George Lawson who married a daughter of John Webster
1499 fine 3s 8d Thomas Stokhows one messuage in the same place, 1 bovate of land 24s 8d
1520
Thomas Stackhouse a messuage and 2 oxgang of land 24s 8d
(if 1 oxgang is 10.5d then mess 22s 11d)
1550 John Webster (died 1580) holds one tenement with the appurtenances in the same place at the will of the lord and renders per annum 24s 8d
1572 George Lawson(died end 1611) holds by the lord’s warrant dated 13 July 1 Eliz for the term of his life etc one tenement with the land belonging to the same. And it yields per annum at the feasts of Pentecost andSt Martin24s 8d
And he owes afterthe death of Hugh Webster the father of his wife 60s Still living (died 1580) Dismissed
The same George holds at the will of the lord one parcel containing one rood of the lord’s waste landat Brown Watterkers. And it yields per annum at the feast of St Martin, so much 5d
2671573GeorgiusLAWSONElizabethaBRAISHAY
871576GeorgiusLAWSONElizabethaPALEY
31.7.1560ElizabethGeorgiiLawson died 1560
26.12.1562AgnesGeorgiiLawson
7.4.1565IsabellaGeorgiiLawson died ?
14.10.1567JanaGeorgiiLawson
14.4.1570AnnaGeorgiiLawson
30.10.1572IsabellaGeorgiiLawson may have married Jacob Foster 1593
10.8.1575LawrentiusGeorgiiLawson only son married Ann Cookson
23.8.1578JenetaGeorgiiLawson died 1578
1579 George Lawson one barn, 2 gardens with other houses, one messuage, 2 oxgangs of 19 acres. The rent 24 8d. Improvements 5d.
1583Georg Lawson haithe taken of the said Commisses one mess one laythe 2 gardens on Crofte tow oxgangs of land and medow the thapptnnce lying to the said mess now in the tenure of the said Georg of the Rent of 24s 8d And one pcell of land lait improved at Brownwaitacres of the Rent of 5d to have and hold And paying for his fyne £17 11s 2d
Died in 1611 aged at least 75
18111599Lawrentius LAWSON b10.8.1575 died 1618
married Anna COOKESONNE
?.10.1600GeorgiusLawrentiiLawson at the university
A George Lawson Matric. sizar from JESUS, Easter, 1617. B. in Craven, Yorks. B.A. 1620-1; M.A. 1624. Ord. deacon (London); priest, June 18, 1623, age 25. Probably C. of Marston Morteyne, Beds., 1625-31. Perhaps V. of Mears Ashby, Northants., 1632-50. Afterwards Master at HoughtonConquestSchool, Beds. One of these names R. of Higham Gobion, Beds., 1662; and R. of Millbrook, 1664-84. Buried there Aug. 5, 1684. which suggests he was born in 1598 making him Georgius son of Thomae of Langcliffe b 25.5.1598.
This George Admitted sizar to Emmanuel and matriculated 1615. On edge of career as vicar in Shropshire. Author of several political works.
Lawson later claimed to have proceeded MA from Emmanuel, but the college records give no evidence of this.
in 1615 his signature in the records of EmmanuelCollege, Cambridge, confirms that he entered as a sizar and matriculated. Lawson later claimed to have proceeded MA from Emmanuel, but the college records give no evidence of this.
Lawson was ordained as a priest by the bishop of Chester in 1619 and reordained on 12 October 1624. In 1632 he was licensed to serve and in 1637 licensed to preach by Archbishop Laud. By 1635 he was a stipendiary curate for Mainstone, a poor living in southern Shropshire. There he recorded in his neatest Latin (his preferred language for church registers) the birth of ‘Jeremiah’ on 3 April of that year to George Lawson and his wife, Anne. A concerted effort was made, possibly by Sir Humphrey Macworth, to foist Lawson onto the parishioners of the important church of St Chads, Shrewsbury. Sir Paul Harris had complained that ‘by colour of popular election’ a pluralist, Richard Poole, had thrust himself into the parish, while he and Archbishop Laud wanted to appoint Lawson, reputedly a man of considerable learning and allegedly an outspoken defender of the archbishop (CSP dom.,1637, 55). The bishop of Lichfield and Coventry was directed to remove Poole but the electoral colour stayed fast. Instead Harris's brother-in-law Richard More, patron of the parish of More, Shropshire, appointed Lawson to the living following the death of the rector, William Biggs, in March 1637. Lawson would have been known to More as he was already living in the village and may have made himself useful in Richard More'sA True Relation(1641), a defensive account of the notorious Clun murders of 1633 by Enoch ap Evan against the anti-puritan polemic of Peter Studley. Lawson would remain closely associated with the More family, probably educating some of Richard's grandchildren with his own son. During the interregnum he worked through all changes of ecclesiastical government in association with Richard's father, Colonel Samuel More, and in 1655 had responsibility for the neighbouring parish of Lydham. At the restoration of the Church of England he accommodated himself to a regime of episcopacy as Samuel settled for a monarchy. The Hereford visitation book does not record Lawson's swearing acceptance of theAct of Uniformityin 1662 but he did sign the subscription rolls on 21 August: his name, in two inks and shakily written, is obscured by the stitching. He may have been ill at the time: two months earlier he had buried his patron, Samuel More, signing the register in an uncertain hand. He may also have been extremely reluctant to conform.
