A Most Remarkable Family: A History of the Lyon Family from 1066 to 2014

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Maps And Illustrations

Introduction To The Lyon Family

Part 1 Meet the Lyon family

Chapter 1 The Norfolk Family

Chapter 2 The Northamptonshire Family

Chapter 3 Scotland, The Knights Templar And Robert The Bruce

Chapter 4 Scotland And The Kings

Chapter 5 Reformation, Revolution And Emigration,

Part 2 The American Lyon family

Chapter 6 Settling In The New World

Chapter 7 The Father And His Three Sons

Chapter 8 Another View Up To The War Of Independence By John Bogin

Chapter 9 The American Civil War—1861-1865

Chapter 10 Leaving New England—A New Adventure

Part 3 The family in Great Britain to the present

Chapter 11 The Warrington Lyon Family

Chapter 12 The Lancashire Lyon Family

Chapter 13 The Earls Of Kinghorne And Strathmore To The Present Day

Chapter 14 The British Royal Family

Appendices

This is not an Index but the reader may find it helpful to check these Appendices by page number in the main text of the book –

Appendix A The Norman Conquest In 1066

Appendix B Genealogy Problems

Appendix C The Middlesex Line

Appendix D Lands Acquired By John Lyon (1340)

Appendix E

Appendix F William Tyndale

Appendix G The Warrington Lyon Family

Appendix H Early Grand Masters The Guild Of Masons In Scotland

Appendix I DNA—The Problem

Bibliography

Postscript

There are maybe literally millions of people living in Scotland, England, United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Commonwealth who are proud to have the surname of Lyon. Many hundreds have served their homeland and their adopted countries either in the armed services or in business, education, the sciences, agriculture—all having a common heritage for which they have right to be very proud.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank various people for their help in preparing this book for publication.

To my wife Gillian for editing and correcting all the book several times and for her endless patience.

To friends in alphabetical order;

John Bogin for his help and in writing one article for the book and assistance with the subject of the Knights Templar.

Sylvia Dillon (nee Lyon) for all the encouragement and help inspiration to ‘get it right’.

Alan Edwards for writing some parts and helping to make the book readable and suffering for the cause - his time and patience are very much appreciated.

Chris Ure for giving encouragement and helping to rewrite several passages,

without his advice and friendship I would have given up many times.

Special mentions;

Reginald Lyon of South Wales whose collection of information about the

Lyon family is almost endless. His work is to be found on the website Clan Lyon Association of Canada - and many other sites. (http://clanlyon.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/lyon-family-history/)

His extensive research has been a help and inspiration and is much quoted because of his relevant knowledge. The reader can assume that most things written as quotes are from Reginald’s findings after forty years of dedicated research, these are with his permission. If another quote is identified it is most often by another quoted author or resource.

Also often quoted are; The Lyon Memorial books see Bibliography.

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Chart—the Norfolk Line

Chart—Kings of Scotland

Chart—the Northamptonshire Line

Chart—the Lords of Glamis

Map—Scotland

Map—Glen Lyon

Picture—Lyon crest

Map—New England

Map—New Jersey

Chart—Lyon & Lyons participants in War of Independence

Chart—Movement of Lyon families 1840-1920

Chart—the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne

Maps—Cossins & Glamis Castle

Chart—Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom

Maps & Illustrations

The Lords of Glamis

Lyon crest

Glen Lyon

New England in the 1600’s

Map of New Jersey

The Lyon and Lyons at war in the American Civil War

The Lyon families from census to census

The Earls of Strathmore & Kinghorne

INTRODUCTION TO THE LYON FAMILY

Over a year ago a friend, Sylvia Dillon (nee Lyon), asked me to trace her family history. She had little to work on, a few relevant dates and a photo of her father, one of nine Lyon children and a message handed down to her from her father and his father, that however poor they were, they should be proud of the name Lyon and that a Lyon always put their money into land or property if they could.

When Sylvia asked me to do some work on her father’s side of the family I started to discover that there were literally hundreds of thousands of Lyon family members many of them were already undertaking research on the various branches of the family.

The Lyon family turns out to be one of only a handful of famous families in the United Kingdom who have survived over 900 years of history and can be traced back to before 1066 and William the Conqueror.

