Eustace HARDWICKE of Shrivenham circa 1683 (General)

by Ralph Cook, Saturday, November 28, 2009, 10:39 (5549 days ago) @ slowhands

That's great Slowhands

Sounds like the same man to me, a rather distasteful character by all accounts and by what has transpired from the FOD's transcriptions.

Looks like this explains the elevated position signified by his name being appended to two Acts of Parliament in King William 111 time. I guess he must have been born during the civil war, or shortly after (which might explain the absence of a baptism). He died in 1718 in Forest of Dean so he lived a long and colourful life by the standards of the time.

Do you know why he received the engraved sword? I've searched on Free Miners of the Forest of Dean but Googling produces little of interest, just that free miners swore an oath on a stick. Do you know what advantages being a free miner brought? Did they have an association that would have given Eustace the sword?

Glad he's not one of my direct ancestors and only connects to my tree via a marriage to William Marshall a sibling of Mary Marshall a direct ancestor. It's funny how a single discovery (correcting a transcription error in a baptism record on the FOD site) has carried me off in a totally unexpected direction and thrown up a really interesting line of enquiry.

Ralph