carter ancestry

51 Pages·2008·1.07 MB·English

CARTER ANCESTRY

Written by Nancy Barnett
Edited by Donald Eugene Barnett

The following is the story of the Carters (Juanita Barnett’s ancestry) and their extended
families. The Carter family goes back to the beginning of America and beyond to Eng-
land. The Carters fought and died on the Kentucky frontier and were early landowners
in Virginia.

Beginning with one of the most notable ancestors, WILLIAM I, King of England, the fam-
ily history is traced through the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, the Revolutionary
War, into the mass migration into Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois and finally to Ft. Scott,
Kansas, where Juanita Pearl Carter and Donald Earl Barnett were married in 1943.

Generation One

WILLIAM I was a Norman who invaded England and conquered the Saxons, the ruling
party at the time. The Normans were actually Vikings who had settled on the coast of
France and adopted the French culture. However, they did not lose their passion for
conquest. WILLIAM was descended from RAGNALD, the ancestors of the Earls of
Orkney. The line can actually be traced beyond this to the 7th Century.

1. WILLIAM I, THE CONQUEROR was born in 1028 at Falaise, Normandy, France.
He married MATILDA, also known as MAUD of Flanders in 1053 at the Cathedral of
Notre Dame in Normandy, France.

He is known as WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR or WILLIAM THE BASTARD (as he was
known in his day). He was the illegitimate son of ROBERT I, Duke of Normandy.

Many historians start Britain’s royal history with WILLIAM, although his claim on the
English throne was tenuous. He maintained that King Edward the Confessor had prom-
ised him the succession as far back as 1051 during a period of time when Edward’s re-
lationship with the Earl of Godwin was strained and Edward was looking for support
from WILLIAM. The connections between the Saxon and Norman royal families ex-
tended back to Athelred the Unready who had married Emma, the sister of WILLIAM’s
grandfather RICHARD II of Normandy. WILLIAM was the son of Edward the Confes-
sor’s first cousin, ROBERT I. Researchers have been unable to find any evidence of
King Edward’s promise, at least among English documents, and its only provenance is
among the Norman chronicles.

WILLIAM was later able to gather support for his claim from Harold Godwinson, Earl of
Wessex, who was at WILLIAM’s court in 1065. The Bayeux Tapestry shows Harold of-
fering fealty to WILLIAM. When King Edward died in 1066 and Harold was crowned as
king, WILLIAM regarded him as a usurper and prepared to invade England. WILLIAM
had already demonstrated his strength as a commander and soldier. His life was one of
almost constant warfare as he carved out for himself a position as one of the most pow-
erful, and when necessary, ruthless rulers of his day.

WILLIAM succeeded to the Duchy of Normandy in 1035 when just seven or eight years
old. His father ROBERT I died while on a pilgrimage at the age of 27. His mother,
HERLEVA or ARLETTA, was ROBERT I’s mistress. She was the daughter of a local
tanner and, legend says, ROBERT I spied upon her while she washed clothes at the
river. During WILLIAM’s minority status there was much rivalry at the Norman Court as
the aristocracy struggled for power. Three of WILLIAM’s guardians were assassinated
and the young duke knew he needed to assert his authority as soon as he was able.

WILLIAM I, THE CONQUEROR

That opportunity came in 1047 when his cousin, Guy of Brionne, rebelled and claimed
the Duchy. Guy had considerable support and WILLIAM needed the help of Henri I of
France to win the day after a tightly fought battle. This gave WILLIAM his authority, but
it also imprinted upon him a streak of ruthlessness which caused him to retaliate against
anyone who challenged him.

Marriage was made for strategic purposes and WILLIAM’s authority increased when he
married MATILDA, the daughter of BALDWIN V, the Count of Flanders. He was a pow-
erful ruler whose acceptance of WILLIAM as a suitable son-in-law showed that WIL-
LIAM had risen above the trials of his youth. Not one to miss an opportunity, WILLIAM
may also have seen in MATILDA a further link with his claim to the throne of England.
She was the seventh in line from Alfred the Great, an early Saxon king. The Pope ap-
parently opposed this marriage for some years due to an earlier betrothal of MATILDA.
However, he finally gave his blessing in 1059.