Historians and genealogists spend much of their time researching monarchs and famous people but few seems to have discovered the riches of tracing a family through hundreds of years of history. Very few families can claim such a colourful history as this family Lyon, yet few people have written about them, despite the fact that they produced a Queen of England and gave service to Scottish monarchs and English monarchs since the eleventh century.

Many members of the family moved to America in the 17th century and played a large part in the settlements in New England, in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey. There are countless members of the family today in the USA from the East to the West coasts and the Southern states. There are also members of the family in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries in the world.

This book is written primarily for those who are members of the Lyon family, by birth, through marriage or by any other direct or indirect relationship. However I believe that it will have a much wider interest particularly for those interested in the history of a formidable family with roots directly linked to the British Royal family. It may not be possible to follow every branch of the Lyon family tree and neither will every Lyon be able to trace back to connections with the Royal family, as for the first few hundred years, until about 1500 it was often only the eldest male who was documented. So there are undoubtedly other siblings and illegitimate family members who were not recorded for various reasons.

Some obtained the surname from their ‘masters’ so their bloodline is different and cannot be traced back to a previous Lyon. Most family names can only be

traced to the mid-18th century whereas the Lyon family actually goes back to before 1066.

The American Lyon family is very fortunate as they can be traced back to England and Scotland because of three books named The Lyon Memorial which were created by collecting and collating data from local records that go back to the early settlers in the 17th century. In the UK with the help of Debrett’s Peerage and Burke’s Peerage and other historical books the nobles can be traced through to the 13th century and earlier.

European history records that the Vikings were busy invading countries including Scotland, England, Brabant, Normandy and much of northern Europe in the so called dark ages. From around AD 800 to the 11th century, a vast number of Scandinavians left their homelands to seek their fortunes elsewhere. These seafaring warriors - known collectively as Vikings, Goths, Visigoths or Norsemen - began by raiding coastal sites, especially undefended monasteries, in the British Isles. Over the next three centuries they would leave their mark as pirates, raiders, traders and settlers on much of Britain and the European continent, as well as parts of modern-day Russia, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland. The Vikings left behind blue-eyed people with blonde hair. Some genealogists claim that the family descended from the Vikings, whether this is true is unproven, but certainly many of the Lyon family have white blonde hair and blue eyes.

Their story is full of sensational and sometimes bizarre events: murders, burnings at the stake, and deaths on the field of battle and amazing power and ownership of vast estates in Scotland and England. What struck me as surprising was how little attention the Lyon family had received from historians. The Lyon family served the Kings of Scotland from 1099 until 1607 in high office and are barely mentioned and I know of no family that was loyal for so long.

The biggest challenge for genealogists is for them to judge whether the information they have collected and the data that has been provided by other research is true or false. In the end we have to judge whether the data we have is reliable or not and this sometimes requires considerable detective work to reach a reasonable conclusion. Sometimes it is necessary to make an informed guess. These opening chapters have provided a huge challenge for me and I have devoted many months of research to reach a satisfactory conclusion. I could not always rely on the results of other researchers many of whom were eminent in their field. I also have had to re-assess the work of one particular professional genealogist whose work of more than a century ago omits important information that is now available.

There are several lines or branches of the family from 1066 onwards. When researchers explore the Norfolk Lyons most of them conclude that the research undertaken 100 years ago is reliable. As a result they have appended that information into their family trees giving much greater credence than it should have received. Such information is not always to be trusted as will be seen later on. It is necessary for the reader to make their own judgement, having carefully assessed the arguments. This sort of research is the foundation stone of genealogy.

Concerning the origin of the name of Lyon, some research dates back to Roman times. However some of this early history is unreliable and has to be viewed with discretion. I hope to show the reader how centuries old scholarship compares with the more current information that is now available. Over the centuries surnames changed dramatically creating extra difficulties for genealogists. The family is first recorded as ‘de Leonne’, then ‘de Lyons’, ‘de Leonibus’, ‘Lyon’ and ‘Lyons’. In the USA we have; ‘Lyne’ and other variations. Sometimes people were not literate and inevitably made mistakes.

