12. Richard Middlemore, of Edgbaston,
esquire, the last male heir of his family, was named as one of the proposed
Order of the Knights of the Royal Oak, and his income was set down as L2,000.
On his father's death Sir Edward Nichols, baronet, of Faxton, in
Northamptonshire, their " kinsman,"
was appointed by the Commissioners of the Great Seal, guardian of the infant
son, Richard, and the two children, "
in trust to breed them up Protestants," and in consequence of
Sir Edward's petition, 11 March, 1653, the sequestration on the Middlemore
property was discharged on 1 July following. This effort to. compulsorily
change the religion of the Middlemore family clearly did not succeed, for the
name of Mary
Middlemore, of Edgbaston, evidently the
survivor of the two younger children, appears under date 11 October, 1671, in
the list of those " ad fidem reconciliati," who are recorded in
the books of St. Peter's at Birmingham. He evidently died in his youth, and was
buried at Edgbaston on 22 January, 1660-61. Letters of administration of his goods were
granted to his mother and heir, Henrietta Maria Roper, on 29 January, 1660-61, but a week after his
funeral. With him became extinct the
male line of the Middlemores of Edgbaston, which had continued in possession of
that manor since the end of the fourteenth century.
Of the children of Sir John Gage only two daughters left
issue to carry on the representation of the families of Middlemore and
Edgbaston. Of these, Mary married Sir John Shelley, Bart., and her moiety of
the heirship is still vested in that family.
Bridget, the other daughter, married Thomas
Belasyse, third Viscount Fauconberg.
That family is also extinct in the male line, and the Earls Fauconberg
are now represented by Sir George Wombwell, bart., and the present Duke of
Norfolk, K.G., and Earl Marshal of England, who thus jointly with the Shelleys
represent the elder line of Middlemore, the Edgbastons of Edgbaston and one
branch of the Greswolds of Solihull.
Consequently each of the three co-heirs are entitled to quarter the arms
of those families. There is no evidence to show that any of the younger sons of
the Edgbaston Middlemores, save those of Haselwell and Hawkesley left issue to
carry on their name to our day. The Middlemores of the Clothworkers' Company,
who were associated with London and Bristol, seem to be also extinct, and
though from the circumstance that they also were engaged in the clothing trade and
used
similar Christian names, it is possible that the Gloucestershire Middlemores
may have branched from the Edgbaston line in the early sixteenth century ;
there is no documentary evidence of the connection, nor does it appear probable
that such will ever be forthcoming.
The Middlemore estates were divided between the two sisters by a deed of partition; Edgbaston was taken by Bridget, Lady Fauconberg ; Olton and Solihull were allotted to Lady Shelley. In 1717, Lord and Lady Fauconberg sold the lordship of Edgbaston to Sir Richard Gough, knight, and Solihull and its appurtenances were afterwards purchased by Henry Gough, esquire, son of Sir Henry Gough, and nephew of Sir Richard Gough, of Edgbaston.
The estate and lordship of Edgbaston is now the property of Lord Calthorpe, who is descended from Sir Henry Gough, bart., who afterwards, in 1788, became Sir Henry Calthorpe on succeeding to the estates of his maternal uncle, Sir Henry Calthorpe, K.B., and was raised to the peerage as Baron Calthorpe of Calthorpe in the county of Norfolk. He ceased to reside at Edgbaston in 1783, and since then the Hall has been in the occupation of tenants.
The senior line of
Middlemore had continued as lords of Edgbaston for nearly three centuries,
holding all that time a leading position amongst the county gentry of
Warwickshire. It will have been noticed that they were considerable benefactors
to the church, as the foundation of the chantry in Studley church and the
benefactions of Dame Margery Middlemore to Edgbaston testify. When the
reformation came, they remained strong adherents of the older order of things,
and suffered accordingly in an age in which toleration
was unknown. One member of the family,
for we may include the Blessed Humphrey Middlemore, was in 1535 put to death
for refusing to acknowledge the pretensions of Henry VIII. The Recusant Rolls of a later date indicate
how they suffered in their possessions for their steadfast adherence to their
religion; and their political opinions at a later date, when they preferred the
cause of Charles rather than that of the Parliament, led to the imposition of
still further penalties, as the royalist composition papers testify. Nor were
they merely passive onlookers, but they took an active part in support of their
beliefs. . The Squire of Edgbaston was present at the siege of Hawkesley House. His kinsman, George Middlemore of
Haselwell, was a captain on the side of the king, with the result that all
three branches suffered heavily in purse, Hawkesley House was burnt, and
Richard Middlemore saw his own mansion of Edgbaston a garrison for the
Parliament, and the church, the burial place of his family, wholly demolished,
and moreover had the mortification of seeing his possessions appropriated by
" Tinker" Fox and the Parliamentary party. Had the Middlemores forsaken their principles and shared in the
plunder of the religious houses in the sixteenth century, and had they in the
seventeenth joined the Parliamentarians, or at any rate remained neutral, they
would have avoided the disasters which befell them, and with their already
considerable position might even have founded some great territorial family.
