The two images below are said to represent Robert Blake and Avice Wallop and are also said to be copies of a stained glass window which was located in the Parish Church at Calne Wiltshire, St Marys. Following a storm in 1638, the steeple of this Church collapsed and the stained glass window was destroyed at that time. Unfortunately any information on this particular item has now disappeared from the internet although there is a writeup on the steeple collapsing.
Having received permission from the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives I reproduce part of the BLAKE Pedigree Chart produced by the College of Arms for Daniel BLAKE in 1690. As mentioned it is possible to purchase this chart as eight images from the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office (Reference Number 343/1MS).
This image is held by the British Library and permission was requested but they were unable to locate the image at that time.
When I first located the second image on the British Library website in 2007, I was still working my way back through my BLAKE family and I had, of course, seen all the family genealogies linking Nicholas BLAKE (of Old Hall, Enham) to the BLAKE family at Calne. By that time I had acquired some of the Manor Books and the story (in Latin with which at that time I really struggled) did not seem to be weighing true. There were BLAKE entries back into the early 1300s in those Manor Books for Andover of which Enham (Knights Enham and Kings Enham) were manors within Andover Manor. Not being raised in England I sometimes have difficulty expressing the relationship between Andover Manor which was large and the subsiduary Manors which are found within but suspect that Intra Andover etc is the means by which one understands the hierarchy of Manors.
But I digress, finding the picture was quite exciting at the time. Imagine if you could look at an image of your possible 16x great grandparents! Of course there are ancient paintings and possibly some of my ancestors did have their likeness painted but the chances of survival of any of that artwork is probably fairly slim. A visit to Salt Lake City in 2008 informed me of the transgressions of Horatio Somerby Gates with regard to Nicholas BLAKE and giving him parents he did not have and linking him to the BLAKE family at Calne which still could be true on the female BLAKE side (Richard BLAKE (d 1622) and Jone BLAKE (d 1630) (married sometime in the early 1580s). My brothers have tested their yDNA and it is an ancient haplogroup dating back 8,000 to 12,000 years ago in the British Isles. The largest concentration of this particular haplogroup can be found today on the west coast of Ireland with smaller concentrations in Hampshire/Wiltshire and Devon/Cornwall but as more and more test in this haplogroup a clearer picture will emerge. It is likely that this haplogroup arrived in England from the Balkans area (the other source of this particular haplogroup although differing sufficiently that one can tell it is at least 8000 to 10,000 years to their common ancestor) following the Last Glacial Maximum and they were referred to by BritainsDNA as the "deer hunters."
As you can see in the first image the name of the wife of Robert BLAKE appears to be Alice Folyot. The caption that accompanies this particular image reads: "These Figures underneath were as in a Window of the Chancel of Calne in Co[u]n[tie] Wilts[hire] A[nno]o 1616 ("being the ancient Burying Place of the Family) appearing at that time to be of some Antiquity." Presumably the Daniel BLAKE family which had this particular chart prepared by the College of Arms had access to the drawing (second image) or a facsimile of it. However, the name of Robert's wife would appear to have been Avice Wallop according to a number of written documents including Robert's will, her will and the Postmortem Inquisitions for both. I have mentioned that in my blogs a number of times and will leave it to the reader to pursue that particular contradiction at their pleasure if they are interested.
Robert BLAKE can be clearly seen on the Pedigree Chart for the BLAKE family and extant wills help to prove that this line is correct. My aim with this blog was to show the two images of such ancient origin for the BLAKE family rather than do a long dissertation proving the lines that lead to Robert BLAKE.
British History On Line has some interesting information on this Robert BLAKE. Searching the site using metadata (Calne Economic History) and then selecting on the page: Mills, trade, and industry:
The first paragraph reads partially beginning at the first sentence: "A fulling mill in Quemberford belonged to Robert BLAKE (d. 1515) (P.R.O., C 142/31, no. 53) and was on the estate at Quemberford conveyed by Robert's grandson Thomas BLAKE to Henry Chivers in 1560."
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