1630s "In some cases, Laud and his followers were defeated by the plain facts of power in English local government. Samuel Fairclough, holder of Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston's home living of Kedington, was constantly summoned to the ecclesiastical court at Bury, and equally constantly replied that he had had a fall which made him unable to ride, and therefore could not come. Remarkable, even when the court came to Kedington, Fairclough and Barnardiston got away with it. Barnardiston was one of the richest gentlemen in England, and a man without whom his corner of Suffolk would have been ungovernable. Unlike some of their successors, Laud and Wren had the wisdom to recognize that the autonomy of local government was one of the central facts of English history, and Barnardiston survived. On the other hand, it argues some realism in Barnardidston as well as Laud, that although he could protect his home living, his umbrella did not stretch as far as his neighboring living of Great Wratting." [1]
1640/1 January "A letter from a devout dowager to Sir Simonds D'Ewes about her step-grandson, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston, the leading gentleman and leading Puritan in Suffolk, further illustrates the transvaluation of values that took place in the days of the early Stuarts: Let me desire you further this bearer Mr. Burrell, the late and to my sence the yet minister of Wratting, if Sir Nathan:B:bee as I hope he is earnest to have him restored as well to liuing as libertye. You may out of your interest in him and respect towards him in direct tearmes let him know that he will suffer much in the opinion of his country neighbors here in these parts, many looke upon the success of this business, and surely as this man specd Sir Nath wilbe censured if it be not fully evidenced to them that he desired and endevoured to have him restored to both. The name of Barnardiston is and ever shalbe precious to me: and if any of that name, especially the Luster of the house, should undergoe justly any tart censure or insurre an harde conceit amongst his neighbors, and those of the best ranke according to Gods account, it would even much devert me, in these my declining dayes. Therefore at my intreatie be verie earnest about this desire of myne, and of this I am confident: that the work will be acceptable to god, and bring much comfort to your own conscience, which that it may doe shalbe the earnest desire. [British Museum, Anne Barnardiston to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Jan. 1641, Harl. MSS, 384, fol. 27.] What survives of older days and older ways in Lady Anne's letter is the intense concern for "the name of Barnardiston" and "the luster of the house." This depends on the place of the head of the house, Sir Nathaniel, in the county hierarchy. That place ultimately depends on "the opinion of his country neighbors." That opinion itself, however, is no longer to be won by any of the marks of favor that the court can lavish on a country man. On the contrary, it is to be won by an act of quiet but manifest subversion, in which Sir Nathaniel restores to his living a Puritan minister displaced by the clerical faction favored at court." [2]
1653 Nathaniel Barnardiston, proved on September 28, was abstracted as [3]
Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston of Ketton Suffolk, knight, 10 September 1651, signed 18 January 1652, proved 28 September 1653. 'Finding through age my strength decaying.' My desire is that my body, being the Temple of the Holy Ghost, may be decently buried, being wrapped in lead, with my father's if it may be. To my dearly beloved wife all her apparel, plate and jewells called hers and that hundred pounds given her by her father's will, in the hands of Sir Thomas Soames, knight, and that ten pound a year given by her mother's will; also the half of my moveables &c. and one hundred pounds a year (over and above her jointure) out of my manor of Great Coates in Lincolnshire &c. My uncle Giles. My brother Arthur. My eldest son Sir Thomas Barnardiston, knight. The ancient plate left me by my grandfather. My daughter Ann the Lady Rolt. The sum given to her by her grandfather Sir Stephen Soames and his lady. My son Nathaniel. My sons Arthur, Pelathiah and William. My son Samuel. My dear daughter Brooke.
I give thirty pounds to be paid by ten pounds a year for the bringing up of _____ children in living in the College of New England. My two brothers Arthur and Thomas. Faith, my sister. References to trusts in cases of the estate of Sir Calthrop Parker and my cousin Anne Clopton, Sir Simond D'Ewes his first lady. My nephew Henry Parker. My cousin the Lady Ann Maynard. My cousin George Barnardiston. Brent, 376. [The testator's wife was Jane, daughter of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London. I have already given the will of his step-mother, Dame Katherine Barnardiston, in the Register, vol. 47, pp. 396-7. The pedigree of Soame appears in the second volume of the Visitation of London 1633-34 (Harl. So. Pub.) pp. 250-251. That of Barnardiston is given in Metcalfe's Vis. Suffolk.
Henry F. Waters.
Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston, knt., was high sheriff of Suffolk in 23d of James I. His second son, Sir Samuel, is said to have been the first person to whom the name of Roundhead was applied.
On his death he was the subject of many monodies in English, Greek and Latin, and published in a pamphlet entitled 'Suffolk's Tears, or Elegies on that renowned Knight, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston.' He was a friend of John Winthrop and interested in his company.
Thomas Barnardiston his grand-nephew married Mary Downing, daughter of Sir George (H.C. 1642), who entailed his whole estate on their son.
(See Mass. Hist. Coll. 4th series, VI.)—W.K. Watkins.]
Research Notes:
A biosketch by Frederick Arthur Crisp states, [4]
Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston of Great Coates, knight; aged 30 and more 23 December 1619; knighted at Newmarket 21 December1618; Sheriff for co. Suffolk 1623; M.P. for Sudbury 6 May 1625 to 1626, and for co. Suffolk in March 1627/8 and 9 March 1639/40 to 1653; died at Hackney, co. Middlesex, aged 65, 25 July, bur. at Ketton 26 August 1653. Will dated 10 Sept 1651, signed 18 January 1652/3, proved 28 September 1653 (P.C.C. 376 Brent)" married Jane Soame, dau. of Sir Stephen Soame of Little Thurlow Hall, co. Suffolk, Lord Mayor of London, by Anne his wife, dau. of William Stone of London; marr. before 1617; died 17 August, bur. at Ketton 15 September 1669. Will dated 10 July 1669, proved 12 September 1669 (P.C.C. 101 Coke)
[1] Conrad Russell, reviewer, "The Puritan Gentry: The Great Puritan Families of Early Stuart England by J. T. Cliffe," Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1985), 78-81, available on Jstore.
[2] J. H. Hexter, "The English Aristocracy, Its Crises, and the English Revolution, 1558-1660," Journal of British Studies 8 (November 1968), 22-78 at 68, [JSTOR], [JSTOR(UM)].
[3] Henry F. Waters, "Genealogical Gleanings in England," New England Historical and Genealogical Register 48 (1894), 105-44, 241-76, 373-408, at 379, [HathiTrust], [InternetArchive].
[4] Frederick Arthur Crisp, ed., Visitation of England and Wales, Notes, Vol. 7 (Privately Printed, 1907), 171, [GoogleBooks].