Many believe that the Lyon name originated in the city of Lyons in the Rhone Valley in France. Some claim a much more ancient lineage from Rome – these various claims cannot be conclusively proved. A large problem for genealogists is the difference between ‘Lyon’ and ‘Lyons’. There is much evidence that the singular form is the spelling of the Royal line but there are also many examples of the plural form belonging in the Royal Scottish line. The spelling ‘Lyons’ does seem to have been generally used when a part of the family moved to what is now Northern Ireland from Scotland in the 12th or 13th century. Members of the Lyons family are more often from Irish descent than Scottish.

The period from 1066 to the mid-1300s is a difficult one for historians because they rely on uncertain material and it is necessary to carefully determine where errors may have occurred. There are many inconsistencies during this period by researchers both amateur and professional and in this instance Wikipedia retains inaccurate and misleading information on its website.

Enter the site for any search on the early Lyon family history and there will be inevitable errors such as confusing Northumberland with Northamptonshire and Warkworth Castles in both counties, which co-existed at that time. Move to ‘Ancestry.com’ and other such genealogical sites and there are links that are full of errors. For example a search for ‘John Lyon 1289’ will reveal that eight out of nine hints will claim his birth place is Northumberland and only one claims that he was born in Northamptonshire, which is correct. There are also many problems even with the ‘experts’ on the location of births. It does not help when at least half of the records involve the name John. Dealing with the name John, generally I use the date of birth, namely John Lyon (1314) to differentiate one John Lyon from another. In this book I endeavour as best I can to identify these errors and correct any previous research that has been inaccurate or misleading.

Part 1 of the book, covers the early Lyon family history from around the Norman Conquest (1066) to the time just after the execution of Charles I (1649) when some Lyon family members went to America. Prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066 there is no member of the Lyon family living in England? John Lyon was born in Scotland in 1340 and from then on the family history in Scotland is fairly well documented. In between these two dates we have a great deal of family history about two branches of the Lyon family. Unfortunately it is not altogether clear which branch of the family became the Scottish Lyon family. Previous Lyon family histories have undertaken a great deal of work and have discovered a family path that endeavours to resolve this issue. Unfortunately having reviewed their work in the modern day I have found it to contain several errors and in certain cases duplication. In one case one member of the Lyon family appears in both the Norfolk and Northamptonshire lines at the same time.

How to deal with these matters caused a great deal of thought. Certain Lyon family histories have dealt with it by starting their story in 1340 and totally ignoring the earlier period. I have drawn the most reliable conclusions given the data that is available. I do this in the belief that at some point in the future research will result in my findings being amended or modified.

I have also tried in a small way to provide appropriate background information about the life and times when these people lived. The political scene did have an effect on the Lyon Family. This involved several wars notably between England and Scotland, with Wales and France also being involved, and the occasional Crusades to the Holy Land. Civil War later reared its head and caused conflicts and a certain mobility of people around the kingdom. It is also important to take account of social structure, religion, famine and the occasional plague during this period.

The story begins with William the Conqueror and his invasion in 1066. Some members of the Lyon family joined him to settle, primarily in Norfolk and Northamptonshire. William gave them lands in both counties which they inhabited for hundreds of years. Up until the 14th century these members of the family established manors, such as Warkworth in Northamptonshire and inherited Scottish lands through an early member of the Norfolk family. The family did not settle permanently in Scotland until the beginning of the 14th century when one of them moved to Scotland to support King Robert the Bruce.

Part 2 deals with the family in America from 1635 onwards when William landed near Boston at the age of 14. He was followed by cousins and other more distant members of the family later in the century. They settled in Connecticut and New Jersey and helped to found towns and cities in those states. They later participated in the War of Independence from 1776 and later the American Civil War. We trace the families through to the 1940s and the most recent published census in the United States. I have also been in contact with many members of the family through the www.thelyonfamily.org.uk website. The family can be traced west to California and south to Florida and Texas.

Part 3 returns to the UK to trace families in Lancashire who originated from their Scottish ancestry. We also trace the continuance of the ‘royal’ family line from Scotland through the Earls of Strathmore to the Bowes-Lyons of the present day and the present Queen of England – Elizabeth II.

There are also many appendices with further information for those who wish to delve more deeply into the family and its connections.

Part 1

CHAPTER 1

THE NORFOLK FAMILY

Life in the Middle Ages. The Norfolk and Middlesex Branches – after 1066

We start the story by painting a brief picture of life in the ‘Middle Ages’, it was during this time that the Lyon family came to England and eventually to Scotland. What was life like in these early days? They arrived in 1066 and after and came from what is now known as France which was then made up of several monarchies such as the Normans.

