half-brother of King Henry VI and uncle of Henry VII. He left income for four priests to sing perpetually in the abbey for his soul and the souls of his father, mother brother and his predecessors. Jasper Tudor also gave his best gown of gold to the abbey for vestments.

But Keynsham Abbey and its English and Irish interests was facing increasing and eventually irresistible demands for reform. The Augustinian general chapter in 1518 heard that without reform the order faced imminent ruin.

Cardinal Wolsey obtained papal approval to reform all monastic houses in England, including the Augustinians following the rule of Saint Victor at Keynsham. His new rules were presented at a conference of leading Augustinians, Benedictines and Cistercians in 1519. The Benedictines rejected the rules almost immediately, followed by the Augustinians in 1520.

Keynsham Abbey was in urgent need of reform and visitation in 1526 on behalf of the bishop of Bath and Wells found a deplorable situation. Things were so bad that the abbot, John Stourton, admitted the abbey was in ruins. The choir of the church was in a filthy state, frequented by dogs as if it were a kennel, water and fuel were scarce and there was a lack of books for divine service. None of the brothers studied at Oxford and many of the novices were illiterate.

The last Abbot of Keynsham, John Staunton, the prior, William Herne, the subprior John Arnold, and 12 other canons, subscribed to the Act of Supremacy at the Tudor Reformation in 1534.

The Irish properties of Keynsham Abbey were seized under the Act of Absentees (1536), and this prevented the Earls of Desmond from having any further claims to Dungarvan.

John Tregonwell and William Petre, Henry VIII’s and Secretary of State were sent to the abbey as ‘visitors’ in 1539. The abbot and ten monks surrendered the abbey, and the abbot and canons received pensions or annuities.

When Keynsham’s possessions in Co Waterford were surveyed in 1541, they included the rectory of Dungarvan and its vicarages. The income from Dungarvan and its vicarages was granted for 21 years to James Butler, Earl of Ormond, and James Butler, Viscount Thurles. The Vicar of Dungarvan, Maurice Connell, was left in office for life, as were any vicars of the dependent parishes.

For many years after the dissolution the name of Keynesham Abbey and its Irish possessions continued to appear in the state papers.

The surrender of Keynsham Abbey began a 400-year period of the buildings and site being torn apart and plundered for building materials. Within two years of the surrender of the abbey, the conventual church was torn down and sold off. Richard Walker was paid £12 for melting the lead on the church, the cloister, and the steeple. Frances Edwards bought the seven bells of the church and other buildings attached to it.

The site was sold to Thomas Bridges, who tore down the remaining buildings and built a family house on the site and who handed over and left-over stone from the abbey church for the repair of the bridge and causeway over the River Avon.

The family home built by Bridges was demolished in 1776. Victorian housebuilders and excavators began actively taking stone from the site in 1865, and this continued until the beginning of the 20th century, when only isolated stretches of unsuitable stone or stone buried under discarded material were left. In some places, so much material was disturbed and excavated for reuse that quarrying had reached down to bedrock.

There were proposals in 1964 for the Keynsham bypass of the A4 to pass directly through the site of the abbey, destroying what was left on the site. Since then, the remains have been designated a Grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument. The abbey ruins can be seen in the Memorial Park at Keynsham, near the A4 and Keynsham railway station.

Saint Mary’s Church and the tower at Askeaton … the Abbots of Keynsham retained the Rectory of Askeaton until the Reformation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

The Abbots of Keynsham (and Rectors of Askeaton):

William, fl 1175, 1205
George de Eston
Richard, fl1225, 1230
John, fl 1233
Peter, fl 1253, 1259
Gilbert, 1274
Robert, fl1272, 1277
Adam, 1308
Nicholas de Taunton, fl 1308, 1343
John Bradford, elected 1348
William Peschon, 1377
Thomas, occurs 1396, 1427
Walter Bekynsfield, fl 1438, 1455
Thomas or John Tyler, elected 1456
John Gybruyn, 1486
John Graunt, elected 1496
Philip Keynsham, 1499, died 1505
William Rolfe, elected 1506, fl 1514
John Staunton or Sturton, 1528-1539

The tower at Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2020)

Sources include:

JB Leslie (ed), Clergy of Limerick, Clergy of Ardfert and Aghadoe, Biographical Succession Lists, (2015 edition, ed DWT Crooks, Ulster Historical Foundation for the Diocesan Council of Limerick and Killaloe
‘Houses of Augustinian canons: The abbey of Keynsham,’ in A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 2, ed William Page (London, 1911), pp 129-132. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol2/pp129-132 (last accessed, 14 December 2020)
(Revd) Iain Knox (ed), Clergy of Waterford, Lismore and Ferns (originally compiled by Henry Cottom, JB Leslie and WH Rennison (Ulster Historical Foundation, for the Diocesan Councils of Cashel and Ossory, and Ferns, 2008). Niall C.E.J. O’Brien, ‘Keynesham Abbey in Ireland’ (Medieval News, 30 September 2014), http://celtic2realms-medievalnews.blogspot.com/2014/09/ (last accessed, 14 December 2020)
Patrick J Cronin, Eas Céad Tine, ‘The Waterfall of the Hundred Fires’ (Askeaton: Askeaton Civic Trust, 1999)