Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day

It happens that these two days come together often enough in my lifetime. They are both days of love and God has played a role in the development of both I think. Ash Wednesday is a day of thought in the Christian Church remembering Jesus and his love for mankind. Remembering why God sent him just once to live amongst us for those so privileged to have done so. Today there will be two Ash Wednesday Services that I will attend online through You-Tube. I think You-Tube is a great service but one must use it wisely and not listen to those who just use it for greed whether for money or ideas that lead to more money for them. One must be cautious listening to others speak. 

Yesterday I worked on the Pencombe family and principally reading through Henry VII's activities in the Calendar of Patent Rolls. John Lord Zouch had a great deal of property in England most of which was taken away when he was declared a traitor by the Parliament in 1485 and attainted for his part in supporting Richard III of England. Normally I would not be reading about one of the great Lords of the Realm of England but my ancestor came with him to North Molton at the beginning of the Reign of Henry VII which was 1485. So I set myself the task of reading through all of the Patent Rolls that referred to Lord Zouch and there were 16 records in Volume I most of which were granting the lands that had belonged to him to others. The first mentioned that he was a traitor and the tenth reinstated him as if it had never happened but he only got to keep the land that had belonged to his father (presumably the rest was given to him by Richard III) and so that part of the story ends. Did I learn anything about John Pencombe (likely his name was John since he appears on the Lay Subsidy as John)? I learned absolutely nothing but I think I am now left with the impression that he did not come to North Molton until John Lord Zouch was reinstated 11 Jul 1486 as that property was given to his line by Henry III and so his father would have owned it. I guess in that way I have learned something; the date that he was probably asked to accompany John Lord Zouch to North Molton. They probably arrived shortly thereafter. It does take time for all these things to come to pass though as one of the last items was 25 May 1488 at Canterbury when the King approved a grant to help Joan, wife of John Zouche, of 100 marks for her entire life. It was an interesting foray into the lives of the rich and famous looking for traces of my ancestor. The time period between the arrival and the Lay Subsidy is 38 years and by then he does have one grandchild mentioned on that subsidy (the child of his eldest son John Pencombe - Christopher Pencombe).  John's youngest son Thomas is working for wages and the third son William is also on a small holding so likely the middle son. The daughter Margaret married Philip Kingdon 15 Nov 1539 at North Molton so perhaps the youngest  (although I have not yet determined if this was John's son John's daughter).

My Inquisition Postmortem is ready for download I note in my email so will do that today but then move on to Blake. It is the day to work on the Blake book. Looking at Free BMD the surname Pencombe is uncommon and none that I could really link to Herefordshire. But it is an interesting thought as the line came to North Molton in likely 1486.

Teatime. Documents arrived and downloaded and they are just a perfect size. I was a little nervous when it was going to be two pages. So that is great and I shall work on them tomorrow. Latin going well and I have now prepared a word list as well as the sentence list that I have been creating as the days pass. I need to think if I should start creating declensions charts of the verbs, nouns, etc. This is an interesting time teaching myself Latin but using the principles of the way that French was taught to me in school (and German at University). Occasionally I let my mind wander forward to when I shall begin French in the fall. I would like to improve my spoken french for sure. The German would be one year later. Interesting really to think of myself at 80, if God so wills, speaking four languages. It would be sort of funny. I was not really a language student; science interested me far more in my youth but mostly inclined towards medicine when I was at university. But history was always sort of my hobby; we grew up talking about politics and the world situation when I was a child. We even argued on occasion. But my run is finished and on to breakfast.


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