Conquests of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR

During the decade of 1050s WILLIAM concentrated on consolidating his power, even to
the point of incurring the wrath of his former ally, Henri I of France. WILLIAM suc-
ceeded in defending all attempts to invade Normandy and by 1062 had himself invaded
Maine. He garnered the support of his allies before he took on the invasion of England
in 1066. Nevertheless, this did not make WILLIAM’s conquest of England a certainty.
He was up against one of the most aggressive armies in Europe under the command of
Harold Godwinson. King Harold’s misfortune was that he had to face two invasions
within one month. Harold’s men already weakened by defeating Norway’s army on
September 25th faced a quick march back to fight WILLIAM who had landed at Peven-
sey on September 28. WILLIAM had taken advantage of Harold’s absence to develop
his defenses near Hastings and pillaged the local farmsteads and hamlets. By so doing
WILLIAM succeeded in drawing Harold to him. The Battle at Hasting began on 14 Oc-
tober 1066. The weakened Saxon army was overpowered by WILLIAM’s cavalry. The
Saxon army surrendered after the death of Harold and his brothers.

For the next two months WILLIAM’s army moved strategically around the Kentish coast
taking a circular route to London and seeking the submission of the English along the
way. They burned Dover, and laid waste to most of Surrey. The English, in the mean-
time, had elected Edgar the Atheling as their new king. However, he was only a boy of
13 or 14 and was unable to retaliate against WILLIAM. The citizens of London pre-
vented WILLIAM from crossing the Thames, so he sacked Southwark and moved west,
crossing the Thames at Wallingford.

Edgar surrendered at Berkhamstead and the Normans then approached London from
the north. Lud Gate was opened to the invaders by a collaborator and in the Battle of
Ludgate Hill, countless Londoners were killed. WILLIAM was crowned King in the
Westminister Abbey on 25 December 1066. Cries of support from the Normans present
were interpreted as an English rebellion and the guards promptly attacked the Saxons
and set fire to nearby houses. WILLIAM himself had to stop the panic. This was the
beginning of twenty years of upheaval in English history.

Although WILLIAM called himself the King of England, not all of England accepted him
as king. Plots for his early demise abounded. WILLIAM remained in England for three
months after his coronation, during which he appointed a wide range of Norman offi-
cials, and dispatched his army to plunder the churches in order to pay his army. When
he returned to Normandy in late February 1067 he took with him the most likely candi-
dates to lead any rebellion in England; Edgar the Atheling, Stigand the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Earls Edwin and Mordor. In Normandy WILLIAM displayed the spoils
of his conquest and made the most of his fame. His half-brother Odo endeavored to
impose Norman rule in England, but with minimal success.

WILLIAM returned in December 1067 and began a systematic conquest of England. He
turned his attention first to the west, at Exeter, where King Harold’s mother had taken
refuge. The town submitted after a siege of eighteen days. WILLIAM was compara-
tively lenient to the townsfolk, though he exacted payment. He also ordered the building
of a castle and established a Norman noble as local guardian. This became WILLIAM’s
approach over the next few years. As he advanced upon his conquests, he would
maintain the peace in that territory. Initially the castles were hasty constructions of
wood. It was only later that he and his successors began the construction of massive
stone castles in key sites. These castles became the image of Norman power created
not to defend England but to dominate it. A total of 78 castles were constructed by
WILLIAM’s order, the most famous being the Tower of London. By March 1068 WIL-
LIAM felt sufficiently secure in the south to bring his wife, MATILDA, over to England,
where she was crowned queen. She remained in England for a year, accompanying
WILLIAM on his tour of conquest. Their last son, the future HENRY I was born at
Shelby in September 1068. She returned to Normandy in 1069 and remained there un-
til her death in 1083.

It was during 1068 that WILLIAM faced his first major opposition. The Saxons sought
the support of the Welsh, though clearly they were not acting with any coherent plan.
WILLIAM was soon able to quash the rebellion. WILLIAM continued north, establishing
castles at Nottingham and York. His original plans to govern northern England through
the Saxon aristocracy changed. He believed that with this rebellion they had forfeited
their rights. From this point on he redistributed the lands of the Saxon upon the Norman
and French aristocracy. The native English were not simply conquered, they were dis-
possessed. WILLIAM was hated and despised by the English, but any attempt to dis-
play this feeling encountered ruthless retaliation.

