Middlemore Family Genealogy

Middlemore's of Edgbaston

10. Richard Middlemore, of Edgbaston, esquire, was aged thirty in 1619, and aged forty-four in 8 Charles I, 1633-4, when he was found to be heir to his father, Robert Middlemore. On 27 May, 1607, he was admitted to the Middle Temple, being described as of Staple Inn, gentleman, son and heir of Robert Middlemore, of Edgbaston, esquire.

On 7 July, 1632, he purchased from William Porter, of the Middle Temple, gentleman, for L200, lands in Edgbaston, called Hollencrofts, which Porter had lately bought from Robert Middlemore, esquire, and the said Richard Middlemore
 and besides other meadows a moore in Edgbaston called "Master Porter's Moore"situate between Franckley Hill, belonging to the said Richard Middlemore, and other lands of the said W. Porter.

In January, 1633, he further purchased from William Porter, esquire, for L2,600 premises in Birmingham, Bordesley and Edgbaston, and on 3 May, 1633, he filed his bill in Chancery. against William Porter and Sarah his wife, and Anne Porter, mother of William Porter, and Martin Saunders and Elizabeth his wife alleging that the premises had proved to be incumbered with rents and annuities. On 2 November, 1633, Sarah Porter, widow (her husband having died in the meanwhile, put in her answer to the effect that the premises were at the time of purchase free of all incumbrances. The answer of Martin Saunders and Elizabeth his wife was not made till I I June, 1643: they denied that they had incumbered the premises, but say that the defendant William Porter had for the sum L50 leased the premises in Edgbaston to Elizabeth Saunders for the term of forty years.

On 2 June, 1632, he filed a bill in Chancery against his tenant Richard Hunt for refusing to pay rent and do service for an estate in Solyhull called Smallbrooke, which he held of the Middlemores as of their manor of Olton in that parish.

Richard Middlemore was a "delinquent and a papist." In 1635 his manor of Heybridge and premises in King's Norton, Yardley and Northfield in Worcestershire, and of premises in Solihull, including the manor of Oulton, Edg­baston, Birmingham, Aston, Studley, Ipsley and Bicknell in Warwickshire, being in the hands of the king by reason of his "recusancy." In 1628 he obtained a lease of his own property from the Crown for the term of forty years, at the annual rent of £100, which in other words was the amount of the annual fine which he was compelled to. pay for adhering to his religious convictions.  As he was then described as late of Edgbaston, it is probable that the loss of so much of his income obliged him to retrench, and at the time of his death the manor of Edgbaston seems to have been leased to one Robert Porter.

The entries respecting Richard Middlemore continue till
23 Charles I, when it is noted that £150 was paid to the King's Receiver at the time of his death, 15 May[22], 1647. His residence, Edgbaston Hall, fell into the hands of the Parliamentarian party. Colonel John Fox, otherwise known as " Tinker" Fox, possessed himself of it “with great courage” and fortified and garrisoned it with 400 horse and foot.               The Parliament therefore, by order of 11 June, 1644, authorized Fox to hold the mansion-house and manor of Edgbaston, and to receive the revenues payable to Middlemore in the parishes of King's Norton, Yardley and Northfield. Mr. Middlemore seems to have been actively engaged in the royalist cause, for he was present at the siege of Hawkesley House, the residence of his distant kinsman, William Middlemore, who also suffered severely for his fidelity to the king.  The records for the committee for the advance of money show that in June, 1649, he came under their notice as a " delinquent" and on 2 December, 1651, that he was a papist and " disaffected which scarcely can be wondered at, and that he was in arms at Worcester and other garrisons of the late king in the years 1643-45, while it is specially noted that he was at the siege of Hawkesley and offered the - king's party a very large sum if they would take his house at Edgbaston.

Text Box: HERE LYETH THE BODY OF RICHARD MIDDLEMORE OF EDGBASTON IN THE COVNTY OF WARWICK ESQVIER WHO WAS BVRIED THE 15TH DAY OF APRIL ANNO 1647 He was buried with his ancestors at Studley, on 15 April, 1647, as is recorded by a stone in the Middlemore aisle.

Presumably the Middlemores, after they acquired Edgbaston, selected the church there as the burial place of their family, but the disturbed state of the country and the destruction of Edgbaston Hall and Church would necessitate the choice of Studley as his burial place.  The stone was discovered at the last restoration of Studley Church.  Neither his will nor letters of administration appear to be recorded.

