BOSTOCK HISTORY:

THE ANCIENT FAMILY AND TOWNSHIP

Main Page Early Family History

 

AN UNCERTAIN LINEAGE

A Couple of Theories

Various antiquaries and historians of the Tudor period believe that Osmer was the �original� Bostock. The heralds of the College of Arms in 1580 recorded that Adam de Bostock, who was living circa 1300, was the son of Sir Edward, son of Sir William (and Elizabeth Audley), son of Henry, son of Sir Warren (and Hawise de Quincy), son of Ranulf (and Margaret Vernon), son of Gilbert, son of Roger, son of Richard, son of Hugh, son of Osmer the Saxon. 

The seventeenth century antiquary Piers Leycester of Tabley, suggests that Adam de Bostock was the son of Sir Edward (and a daughter of the Trumpington family), son of William (and Elizabeth), son of Arthur (and Bridget Blundeville), son of Henry (and Eleanor Poole), son of Warren (and Hawise), son of William (and Margaret Vernon and widow of a Wilbraham), son of Gilbert, son of Roger, son of Richard, son of Osmer, son of 'Hugh fitz Richard, lord of Bostock under Edward the Confessor'. The genealogist John Booth, writing in the mid-seventeenth century, gives a similar descent. However, 'Osmer son of Hugh fitz Richard' is too improbable to accept: Osmer is a Saxon name, Hugh fitz Richard seems not to be, and also it would push the family history two generations before the Conquest and would give the family something of a unique status. 

Although there are minor variations as to their order, the suggested pedigrees seem to give nine generations between Adam and Osmer, and this, on the basis of 23 years between generations, means that Osmer was born in the mid-eleventh century and was a young man at the time of the battle of Hastings - chronologically this would seem about right. If we are to believe both Leycester and Booth then the progenitor of the family was born circa 1000! A version that appears in the pedigree of the Bostock family of Sittingbourne, Kent, as recorded in Burke�s Landed Gentry, and accepted by the College of Arms, records the ancient pedigrees only so far back as Randolph (and Margaret), son of Gilbert. 

Doubts about Osmer

George Ormerod in his History of Cheshire agrees with Edward Williamson, a seventeenth century antiquarian, and quotes: �Dr. Williamson, who very properly doubts the descent from Osmer, says, that �we may be assured by Inquisition 2 Hen. II, yt Warine de Bostock (second husband of Hawise, daughter to Hugh Kyvelyoc earl of Chester), was ye son of Randle, son of Adam de Bostock.� Ormerod then says that Warren was the father of Gilbert, who was father of William, father of Philip, father of Adam. I have so far been unable to trace the inquisition referred to. If Williamson is right then this early Adam would have been born circa 1137, but who were his forefathers? 

Common Factors

There are certainly a number of common factors in the pedigrees quoted. Each mentions a Gilbert, son of Roger (I would compute that Gilbert was born circa 1137) and these two may occur in a document of 1174 which relates to the marriage of Amice, one of the daughters of Hugh, the fifth earl of Chester, to Randle Mainwaring of Warmingham and Peover. With his daughter, the Earl gave to Randle �the services of Gilbert son of Roger� which amounted to the service of one knight. Whilst there is nothing in the deed to further identify Gilbert or his father, Roger, it is interesting to note that the main line of the Mainwaring family died out and the succession became uncertain a John de Bostock was presented to the people of Warmingham in 1455 as the lord�s esquire and deputy: it was said that he was descended of Gilbert son of Roger. As patron of the living of the parish John nominated his brother Stephen as vicar. A junior line of the Bostocks of Bostock lived at Elton, in Warmingham parish, for many centuries and the main line of the family held lands in neighbouring Occlestone and Wimboldsley. 

Another common factor is the marriage of Warren de Bostock and Hawise, a daughter of Hugh Gyffylliog, fifth earl of Chester (1155-1181). The earl was born in 1147 and married Beatrix, daughter of Lord Lucy, justiciar of England, by whom he had Ranulf, the sixth earl, along with six daughters. Hawise, born circa 1170, was married to Roger, son of Saher de Quincy, earl of Lincoln and Winchester and when Roger die in 1217, the earldom of Lincoln was transferred to Earl Ranulf. On his death in 1252, the earldom passed to Hawise who then became countess of Lincoln. From her the title passed to John de Lacy, baron of Halton, husband of her daughter Margaret. 
 


Arms of the Earldom of Chester

If Warren did marry a daughter of the earl of Chester then it was a most important match and subject no doubt of much criticism at the time, however the alleged marriage is without any other documentary proof. Hawise would have had children of her first marriage in the 1190s, and by any second husband in the 1220s. These dates would certainly fit with both pedigrees which would have Warren being born circa 1160. It is of course possible that Warren had children by a previous wife and that the descent emanates from her, though the fact that the heralds allowed the family to incorporate the arms of the earldoms of Chester and Lincoln in their armorial bearings would suggest descent from Hawise.

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� Tony Bostock 2007