Thomas of Hemington Montague [19335] ²⁵

  General Notes:

the parentage of this Thomas is not proved, though a fabulous descent from Simon, stated to have been the brother of John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, is generally attributed to him. It is stated (1812) by Sir Egerton Brydges, in Collins, vol. ii, p. 42, "that the late Mr. Thorpe (and it seems Mr. Anstis concurred in this opinion) suspected this family to be descended from James Montagu, a natural son of Thomas the [4th and] last Earl of Salisbury". This James is buried in the church of Ludsdowne in Kent, of which place he derived the manor from his father. See Thorpe's Custumale Roffense, p. 125. The bordure round the arms of the present family favours the idea. Other sources states that they descended from Richard Montagu alias Ladde, a yeoman or husbandman, living in 1471 at Hanging Houghton, Northamptonshire, where the Laddes had been tenants since the fourteenth century. The explanation of a fifteenth century yeoman's Norman name might sometimes be female descent from a knightly house through a coheir. Alias names, in some respect the forerunners of modern compound (or double-barreled) name, were common in the Middle Ages. In the earliest times, when surnames were new, an alias may just mean indecision between equally attractive alternatives. Later they sometimes indicate bastardy (one name perhaps being the father's and one the mother's), but in most cases probably mark inheritance through an heiress whose name was thus perpetuated. A good case has been made out for the possibility that the Ladde alias came from a division among coheirs about 1420 of the remaining small inheritance of a line of Montagus at Spratton and Little Creton, also in Northamptonshire. This line was of knightly origin and probably a branch of the baronial Montagus (Earls of Salisbury from 1337), whose almost certain ancestor Dru De Montagud was a tenant-in-chief in 1086. Other yeoman Montagus are found in Buckinghamshire from 1354 when Roger Montagu appears as a witness to a quitclaim of land in Great Kimble, notably in Halton where a family of Montagu alias Elot held land from about 1440 to 1610. A line of Montagus found in Waddesdon from about 1540 may have branched from these. These in the eighteenth century were shepherds and drovers and one set up in Aylesbury as a wheelwright and another as a tailor. Another line, also possibly branched from Halton, is found at Boveney and Dorney in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This produced Richard Montagu, Bishop of Chichester (1628-38) and Norwich (1638-41), and Peter Montagu, who settled in Virginia.' (Wagner). A franklin was the original name for a free tenant. In England, franklins came to be called yeomen. Sources: English Genealogy, Anthony Wagner.

http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/MONTAGUE.htm#Thomas%20MONTAGUE%20of%20Hemington1

Thomas married Agnes Dudley [19336] [MRIN: 9252], daughter of William Dudley [19337] and Christiana Darrel [19338], in 1485 in Clopton, Northamptonshire, England. (Agnes Dudley [19336] was born about 1454 in Clopton, Northampton, England.)