Lawson's known associates, to say nothing of the egregiously parliamentarian Mores, and his own writings would all suggest a suspicion of episcopacy. Lawson was a long-term friend and critic of Richard Baxter and of the Independent oriental scholar Francis Tallents; a good proportion of other men with whom he had worked were unable to take the oath of uniformity, and although he was a member of the Church of England his work looked unfashionably outwards to maximal comprehension within a national settlement.
Early extensive theological writings by Lawson were unpublished, some remaining in manuscript among the Baxter treatises in the Dr Williams's Library, London. It has been claimed that he wrote the ‘engagement tract’Conscience Puzzled(1651), though there is no evidence to support this. His first certain publication wasAn Examination of the Political Part of Mr. Hobbs, his ‘Leviathan’(1657), one of the more balanced and perceptive of contemporary critiques of Hobbes.Theo-politica(1659), a theological treatise on the offices of Christianity, was much admired by Baxter.Politica sacra et civilis(1660) is the first part of a planned treatise in the ‘politica’ genre of European public law, of whichLeviathanhad been the most glowing example.Politica, published with a national settlement of church and state in mind, had probably been germinating for some time, carrying the residue of the engagement controversy of 1649–51 and being in some ways closer toLeviathanthan the moread hocExaminationmight suggest.Politicais Lawson's most important work. Although informally written for a general audience it displays its learning to impress. It blends an incisive and ameliorating account of Britain's troubles with a theoretically assured and linguistically acute analysis of formal relationships in church and state. Its reception was not sufficiently encouraging for Lawson to bring out the second volume, but it may well have had an impact on John Locke, who certainly owned all Lawson's published works. It was reprinted in 1689, possibly with the support of Richard More the younger, who was active in the Convention Parliament. Its vocabulary is noticeable and familiarity with its seems assumed in public debate until the early eighteenth century, when like its author it fell into obscurity. In 1662 Lawson had helped obscure himself with an impenetrably dark commentary onHebrews, but in 1665 he briefly came up for air withMagna charta universalis, a simplified restatement ofTheo-politica. These works both did sufficiently well to warrant republishing, but Lawson himself seems to have remained a figure of learned and respected marginality except for peripheral figures such as the indefatigable John Humfrey, who, as something of a disciple, proclaimed the importance ofPolitica, and for Richard Baxter, whoseReliquiae Baxterianae(1696) would pay his friend the most remarkable valedictory testimony. Lawson was buried at More on 12 July 1678, his wife, Anne, two years later in August 1680, his son ‘Jeremy’ as a pauper in 1705. The letters of administration for his estate suggest that Lawson had a materially comfortable living and a large library, and itemize a hair shirt. After Anne Lawson died the library was sold but can be partially reconstructed; the donation of a substantial teaching library to the village of More by Richard More in 1680 was possibly a memorial gift.
Conal Condren
10.4.1603Thomas the son of LawrentiiLawson heir married Jane Cockman 1625 the daughter of John bapt 20.3.1603
5.1.1606MargaretaLawrentiiLawsonin will
31.4.1609HenricusLawrentiiLawsonin will married Margaret Banks 1626
Janet and William in will ? married Elizabeth Preston 1634
See later cases (1700) re those who married the Preston sisters
1600 Pierse 25s 1d
Lawrence Lawson holds one mansion house with a large barn, a stable, turf house, yard, garden and croft adjoining. And also certain lands lying dispersed as aforesaid
Sum total34-0-2-0£12 6s 9d
Meadow18-3-9-3
Arable15-0-2-1
Also in 1602 rental
1621 Fine £100 Laurence Lawson holds by indenture dated 8 October in the year aforesaid All that one messuage, farm or tenement, with the appurtenances, in G aforesaid, then in the occupation of the said Lawrence, of the annual rent of 24s 8d,
And one rood of ground at the Browne Watakers, lately improved, of the yearly rent of 5d, To hold for 6000 years without impeachment of waste, Yielding at the feasts aforesaid 25s 1d. And for his Moore Rent 5s 11½d at Michaelmas only.