WILLIAM returned to Normandy in 1072 and remained there for much of the next twelve
years. He did not return for any significant period of time until 1085, when he brought
over a massive army to defend the island against the planned invasion under Canute IV
of Denmark. Canute, however, was murdered before the invasion began. WILLIAM’s
army caused considerable hardship to the Saxons during this period. In addition, WIL-
LIAM had to raise the land taxes in order to pay his sizeable army and this caused fur-
ther discontent. The problem was that WILLIAM had no way of knowing who owned
what land and what its value was, so that he could levy taxes. This led to him ordered a
major survey of England. The record of this survey, carried out with remarkable accu-
racy and speed during 1086, became known as the Domesday Book, and though its
purpose was for WILLIAM to ensure he had control over his taxes in England, the true
result was a rare and indispensable historical document. WILLIAM, however, made lit-
tle use of the document himself.

In July 1087 WILLIAM besieged the town of Mantes. As his horse jumped over a ditch
WILLIAM received an injury from the pommel of his saddle which ripped into his stom-
ach. The wound became infected leading to peritonitis. WILLIAM was carried back to
Rouen in considerable pain. He lingered on for five weeks, and died in September. He
was 59 years old. His body was returned to Caen for burial.

WILLIAM changed England irrevocably. His total domination had, within less than a
generation, almost eradicated the Saxon aristocracy and imposed a feudal society run
by a small handful of Normans. The language difficulties added further to the alienation,
but perhaps the most significant difference was the lifestyle. Although the Normans had
descended from the Vikings, they no longer looked to the north as their ancestral home,
unlike the Saxons whose inheritance was from northern Europe. The Normans had a
more sophisticated lifestyle of the French, which brought with it the power, grandeur and
aloofness of upper-class existence. WILLIAM used England as his playground, estab-
lishing the New Forest of Hampshire for his hunting. He had no liking for the English, or
for that matter, for England, seeing it only as a rich source of revenues. Although his
rule brought peace to England, where men were able to travel without fear of crime, this
was only because the English lived in much greater fear of revenge and retribution from
their Norman overlords.
WILLIAM was devoted to his wife MATILDA was much saddened by her death. They
had ten children. The eldest, Robert succeeded WILLIAM as Duke of Normandy and
Count of Maine even though he had been in open rebellion against his father in his later
years. The second son, Richard, died in his twenties in 1081 while hunting in the New
Forest. Two other sons, William and HENRY, succeed WILLIAM I as Kings of England.
1

Generation Two

Children of WILLIAM I –THE CONQUEROR and MATILDA of Flanders were:
2. i. HENRY I, King of England born September 1068 at Shelby, Yorkshire, England;
married EDITH ATHELING of Scotland.

HENRY I, (son of WILLIAM I) was born in September 1068 in Selby, Yorkshire, Eng-
land. He married EDITH ATHELING of Scotland on 11 November 1100 at Westminster
Abbey in London, England. He died on December 1, 1135 at St. Denis-le-Fermont,
Rouen, France at the age of 67.

HENRY I, King of England

HENRY had at least 25 illegitimate children by eight or more women other than his wife.
As fate would have it only one legitimate daughter survived. HENRY was the fourth and
youngest son of WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, and possibly the most ambitious. Al-
though he was less quarrelsome than his elder brothers, Robert, who inherited the
Duchy of Normandy, and William who became William II of England, he clearly had his
eyes on ruling either England or Normandy or both as early as 1091. In that year, while
Robert and William II were fighting each other, HENRY took control of several castles

1 (Bartlett, 2000)
and made a bid for power. Realizing that he had left his back unguarded William II soon
quelled his upstart brother, and did not take his eyes off him after that, keeping him al-
ways close at hand. William and Robert agreed that if either of them died childless,
then the survivor would succeed. This effectively disinherited HENRY who had long
begrudged the fact that he had not been able to inherit his mother’s estates in England
that she had bequeathed him upon her death in 1083.

His father believed that as the youngest HENRY would be destined for the church. This
was a common occupation for the younger sons. As a result he had a good education,
hence his nickname Beauclerc, meaning “fine scholar.”

