Descent By Sea

Lord Ralph Ogle, Third Baron (c. 1468-1513) of Ogle and Bothal, knight, was born about November 7, 1468.

(In an inquisition taken in 1506 he is stated to have been eighteen years old at his father’s death on the 1st of September, 1486.  However, his general pardon in 1509 from Henry VII included all offences before the 23rd of April, 1486, and a pardon granted in 1494 for all offences before the 7th of November, 1489 marks the date of his coming of age).

He was the only son of Owen Ogle, Second Baron (1440-1485) and Eleanor Hilton (1450-post 1513), daughter of Sir William Hilton of Hilton Castle, County Durham.  His mother later married George Percy, Esq.

Ralph Ogle married Margaret Gascoigne, daughter of Sir William Gascoigne, Justice of the Peace for the West Riding, Yorkshire and Margaret Percy, daughter of the third earl of Northumberland, before 1490 in Gawthorpe, Yorkshire.

Dorothy Ogle married Sir Thomas Grey after the death of Thomas Forster

Ralph Ogle, 3rd Baron‘s life is documented and certain events can be reconstructed here.  For example, he took over a castle.

Between 1486 and 1489, possibly a last stand of the earl of Lincoln’s adherents assisted by the Scotch, there appears to have been an action at Dunstanburgh,

Dustan Castle

for it is recorded that Ralph, Lord Ogle, assisted by Edmund and Richard Crawcester, bailiffs of Bamburgh, J. Manners and Gilbert Errington, reduced Dunstanburgh and took the garrison prisoners.

The fact that there was some action here at this date seems borne out from the circumstances connected with the earl of Northumberland, who was taken prisoner at Bosworth field, and after his death Edmund Craster was, in consideration of his good services, appointed constable of Dunstanburgh, the 8th of July, 1489, with the fees and wages of 20 marks per annum with the ancient advantages and perquisites of that office 502.  His name occurs as a witness in 1492, and also with Robert Ogle in a charter given in the Newminster Abbey Cartulary, 7 Henry VII.  

Collins says that Polydore, Virgil and other historians called one of the Lords Ogle, George; and that lie marched with the rest of the northern barons under the earl of Surrey against the Scots in 9 Henry VII, and this appears to be the date when a force of 20,000 was assembled under the earl of Surrey, including Lord Ogle, and advanced against the Scots who were besieging Norham, but that they retired on the approach of the English who afterwards took Coldstream, Hutton Hall, Edrington, Foulden and Ayton.

Collins however, gives the date four years later, and so does Hall, who says that in 13 Henry VII., Ralph, earl of Westmoreland, George, Lord Lumley, George, Lord Ogle, Sir William Gascoigne, etc., under the earl of Surrey, relieved Norham besieged by the Scots, but it seems that in this year a truce was concluded with the Scotch which was nearly broken by an accidental quarrel between some Scots and English of the garrison of Norham, when several of the former were killed. Hodgson Hinde however, gives 1497 as the date of the relief of Norham.   

On the 1st of March, 1199, bishop Fox granted this Lord Ogle a pardon on entering the manor of Netherton.

In 1503 Lord Ogle accompanied Princess Margaret on her way into Scotland to her marriage with James IV, king of Scotland.

In 21 Henry VII, Sir Humphrey Lisle made some grants to Lord Ogle which may have concerned the marriage settlements of his son Humphrey and Lord Ogle’s daughter.

Owing to Henry VII‘s method of hardly ever assembling a parliament, Lord Ogle was not summoned until the first year of Henry VIII’s reign, and he was also summoned in the third year of the same reign.

Lord Ogle’s name occurs in a list of fortresses in Northumberland dated the 21st of August, 1509, which includes a list of holds and townships which were to lay in garrisons at the beginning of Henry VIII’s reign, and his places of Ingram and Hepple were to be garrisoned with 40 and 20 men respectively.

On the 10th of October, 1510, Lord Ogle gave his son William the manor of La Hirst near Woodhorne.

On the 3rd of January, 1512, Christopher Ward and Robert Plompton, knights released to Lord Ogle the castle of Ogle and the demesne lands which they held together with Guy Fairfax by a charter dated the 21st of January, 1485.

On the 3 of June of 1512, as the right honorable the Lord Ogle and Bothal, he granted Robert, his son and heir, the whole demesne of the castle of Ogle for ten years, with remainder to Margaret, the mother of Robert.

Lord Ralph Ogle died in January 1513 at age 44 and was buried in St. Andrew’s Church, Bothal, under a tombstone.

