Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
Powys-Lybbe Forbears - Person Sheet
NameThomas Powys (of Snitton) 
[58, Lilfords, p. 255], [17, 1500-1714, col 3, p. 1197], [56, Herefords, pub 1886 , on Smyth p. 96], [56, Staffs peds of >1680, pub Harleian 1912, Rudge, p. 194], [56, Salop 1663, C of A Ms; Ref C35/84v.85]
[58, Lilfords, p. 255], [17, 1500-1714, col 3, p. 1197], [56, Herefords, pub 1886 , on Smyth p. 96], [56, Staffs peds of >1680, pub Harleian 1912, Rudge, p. 194], [56, Salop 1663, C of A Ms; Ref C35/84v.85]Birth1558
Death19 Nov 1639
BurialBitterley
General2nd s. of 2nd marr; 3rd surv. s. overall. ’A cunning clerk and scrivener'. Of Snitton, Salop.
FatherWilliam Powys (of Ludlow) (1494-1577)
MotherMargaret Rowbury (-1613)
Spouses
Marriage11 Sep 1584, Ludlow, Shropshire [66, Their marriage in Ludlow on 11 Sep 1584]
Marriageabt 1616
Notes for Thomas Powys (of Snitton)
Martin P-L writes:
THOMAS of SNITTON
"a cunning clerk and scrivener"
His son, Thomas of Henley, claimed that Thomas of Snitton was the eldest son of WILLIAM's second marriage, and it was said that he inherited Snitton, which had been bought by his grandfather, James. And yet there was no evidence for any of this. The only Thomas mentioned in WILLIAM's will was a son by his first marriage, and he lived at Abingdon, not Snitton. Nor was Thomas of Snitton mentioned in the will of his alleged mother, Margaret. Mary Creaser (of whom later) and I were beginning to wonder if he was a son of WILLIAM at all.
In the end it transpired that Thomas of Snitton was indeed William's son, and the confusion had mostly been created by him and his son. They were both devious, ambitious characters, and Thomas of Snitton was actually crooked. They liked to lay claim to things that were not theirs, and it is hardly surprising if people ended up doubting even what was true.
The facts (amongst which you will see the evidence that Thomas was what he was claimed to be, the son of WILLIAM and Margaret nee Rowbury) were as follows:-
Born between 1558 (the year given by his son to a herald in 1666) and 1561 (since he gave his age as 23 when a witness in 1584).
1583-4, when a "servant" to Toby Wood of Lincoln's Inn, who represented him in this case, he sued to recover his half share of property at Kyrwood. (This property had belonged to a Rowbury, which is virtual proof that Thomas got it from his mother, Margaret, nee Rowbury.) The case ref. is: PRO C2/ELIZ/P13/7 POWYS CON HOELL,
1584 m. Jane Bury, nee Cupper / Cowper. From her marriage to Bury she had a daughter, Susan, and a grand house, Snitton. (There were many marriages between Cuppers and Powyses.)
1585 mentioned in his stepfather, Richard Padlonde's, will. In accomplishment of indentures (ie. a contract) between me and ....Thomas Powys of Ludlow, yeoman ...
1596 Thomas and John Powys of Snitton, plus Thomas's wife Jane, buy a meadow etc. called le Hale in Hilluppencote and Bitterley (Shrewsbury Local Studies Library, Calendar of Deeds and Charters, vol vii, no. 8550).
c. 1616 m. Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Smyth of Credenhill, Hereford. (From the Ludlow churchwardens' accounts of 1540-1576 we know that her father, as a boy, received payment for a number of crows' heads.)
