♂Robert James

Robert James (buried 11 January 1602/3) was a yeoman of Hingham, in Norfolk, England, in the last years of the reign of Elizabeth I, whose daughter Margaret married Edward Gilman of Hingham. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by five separate lines of descent, through his daughter Margaret James, four of them making him her eleventh great-grandfather.

Little Ellingham and Stow Bedon

Nothing is known of his parents or of where he was born. Before he lived at Hingham he was probably settled at Little Ellingham, where a Robert James bought a close of 17 acres of pasture and nine parcels of arable land. The Norfolk historian Francis Blomefield^W records that Nicholas Hare sold the advowson of the vicarage of Stow Bedon to Robert James of Little Ellingham, who in 1587 settled it on his son Leonard and Leonard’s wife Sarah. An advowson^W was the right to present the clergyman to a parish, and it could be bought and sold like land. Leonard had held that vicarage since 1581, together with the rectory of Rockland St Peter, so the settlement put the patronage of his own church into his and Sarah’s hands.

Family

Robert married, but his wife’s name is not known; she had evidently died before him, for his will does not mention her. Five of their children are known: Henry, who lived at Hingham; Samuel; Leonard, the parson of Stow Bedon and Rockland St Peter; John; and Margaret, who married Edward Gilman of Hingham. Margaret’s son is said to have been Edward Gilman (1587–1655), who took his family to New England in 1638.

Will and death

By the printed account of his will, he made it on 6 March 1601/2^W as “Robert James of Hengham … yeoman”, and asked to be buried in the church of Hingham “neere the stoole where I sitt”. He left a penny to each poor person at his burial and twelve pence to each of his godchildren, £5 apiece to the daughters of his son Henry when they came of age or married, and £7 to his son John. He seems to have let go the debts his son-in-law Edward Gilman owed him, and Edward was one of the witnesses. To his “bellchilde”, his granddaughter Bridget, the wife of Edward Lincoln, he left 20 shillings. The rest went to Henry, whom he named executor. By the same account, Robert James was buried at Hingham on 11 January 1602/3, and the will was proved ten days later, on 21 January.

Lines of descent

Nancy Jane Blanchard descends from Robert James by five separate lines of descent, all through his daughter Margaret James and all on Nancy’s father’s side, through Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975). The nearest line runs twelve generations up; the other four run thirteen generations up. The lines come together again in three places: in Elizabeth Gilman (1727–1806), whose parents Caleb Gilman (1678–1766) and Susanna Folsom both descended from Robert James; in her son Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), whose parents Elizabeth Gilman and John Dudley (1725–1805) both descended from him; and in Nathaniel’s daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents Nathaniel and Anna Smith (1764–1825) both descended from him.

Notes

Sources for his life

His life is drawn from Robert Battle’s study of the James family of Rockland and Hingham, “The English Ancestry of Philip James of Hingham, Massachusetts”, in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (2023). Battle prints the will from the register of the Archdeaconry of Norfolk, with its proof on 21 January 1602/3, and gives the burial from the Hingham parish register. He estimates Robert’s birth at “say 1520” and writes that “the origin and parentage of this Robert James remain a mystery”; he thought Robert was a brother or other close kinsman of Thomas James of Rockland St Peter, the grandfather of the emigrants Philip and Francis James, though proof is lacking. That Robert of Hingham was the man who bought land at Little Ellingham is Battle’s reading too: the purchases are listed in the papers of the 1615 sale of the manor of Little Ellingham. The advowson comes from Blomefield’s Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, which calls the buyer “this Robert James of Little Ellingham”.

His children

His will names only Henry, John and his son-in-law Edward Gilman. The others are known from the administration of Leonard’s estate in January 1608/9, which was granted to “Henrico et Samueli James”, Leonard’s brothers, and to “Edwardo Gylman marito Margaret Gylman als James”, the husband of his sister. Leonard was murdered in January 1608/9, six years after his father’s death. Battle could not settle the order in which the children were born.

Bridget and the Lincolns

The will calls Bridget Robert’s “bellchilde”, or grandchild. Davis’s 1963 account lists a daughter of Edward and Margaret Gilman, born about 1582, who married Edward Lincoln of Hingham, and the will as Battle prints it gives her name as Bridget.

Edward Gilman’s parentage

The will names Edward Gilman as Robert’s son-in-law, and the administration of Leonard James in January 1608/9, quoted under His children above, calls him the husband of Margaret. Those two records make Margaret the wife of an Edward Gilman. That the emigrant Edward Gilman (1587–1655) was their son rests on Davis’s 1963 account of the Gilman family, The Ancestry of Abel Lunt, a compiled genealogy that lists the emigrant’s brothers and sisters, Bridget among them. The administration does not itself name Edward as Margaret’s son.