<< Time has come to review the Marden Carpenter wills in light of the Hidden
abstracts. We need a good transcription of the 1607 Robert will. In
summations of these documents I read things like "left lands to". Well, what
lands? Any details we could glean from them might be valuable clues. ... I
haven't seen a transcription of this will. The above is all third hand
information. Who can provide this data? >>
The time had come years ago. That those who have accepted and repeated the
claims of Raymond G. Carpenter and Harry Rogers as to the ancestral
significance of the Marden Carpenters haven't seen so much as transcripts of
their wills is inexcusable.
I have a photocopy of the will of Robert of Marden, as copied into the
records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in 1607, and a photocopy of
Harry Rogers's transcription, to which I have made extensive corrections. As
soon as I have time, I'll post the relevant portions. It'll be a while: I
have three gigs to play this weekend and haven't done anything to prepare for
a week's visit with my daughter and her family in Philadelphia, for which I
leave early Monday morning.
I'll say this much now, though: As I indicate in the corrections John R.
Carpenter has incorporated into his notes on Robert of Marden, the latter's
will (dated 12 Jan. 1606[/7? "sick of body"], proved 21 May 1607) contains no
explicit reference to lands; specific bequests are all in money and animals
(Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Registered Wills, Huddleston, Vol. 109
[1607], folio 42 [FHL film #92029]). Real estate is undoubtedly included in
the following: "All the reste of my goods moveable and unmoveable
unbequeathed I geve to my well loved wife Elinor Carpenter and my sonne
Richard Carpenter, whom I make my executors ioynctlye [i.e., jointly] of this
my laste will and testamente." (It is unlikely on its face, by the way, that
the Richard Carpenter who married at Nettlecombe, Somerset, 1 Sept. 1606,
Susanna Trevilian, was the same as Richard of Amesbury, the father of
Providence William. But those who still accept it, while also maintaining
that Robert of Marden was the father of Richard of Amesbury, can't have it
both ways. The practical implications of Robert's naming his son Richard
coexecutor and a principal beneficiary effectively distinguish him from the
Richard Carpenter who married at Nettlecombe.)
Robert's will does, however, contain a couple of specific bequests--one to
son Robert, the other to son Charles--of sheep "goinge at Compton." I have
found two Comptons, one in Berkshire and one in Hampshire; there are also
Compton Beauchamp, Berkshire, and Compton Basset and Compton Chamberlain,
both in Wiltshire. That Robert's will was probated by the Prerogative Court
of Canterbury (London), rather than the Archdeaconry Court of Sarum
(Salisbury), indicates that at least some of his property lay outside the
diocese in which he died. Since all Wiltshire and Berkshire parishes were
then in the Sarum diocese, those counties' four parishes containing the name
Compton are excluded, leaving only Compton, Hampshire. (Having nevertheless
checked the parish records of Compton, Berkshire, which begin in 1553, I
failed to find a single Carpenter.) Unfortunately, the Hampshire parish's
records don't begin until 1678.
Gene Z.