1622 sued brother's widow re land at Whitcot Keysett in the parish of Clun. (C3 / 371 / 11)
1624 a similar suit. (C2 / JAS 1 / L3 / 7)
1625 a defendant in a suit brought by Morris (or Griffith) ap John Meredith of Spode, gent. This is where Thomas is described as a cunning clark and scrivener. (C2 / Jas 1 / G27, June 1625)
1626, defendant in an inheritance case, where he was Richard Hall's executor. His counsel was a Mr Littleton. (Richard Hall was married to Isabel, daughter of WILLIAM Powys. In his will he calls Thomas of Snitton his "brother" and uncle of his children. Margaret, daughter of Edward of Ludlow, seems also to call Thomas her uncle, though the document is damaged and hard to read at this point.) He is accused here by Richard Hall's sons of tampering with their father's will. Thomas denies this, and describes how he had to write the will in the parlour because there was no table in the dying man's bedroom, and Richard's brother had moved between the two rooms acting as linkman.
Among other things, Thomas was accused of investing £164 of Richard Hall's money on some land in Burford, and pocketing the profit from it for twelve years.
In 1626, '27 & '32 he was a witness in various suits
1628 Thos. Powys junior, son & heir of John Powys junior deceased, brother of Thos. Powys sen., releases to Thos. Powys sen. Whitton's meadow. (This was next to le Hale, and had been bought by John in 1604.)
1639 died. A monument to him and his second wife is behind the organ in Bitterley church.
No will survives, but what looks like a codicil (in Hereford Records Office) reads:
I, Thomas Powys of Snitton, do give and bequeath to my daughter Winifred, on the 16th day of Nov. 1639 all my lands in Ashford Carbonell in the county of Salop now or later, and £100 towards her marriage. (A. Carbonell is about 4 miles from Snitton.)
C contd.
What emerges from the documents in the above suits is that Snitton, so far from passing down to Thomas through the family, had belonged to his wife's first husband, Bury. She also brought a two-year old daughter into the marriage, for whom much money had been left by her father and grandfather (John Cupper), and later (in 1603) also by her uncle, George Bury (who in his will urged her to be careful in the disposing of herself). All this money was given in trust to Thomas. He and Jane had no children of their own. Thomas's brother John came to live with them, and when Susan came of age they married. No doubt they were hoping that, when Thomas died, they would inherit Snitton and all his wealth. The first setback was the discovery that Susan's inheritance, now due to her, had all been spent by Thomas. To achieve recompense they had to take him to court. He was ordered to hand over to them a house he owned in Kyrwood (previously occupied by a Roger Rowbury, presumably his mother's father) and the lease of Maserhaim, a farm in Clun (lived in then and now by Goughs, ancestors of Mary Creaser). The second surprise was that, when Jane died, Thomas not only remarried at the age of 58 but sired nine children. The shock must have killed John (who was 14 years Thomas's junior) because by 1622 his wife Susan had remarried. We know this because Thomas was suing her and her new husband, Wm. Longvile. The action concerned the issues and profits of land at Whitcot Keysett which he reckoned were due to him even though the land had been leased in his brother's name. What had happened, according to Thomas - and it seems all too likely - was that he and John had originally, in about 1606, bought two pieces of land, one at Spode for John, the other at nearby Whitcot Keysett for Thomas. But to save legal fees they had bought them both in John's name, though the income from the two pieces went to them separately. This was fine while the two brothers were in harmony, but since their ructions, John's death and Susan's remarriage, such an arrangement no longer worked. Susan was claiming that she owned the land at Whitcot Keysett and was taking the income from it. (We have not found who won the case.)
In 1624 he was sued by Susan and her eldest son, Thomas Powys jnr., for £100 that he had owed his brother, and which John had bequeathed to be divided among his three younger children. In his reply, Thomas tries to prove that he had discharged the debt in a variety of ways, then he accuses John and Susan of having treated him badly when he was sick and likely to die, and of having conceived a dislike of him when he married for the second time and had children and heirs of his own. He alleges that his brother John was given to waste and mispend his estate and .... likely to continue the same by ill courses of life which this defendant was much displeased with, and that he had married again because he had little hope of comfort from John and Susan.
Snitton
There was a house on the site as early as Henry III. The whole township (=large farm, including house, farm buildings and cottages for farm workers) was presented by Roger Mortimer to Wigmore Abbey, but he then took it back. His wife, Lady Isabel, was delivered of a boy here, but it died, and she was convinced it was as punishment for her husband's behaviour. At her pleading, he restored the gift.
