Awbrey Dominion and Decline" by Jon Anthony Awbrey

303 Pages·2017·8.76 MB·English

© 2007 by Jon Anthony Awbrey
Dedicated to the Memory of Marvin Richard Awbrey
1911-1989
Whose Curiosity Inspired the Writing of this Book
Table of Contents
Preface...................................................................... ix
Descent and Arms ................................................... xvi
Awbrey of Abercynrig: 1300-1621 ................... 1
Dr. William Awbrey of Kew, 1529-1595 ............ 27
Awbrey of Tredomen: 1583-1656 ....................... 42
Aubrey of Llantrithyd: 1590-1856 ...................... 87
John Aubrey of Easton Pierce, 1626-1695 ......... 105
Aubrey of Clehonger: 1540-1803 ........................ 125
Awbrey of Ynyscedwin: 1586-1683 .................... 131

Awbrey of Llanelieu and Pennsylvania: 1600-1716135
Awbrey of Northern Virginia: 1659-1804 ......... 149
Awbrey of South Carolina: 1757-1800 .................... 236
Bibliography .................................................. 263
Index .......................................................................... 268
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Illustrations
Dr. William Aubrey & Abercynrig .................... after 26
Ynsycdewin House .............................................. after 131
Goose Creek Chapel, Awbrey’s Plantation and
after 186
Samuel Awbrey ...................................................
Noland House ...................................................... after 201
Awbrey of Ynyscedwin: 1586-1683 .................... after 131

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Preface

In an age of relatively static social mobility, the
Aubrey/Awbrey family was distinguished by the fact that they
managed to rise to prominence mainly through their own efforts,
having established themselves as little more than freeholders in the
wild Welsh borderlands during the period immediately after the
Norman Conquest. In due course, they left their mark on Britain
and her colonies.
For nearly a millennium, the records of Britain and the
United States have included vague and obscure references to
members of the Aubrey (or Awbrey) family, and for the greater
number of them, little more than a footnote exists as
documentation of their lives. Althoughseveral branches of this
family have had treatments written about them, no concise history
has ever been compiled about the family as a whole, and their
origin and early history has been almost entirely ignored. This has
remained the case despite the fact that the Aubrey family was at
one time among the most prominent gentry families of Britain,
PREFACE
contributing to the kingdom at least thirteen high sheriffs, twelve
knights, seven baronets, six members of parliament, and high
officers of state including Master of Requests in Ordinary, Lord
Keeper, Judge Advocate of the Army, and Vicar General of
Canterbury under Elizabeth I, and First Lord of the Admiralty
and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury under George III.
Maternally, and in an earlier age, the family was heavily linked
to the Welsh heroes David Gam, Owen Glendower, and Sir Rhys
ap Thomas. Further, they were intimately involved with the great
Welsh families of Herbert of Raglan and Vaughan of Tretower,
and the English noble families of Berkeley, Montague, Harcourt,
Lowther, Digby, and numerous others.
In modern times, the family has all but disappeared from the
landed gentry of Britain, but their maternal descendants remain,
including a number of hereditary Peers. Some of the great
estates of the Aubrey family, notably Chilton and Dorton in
Buckinghamshire, remain in the hands of these maternal
descendants, but most have found their way into the ownership
of others, erasing whatever connection that might have remained
between the past and the present.
Almost certainly more important than the Aubrey family’s
role in the political process of Britain was the family’s influence
on British learning, contributing pioneers to the study of law,
archaeology, folklore, and biography, as well as being influential
in the spheres of a host of thinkers, statesmen, and poets
including Thomas Hobbes, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan,
William Harvey, and Leoline Jenkins, among others.
Also ignored in the history of the Aubrey family was the
important role of colonization that propelled various members
of the family into new worlds, forever linking the family to the
founding of Pennsylvania and to the settlement of Northern
Virginia, placing descendants in the legislatures of Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Georgia, and,