He married Mary, daughter of Anthony Morgan, ofText Box: Morgan. -The Morgans were a Welsh family, as the name indicates. Anthony Morgan, father of Mrs. Middlemore, was of Triley, died 164o, and son of Rhys Morgan, also of Triley, seventh in descent from David, the second son of Gwylym ap Jenkin, a cadet branch of the great Welsh family of Herbert. Having sold his lands in Monmouthshire he settled in Northamptonshire. His wife was Bridget, only daughter and heir of another Anthony Morgan, of Nether Heyford, in Northamptonshire. Thomas Morgan, the brother of the last-named Anthony, acquired Westonunder-Wetherley, in Warwickshire, by his marriage with Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir Edward Sanders, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Elizabeth's reign. Having no family he settled Weston on his niece Bridget and her issue by any husband of the name of Morgan, which condition; as already shown, she fully complied with. The eldest son of, Bridget Morgan was Thomas Morgan, who was slain at the battle of Newbury in 1644. The second daughter married Richard Middlemore, whilst Bridget, a younger daughter, became the wife of Ralph Sheldon, of Weston. Anthony Morgan, the son of Rhys, died in 1610, and his widow, Bridget, on marrying again remembered her uncle's injunction, and took for her second husband Sir William Morgan, of Tredegar, knight, M.P. (she being his second wife) who died in 1653 aged 93, and had issue also by him. Sir William Morgan was sixteenth in descent from Cadivor-fawr, a chieftain in Pembrokeshire in the eleventh century and not related to her first husband, who came from the famous Herbert stock. Anthony Morgan, of Nether Heyford, was descended from Francis Morgan, esquire, justice of the King's Bench in the reign of Queen Mary who in 1553 pronounced sentence of death on Lady Jane Grey, soon after which he is said to have gone mad, crying out in his fits, "Take away the Lady Jane from me! " and in this distraction he ended his life. By Anne, his wife, daughter and co-heir of Christopher Pemberton, he left issue, Thomas Morgan, esquire, his son and heir, who succeeded on his father's decease in the last year of Queen Mary. From this gentleman, who died 1 James I, it descended to Anthony Morgan, his brother and heir. In 2 Charles I, upon the death of Lady Bridget Morgan it passed to Thomas her son, then a minor of twelve,, whose sister, Mary Morgan, married Richard Middlemore. It is not known if the two Anthony Morgans were related to one another. The arms of the Morgans appear to have been Argent, on a bend sable three cinquefoils of the field, on a chief azure a cross crosslet between two fleur-de-lis or.
Weston-under-Wetherley, in Warwickshire, esquire.       They had issue two children.

i. Robert Middlemore, of whom next (11).

ii. Mary, who married Walter Heveningham, of Aston juxta Stone, Staffordshire, the head of a prominent Roman Catholic family.     Her cousin, William Mydlemore (49, i), of Ipsley, in his will, 1643, gives to " my cousin, Mrs. Marie Heuvyngham (sic), daughter of Richard Mydlemore, of Edgbaston, a gold ring." He was son of Mrs. Heveningham's great-aunt, Margery Middlemore, who married as second wife William Middlemore (49), of Hawkesley.

Mrs. Heveningham survived her husband, and her will was proved at Lichfield, 11 August, 1701.  They left issue:

1. Mary, who married Walter Fowler, of St. Thomas, but died s.p.

2. Bridget, who married Sir James Simeon, baronet.

 

Text Box: Heveningham. -Walter Heveningham, of Aston, near Stone, in the county of Stafford, was head of the Staffordshire branch of an ancient Suffolk family, the Heveninghams of Heveningham, whose authentic pedigree is traced from about the time of Richard I. The first to settle in Staffordshire was Erasmus Heveningham, who was born about 1500, and was a younger son of Sir John Heveningham, of Heveningham. Erasmus' son, Christopher Heveningham, married Dorothy Stanley, who appears to have been the daughter of her husband's great-grandfather's brother. Christopher's grandson, Nicholas, was father of (1) Walter, who married Mary Middlemore; (2) Simon, whose descendants were of Lich-field, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, etc. The Suffolk Heveninghams died out in the seventeenth century, and Mr. George Heveningham, of Arundel, Sussex, is the only known representative in the male line of this once important family, he being a descendant of the above-mentioned Simon Heveningham. The Heveninghams bear for arms, Quarterly or and gules a bordure engrailed sable charged with escallops argent.