The township would have been sold when the abbey was dissolved under Henry VIII, but we know not to whom. The house that Thomas and John Powys restored was a moated, timber-framed one, originally T-shaped but with later additions. The diamond-pattern arrangement of the timbers suggests a date in the middle of Elizabeth's reign. It had massive and finely moulded beams and posts, attractive brick chimneys, oak mullioned windows, huge fireplaces (the original one still in the kitchen, with all the appurtenances, in the 1920s).
This description comes from the Shropshire Archaeological Transactions vol. xi. The house itself was pulled down during the 1930s, and the only visble remains are the trace of the moat.
______________________
TFPL, Feb 2021: Armed with a copy of the Lincoln’s Inn Admissions Book, Vol I, I searched through it from 1570, when he would have been twelve to 1610, when 42, to see if any Thomas Powys of Snitton was admitted. I did not find any such, there is no index to this volume, so I could have missed him.
______________________
THOMAS of SNITTON
"a cunning clerk and scrivener"
His son, Thomas of Henley, claimed that Thomas of Snitton was the eldest son of WILLIAM's second marriage, and it was said that he inherited Snitton, which had been bought by his grandfather, James. And yet there was no evidence for any of this. The only Thomas mentioned in WILLIAM's will was a son by his first marriage, and he lived at Abingdon, not Snitton. Nor was Thomas of Snitton mentioned in the will of his alleged mother, Margaret. Mary Creaser (of whom later) and I were beginning to wonder if he was a son of WILLIAM at all.
In the end it transpired that Thomas of Snitton was indeed William's son, and the confusion had mostly been created by him and his son. They were both devious, ambitious characters, and Thomas of Snitton was actually crooked. They liked to lay claim to things that were not theirs, and it is hardly surprising if people ended up doubting even what was true.
The facts (amongst which you will see the evidence that Thomas was what he was claimed to be, the son of WILLIAM and Margaret nee Rowbury) were as follows:-
Born between 1558 (the year given by his son to a herald in 1666) and 1561 (since he gave his age as 23 when a witness in 1584).
1583-4, when a "servant" to Toby Wood of Lincoln's Inn, who represented him in this case, he sued to recover his half share of property at Kyrwood. (This property had belonged to a Rowbury, which is virtual proof that Thomas got it from his mother, Margaret, nee Rowbury.) The case ref. is: PRO C2/ELIZ/P13/7 POWYS CON HOELL,
1584 m. Jane Bury, nee Cupper / Cowper. From her marriage to Bury she had a daughter, Susan, and a grand house, Snitton. (There were many marriages between Cuppers and Powyses.)
1585 mentioned in his stepfather, Richard Padlonde's, will. In accomplishment of indentures (ie. a contract) between me and ....Thomas Powys of Ludlow, yeoman ...
1596 Thomas and John Powys of Snitton, plus Thomas's wife Jane, buy a meadow etc. called le Hale in Hilluppencote and Bitterley (Shrewsbury Local Studies Library, Calendar of Deeds and Charters, vol vii, no. 8550).
c. 1616 m. Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Smyth of Credenhill, Hereford. (From the Ludlow churchwardens' accounts of 1540-1576 we know that her father, as a boy, received payment for a number of crows' heads.)
1622 sued brother's widow re land at Whitcot Keysett in the parish of Clun. (C3 / 371 / 11)
1624 a similar suit. (C2 / JAS 1 / L3 / 7)
1625 a defendant in a suit brought by Morris (or Griffith) ap John Meredith of Spode, gent. This is where Thomas is described as a cunning clark and scrivener. (C2 / Jas 1 / G27, June 1625)
1626, defendant in an inheritance case, where he was Richard Hall's executor. His counsel was a Mr Littleton. (Richard Hall was married to Isabel, daughter of WILLIAM Powys. In his will he calls Thomas of Snitton his "brother" and uncle of his children. Margaret, daughter of Edward of Ludlow, seems also to call Thomas her uncle, though the document is damaged and hard to read at this point.) He is accused here by Richard Hall's sons of tampering with their father's will. Thomas denies this, and describes how he had to write the will in the parlour because there was no table in the dying man's bedroom, and Richard's brother had moved between the two rooms acting as linkman.