The memory of men who do not hesitate to uphold their civil opinions and
religious creed, even to their temporal loss, is rightly honoured, and amongst
such as these are to be numbered the Middlemores of Edgbaston, Haselwell, and
Hawkesley.
TABLE D
Pedigree of Gage and Shelley,
showing the descent of Sir John Shelley, Bart., the present representative of Lady Shelley, the elder daughter and co-heiress of Lady Gage, sister and heiress of Richard Middlemores of Edgbaston.
TABLE E
Pedigree of Belasyse, Wombwell, and Howard, Duke of Norfolk,
showing the descent of Sir George Wombwell, Bart., and of the Duke of Norfolk, K.G. s Earl Marshals the present representative of Bridget, Viscountess Fauconberg, younger daughter and co-heiress of Lady Gage, sister and heiress of Richard Middlemore, of Edgbaston.
Figure 13 Table D. Pedigree of Gage and Shelley
Figure 14 Table E. Pedigree of Belasyse, Wombwell and Howard, Duke of Norfolk
EDGBASTON CHURCH.
Of Edgbaston church and the
monuments of the Middlemores, Dugdale writes as follows:
Figure 15 Arms in the windows of Edgbaston Church
" Arms upon several gravestones in the church as they were long since observed by Mr. Will. Belcher.
“Upon the Tombstone of John Midlemore and Agnes his wife.
“One Escocheon wherein Midlemore and Edgbaston are quartered.
"Another with 3 Leopards' heads, by which it seems that she was the daughter of Waldeive.
" Upon the Tomb-stone of Ric. Midlemore: " Midlemore impaling Throckmorton.
" Upon that of Rob. Midlemore:
" Midlemore impaling Ermine a fesse frette. [See p. 48 ante.] "But of these monuments I might have given a better account had not the Church been utterly demolisht by the Parliament forces, in the late wars, when they garrison'd Edgbbaston-house."
Thomas, in his edition of Dugdale's " Warwickshire," adds:
" Some time after the restoration of the Royal family
the
inhabitants began to rebuild the said church
at their own proper costs up to the wall plates, but finding themselves utterly
unable to finish. it, the charges thereof amounting to L430, besides casting
the bells and mounding the churchyard, in the year 1683 they obtained the
King's Letters patent for their collecting the charitable benevolence of his
loving subjects throughout the counties of Warwick, Northampton, Oxford,
Gloucester, Worcester, Leicester, and Shropshire, whereby they were enabled
handsomely to complete and finish the same.
About the year 1725 -Sir Richard Gough . . . determined to do something in favour of his own parish church of Edgbaston, and having before put the church into very good repair, the greatest part of which was at his own expenses, there rested little to do on that account, so he resolved to augment the living by obtaining the queen's bounty, and accordingly gave his bond in due form to the commissioners to secure the payment of L200 so soon as they should appropriate the like sum. In consideration of which charity and benevolence the Dean and Chapter of Litchfield, by consent of the Bishop, agreed to grant the perpetual advowson of the curacy of Edgbaston to the said Sir Richard Gough and his heirs forever."
Owing to the great
development of Edgbaston as a fashionable Birmingham suburb, it was found
needful to restore and enlarge the church in 1886. It is evident that little of
the ancient building was left, probably only the lower portion of the
tower. Being clad with ivy, it was
picturesque enough externally, though the interior of the church was
disappointing. Before the alterations it consisted of a nave and centre aisle
of equal length, separated by an arcade of obtuse four-centred arches resting
on moulded piers. The nave was covered by
a high-pitched roof, and the aisle had one of similar character.
