William Clopton, Lord of the Manors of Castelyns and Ramsden Belhous

William Clopton was the son and heir of Richard Clopton, Gentleman, of Fore Hall and the Manor of Castelyns and his second wife, Margery Playters. William’s uncle, Francis Clopton died without issue and in his will dated February 22, 1558, proved July 7, 1559, names his "nephew William Clopton, son of my brother Richard Clopton" his heir. He married Margery Waldegrave the daughter of Edward Waldegrave, Gentleman, of Lawford Hall in Essex and Joan Acworth Bulmer.

In light of the family’s unerring ability to irritate kings, it was probably a good thing we migrated to Virginia. With breathtaking regularity one kin or another was being hauled to the Tower of London and threatened with beheading or worse. The close connections with royalty gave the family ample opportunity to hone this questionable talent. And Edward Waldegrave and Joan Acworth Bulmer established a benchmark in this arena which has not been surpassed by any of their Clopton descendants despite the passage of centuries.

It must be remembered that Dame Katherine Mylde Clopton married Sir William de Tendring following the death of her first husband, Sir Thomas de Cloptone. This marriage linked the Clopton family to the Howard family and thus, to the English queens Ann Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Elizabeth I. And later Sir William Clopton’s wife, Lady Thomasine Knevet(Knyvet), would add direct lines of Royal descent. Margery Waldegrave’s family was also closely connected with the ruling houses of Europe. The Waldegraves were an ancient family. They flourished in England before the Conquest, in Northampton. Their name, of German origin was given to the parish of Waldegrave.

Katherine was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard. Sir Howard was rather lazy and never amounted to very much. She was brought up poor despite the grandeur of her Howard lineage. The Howard clan was a big one. Lord Edmund had twenty-two brothers and sisters. Nine of them lived long enough to marry. Katherine’s mother, Jocasta (Joyce) Culpepper, gave birth to six or seven children before dying when Katherine was quite young. By 1527 he found himself a widower for the second time. There were ten children in all in his keeping and as was a common practice he immediately started farming them out to various relatives.

Katherine eventually found herself in the Lambeth household of her step-grandmother, Agnes Duchess of Norfolk. Duchess Agnes provided a home for numerous cousins including Howards and Knyvets. Just as sons were sent away from home to gain additional training for knighthood, girls were often sent into the care of another woman. This practice continued well into the seventeenth century. Katherine shared this magnificent home with our fair Joan.

Joan was the daughter of George Acworth of Luton, Bedfordshire, heir of her mother Margaret Wilberforce. Joan married William Bulmer, son of Sir John Bulmer. It was not a happy marriage and there were no children. She left her husband and joined the boisterous throng of Duchess Agnes and she and Katherine became close friends.

Two young gallants, Francis Dereham and Edward Waldegrave, who was a gentleman in waiting on the Duchess, wooed the girls. And young people being young people in a huge house boasting halls and closets, and chambers both large and small, found ways to meet secretly at night. Dereham and Waldegrave would lie on the girls’ beds in the night hours up to dawn. Love tokens were exchanged and nature took its course, as nature always seems to do.

By the time Katherine was appointed to the household of Queen Anna of Cleves, she had transferred her affections to another, Thomas Culpeper a distant Howard cousin. She was eighteen or nineteen by then. But before that little romance could go very far, the King Henry VII saw her and fell instantly and completely in love with her.

The morning after his marriage to Anna of Cleves, Lord Cromwell inquired of the King, "How liked you the Queen." The King replied, "I liked her before not well, but now I like her much worse." This was not a hopeful sign. So it wasn’t entirely difficult for Katherine Howard, a young and lovely girl recently brought to court to serve as one of six maid-in-waiting to the new Queen, to catch his eye.

The Howards and their kin were stunned and thrilled by the turn of events. How to keep the King ignorant that the woman he called his "blushing rose without a thorn" was slightly wilted must have caused Duchess Agnes a few anxious moments.

After efficiently and with surprising ease divorcing Queen Anna, King Edward, roughly thirty years older than Katherine, took her as his fifth wife on July 28, 1540. A few days before, on July 12, Joan, her partner in the nocturnal romps at Lambeth, wrote her a letter stating she had learned of her friend’s great destiny, and would she, Katherine, now please send for her to court? And what a cozy arrangement this turned out to be. Brought to court were her merry companions, and at the urging of Duchess Agnes, Francis Dereham was made her secretary.

The king was old and grossly overweight and Katherine was young and healthy and filled with a lusty love of life. She and Thomas Culpeper recklessly renewed their involvement. It was only a matter of time before the King was made aware of the affair. Dereham was hauled off to the Tower and tortured. Culpeper, Joan and Edward soon joined him. Taken, too, were the children belonging to the prisoners. The Tower was so crowded the Royal Apartments were opened to house the unfortunate prisoners.