Among other things, Thomas was accused of investing £164 of Richard Hall's money on some land in Burford, and pocketing the profit from it for twelve years.
In 1626, '27 & '32 he was a witness in various suits
1628 Thos. Powys junior, son & heir of John Powys junior deceased, brother of Thos. Powys sen., releases to Thos. Powys sen. Whitton's meadow. (This was next to le Hale, and had been bought by John in 1604.)
1639 died. A monument to him and his second wife is behind the organ in Bitterley church.
No will survives, but what looks like a codicil (in Hereford Records Office) reads:
I, Thomas Powys of Snitton, do give and bequeath to my daughter Winifred, on the 16th day of Nov. 1639 all my lands in Ashford Carbonell in the county of Salop now or later, and £100 towards her marriage. (A. Carbonell is about 4 miles from Snitton.)
C contd.
What emerges from the documents in the above suits is that Snitton, so far from passing down to Thomas through the family, had belonged to his wife's first husband, Bury. She also brought a two-year old daughter into the marriage, for whom much money had been left by her father and grandfather (John Cupper), and later (in 1603) also by her uncle, George Bury (who in his will urged her to be careful in the disposing of herself). All this money was given in trust to Thomas. He and Jane had no children of their own. Thomas's brother John came to live with them, and when Susan came of age they married. No doubt they were hoping that, when Thomas died, they would inherit Snitton and all his wealth. The first setback was the discovery that Susan's inheritance, now due to her, had all been spent by Thomas. To achieve recompense they had to take him to court. He was ordered to hand over to them a house he owned in Kyrwood (previously occupied by a Roger Rowbury, presumably his mother's father) and the lease of Maserhaim, a farm in Clun (lived in then and now by Goughs, ancestors of Mary Creaser). The second surprise was that, when Jane died, Thomas not only remarried at the age of 58 but sired nine children. The shock must have killed John (who was 14 years Thomas's junior) because by 1622 his wife Susan had remarried. We know this because Thomas was suing her and her new husband, Wm. Longvile. The action concerned the issues and profits of land at Whitcot Keysett which he reckoned were due to him even though the land had been leased in his brother's name. What had happened, according to Thomas - and it seems all too likely - was that he and John had originally, in about 1606, bought two pieces of land, one at Spode for John, the other at nearby Whitcot Keysett for Thomas. But to save legal fees they had bought them both in John's name, though the income from the two pieces went to them separately. This was fine while the two brothers were in harmony, but since their ructions, John's death and Susan's remarriage, such an arrangement no longer worked. Susan was claiming that she owned the land at Whitcot Keysett and was taking the income from it. (We have not found who won the case.)
In 1624 he was sued by Susan and her eldest son, Thomas Powys jnr., for £100 that he had owed his brother, and which John had bequeathed to be divided among his three younger children. In his reply, Thomas tries to prove that he had discharged the debt in a variety of ways, then he accuses John and Susan of having treated him badly when he was sick and likely to die, and of having conceived a dislike of him when he married for the second time and had children and heirs of his own. He alleges that his brother John was given to waste and mispend his estate and .... likely to continue the same by ill courses of life which this defendant was much displeased with, and that he had married again because he had little hope of comfort from John and Susan.
Snitton
There was a house on the site as early as Henry III. The whole township (=large farm, including house, farm buildings and cottages for farm workers) was presented by Roger Mortimer to Wigmore Abbey, but he then took it back. His wife, Lady Isabel, was delivered of a boy here, but it died, and she was convinced it was as punishment for her husband's behaviour. At her pleading, he restored the gift.