Contains Lord Ralph Ogle’s alabaster tomb — photo by Ray Urwin©

His inquisitions were taken at Morpeth on the 16th of March 1513 and at Durham on the 25th of April following, where it is shown he held Bothal, Whitworth, Pigsworth, Tritlington, Longhirst, Ashington, also the third part of Ingram, Little Tossan, Bikerton, Warton, all in the barony of Hepple, also Saltwick, Horsley, Stanton Sheles, lands, etc. in Morpeth, Bolsdon, Ponteland, Woodhorne, Seton, Heugh.  

Before his death he enfeoffed Thomas Forster of Adderstone and John Heron (probably his son-in-law and first cousin) in the manor of Ogle, lands, etc., in Whalton, Fenrother, Clayfern, Old moor, Wellclose, Flotterton, Sharperton, Shipbanks, Thirnam, Foxdene, Middleton-morell, Druridge, Newham, Longwitton and Hurst.   He gave William, his son, Twisell, the fourth part of South Dissington and Tossan, for life, and to his son, John, a fourth part of South Dissington, for life.   In the bishoprick he held Netherton, land in Camboise, Choppington, Windlestone and West Herrington, the two last of which lie left to his son, John, for life.

On June 10, 1515, Ralph’s son granted Margaret Gascoigne all lands in Hurst near Woodhorne which her husband Ralph Ogle had with the remainder to going Ralph’s other son William.  Margaret Gascoigne gave an annuity to her kinswoman Isabel, wife of Gilbert Ogle.

On the 6th of July, 1516, she consented to a grant of the manor of Horton.   She is mentioned in 1527 as Dame Margaret Ogele and as living in 1515/16.   Her effigy is on Lord Ogle’s tomb at Bothal, on which the impaled arms show those of Gascoigne, Mowbray, Butler and Nevill.

Ralph & Margaret Ogle’s Alabaster tomb — Bothal Church

Ralph and Margaret’s children:

In the nave of Bothal Church, there are alabaster effigies of Lord Ralph Ogle, and Lady Margaret Gascoigne. The tomb on which they are placed is built against the south-east pier of the chancel arch, and is spanned by the first arch from the nave into the aisle. There is a great castle in now ruins close by and the church is partly buried in accumulations of soil.  It suggests that they once lived in the castle and attended the church were they now rest eternally.

Resources

A genealogical history of the dormant, abeyant, forfeited, and extinct …
By Sir Bernard Burke

The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, by George Edward Cokayne, Vol. X, p. 32-34

Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 350

English Ogle Genealogy

The Cornhill magazine, Volume 25 by George Smith

Life in Northumberland during the sixteenth century, Volume 20
By William Weaver Tomlinson, p. 166

Archaeologia aeliana, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity, Volume 19
by Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne

Sir Thomas Grey of Horton (before 1515-1590) was born by 1515.  He was the first surviving son of Sir Roger Grey of Horton and Isabel Darcy, daughter of Sir William Darcy.

His siblings were Peter and John.

Sir Thomas Grey married Dorothy Ogle between 1527 and 1531.  She was a daughter of 3rd Lord Ralph Ogle and widow of Sir Thomas Foster.

Sir Knight Thomas Grey career was full of success, disappointment, and later obscurity, despite being knighted and accomplished.

The Lilburn Tower is near center — at right the gatehouse — to left the cliff drops away suddenly

Succeeded father 6 Jan 1543. Knighted 23 Sep 1545. Member of Parliament for Northumberland Oct 1553, Nov 1554, 1559. Yeoman? of the guard before Dec 1531; Justice of the Peace, Northumberland 1547-1554; treasurer, Berwick-upon-Tweed Jun 1547-Feb 1550; sheriff, Northumberland 1547-1548, 1551-1552, Nov or Dec 1558; constable and receiver, Dunstanburgh Jun 1550, steward May 1555-death; commissioner goods of churches and fraternaties, Northumberland 1553.

The first certain reference found to Sir Thomas Grey is his appointment in 1536 as deputy to his maternal uncle Thomas Lord Darcy, keeper of Bamburgh Castle, which lies within ten miles of Horton. After Darcy’s execution in the following year Grey petitioned Cromwell for the keepership: he was passed over, but one of the lists recording the new appointment bears a note ‘to remember Thomas Grey’, and in the same year he was appointed one of the officers of the east march at a salary of 20 pounds per year.

His career might have come to an abrupt end when in May 1538 he and his uncle Lionel, porter of Berwick, were arrested on Cromwell’s orders by the captain of Berwick, Sir Thomas Clifford. Cromwell evidently dismissed the charges as groundless. About the same time Thomas Grey was one of those appointed to bring ten men to help put down a threatened revolt by the men of Tynedale.