Peerages of England and Scotland

The first Earl in the Lyon family was the Earl of Kinghorne. The title Earl of Kinghorne was created in 1606 for Patrick Lyon. In 1677, the designation of the earldom changed to Strathmore and Kinghorne. The consort of any incumbent would be known as the Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Aside from the Earldom, Patrick held the subsidiary titles: Viscount Lyon (created 1677), Lord Glamis of Tannadyce, Sidlaw and Strathditchie (1677). Other members of the family owned titles such as; Lord Glamis (1445), Lord Lyon and Glamis (1607).

Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900–2002), the Queen consort of KING GEORGE VI from 1936 until 1952, and mother of the present Sovereign, was the daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore & Kinghorne.

Knights

William the Conqueror brought over his knights from France and gave them large estates. Knights were not entertainers who jousted for fun at medieval tournaments – they were serious fighting machines, dressed in expensive armour. They raised companies of soldiers from their estates and often built castles to protect themselves from those who would challenge their authority.

The Lyon family crest was brought over from France when William invaded in 1066 – it always depicts a rampant lion and changed slightly over the centuries as titles were added.

These Knights sometimes became the noblemen who ran parts of the country for their King or Queen or those in command above them. Their armour was emblazoned with their family crests so that in war or battle their men would rally to their distinct ‘colours’. The Knights were primarily land owners on behalf of the Regent at the time. They were expected to pay homage by supporting their rulers and paying their taxes to pay for their battles and other expenses.

We generally have a view of Knights being noble gentlemen, this was often not the case. Some were ruthless rulers of their castles, manors and lands. They exacted tithes and labour from their subordinates and owned their citizens who often had few rights and little choice about who was their master. They were not necessarily honourable men and treated their people as slaves and inferiors.

The story of the Lyon family is replete with members of the family who became Knights and were titled from the early day as we shall see in the rest of this book.

The Church

The Roman Catholic Church ruled parts of Great Britain before William the Conqueror but when he died the Church owned a quarter of the land in England and much in Scotland and Wales. The Knights and soldiers serving the King were soldiers and needed monks and religious people to pray for them for absolution for their killings of thousands of British people and others. After the Battle of Hastings, for instance, every soldier, including Knights, had to do 120 days penance for every person that he killed. The Church was willing to take over this task and used monks to do penance on the soldier’s behalf.

This may sound preposterous in this day and age but this was the practice of the church at that time. William founded abbeys near the site of battles and even as far afield as Selby in Yorkshire. He was indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths in

Yorkshire. He also gave great amounts of money to the abbeys, monasteries and churches to cleanse his conscience. Because of these practices the churches amassed great riches and much land which is still in church hands to this day.

William almost totally Christianized Britain and brought over many French Bishops to head up various dioceses throughout the country. The number of monks grew from, one thousand in 1066, to thirteen thousand in 1215. There were several orders such as Cistercians, Benedictines and other holy orders.

Every village and town eventually possessed a church, the bigger the town or city the more churches it supported. As Normans said they were ‘the soldiers of Christ’. The priests started to teach the peasants how to read the Bible in Latin and brought some small amount of education to many. They officiated at feasts and on Sundays and encouraged attendance at their churches, even bringing in laws to fine those who failed to attend.

Some church officials were materialistic, many were humble monks who served their communities and brought comfort in times of troubles. The Church also employed about 10% of the population and had enormous power in the land.

The relationship of the Church with the people changed dramatically in Scotland and England in the 16th century with the arrival of the Reformation.

The Lyon family supported the Church for most of their history and churches in Northamptonshire and Scotland bear witness to their participation in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. The family was split in its loyalty in the 16th century when many followed and some became ministers of religion in the Presbyterian Church. There is no record that I have of a member of the Lyon family becoming a Roman Catholic priest.

The Squires

After the Knights came the Squires who were the shield bearers for the Knights. They were also male attendants, especially on great personages. A squire was a member of the British gentry ranking below a Knight and above a gentleman. He was often the owner of a country estate, usually the principal landowner in a village or town. The word was first used in England in the 13th century. So the hierarchical structure so far was King or Queen, the Dukes, Earls, Barons, the Knights and then the Squires, they made up 20% of the population.