The township would have been sold when the abbey was dissolved under Henry VIII, but we know not to whom. The house that Thomas and John Powys restored was a moated, timber-framed one, originally T-shaped but with later additions. The diamond-pattern arrangement of the timbers suggests a date in the middle of Elizabeth's reign. It had massive and finely moulded beams and posts, attractive brick chimneys, oak mullioned windows, huge fireplaces (the original one still in the kitchen, with all the appurtenances, in the 1920s).
This description comes from the Shropshire Archaeological Transactions vol. xi. The house itself was pulled down during the 1930s, and the only visble remains are the trace of the moat.
______________________
TFPL, Feb 2021: Armed with a copy of the Lincoln’s Inn Admissions Book, Vol I, I searched through it from 1570, when he would have been twelve to 1610, when 42, to see if any Thomas Powys of Snitton was admitted. I did not find any such, there is no index to this volume, so I could have missed him.
______________________
Will notes for Thomas Powys (of Snitton)
Hereford Archives has this, probably his will:
POWYS THOMAS Snitton, Bitterley, W 52/2/43 1639
POWYS THOMAS Snitton, Bitterley, W 52/2/43 1639
Mon Inscripts notes for Thomas Powys (of Snitton)
Gentlemen’s magazine, 1831, Part II, pp. 297, 298 reports this MI:
Against the south wall of the chancel a monument, the entablature supported by two figures, one on each side of the table, which bears the following inscription:
“Memoriae Sacrum. Here lyeth, expecting a blessed resurrection, the bodyes of Thomas Powys of Snitton, Gent; and of Elizabeth his wife. Hee deceased ye 19th of Nov 1659, then aged 31. Shee was the daughter of Richd Smythe of Credenhill, in the County of hereford, Esq, and departed this life ye first day of July, 1645, they having 5 sonnes, Thomas, Christopher, Peter, Robert and james, and fower daughters, Winifred, Anne, Mary, and Elizabeth.”
Arms: Or a lion’s gamb erased between two cross crosslets fitchee, impaling Smythe.
___________________________________________
Against the south wall of the chancel a monument, the entablature supported by two figures, one on each side of the table, which bears the following inscription:
“Memoriae Sacrum. Here lyeth, expecting a blessed resurrection, the bodyes of Thomas Powys of Snitton, Gent; and of Elizabeth his wife. Hee deceased ye 19th of Nov 1659, then aged 31. Shee was the daughter of Richd Smythe of Credenhill, in the County of hereford, Esq, and departed this life ye first day of July, 1645, they having 5 sonnes, Thomas, Christopher, Peter, Robert and james, and fower daughters, Winifred, Anne, Mary, and Elizabeth.”
Arms: Or a lion’s gamb erased between two cross crosslets fitchee, impaling Smythe.
___________________________________________
Arms Generally notes for Thomas Powys (of Snitton)
His arms from a note in SOG:
1. A lion's paw erased gules in bend between two crossed crosses fitchee (Powys).
2. Sable a chevron argent between three horses heads argent (Brookwood).
3. Argent a lion rampant langued and clawed sable a crescent for difference in chief dexter (left!).
4. Argent a chevron vert between three oak leaves vert.
5. Azure a chevron argent between three fleurs de lis or.
6. Sable three hulettes (owls) argent.
April 2003: Papworth's Ordinary of Arms, p. 171, shows "Arg. three hedghogs sa." to be of Biram, Couse, Harries of Mabie Scotland and of Hariz. Hariz or Harris also has the same in other tinctures.
1. A lion's paw erased gules in bend between two crossed crosses fitchee (Powys).
2. Sable a chevron argent between three horses heads argent (Brookwood).
3. Argent a lion rampant langued and clawed sable a crescent for difference in chief dexter (left!).
4. Argent a chevron vert between three oak leaves vert.
5. Azure a chevron argent between three fleurs de lis or.
6. Sable three hulettes (owls) argent.
April 2003: Papworth's Ordinary of Arms, p. 171, shows "Arg. three hedghogs sa." to be of Biram, Couse, Harries of Mabie Scotland and of Hariz. Hariz or Harris also has the same in other tinctures.