WASHINGTON | Lawrence, GW's G3-Grandfather

Rev. Lawrence Washington, who once
terrorized Puritan dons and Oxford
students. Under Cromwell, he lost
his parish and his wife sent two sons
to Virginia. One sired George
Washington's grandfather.

Lawrence Washington was born in 1602 and died in 1653–a short life, barely half a century, but a significant one.

Lawrence's wife and Oliver Cromwell played important roles in shaping the migration of his two sons to the United States of America, one of them being George Washington's great-grandfather.

Lawrence was the fifth son of a comfortably established family living in Sulgrave Manor near Banbury in Oxfordshire. Many members of his family studied at Oxford. At 17, in 1619, he was sent off to Brasenose College, Oxford too become a minister. He did well and upon graduation with his B.A. in 1623 he was elected a Fellow of the college.

In those days, a  fellow would typically spend a dozen teaching and then become a minister, living a bachelor's life. He received his M.A. in 1626 and the following year was appointed Lector, the chief disciplinarian of undergraduates in college.

In a crucial development for Oxford University, on August 22, 1631, with King Charles I personally presiding, Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud - who was also Chancellor of Oxford - denounced the principal officers of the University as heretics. A Brasenose don was forced to resign. Lawrence Washington was four days later elected by the Brasenose governing body as their nominee to replace his colleague.

Laud was the agent of Charles I in his quest to suppress Puritanism. In 1632, Laud formally appointed Lawrence Washington as an Oxford Proctor. Under the circumstances, the Proctor's job was not what it later became, a "bulldog" policing students. Lawrence became an agent of the Church of England, hunting down Puritans. Washington's job was in part to assist the Archbishop in purging heresy among the dons.

The good news is that Washington did his job well as an agent of the established church, earning a job as Rector of Purleigh, a wealthy church in Essex, starting in 1632.  On the strength of this appointment, Lawrence Washington married Amphilis Twigden, a well-educated young widow. The marriage dealt with the problem that Washington faced at Oxford of courting Amphilis and - it seems from the date of John Washington's birth in 1633 - siring a son out of wedlock. Oxford dons were required to live a bachelor life and Lawrence's job at BNC was therefore at risk. So far so good.

The bad news is that after a few years the tide turned. Cambridge man Oliver Cromwell was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and then for Cambridge in the Short (1640) and Long (1640-49) Parliaments. The Puritan Long Parliament exercised its power in part by reviewing the incumbencies of Church of England livings. More than 100 English ministers had their livings withdrawn for alleged treason or immorality by order of Parliament. In 1643 Washington was censored for allegedly being "a common frequenter of ale-houses" and lost his job as Rector of Purleigh. As a consolation prize, he was given the miserable parish of Little Braxted, also in Essex.

The importance of this is how the Reverend's wife Amphilis reacted. They separated. She refused to accept the ignominy of being a parson's wife in Little Braxted. Instead, she and her children moved in with her wealthy uncle, Sir Edwin Sandys, whose family was well-connected with the Virginia Company. Amphilis decided that the embarrassment of Rev. Lawrence Washington's fall from grace would best be dealt with by sending the two sons John and Lawrence Jr. to the American colonies.

Lawrence's son John (1633-1677) became apprenticed to a London merchant where he learned the tobacco trade. John eventually emigrated along with his brother Lawrence Jr. (1635-1677) to the colony of Virginia. This made him in due course the great-grandfather of the first President of the United States. Rev. Lawrence Washington meanwhile died poor and relatively young. He is buried in All Saints Church at Maldon, Essex, where his grave site is visited primarily because of his illustrious great-great-grandson.

Washington's Ancestry and Coat of Arms

George Washington (1732-99), first U.S. President (1789-1797), was born at Bridges Creek, Va. His great-grandfather John Washington settled there in 1658 from Dillicar in Westmorland. The coat of arms of County Westmorland in northern England is the familiar red-and-white stripes of the Washington family, with a tree superimposed. Westmorland is just west of Yorkshire (where Shelby Abbey church has a window with the Washington stars-and-stripes coat of arms) and is also just west of Durham county to the north. The college at Oxford preceding Trinity College, and on the same location, was a foundation of Durham Abbey for its students, which is why a Durham family's coat of arms is still on display at Trinity College. A stained glass version of the Washington coat of arms from 1588 is in the Cornin, NY, Museum of Glass.

The ancestry of George Washington shows how the honors to the family accumulated. The names in bold face have already been mentioned.

