The Comberford pedigree starting with this Thomas, following the descendants of son Humphrey, was reported in 1884, based on the Visitations of 1614 and 1663. [1]
The 1583 visitation of Staffordshire reports the ancestry through "Rad'us Fitzherb't de Norbury" and "Elizabetha, filia et cohaeres ... Marshall de Upton in Com. Leicestr. ... filia, nupta ... Comberford, cui peperit Humfridum Cumberford." [2]
1495 Thomas Comberford married, first, Anne, who died soon after 1495. [3] [4]
1495 Mr Thomas Comberford [Cumberforth] was admitted to membership in the Guild of Saint Mary and Saint John the Baptist. [Harwood, p 10]
1499 Thomas Comberford and David Rochford, a Lichfield mercer, leased the manor of Tynmore [Staffordshire] for 12 years from John Beaumont. [5]
Thomas Comberford, of Comberford, Staffordshire, reportedly married Dorothy, daughter of Ralph Fitz Herbert of Norbury and of Elizabeth only daughter and heir of John Marshall of Upton in Leicestershire [6] [7] [8]
1531 Thomas Comberford died on 6 January. The inquisition post mortem recorded that son Humphrey was heir to the estate comprisng Wigginton, Hopwas Coxton, Tamworth and Comberford, with extensive appurtenances thereto, in the shape of water-mill, fishery, rents, cattle, sheep, messuages, cottages, wood-meadow, pasture lands, and commons. [9]
Daughter Mary Comberford married Johannes Reuell [John Revell] [10]. John Revell of Ogston, Higham, and Shirland married Mary, daughter of Comberford of Comberford [11]. John Revell, in his will of 1568, named "brother-in-law" Henry Comberford [likely son of this Thomas Comberford]. The 1568 confession of John Hall in the notes of John Revell suggests a close relationship between John Revell and Thomas Comberford.
1538 [31 Henry VIII] On 31 August, Dorothy Combford [Comberford] appeared on a list of pensions granted to the late abbess and sisters of the surrendered monastary of Elnestown. [12]
Research Notes:
A summary of The Lords of Watford Manor and estate [13]:
Thomas Comberford (1472 - 1532) Thomas inherited several manors and lands from his father including the one-fourth part of the Watford manor. Thomas was married twice; first to Ann - by whom he had no children, and secondly to Dorithea Fitzherbert of Norbury, Derbyshire. They had ten children, of whom the eldest, his successor, was Humphrey born c1496.
A summary of this Comberford family is maintained online: "Mary Comberford, who married John Revelle of Comberford. She was later implicated with her nephew, Thomas Comberford, in the plots by the Staffordshire Catholic gentry in support of Mary Queen of Scots." [http://comerfordfamily.blogspot.com/2007/12/comberford-4-wealth-from-wednesbury.html, Comberford website]
Thomas Comberford de Comberford had son and heir Humfridus Comberford, who married Dorothy Beaumont. They had son Thomas, who married Dorothy, daughter of William Wirley of Hampsted. [14]
Thomas Comberford may have had custody of the manor of Wednesbury during the minority of the Beaumont daughters. Humphrey Cumberford, son and heir to Thomas, married Dorothy Beaumont, the second daughter, and Humphrey became lord of the manor of Wednesbury and died there. Eleanor Beaumont, the younger daughter, married Humphrey Babington, a nephew of Thomas Comberford. Thomas Comberford owned an estate in Northamptonshire and in 1510 presented Thomas Babington, another son of his wife's sister, to the rectory Yelvertoft. [15]
[1] The William Salt Archaeological Society, ed., Collections for a History of Staffordshire, Vol. 5, part 2 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1884), 92, of 91-92, [GoogleBooks], [InternetArchive], [HathiTrust].
[2] H. Sydney Grazebrook, ed., Visitation of Staffordschire made by Robert Glover, Mareschall to William Flower, 1583 (1883), 75, [HathiTrust].
[3] Stebbing Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire, Vol. 1 (London: J. Nichols, 1798-1801), 434, [GoogleBooks].
[4] William Camden, John Fetherston, ed., The Visitation of the county of Warwick in the year 1619 (Publications of the Harleian Society, Vol. XII) (London: 1877), 35, Anne was not named in the visitation of Warwickshire, [GoogleBooks].
[5] Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Henry VII, Vol. 2 (London: HMSO, 1915), 371, item 583, [InternetArchive].
[6] William Camden, John Fetherston, ed., The Visitation of the county of Warwick in the year 1619 (Publications of the Harleian Society, Vol. XII) (London: 1877), 35, [GoogleBooks].
[7] Stebbing Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire, Vol. 1 (London: J. Nichols, 1798-1801), 434, [GoogleBooks].
[8] John Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 1 (London: Henry Colburn, 1834), 79, in "Fitz-Herbert of Norbury and Swinnerton," pp 78-82, [GoogleBooks].
[9] Frederick William Hackwood, Wednesbury ancient and modern: being mainly its manorial and municipal history (Wednesbury: Ryder & Son, 1902), 58, [GoogleBooks].
[10] William Camden, John Fetherston, ed., The Visitation of the county of Warwick in the year 1619 (Publications of the Harleian Society, Vol. XII) (London: 1877), 35, [GoogleBooks].
[11] Joseph Hunter, ed. and John W Clay, Familiae Minorum Gentium, Vol. 1, Publications of the Harleian Society, Vol. 37 (London: 1894), 399, Revell pedigree, MS 174, [InternetArchive].
[12] James Gairdner, Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, Vol. 14, part 2, (London: 1895), 24-25, item 88, [GoogleBooks].
[13] The Lords of Watford Manor and estate, [URL].
[14] Richard St. George and William Dugdale, Sydney Grazebrook, ed., "The Heraldic Visitations of Staffordshire in 1614 and 1663-64," William Salt Archaeological Society, Collections for a history of Staffordshire, Vol. 5, Part II (London: 1884), 92, [GoogleBooks], [InternetArchive], [HathiTrust].
[15] Frederick William Hackwood, Wednesbury ancient and modern: being mainly its manorial and municipal history (Wednesbury: Ryder & Son, 1902), 56, column on the right, [GoogleBooks].