The ruins of the house built at Sopwell by Sir Richard Lee, just after the original nunnery was destroyed by Henry VIII
| The dispute began over payment of money from a deceased's estate: so typical of the 17th and 18th centuries. Money and land were the things worth fighting for; cheating and corruption were just part of the game. Robert Sadleir of Sopwell could not have known what a can of worms would be opened when he married Ellen Bancroft in 1630. The legal process commenced with a suit in Chancery in February 1631/2. A Public Record Office document [PRO S.P.25/92 p 79 no 303], the last concerning the suit, is dated 31 Jan 1655/6 and shows a rejection of a petition - it was a 24 year dispute. Robert Sadleir died in 1669. We might hope that he was able to put the lawsuit behind him, although he must have considered the issue important enough to keep the papers in the family archives. Those papers were found in the recent past - 2001 - in the roof of an old house in Bedford: probably they had lain undisturbed for some considerable time. |
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The ruins of the house built at Sopwell by Sir Richard Lee, just after the original nunnery was destroyed by Henry VIII |
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| Robert Sadleir's sole heir was his daughter, also called Ellen, who married Thomas Saunders of Beechwood near Flamstead in Hertfordshire - his second wife. They had several children who all died in infancy except their eldest daughter Anne who - with a substantial dowry - married Sir Edward Sebright, Bart. From that family connection, the papers concerning the law suit as well as many other Sebright papers were discovered in 2001. The Sebright - sometimes Seabright - family name is best known in this century for the Bantam Fowl known to the fanciers as Sebrights. | |
| As might be expected, tracing the connections between all the participants in this story after 350 years, is never likely to be definitive. One of the sources of the Sadleir family history - a book written in the late 1800's - has a Helen Dickenson marrying Robert Sadleir and providing a daughter called Helen. The elder Helen's father, Thomas Dickenson, is supposed to have lived in Hollingden, Middlesex. Since we can not trace this Dickenson, or Hollingden, it seems likely that there is a mistake or perhaps another wife. What we do have, however, is a Latin document dated 15th May 1643, explaining that '..certain persons, namely Richard Aylett, Robert Sadler, and others on behalf of Margaret Bancroft, have lately expelled, and removed...' . They had thrown out a tenant, Richard Olliver, from a manor that Margaret Bancroft considered to be hers. They took this action despite an order in chancery - that is by the King's order - that commissioners should have control over the manor. The document ended by ordering the participants to restore the tenant to the land; a two thousand pound fine on each of them if they refused. This document seems to provide conclusive evidence that Robert Sadleir did not marry a Helen Dickenson and was instead the son-in-law of Margaret Bancroft. | |
| The date of that document is interesting. The King, Charles the First, was by then holding court at Oxford. The civil war had begun the previous year and just two days before Charles signed the order, Oliver Cromwell had put a royalist group to flight at Grantham with the first use of his newly-trained troopers, the beginning of the New Model Army. The law suit continued to be fought out against the background of the Civil War. And one of the causes of the war was the need for reform of the legal processes. Chancery was thoroughly detested for its delays and abuses, which consideration may have had an impact on the judges in the case. | |