HENRY was not satisfied with this arrangement and it has been conjectured that it was
he who masterminded the death of William II, making it look like he was killed as a re-
sult of a hunting accident. If this is true then its timing was critical. In 1096, his brother,
Robert de Normandy joined the Crusade to the Holy Land and pledged the Duchy of
Normandy to William II. By the summer of 1100 news reached England that Robert was
returning, along with a new bride. Immediately upon the death of William II, a hastily
convened council elected HENRY I as his successor. However, many of the Barons
supported Robert, who was at the crest of his popularity following his victories in the
Holy Land.

By the first week of September, when Robert had returned to Normandy, HENRY had
been elected and crowned. One of his first acts was to recall Anselm from his exile to
the Archbishopric of Canterbury, and with Anselm’s support HENRY’s position was in-
violable. He further cemented it by a political marriage to EDITH, the daughter of MAL-
COLM III of Scotland and the niece of Edgar the Atheling, thus establishing alliances
with the elder Saxon aristocracy and with the Scots.

Robert raised a considerable army and invaded England in June 1101 clearly mislead-
ing HENRY whose army waited at Arundel while Robert landed at Portsmouth. It is
possible that had Robert pressed home his advantage he could have defeated
HENRY’s army. He might easily have captured Winchester, where the Treasury was
held, but his army passed the town. It stopped short of invading London, though this
too was within his grasp. Instead the two armies met at Alton where Robert asked for
negotiations. Clearly Robert lacked the opportunism that marked the success of his fa-
ther and younger brother. Even worse, he was prepared to trust HENRY. The result
was that HENRY agreed to pay Robert 3,000 marks annually and recognize him as the
legal claimant to the throne in exchange for HENRY remaining king while he lived. In
the eyes of HENRY and the Barons, possession was 9/10th of the law, and Robert was
the loser.

A few years later, in 1106, HENRY took control of the matter, invading Normandy and
capturing his brother at Tinchebrai. Robert was brought to England and imprisoned the
rest of his life, which lasted another 28 years; he was certainly over 80 when he died in
1134.
Once HENRY had secured the dukedom of Normandy he had his hands full in keeping
it. Since England was now relatively safe, he found he had to spend more time in Nor-
mandy. His queen EDITH officially served as regent during these absences, but in-
creasingly the administration came under the capable control of Roger, Bishop of Salis-
bury. Since HENRY drew heavily upon the English revenues to finance his army in
Normandy as well as his extensive building projects across England, Roger developed
a system for controlling the exchequer. In effect he established the basis for what
would evolve into the civil service.

Although HENRY would enter into the battle if necessary, he sought to pave the way by
treaty or diplomacy first, and in this he was admirably skilled. Such act was the mar-
riage in January 1114 of his eldest daughter Adelaide (who adopted the name Matilda
upon her marriage) to Heinrich V, Emperor of Germany, and she was crowned Empress
on that day. She was eleven years old at the time and the Emperor was 32. HENRY
held Normandy against all opposition. His ultimate victory was the defeat of Louis VI of
France in 1119. When peace was agreed upon with the Pope’s blessing, HENRY was
accepted unchallenged as the Duke of Normandy.

HENRY cemented this advance by marrying his eldest son, William to Alice, the daugh-
ter of Fulk V, Count of Anjou and Maine. William was only fifteen, Alice less then
twelve. In 1120, as HENRY’s eldest son, William came of age, he was made Duke of
Normandy, and stood in succession to the throne of England, even though HENRY’s
eldest brother Robert and his son, William were still alive.

In the summer of 1120 HENRY could be proud of his achievements. Through his own
marriage and those of his children he had alliances with the strongest neighboring royal
families of Europe; others he had dominated by conquest or treaty. He had reached a
satisfactory arrangement with the papacy and all looked well for the future. And then
everything fell apart. In November 1120 his two eldest legitimate sons, William and
Richard drowned when the White Ship foundered off Barfleu, while sailing from Nor-
mandy to England. He was left without a male heir, although his eldest illegitimate son,
Robert Fitzroy, Earl of Gloucester, now turned an eye to the throne.

HENRY’s first wife, EDITH, had died in May 1118, an event over which HENRY did not
seem especially concerned. He arranged a quick marriage of convenience to Adeliza,
daughter of Geoffrey VII, Count of Louvain. The marriage was childless, although
HENRY had several more illegitimate children, and Adeliza bore seven children to her
second husband, William d’Albini, Earl of Arundel, after HENRY’s death.