Dunstanburgh Castle

The fall of the Protector cost Grey the treasurership of Berwick, which went to Richard Bunny, but this was partially offset in Jun 1550 by a grant of the constableship of Dunstanburgh, a coastal fortress south of Bamburgh, and of a 21-year lease of the site and possessions of the monastery of Newminster, Northumberland: the property, which included coal-bearing land, was leased to Grey in consideration of services ‘previously rendered’.

In April 1554, the Council exhorted him and other Northumbrian gentlemen ‘to show themselves more forward in service than they have erst done whereby they shall well redub (repair) their former slackness’, and in September 1556 and August 1557 he was summonded before the Council: on the last occasion, having professed himself ‘very willing to serve’ Queen Mary, he was commissioned to carry a ‘mass of treasure’ to the north, where he offered to serve against the Scots without pay. He had, on the other hand, won the regard of both John Conyers, 3rd Baron Conyers, and Thomas Wharton, 1st Baron Wharton, who intervened on his behalf when he was called before the council in the north in 1554 and 1556.

Although Strype was to describe Thomas Grey as ‘one of the best reputation in the parts adjoining Scotland’ it is doubtful whether he diverged markedly for the Catholicism of his neighbors: when he and Cuthbert Horsley were returned to Parliament in Oct 1554 the sheriff described them on the indenture as ‘two of the grave and Catholic persons (within) the said county’, and Grey’s associates and kinsman were noted for their religious conservatism.

Thomas  Grey‘s own interest in the consolidation of the family’s possessions was reflected in the settlement of his lands, after his only son had died in infancy, on whichever of his daughters should marry his kinsman Sir Ralph Grey of Wark and Chillingham: it was his eldest daughter Isabel who did so.

SIR THOMAS GREY that nowe ys, knight, weddyd Dorothe, doughtre to Roborte [blank] [sic], and sustre to Roberte, Lorde Ogle, and had issue Isabell, wyefe to Raufe Grey of Chyllyngham ; Agnes,* wyefe to Roberte Claverynge of Calyleet ; Margerye, wyefe to John, son to George Heron of Chypches ; Barbara, wyefe to Roger Proctor of Shawdon ; RogerJ sine prole; Ursula, wyefe to Humfrey, son to John Heron of Bokenfyelde ; and Margaret, vnmaryed.|| At the foot of the above pedigree it is sketched again in tabular form in the handwriting of Glover without addition. It will be noted that in Harvey’s Visitation ante p. 11, he gives Sir Thomas Grey of Horton the arms of Horton, but does not venture on any pedigree. Dalton’s attempt at a pedigree as given above is full of blanks in the earlier part and notwithstanding the elaborate pedigree of the family of Grey in Baine, North Durham, p. 326, there is still much obscurity around the early family history both of Grey of Heton and of Grey of Horton. No arms are given by Dalton in the manuscript. * 16 Harl. Soc. has Anne. 1 16 Harl. Soc. has Callaby. The right word is Callaly. Omitted in 16 Harl. Soc. 16 Harl. Soc. has Bockam. II 16 Harl. Soc. has married! to John Baxster. (from Visitations of the North)

Thomas and Dorothy had ten surviving daughters:

From the book “Wills and Inventories”:  Thomas Grey, afterwards Sir Thomas Grey, of Horton, Knight, married Dorothy, daughter of Ralph Lord Ogle, and dying at his house, in Bethnal Green, London, on the 7th, was buried at St. Botolph’s, Aldgate, on the 10th Aug, 1590 leaving ten daughters and coheiresses, of whom Isabel, the eldest, married Sir Ralph Grey, of Chillingham, Knt., whose third son, Sir Edward Grey, was the founder of the family of Grey of Howick.

Details of Dorothy Ogle‘s death remain unknown.  The marriage of Grey and Ogle brings together to significant families in Northumberland history which lead backward to possible monarchies.

Resources

History of Parliament – Portrait of Sir Thomas Grey 

History of the Parliament – by D.F. Coros

History of the Parliament – by N. M. Fuidge

Wills and inventories illustrative of the history, manners …, Volume 2 by James Raine, William Greenwell, John Crawford Hodgson, Surtees Society

North country wills: being abstracts of wills relating to the counties of York, Nottingham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland, at Somerset House and Lambeth Palace 1383, Volume 121

A genealogical history of the dormant, abeyant, forfeited, and extinct …
By Sir Bernard Burke

Visitations of the North