48. The Wives of John Yate

John Yate (1612/3-1653), of Lyford, Berkshire, is of interest to many Americans because he was the father of George Yate (d. 1691) of Maryland, who has many descendants through his four children. I descend from his daughter Elizabeth Yate Plummer.

Two wives of John Yate are of record.  One was Mary Tattershall (Tettershall), straightforwardly identified in the 1665/6 Visitation of Berkshire as “Mary wife to John Yate of Lyford in Com: Berks” [1].

  Monument to Arthur Chichester and Two of His Wives, Illustrating the Period

The other, less directly identified, was a wife named Elizabeth.  She and her children were named in material relating to the probate of the estate of Thomas Yate (d. abt 1658), of Lyford.  Thomas left a will naming one grandson, John Yate, but appended material in the case stated that he also had George and Elizabeth Yate, children of Elizabeth, as minor grandchildren [2].

It is not clear from secondary accounts of Thomas Yate’s probate whether his grandson John Yate was stated to be the son of his deceased son John.  Nevertheless that relationship can safely be inferred.  The 1623 Visitation of Berkshire indicated in Latin that Thomas Yate had three sons: “Johes” [John], Thomas, and “Willus” [William].  Thomas presumably had no children, for in 1629 he was received at Douay, France, for education as a Catholic priest [3].  William married a wife named Katherine (not Elizabeth) Aylworth, and had several children christened at West Hannay, Berkshire, in the period 1639-1650.  None of them were named John, George, or Elizabeth, the grandchildren named in the probate records of Thomas Yate [4].

Thus Elizabeth must have been the widowed wife of John Yate [Sr.], and he the father of the named grandchildren. Given that conclusion, it is clear why George and Elizabeth Yate were named, but Thomas’ grandchildren by way of William Yate were not.  They were named because they were siblings of John Yate [Jr.], and were therefore, under the doctrine of primogeniture, the closest heirs of Thomas Yate should John fail to leave progeny.

In routine genealogical practice, there is a simple interpretation of situations where there is evidence of two wives of the same man, one a widow.  The one not a widow is presumed to have been an earlier wife, and the widow the last wife.  

From Two Wives, One?

It is puzzling, therefore, that a commonly cited interpretation of the same evidence is that Mary Tattershall and Elizabeth were the identical individual.  The explanation offered is that because Mary was Catholic, she used her mother’s baptismal name of Elizabeth during the time of Cromwell, in order to hide her religious identity [2].

However, that proposal can roundly be rejected on three grounds.  First, the probate record was a court document, requiring unambiguous identification of heirs and their closest relatives.  Under English common law, the use of informally adopted given names in court would not have been permitted without an attestation of the true name.  As the famous barrister and judge Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) explained, a man’s use of a name given either at baptism or confirmation was acceptable, but if he varied from those, “in pleading he must shew his proper name”.  Furthermore [8]:

. . . this doth agree with our ancient books, where it is holden that a man may have divers names at divers times [meaning surnames], but not divers Christian names. 

Thus an unattested use by Mary of the name Elizabeth in the probate case – and it can assumed there was no attestation, or it would have been cited in support of the “one from two” proposal — would have been contrary to law.

Second, the proposal that Mary informally adopted the name Elizabeth assumes that Mary was a politically dangerous name under the Cromwellian regime.  How then to explain that in England during the Cromwellian period (1653-1658) there were over 36,000 births of girls named Mary but fewer than 32,000 of girls named Elizabeth? [5].  Clearly there was no general belief that Mary was a hazardous name. Interestingly, Oliver Cromwell himself had a daughter Mary [9].

Third, if switching names from Mary to Elizabeth was a common occurrence at the time and place, there should be numerous known examples.  In absence of them, and taking into account all three points, I personally believe the “one from two” proposal falls well short of serious consideration.

Conclusion: Two Wives

The conclusion therefore appears solid that John Yate had two wives.  From chronological considerations it is almost certain that his eldest son, also named John, was the son of the first wife Mary Tattershall.  Thus John [Sr.] was chr. Jan 1612/3 [6], and Charles Yate, the son of John [Jr.], was b. 1658/9 [7].  That places the birthyear of John [Jr.] about 1636, and the marriage of John [Sr.] and Mary about 1635.  Both dates may have been earlier.  If Thomas Yate made no provision for his grandson John’s minority in his 1654 will — and none are mentioned in secondary accounts [2, 6] — then John [Jr.] was probably born no later than 1633, placing the marriage of John [Sr.] about 1632.

The second wife was Elizabeth.  I have previously argued that her marriage occurred in 1642 (see “46. How Young was the Mother of George Yate of Maryland (d. 1691)?“).  Her children were George and Elizabeth Yate, and she was her husband’s widow.

The Yates and many other intermarried families are covered in the new 4th edition of The Omnibus Ancestry: 785 Documented American and European Lines (2020).  The book is available through this link to Lulu.com.  

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Notes:

[1] Rylands, W.H. (1907). The Four Visitations of Berkshire. London: The Harleian Society, v. 1, p. 292.

[2] National Genealogical Society Quarterly, vol. 64, pp. 176-180 (1976).

[3] Burton, E.H., & Williams, T.L. (1911). Catholic Record Society, The Douay College Diaries, Third, Fourth and Fifth, 1598-1654. London: J. Whitehead & Son, v. 1,  p. 280.

[4] FamilySearch, LDS church (2020). 

[5] Ibid, using as search terms the exact first name “Mary” (or “Elizabeth”), the exact birthplace “England”, and the birth year range 1653 through 1658.  Naturally, there are some duplicated and/or dubious entries, but the larger point remains.

[6] Richardson, D. (2011). Plantagenet Ancestry. Salt Lake City, Utah: private print. 

[7] Charles Yate d. 1696, age 37, and his father John [Jr.] d. Jan 1671/2 (W.N. Clarke, Parochial Topography of the Hundred of Wanting. Oxford, Eng: J. Parker and G.B. Whittaker, p. 122, 1824).

[8] Coke, E. (1832). The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England. London: J. & W. T. Clarke, L. 1, C. 1, Sect. 1, 3a.

[9] Information retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cromwell,_Countess_Fauconberg (2020).

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