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 Abt 1570 - 1606 (~ 36 years)
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| Name |
Love, Margaret |
| Born |
Abt 1570 |
Of Winchelsea, Sussex, England  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Buried |
19 Sep 1606 |
Marlborough, Wiltshire, England |
| Person ID |
I08734 |
My Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
29 May 2015 |
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| Notes |
- Full text of "Letters from George Lord Carew to Sir Thomas Roe
GEORGE LORD CAREW
SIR THOMAS ROB,
AMBASSADOR TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT MOGUL
1615-1617.
EDITED BY
JOHN MACLEAN, F.S.A.
...Black Oliver St. John (p. 11.) TheE identity of this person is involved in obscurity. We know but little relating to him. The proceedings on his trial are not recorded, with the exception of the speech of Lord Bacon on the prosecution, which is printed in Ilowell's State Trials, ii. 899, wherein he describes him as a gentleman of ancient house and name, and as being a principal person and a dweller in that town (Marlborough), and one whom the mayor considered likely to give both money and good example. Lord Campbell supposes him to be the same Oliver St. John who in the reign of Charles I. was one of the prominent leaders of the republican party in the House of Commons, and who, in 1640, was made Solicitor-General and afterwards Lord Chief Justice. Clarendon states of the latter (book iii. 186) that he " was a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, reserved and of a dark and clouded countenance, very proud, and conversing with very few, and those men of his own humour and inclinations. He had been questioned, committed, and brought into the Star Chamber many years before, with other persons of great name and reputation (which first brought his name on the stage), for communicating some paper among themselves, which some men at that time had a mind to have extended to a design of sedition, but, it being quickly evident that the prosecution would not be attended with success, they were all shortly after discharged." Lord Campbell was probably misled by the close similarity of the character, as here given, of St. John, the future Lord Chief Justice, to that of the gentleman mentioned in the text, although the historical part of the narrative does. A swarthy complexion seems to have been hereditary in this family. Leland, Itinerary, vi. 27, speaking of " Olyver Saynt John, sonne to the excellent duchesse of Somerset " (as he is designated in his will, printed in Nicolas's Testamenta Vetusta, and in Jacob's Peerage, and which will is dated in 1496), describes him as "a blak and big felow that died at Fonterabye in Spayne, when the late Marquise of Dorset was there."
This Oliver was the founder of the family of Lydiard Tregoze. ....not agree with the case of the latter, in which the prosecution was quite successful. Mr. Foss, however, clearly proves his Lordship to be mistaken, by showing that the Oliver St. John who became Lord Chief Justice was born about the year 1598, and that he was admitted a pensioner of Queen's College, Cambridge, on Aug. 16, 1615, being then seventeen years of age. It is highly improbable that the letter to the Mayor of Marlborough was written by such a youth, or that the prosecution of a mere boy would have created such anxiety at court as to cause, at the request of the Council, the trial to be deferred until the Lord Chancellor (Egerton), who from age and infirmity was upon the point of resigning the great seal, could attend the hearing, " so necessary" did they "judg his presence there." The statement of Mr. Foss is confirmed by the will of Oliver St. John of Cayshoe, co. Beds, which proves the parentage of the Lord Chief Justice, and shows that in 1625 he was still a student in London. Mr. Foss falls into a still more remarkable error himself by stating, upon the authority of Harris's Lives, that Black Oliver mentioned in the text was Oliver St. John of Lydiard Tregoze, who in 1622 was created Lord Grandison. The printed genealogical accounts which we have of this gentleman certainly state that in his youth "he was sent to study the law in the Inns of Court, but having been engaged in a duel he was obliged to quit the kingdom." He served in the Low Countries under the Veres, and was knighted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He afterwards distinguished himself in the wars in Ireland, and in December 1605 was made Master of the Ordnance in that kingdom, which office he continued to hold until 1616. He thus spent the early part of the reign of James I. in that country, and we find him taking an active part in the debates in the Irish House of Commons in 1613 and 1614. In 1615 he seems to have been in England, but not in disgrace, for in October of that year he was so much in the confidence of the King as to be entrusted with the custody of the Earl of Somerset, and in the following April he was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland. He could not, therefore, be the same person who was prosecuted and received so severe a sentence in April 1615, as Mr. St. John of Marlborough, who is no-where spoken of as a Knight. Having disposed of the claims advanced for these two gentlemen, it remains to be considered who was "Black Oliver St. John," who on 11 October, 1614, wrote the letter to the Mayor of Marlborough. Chamberlain calls him " Oliver St. John of Wiltshire." He was therefore in all probability of the Lydiard stock, and, on turning to the pedigree of that branch of St.John, recorded in the Heralds' College, we find that John St.John of Lydiard had two sons: John, the grandfather of Oliver who became Lord Grandison, and Oliver, who had a son of his own name, described as " son and heir."