1 Patric FitzDolfin de Offerton, c. 1145-1182. His son was...
2 (Sir) William FitzPatric de Hertburn, c. 1165-1194, a Norman knight. He procured the village of Wessyngton and adopted as his surname the new land, i.e., William de Wessyngton. His son or grandson changed the name of the village and the family to Washington. His status as a knight allowed him to adopt a coat of arms. He chose two silver/white (argent) bars on either side of a red (gules) bar, below three stars (mullets) of red (gules). A Durham County registry from the period shows Wessyngton with six-pointed mullets, pierced and unpierced - the number of points was later reduced to five, in a change that a French heraldry book says was vraiment revolutionnaire. At the crest, the Raven rested in the crown (corona), gold (or). William served the bishop of Durham, and in 1185 was granted the manor of Washington in return for the service of attending the episcopal hunt with four greyhounds. The family lived on the estate for 400 years, but in 1613 it was sold back to the church, as the branch of the family that produced George Washington settled at Sulgrave Manor. 
3 William de Washington, c. 1180-1239
4 Walter de Washington, c. 1212-1264
5 William de Washington, c. 1240-1288
6 Robert de Washington, 1265-1324
7 Robert de Washington, c. 1296-1348
8 John de Washington, c. 1346-1408
9 John de Washington, c. 1380-1423
10 Robert Washington, 1404-1483
11 Robert Washington, 1455-1528
12 John Washington, 1478-1528
13 G5-gfather Lawrence Washington, 1500-1583
14 G4-gfather Robert Washington, c. 1544-1623
15 G3-gfather Lawrence Washington, c. 1567-1616 - Sulgrave Manor
16 G2-gfather (Rev.) Lawrence Washington, Fellow of Brasenose, 1602-1653
17 Great-grandfather (Col.) John Washington, 1633-1677 (one source says he was born 1631)
18 Grandfather Lawrence Washington, 1659-1698
19 Father Augustine Washington, 1694-1743
20 (President) George Washington, 1732-1799.

The family coat of arms (as he confirmed in a response to a Mr. Heard) was brought to Virginia by John and Lawrence Washington. These two sons of Rev. Lawrence Washington of Brasenose, Oxford and grandsons of Lawrence of Sulgrave had their arms confirmed by Clarenceux King of Arms. The coats of arms of ancestors of George Washington as shown at Sulgrave Manor are usually shown as three stars (mullets ) above (in chief) two stripes (bars), red (gules) on a white/silver (argent) field.

July 4 - Teaching Kids about American Independence

Indian Wigwam and French tent during the French and Indian War,
1754-1763. This reenactment occurs every year at George
Washington's ancestral home in Sulgrave Manor, near Banbury,
England. Photo June 29, 2013, by JT Marlin.  

As we celebrate July 4, how many American children know that the Declaration of Independence would not have been possible if the French and their allied Indians were still harassing them. The French and Indian War of 1754-1763 was a crucial prelude to the War of Independence.

• It showed the American colonies' loosely organized militias how to fight a war.
• It made George Washington into a heroic military figure who was therefore able later to bring together the gentried southern colonies in a common cause with the impetuous rabble-rousers in Boston.
• It succeeded in driving the French military out of North America until they came back to assist the rebels after 1776. 
• It reduced the threat to the colonies of hostile Indians. They switched their allegiance to the British and this in practice meant to the settlers.
• On the downside, it created war debts that George III needed to pay, and he felt that the colonies should contribute toward their liberation from the French. This led to the taxes that precipitated the Declaration of Independence. 

Going to a reenactment of the French and Indian War is one way to convey these historical developments. At the Sulgrave Manor in the UK near Banbury (north of Oxford), a reenactment occurs every year around July 4.

More ideas for teaching kids about the French and Indian War are here.

HERALDRY: Washington, the U.S. Flag, and Sulgrave Manor (Updated June 2, 2016)

Washington coat of arms and a version of the U.S. coat of
 arms, above a portrait of George Washington at the
Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, England,
near Banbury. Photo by  JTMarlin, June 29, 2013.

I have just come back with more information, beyond what I posted last month, on the connections between George Washington's family and the Stars and Stripes.

One visit was to the Sulgrave Manor, near Banbury ("Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross") in England. It's an amazingly informative historical site, with helpful information on George Washington's ancestors. I recommend the DVD they sell at the gift shift.

The locals around Sulgrave during the week before July 4 every year get together and re-enact the French and Indian wars, in which George Washington played a significant role.

The staff of the Sulgrave Manor is convinced that the Stars and Stripes were derived from the Washington coat of arms.