Many of the family were Squires in the early day in particular in England and Scotland where they owned manor houses and sometimes large estates. The first part of the book deals mostly with wealthy members of the family and there are no records of those who lived in poverty.

The Villeins

These were peasants who worked the Squire’s or Lord’s land and paid dues in return for use of the land. This usually meant labouring for their master; the usage of this land could be passed down but it was never owned by the Villein. He was expected to work for his master for at least three days per week and was attached to a certain manor. The rest of the week he could plant and reap for his own use. To see more about villeins visit the following site.

(http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/villein.htm)

The Peasants

People mostly lived in the country and worked to make ‘an honest living’. They worked for the local lord of the manor or the villeins. Most were freemen, as opposed to slaves, they were often poorly paid.

In the 14th century they were often paid 1d (one penny) per day and given up to 3d worth of food for themselves and their families. Contrary to common belief they did not live in one-room houses but evidence recently shows that their houses were made up of three rooms or more often two stories high. Some built their houses with timber provided by their masters and some lived in houses provided by their masters.

They usually paid a rent and were given plots of land to cultivate their own crops. The houses would usually be lived in by the peasant’s family and parents if they still lived and some kept cattle or sheep on the ground floor. They were usually crowded and this often caused disease to spread and hygiene was unknown by modern western standards.

The peasants, like the villeins, worked long days for their wages and had only a day or two to themselves and their families, depending on the seasons. Sunday was for worship and religious duties and attendance at church was obligatory at least twice a day on the Sabbath.

Not all of the Lyon family held titles and owned great swathes of lands, some were villeins and some peasants. Some later branches of the family were poor and owned only small plots of land, scraping a living from them. Many are recorded as labourers and some were semi-skilled workers. We do not use the word peasants today but use the term ‘working class’ or ‘underclass’ as subservient in status to the ‘middle classes’.

The Outlaws

Those who did not conform to the local laws and national laws would be named as Outlaws. These condemned men and women would be driven out of their communities and eventually move to France. They could seek sanctuary in a church for a period of time (usually 40 days) for their personal safety and this enabled those who believed that there had been some injustice would be safe from arrest.

An example of sanctuary is provided in the records of Beverley Minster in Yorkshire where outlaws had to make a full confession of their crimes. When the 40 days were expended they were in mortal danger and had no protection from other citizens. Any citizen who communicated with them could be hanged. Hanging was a common sentence for many crimes which would nowadays earn the perpetrator prison or community service.

Henry II in 1154 brought about many enlightened laws including judging potential criminals before local representatives who formed a jury for a trial. Crimes committed on highways and during feasts and fairs were treated as injuries to the King himself. Travelling judges oversaw the trials and if proved guilty the offender received a sentence.

If a charge was difficult to prove he/she would be tried by water. (See Terry Jones – Medieval Lives - BBC Books for more information)

He would be trussed up and thrown into water, and if he sank it proved his innocence and he would be pulled out, but if he floated it proved his guilt and he was given a few days to leave England and never to return. There must have been many criminals in France who didn’t speak the local language!

There was no distinction between civil and criminal law and citizens could take others to court for theft or other crimes that demanded restitution. Normally the Lord of the Manor would be responsible for his peasants and villeins and if cases were settled then no further action would be taken. In the 14th century and since the invasion of William the Conqueror, all persons were expected to be answerable to the local lord who took responsibility for his people. The accused would need to obtain the support of local people who would take oaths to support him/her.

In part 3 of the book in more recent times we find a member of the family who was hanged for theft in Lancashire so George Lyon was maybe one of many who would be known today as a ‘black sheep’ of the family.

Living conditions

The weather dictated the lives for everyone from peasants to Kings and Queens. If the weather was stormy and too much rain fell then the crops would fail for all, despite their status in life. In the 11th century there was such extreme weather either from storms or high temperatures that great numbers died of hunger and disease because of crop failure and the death of cattle and sheep. Starvation across the country was widespread and tens of thousands died. It was so punishing at times that cannibalism was not uncommon. When people lost over 40 per cent of their body mass they usually died in agony having often succumbed to diarrhoea, cholera or dysentery.

For the next two centuries life improved as the weather improved. Tree rings prove the state of the weather in these years and famines almost disappeared for some time. Peasants began