In 1125 HENRY’s daughter, MATILDA became a widow when Emperor Heinrich died.
She was twenty-three but had no children. In 1126, fearing he would have no further
children; HENRY made the Barons swear an oath of fealty to MATILDA as the heir-
presumptive to the throne. The Barons agreed, though the idea of being ruled by a
queen was an anathema to them. The position was further aggravated when, in May
1127, HENRY arranged a second marriage for MATILDA, this time with GEOFFREY of
Anjou, who was then only 14. The Normans had little affection for the Angevins and did
not like to consider that GEOFFREY might become their king. They began to turn their
allegiance to HENRY’s nephew, William, the son of his brother Robert, who was known
as William Clito. At that time, April 1127, he was supported by the French king, who
had just made him Count of Flanders. In January 1128, he married Giovanna, the
daughter of the Count of Burgundy. William was gradually rising in power and his right
to the English throne was becoming increasingly recognized by the Norman aristocracy.
Unfortunately, William was wounded in a skirmish near St. Omer in July 1128 and died
five days later.

The Barons now realized that there was little alternative but to MATILDA becoming their
queen, but they increasingly showed their opposition. GEOFFREY, who became Count
of Anjou in 1129, recognized this and though he never seems to have considered him-
self as having any claim on the throne of England, he did consider the Duchy of Nor-
mandy and asked HENRY if he would give him custody of the castles along the French
coast. HENRY refused, with the result that the relationship between HENRY and
GEOFFREY deteriorated rapidly. It had not been helped by MATILDA deciding she
could not stand GEOFFREY and deserting him to return to England. HENRY, still with
an eye on MATILDA producing a grandson, sought to reconcile the two with some de-
gree of success. Nevertheless, by 1135 HENRY and GEOFFREY were openly at war.
HENRY sailed to Normandy but soon after his arrival he became ill, apparently after
eating some lampreys (eels). The result was ptomaine poisoning and six days later
HENRY died.

Despite having declared MATILDA his heir, neither she nor the Barons took up that po-
sition, and the throne was claimed by HENRY’s nephew, Stephen.

HENRY was a highly capable king. Although he was frequently involved in warfare, ei-
ther direct or diplomatic, most of this was over his lands in Normandy. For all of his long
reign, after the first year, he maintained peace throughout England, though it was a
peace at the cost of exacting taxes needed to maintain his army. This led to him estab-
lishing the Crown Exchequer, the basis of the future Treasury. With his many cam-
paigns and international affairs, HENRY had little time for anything other than the
pleasures of the flesh, although he did establish a royal menagerie at his manor at
Woodstock, near Oxford, which is regarded as the first English zoo. 2
It is ironic that, despite having fathered at least 29 children, he was able to leave only
one legitimate heir to the throne, and she was not seriously considered by HENRY’s
Barons until it became convenient to do so. For all of HENRY’s schemes and plans
during this thirty-five year reign, it all came to nothing. Within four years of his death,
England was plunged into Civil War. 3

2 (Ashley, 1998)
3 (Bartlett, 2000)
EUROPE in 1142

Generation Three

Children of HENRY I, King of England and EDITH ATHELING of Scotland were as fol-
lows:
3. i. Richard, born July 1101 in England, died November 1120
4. ii. William, Duke of Normandy; born before 5 August 1103 at Selby, Yorkshire, Eng-
land; Died November 1120
5. iii. MATILDA of England (HENRY I, WILLIAM I) was born 7 Feb 1104 at Winches-
ter, Hampshire, England.

She married GEOFFREY V PLANTAGENET, Count of Anjou on 22 May 1128 at Le
Mans Cathedral, France. She died on 10 September 1157 at the Abbey of Notre Dame,
Rouen, France, at age 53.

MATILDA was the uncrowned Queen of England, known as the “Lady of the English.”
She was the only daughter of HENRY I and was christened Adelaide at birth. She
adopted the name MATILDA when her marriage took place in 1114 to the German Em-
peror, Henry V. Since she was only 11 at the time, it was clearly a political marriage
and the young girl does not seem to have been especially happy. Raised in the strict