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AUBREY: DOMINION AND DECLINE
eventually, Oregon, into the Governor’s mansion of
Pennsylvania, and into the ranks of the high command of
the Confederate States Army. For the first time, this
volume exhaustively records the colonial history of the
Aubrey family, a history which has only been hinted at in
previous attempts, and includes the close associations
between the Awbrey family and the Penns, Lees,
Pendletons, Monroes, and various other leading families of
the colonial and early republican periods. The mere fact
that this research has not been fully compiled in the past is
startling, as the eminent Virginia historian Philip Bruce
referred to members of the Awbrey family as among the
foremost citizens of the colony, and the family was among
the top ten landholders in Northern Virginia during the
period immediately preceding the American Revolution.
However, their prominence was not furthered by their
descendants, and, just as in Britain, the family receded into
historical obscurity. Perhaps the qualities that enabled them
to acquire their great wealth, among which were a
pronounced sense of loyal duty, patient action, and
remarkable genius, were the very qualities that resulted in
their dissipation and demise.
The certain lack of scholarship regarding this family
probably is due to the almost diabolical decline suffered by
many branches of the clan, and it is not helped by the fact
that the Aubreys have always been few in number and, at
times, somewhat lacking in vitality. Therefore, this history
was created mainly out of a sense of fear that whatever
primary sources remaining might become lost, or worse
yet, rendered wholly obscure without one solid overview of
the subject ever being attempted.
The men and women in this volume have become
ghosts, mostly, their apparent legacies emerging only in the
forms of weathered monuments, ancient houses, street
names, and a myriad of other obscure references. Even the
most concrete of these remains, the ancient structures at
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PREFACE

Abercynrig, Dorton, Chilton, and Boarstall, John Aubrey’s
Brief Lives, and the host of portraits on display in various
museums, only hint at who they were, what they desired, or
what they believed. As years pass into decades, and
decades into centuries, even these grand capsules of the
past lose relevance in an age that becomes increasingly
disinterested in the lessons of quaintly attired men long
dead.
However, it is possible to understand them in a
particularly human way. Although they held as their
kinsmen, friends, and associates some of the most powerful
men in Western Europe and North America, these
associations did not ward off the debts, quarrels, and
eventual destruction that the family seemed to attract. In
fact, the greater heights that the Aubreys reached, the more
ominous the consequences of their reaching became.
Perhaps they were not destined to reach so high, and it was
some hand of providence that struck them down to earth.
This may be a romantic notion, however, as it is more
likely that although many members of the family were
equipped to achieve greatness, they never quite became
accustomed to living with it.
History is history, however, and the Awbrey family
did play a small role in the development of western
civilization. Whether it was formulating legal opinions that
stood as precedents for centuries, building up fine mansions
and manors, debating on the floor of parliament or various
congresses, patronizing eminent scholars and universities,
documenting the history of Britain, developing great swaths
of Britain’s North American colonies, or struggling against
great odds on Southern battlefields to secure the
independence of the American nation, the Aubreys'
influence is doubtlessly still widely felt, although the name
itself has receded into obscurity.
There will likely never be another period in human
history when the development of civilization coincides so
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AUBREY: DOMINION AND DECLINE

directly with the functions of the ancient clan system. The age of
the great families has subsided, leaving in its wake a
geographically and socially fractured society. With the
breakdown of class distinctions and the democratization of
resources, it is likely that future generations will, at best, look
back toward their origins with a passing curiosity, or, at worst,
without any knowledge of them. It might be said that this is the
proper course of progress, but even if this is so, such trends
often marginalize fact and reduce it to fantasy in order to
reframe it in terms more amenable to current and popular
political models. However, as stated previously, history is history
and should be viewed as such without prejudice of any kind.
This is the challenge of future generations, especially in light
of noxious current modes of thought that hold that we, today,
stand at the brink of the end of history itself. This line of
thought is of course nonsense. Although the Awbrey family has
degenerated to little more than passing reference, history will
be its greatest and possibly only ally.
It is for this reason that this volume has been
compiled. It would be shameful for this family, who figured
so prominently in Britain’s cultural treasury, intellectual
vitality, and colonial expansion, to fade away into the abyss of
nothingness without a standardexamination of them having
been attempted. It is hoped that this work will not be the last
regarding this family; rather, it ought to be a reference for
better scholars than I, and their future endeavors.
Finally, this volume is intended for the researcher,
although only a few members of the family would actually merit
academic research. However, there are indeed a few history
makers among the Aubreys, and there are very few resources that
present background information about them. In some cases,
there are none.
The scope of this study includes approximately
seven hundred years of Aubrey family history, including

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