The elder Oliver is stated by Edmonson, iv. 328, to have married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Love, of Winchelsea, and to have had three sons : Oliver, Nicholas, and John. This statement is confirmed by the following document among the title-deeds of an estate called Troppinden, in Sussex, preserved among the Evidences of George E. Courthope, of Whilegh, in that county, Esq. by whom it has been kindly communicated. " Sir Edward Randyll, Knt. and Anne his wife, by Ind're 10 May, 6 Jas. did sell unto Thomas Risly of Brenchley the moiety of all these lands and tenements. [The preamble of the said Indenture is as follows : Between Sir Edward Randill, of Albury, co. Surry, Knt. and dame Anne his wife, sole dau'r and heir of Anne Morgan, dec d, late wife of Sir John Morgan, Knt. and one of the dau's and heirs of John Love, late of Winchelsey, co. Sussex, Gent.] "Olyver St.John, Esq. by Ind're same date, did sell the other moiety to said Thomas Risley. [The preamble of the said Indenture is as follows : Nicholas St.John, Gent, one of the sons of Olyver St.John, Esq. and of Margaret his wife, one of the dau'rs of John Love, dec d , late of Winchelsey, Merchant.] " Thomas Risly, by will, 6 Feb. 1612, gives all sd lands to Symon Bynyor, who sold the same to Stephen Ballard and Richard Besbeech. " Richard Besbeech hath the custody of all the ancient writings. " John Love, of Winchelsey, dec d , was owner of these premises, and he had issue 2 dau'rs, viz 1. Margaret, who married to the said Oliver St.John, and another to Sir John Morgan, Knt. and died leaving issue only the said Ann, wife of the af d Sir Edward Randyll. " Margaret died leaving issue Nicholas St.John, Oliver St.Johu, and John St. John, for whom their father hath undertaken that they shall release, or else there is a lease for 1000 y'rs for security. " Nicholas St. John hath already released. " The other two brothers be not of age.
He made his will, dated 26 Mar. 1593; names "son St. John and Margaret my dau'r his wife, all lands, &c." "son St. John, house he now lives in in Winchilsea "son Morgan, house in Winchilsea," &c. After his decease to "Anne Morgan, his dau'r begotten on Anne Love deceased, late dau'r of me the said John Love." A subsequent Indenture, dated 5 May, 13 Jas. (1615), shows that Oliver and John St. John were still under age, and that their father Oliver was living at Marlborough, co. Wilts, and their mother was dead.
It appears from this document that Oliver St.John and Margaret Love were married before 1593, when John Love made his will, in all probability just previous to that date, for in 1612 Oliver St.John's eldest son was of age, and the two younger were yet minors in 1615. In 1593 he resided at Winchelsea. How soon afterwards he settled at Marlborough we have no evidence to show, but we find his name, as an inhabitant of that town, in an armoury book preserved in the corporation chest of the date of 1606; and the register of burials of the parish of St. Mary shows that "Margaret, wife of Oliver St.John, gent, buried Sept. 19th, 1606."
This entry agrees with the statement in the Indenture of 5 May, 13 Jas. that the mother of his three sons was dead. After the death of this wife he seems to have re-married, for the register above quoted records that " Mrs. St.John, wife of Mr. Oliver St.John (was) buried April 3rd, 1608." In the "Taxation of the Freeholders of the Borough, and Out-dwellers holding freeholds, for aid-money to marry the Princess Elizabeth," his name does not appear. This, however, was the benevolence against which he wrote, and as it was regarded as a free gift, the names of the contributors, only, would be recorded. The above document shows that he was a resident in Marlborough in 1615. We have no evidence of the date when he died, but the will of an Oliver St.John is recorded in the registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the year 1639, although, unfortunately, as stated in a marginal note in the volume, neither the original nor any copy can be found. No trace of his burial is found in the Marlborough registers. If, therefore, we can regard Edmonson as correct in stating that Oliver, the second son of John St.John of Lydiard, was the husband of the daughter of Love, of Winchelsea, there can be no reasonable cause to doubt his identity with " Black Oliver." Only one discrepancy remains to be disposed of. Both Edmonson and the Visitation Pedigree of 1623 show Oliver as the " son and heir" of Oliver St.John, by Margaret Love. This can only be reconciled by supposing that Nicholas, who is proved by the above document to have been his eldest son, died between 1612, when he released his interest in Troppinden, and 1623.
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