There was no chancel. The pews were of painted deal, and the west
end was filled up by a large gallery, in which the organ stood, of the same
character as the pews. The church was
enlarged by the removal of the eastern walls and the erection of a chancel with
chancel aisles, one of which was an extension of the south aisle already
noticed, and the other continued a new north aisle. At the same time a clerestory was added to the nave. The new chancel is separated from the church
by a bold early English arch. The roof
is of wagon shape, resting on wooden corbels carved as angels, while, the
panelling of the roof is filled in with tracery of Tudor character.
The
" fair tower steeple," as Dugdale states the tradition to
be, was built by Dame Margery Middlemore, while this new chancel was erected at
the expense of the Middlemore family, as
is indicated by a small marble tablet placed at the entrance to the
chancel. Thus both the west and the east ends of the church are associated with
the Middlemores ; the donors of the chancel being the representatives of the
Birmingham line, who were also descended from Eleanor Throckmorton, wife of
Thomas Middlemore (46), of Hawkesley, who was sister of Dame Margery
Middlemore, the builder of the tower.
EDGBASTON HALL.
As Edgbaston Hall was rebuilt after the time of the Middlemores, it is unnecessary here to give any view of it, but an engraving of it and the rebuilt church appears in Thomas's edition of Dugdale, thus inscribed: "The East prospect of Edgbaston Hall in Warwickshire, ye Seat of Sr Henry Gough, Bart." There is also a view of it in its present state in Carter's reprint of part of Dugdale's " Warwickshire." It is said that the house was not entirely burnt down, and that a portion of the centre of the present building is undoubtedly much earlier than the eighteenth century. There is a massive wall in one part of the house on the ground floor, which is several feet in thickness, and contains a hollow space, which may have been part of an ancient fireplace or chimney. The house is in the Georgian style of architecture, but beyond the addition of a wing there seem to have been no exterior changes, and few interior alterations of importance.
The earliest note relating to the hall and park is found in a letter written by Richard Middlemore (10) to Robert Napier, the astrologer, some time before the middle of the seventeenth century. After mentioning " the discourse my brother Morgan promised you," he writes
" I cannot forbeare to lett you know what fearfull accidents happened heere in our park on satturday last in great. stormes of lightning, thunder, haile and raine. In one place 3 men standing under a tree under which they had also droven a teame of six oxen laden with hay to avoid the violence of the storme, the men were all stroaken suddenly to the ground but one of them recovered life again, and 3 of the Oxen that stood outward from the tree were also stroaken stark dead in the plain."
As to the garrisoning of Edgbaston House by the Parliament
forces, the following extract from "
Mercurius Aulicus" of 24 February, 1643, gives the royalist view of
the matter: " Particularly one Fox, a tinker of Walsall, in
Staffordshire, having got a horse, and a hammer for a pole-axe, invited to his
society 16 men of his brethren (about half as many as departed this life at
Banbury assize). This
joviall Colonel Tinker, with his 16 swete brethren marched seven miles to
Birmingham in Warwickshire near which town they fortified a house called
Edgbaston House. But (remembering their
trade) they mended one hole but made a worse; for they pulled down the church
to make their fortifications ; disposed of the bells to their fellows in
Birmingham. In this house they have
nestled so long that their 16 are swollen up to 200 which rob and pillage very
sufficiently.".
There is no doubt that the old house was of considerable size, for in 1663 it paid to the Hearth Tax for no less than twenty-two hearths, which in those days was a very considerable number. Thus Mr. Robert Middlemore, of King's Norton, is returned as possessing, no doubt at Haselwell, only eight hearths, whilst Robert Middlemore, of Yardley, had but four, "two not finished." A house with only four hearths would now be of small. importance, but in the seventeenth century only houses of a superior class possessed so many.
Of its subsequent history, Dr. Thomas adds: "The manor house of Edgbaston, being well situated for their purpose, was garrisoned by a party of the Parliament army in the late civil wars, and afterwards, when the general alarm was given in this kingdom preceding the revolution, the populace of Bermingham, fearing it might be made a place of sanctuary and resort for the papists, set fire to it and burnt it to the ground, in which condition it lay till after the purchase above mentioned in 1717, when the Hall was rebuilt and the church repaired and beautified."
M