From documents regarding the conviction of Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham of High Treason in committing adultery with Queen Katherine Howard and of the others of concealment in December 1542, we read:

The "Jurors further find that the said Katherine Tylney, Alice Restwold, wife of Anthony Restwold, of the same place, Gentleman; Joan Bulmer wife of William Bulmer, of the same place, Gentleman; Anna Howard, wife of Henry Howard late of Lambeth, Esq.; Robert Damporte late of the same place, Gentleman; Malena Tylney late of the same place, widow; and Margaret Benet, wife of John Benet, late of the same place, Gentleman; knowing the wicked life of the Queen and Dereham, did conceal the same from the King and all his Councillors. And that this said Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, with whom the queen had been educated from her youth upward; William Howard, late of Lambeth, uncle of the Queen and one of the King’s Councillors; Margaret Howard, wife of William Howard; Katherine, Countess of Bridgewater, late of Lambeth, otherwise Katherine the wife of Henry, Earl of Bridgewater; Edward Waldegrave late of Lambeth, Gentleman; and William Asheley, late of Lambeth, in the county of Surrey, knowing that certain letters and papers had been taken from a chest and concealing the information from the King.

…Katherine Tylney, Alice Restwold, Joan Bulmer, Anna Howard, Malena Tylney, Margaret Benet, Margaret Howard, Edward Waldegrave, and William Asheley are brought to the Bar by the Constable of the Tower, and being severally arraigned as well upon the Surrey Indictment, as the Indictments for Kent, and Middlesex, they pleaded guilty.

JUDGEMENT: they shall be severally taken back by the Constable of the Tower, and in the same Tower, or elsewhere, as the King shall direct, be kept in perpetual imprisonment and that all their goods and chattels shall be forfeited to the King, and their lands and tenements seized into the King’s hands.

Joan and Edward were released and pardoned within ten months as were some of the others. But their old friends met with horrifying ends. Dereham’s death was accompanied by disembowelling and castration while still conscious. Culpeper had "his head striken off." And Katherine Howard was executed on the same block in the same place as her cousin Anne Boleyn not quite six years previously.

After the death of her husband Joan married Edward about 1556.

Following his release from prison and marriage to Joan, Edward bought a reversionary interest in Lawford Hall from the Crown in 1560, and after obtaining a lifetime lease of the Manor, he entirely rebuilt the Hall. They had five children: Edward, Anne Waldegrave Monox, Mary Waldegrave Ashtley, Bridget Waldegrave Keightley; and Margery(Margaret) who married William Clopton. Joan was buried December 10, 1590 in Lawford Church. Edward died August 13, 1584. Their commemorative tomb shows two kneeling figures with the Waldegrave arms beneath. The inscription reads: The end of the just is peace.

The past "unpleasantness" involving Edward and Joan evidently did not preclude the general opinion that by marrying Margery, William Clopton consolidated his status and rank. William and Margery had ten children and every one of them lived to adulthood and all except one son married. Their children were: Anne Clopton Maidstone; Bridgett Clopton Sampson; Thomasine Clopton Winthorp who became Governor of Massachusetts; William Clopton son and heir; Walter Clopton who also married into the Maidstone family; Waldegrave Clopton; Mary Clopton Jenney; Margery Clopton; The Reverend Thomas Clopton, Curate of Ramsden Belhouse; and Elizabeth Clopton Cocke.

Ever true to family tradition, William managed to be tossed into prison. In November 1608 he was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison in London. He became involved, possibly as a Trustee in a local land dispute. Charged with him of contempt, were two other men, Dr. John Duke of Colchester, a physician, and Mr. Brampton Gurdon of Assington a powerful local magnate. All three were of the highest rank locally and their arrest was shocking. They languished in jail until December 22, 1608 when they were released. The court adjudged that they had purged their contempt, and in the words of their counsel: They are men of good fashion and credit in the countye and good householders there.

William died August 8, 1616. He and Margery are buried at St. Bartholomew’s Church at Groton.

Contributed by :

Suellen Clopton Blanton bblanton@fast.net

Based on:

Clopton, Gene Carlton, The Ancestors and Descendants of William Clopton of York County, Virginia. Privately Printed - Limited Edition, Phoenix Printing, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, 1984.

Fraser, Antonia, The Wives of Henry VIII, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York

Morant’s Essex, Volumes I and II

Wall, Barry L., Long Melford Through The Ages, East Anglian Magazine Ltd., Ipswich, Suffolk

Woods, Martin, L.L.B., The Winthrop Papers, A Project of the Massachusetts Historical Society