To recap the origin of my quest, it is the surprisingly flat statement on the American Heraldry Society website, in an article written in 2006 by Joseph McMillan, Director of Research for the Society, that:

"[T]here is not a shred of evidence that the one [coat of arms of the Washington family] had anything to do with the other [coat of arms of the USA, or the U.S. flag]".  [Emphasis added by me.]

It is one thing to say there is no evidence and another to reject all of the evidence. I was once on a jury in which a fellow juror rejected multiple pieces of evidence – from fingerprints, a video security camera showing the robbery in progress, personal identification by the jewelry store owner, and cell-phone call records showing contacts before the robbery with an accomplice. She eventually disclosed that no evidence would lead her to convict the individual and she admitted that she should have disqualified herself during the voir dire. She agreed to vote guilty on condition the charges were reduced. Afterwards the judge revealed several additional pieces of evidence from the trial of the accomplice (also found guilty) that had to be excluded.

In the hope that I can convince objective readers, I am describing two key pieces of evidence collected recently, one on my visit last week to the Sulgrave Manor in England and the other in two visits to the British Library.

1. The Pairing of the Washington and U.S. Coats of Arms by Paul Revere and the Colonial Dames

Today, on the Fourth of July, I provide my photo of the frame above the portrait of George Washington, contributed by the Colonial Dames of America. The actual shipment of the gift was interrupted by the Great War, but fundraising was broadly based in the years before the war. It is clear that the Colonial Dames are strongly asserting the connection between the two coats of arms via their use of Paul Revere's pairing of the two in a design at William and Mary University.

The eagle appears as an early alternative to the raven in the Washington coat of arms. The eagle in the United States shield holds an olive branch in its right talon and 13 arrows in its left talon. The original design shows the eagle's head facing to its right (dexter), the viewer's left, toward the olive branch. President Truman found the eagle's head on a version of The Great Seal turned the other way (sinister), toward the arrows, and instructed that in accordance with the meaning of the creation of the Department of Defense (as opposed to the Department of War) – and, one could add, the original designers of the seal – all versions of the Great Seal shall have the head of the eagle again facing its right (dexter), toward the olive branch.

2. The "Revolutionary" Mullets in the Washington Coat of Arms

Those who believe that there is no connection between the stars and stripes on the Washington coat of arms and the Stars and Stripes make a great deal of the fact that on a coat of arms the stars are not stars. They are "mullets" - i.e., the rotating spurs on the bottom of boots worn by knights.  Nothing to do with the white stars on the Stars and Stripes signifying a "new constellation". Well, my research on coats of arms produces some information that hoists these purists on their own petard:

• The small holes in the center of the mullets, around which the spur would revolve, appear in the earliest versions of the Washington coat of arms but not usually in later versions. What was once proudly claimed by a knight wearing armor as a spur evolved into an unpierced mullet.
• A French heraldry book at the British Library puts mullets in the class of estoiles (these days the word estoile refers to the wavy six-pointed star) and says that they are always, unless specified in the blazon otherwise, six-pointed in France and eight-pointed in Germany. 
• That would mean in Norman England, a mullet would properly be a six-pointed, as it was in the earliest versions of the Washington Coat of Arms, in the fourth volume of the history of Durham County in the British Library.
• Somewhere early in the Washington family's early history the mullet became five-pointed (or with five "rayons" in the French heraldic vernacular). This change was called "revolutionary" in one of the books I consulted, possibly only tongue in chief, but perhaps with a significant meaning.
• My theory is that George Washington was extremely proud of the five-pointed mullet. George Washington, in the Betsy Ross story, had the six-pointed stars in the designs for the canton of the early versions of the Stars and Stripes changed to five-pointed stars. One version is that she showed him a way to cut a square of cloth into a five-pointed star with one cut of the scissors. This would obscure the connection to the  "revolutionary" Washington family arms design, and avert the charge that Washington was trying to introduce a monarchy into the new United States.
• Another deflection of attention from the closeness of the five-pointed star to the Washington coat of arms would have been his response to concern about removing the (then) two Christian crosses of the British flag from our American flag – those of St. George and St. Andrew (the cross of St. Patrick came later). According to the story, Washington said, "But we are adding the stars of Heaven..." When Washington introduced the new flag in 1776 to Congress, he said that the stars represent "the new constellation".
• We don't have to document that George Washington personally intervened for his own family aggrandizement. That would have been out of character. It would have been enough for those around him to see how deep was Washington affection for the family coat of arms – widely displayed in his stationery, bookplates and silver.