♀Agnes Giles

Agnes Giles (dates unknown) was the wife of Robert Whitfield of Wadhurst, in the Sussex Weald, and is named in his will of 1541. She was the twelfth great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son Robert Whitfield.

Agnes Giles, whose name the pedigree spells Eyles, was probably Robert’s second wife, and the mother of his three sons, John, Robert and Thomas.

Her husband’s will

When Robert made his will in 1541, he asked to be buried in the churchyard at Wadhurst and divided his household goods into three parts. One part went to Agnes, together with his best cow, and she was to choose her share first; the other two parts went to John and Thomas, with a cow each. Before anything was divided, she was to have his best bed and everything that belonged to it. His son Thomas was named sole executor, and the will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury^W on 2 March 1542/3. What became of Agnes after that is not known.

Notes

Wife on record, mother by the pedigree

The will of “Robert Whitfelde the elder of Wadherst”, dated in 1541 and proved on 2 March 1542/3 (Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Spert 16; abstract in Henry F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, vol. 2, p. 1344), twice names “Agnes my wife”. It also names his sons John, Thomas and Robert and a daughter Elizabeth, but it does not say which wife bore which child.

That Agnes was the mother of John, Robert and Thomas rests on the heralds’ pedigree of the family in The Visitations of Sussex (Harleian Society vol. 53, 1905, pp. 96–97, from Harleian MS 1562), a heraldic visitation^W record compiled from the family’s own account a generation and more after the will. It gives Robert two wives. Under the first, whose name is left blank, it sets two daughters: Margerett, wife of Thomas Maye of Wadhurst, and Elizebeth, wife of Richard Geffrey of Chittingly. Under the second, “Agnes d. of .... Eyles”, it sets John Whitfeld, living in 1571; Robert Whitfeld, living in 1577, who married Agnes, daughter of William Atwood; and Thomas Whitfeld. The dates are consistent with this: John and Robert were both still living some thirty years after the will.

Her surname

The pedigree spells her surname Eyles and leaves her father’s forename blank. Among the quarterings of the family’s arms, the same visitation lists a coat for Giles, which may be her family’s; the spellings Giles and Gyles found in some later accounts may come from it. Nothing more is known of her parents.