THE CLARKE FAMILY IN ENGLAND By Dave Goodwin April 1996 I'm going to start here with Christopher Clarke in Virginia for reasons which will become apparent, but most of this piece will be devoted to a possible connecting trail in England. In her book "Anthony Roots and Branches", Nancy Vashti An thony Jacob includes a section at the end on associated families. The Clarke family of Virginia is there, with much familiar material, including Capt. Christopher Clarke's will, and so on. But right at the beginning of this section (pg. 174) is a depic tion of a Clarke coat of arms with this parenthetical remark: "Drawn from a description only." There is NO SOURCE given for this depiction and, sorry to say, this problem is found in a num ber of places in Jacobs' book. On page 180, she describes the coat in words and says it is "said to be that of Christopher Clarke line." Again, no source is given. For a long time, I paid little attention to this particular coat of arms. After all, there was nothing to check it against. Here is the par ticular part of the arms which did become interesting later: Bend of blue. Three swans on the bend (which proceeds from the upper right of the shield as held by the bearer down to the lower left corner). There are other parts of this shield which I can detail later if there is interest in them. Not long ago, I came across a coat of arms for the Clarke family of Exeter, Devonshire, England. I'd been looking for such a coat for several years, but this particular Clarke family has never shown up in the Visitations of Devon. But I had been look ing at Visitations with too early a date and as it happens in the wrong place. At The Sutro Library in San Francisco, I opened a book titled "London Visitation Pedigrees, 1663". In this book was a claim to arms signed by Sir Francis Clarke of Putney in London. This was a fellow I'd been inter ested in for some time because I'd been trying to sort out three different Sir Francis Clarkes living in the same general time period. The Visitation showed him to be who I thought he might be...the son of Christopher Clarke of Exeter, said in the docu ment to have been former Mayor of Exeter and said to have died in 1650 at the age of "80 or more". Christopher was shown to have had four sons--John died 1636; Samuel, died 1658; Daniel, died 1623; and Sir Francis, shown as "citizen and draper" of London. In an appendix, I can list other details of this family, includ ing other children of Christopher and of Sir Francis. Christopher was said to be the son of John Clarke "of In wardleigh near Holsworthy" in Devon. (Inwardleigh is actually about 11 miles east of Holsworth and 20 miles west of Exeter.) I have a transcription of John's will (obtained for me in England by my friend Arlene Anthony last year) which lists John as of Sandford but with lands in Crediton (a short distance away) and in "Ingerleigh". I can list John's children (the ones in his will) in another appendix. And here is the description of this Clarke family's coat of arms: "Argent, on a bend gules, three swans argent between three pellets, two in chief, one in base." Heraldry buffs will recognize that gules means red, not blue as in the putative arms for Capt. Christopher Clarke of VA. I can't explain that at all, except to say that possibly someone down the line mistook "gules" for "blue". Or that the Capt. Clarke arms are simply a theft from English Clarke arms and that whoever did the deed didn't reproduce the right colors. Having come across this coat of arms, I then dug back into the pile of English Clarke material which has been decorating our little digs or some years now. Surprise of surprises...those three swans on a bend, gules, kept popping up all over the place, including Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent and even Ireland. It would appear that the earliest of these connected Clarkes (at this point anyway) shows up in Warwickshire. A Richard Clerk, born a Hammond, first took the Clerk name in 1444. He was of Willoughby, Warwickshire. (Usually when a man of one surname assumes another, it's his wife's family name and she was usually richer or from a more powerful family than his.) He married a Collett (blank). If anyone wishes me to, I can put more details about his descendants in an appendix, but the simple form is that three Williams succeeded him, leading to a Robert born (my guess) in about 1595. (Source for the above material is "Burkes Peerage...of the British Empire".) I want to continue with one of Robert's sons for a particular reason. He is Henry, shown as "ancestor of the Clarkes of Kingsthorpe, Northhampton, and Uscomb (Ulcomb) in Kent". There is a break in the line here, but I think that the Visitation of Kent (1663-1668) possibly bridges it. Here we see an Edward Clerke of Willoughby in County War wick, who is likely this Henry's son. Please bear with me...there's a reason for following this line in tiresome detail. Edward had Henry of Rochester, Kent, who m. a Grace Morgan. They had a son Francis (who later became one of those several Sir Fran- cis Clarkes I mentioned). This Sir Francis Clerke of Rochester and Ulcomb, Kent, had four children shown in the Visitation: John, b. 1651; CHRISTOPHER, b. ca.1652; Frances, b. ca.1648 and Lucretia, b. ca.1650. So we see the name Christopher here in Kent as well as in Devonshire. And it will be seen again in other Clarke lines bearing the same Arms. Here is one of them. The Visitations of Northamptonshire (1564 and 1618-1619) and the Visitation of Buckinghamshire (1634) produce the following Clarke chain, again with the same arms: Signed by William Clarke of Pottersbury, N'hampton, who was Ser geant at Arms to King Edward and Queen Mary, it shows his im mediate ancestor as Richard Clarke of Holsworthy, Devonshire. Since this was in 1564 and William has an array of six children by then, I could guesstimate his birth as perhaps 35 years before that and his father Richard's date as maybe 25 years before that. This would go back to about 1504. Remember Holsworthy is about 20 miles from Exeter. Forgot to mention that this Richard married (blank) Bonham. Again, please excuse the lengthy trail that might normally be in an appendix. William of Pottersbury had children named Henry, Nicholas, Mary, Elizabeth, Margaret and Jane. Henry, now of Stanwick, Northhampton in 1618, had Sylvester, William, Gabriel and CHRISTOPHER, who himself had another Christopher, 5 years old in 1618; Robert, and William. So the name Christopher sort of resonates through the generations here. And one more extension of the Clarkes: In Irish records (I believe this was from Burkes, but I neglected to note it), I see the three swans on a bend gules and the three pellets for Clarke formerly of Graiguenoe Park in the 1700s. Named here were a Sir John Clarke and his son, Marshall Clarke, rector and vicar of Shronell, Tipperary, who m. a Elizabeth Hare in 1783. Well, that is enough for now. I will do appendixes, etc. when my wife and I return from our 33rd wedding anniversary excur- sion up the California coast. I hope all this was of some inter est. I welcome your comments about and extensions of this material. [Linda's note here: I want to add one more connection which Dave sent a couple days before the above arrived. His friend and COOPER researcher, Rhoda Fone, found that "Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper's physician (as he lay dying in the Netherlands) was an Anthony (can't think of his first name, but have it) who was directly tied to the Anthonys of Exeter in Devon, who in turn were tied by marriage and business to the Clarkes of the same city." I think Dave is on to something here. LSS]