[Note in RH margin: examined 25s 1d And for Moore Rent 5s 11½d]
Lawrence Lawson 3rd February 1617 Borthwick v35 f256
In the name of God amen the third day of February in the year of our lord God one thousand six hundred and seventeen I Lawrence Lawson of Giggleswick within the county of York yeoman sick in body but of sound mind and perfect memory praised be God therefore, do make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following: First I give and commend my soul into the merciful hands of almighty God my maker and redeemer trusting assuredly through the merits and passion of my blessed saviour Jesus Christ to have full and free remission of all my sins and to be made partaker of eternal life in heaven and my body to be buried at the discretion of my loving wife and friends.
And my will is that my debts mortuary and funeral expenses shall be paid out of my whole goods and as concerning my messuage and tenement with all my grounds and commons with their appurtenances which I tenant in Giggleswick and whereof I am tenant to the right honourable Francis Earl of Cumberland I give and bequeath all the same and all my full and whole estate right title interest term and terms of years therein and all my lease and indentures concerning the same unto Thomas Lawson my second son and to his lawful issue and to the assigns of such issue yet ***theld under such conditions as are hereafter expressed.
That is to say first that he the said Thomas Lawson his issue and assigns shall permit and suffer the said Ann my wife and her assigns to enjoy all the said premises until the said Thomas my son shall accomplish his full age of one and twenty years to and for such intents and purposes as hereafter in this my will shall be expressed and declared and also that he the said Thomas his heirs and assigns shall permit and suffer the said Ann my wife and her assigns to enjoy one full third part of all my said messuage tenement and premises with their appurtenances from and after the time that my said son Thomas shall accomplish his full age of twenty and one years for fifty nine years then next following if she so long live and be not married again.
And also upon condition that he the said Thomas his issue or assigns shall truly content to pay unto George Lawson my eldest son the sum of three score pounds of lawful English money within one year next after that the said George shall accomplish his lawful age of twenty and one years and to the rest of my children Henry William Margaret and Janet every of them twenty pounds when they shall accomplish their several ages of twenty and one years.
And it is my will and mind that the said Ann my wife and her assigns shall out of the profits of my said tenement pay and allow unto the said George my eldest son yearly every year five pounds for four years now next coming for and towards his better exhibition and maintenance at the university to be paid unto him quarterly by equal portions. And the rest of all the profits that shall arise thereof during the nonnage of my said son Thomas to go to my said wife and her assigns for the better relief and condition ? of my said wife and children. And if my said son George shall not have the said ***** of three score pounds paid unto him ***** within the time above mentioned and limited for payment thereof then my will is and I give unto the said George his executors and assigns in lieu thereof all my grounds lying at Skipton containing about 4 roods and one parcel called ******* croft containing by estimation three roods lying and being within the town fields of Giggleswick aforesaid and now in my possession to have and to hold the said strips and Cromme Croft to my said son George his executors administrators and assigns for and during all the years term and which then shall be unspent of the lease and leases by which the same are now by me holden. And if my said son Thomas his issue or assigns shall make default in payment of the said several sums of twenty pounds a piece to my said other children at the time above mentioned for payment thereof then my will is that such child or children as shall be disappointed thereof shall enjoy my said whole tenement, my said wife her right excepted until they shall be satisfied and paid their said twenty pounds a year successively out of the profits of the same. And if my said children die in their nonage then the twenty pounds of him, her or them so dying to remain and be paid to the survivors of them. And if my son Thomas die without issue lawful then I give my said messuage tenement and premises with the appurtenances unto William my youngest son and to his issue and assigns, and for want thereof then to my said son Henry and his lawful issue and assigns and for want thereof then to my said daughters and their lawful issue and assigns provided that which of them so ever the same shall so come unto they to pay the rest of my said children five pounds as before is limited unto them and to perform the conditions aforesaid anything therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding. And as touching the disposal of my moveable goods that shall remain after my debts mortuary and funeral expenses be deducted and set out and my wife having her third according to the law my will is that my said son Thomas shall have no part thereof because he shall be otherwise preferred by my said testament? and leases but that the same shall be equally divided among the rest of my children George Henry William Margaret and Janet
And I make and ordain the said Ann my wife be sole executrix of this my last will and testament. These being witnesses: John Banks William Lawson
Children of Thomas and Jane Cockman married 1625
15.1.1632AnnaThomaeLawsonGiggleswick
25.11.1633LawrentiusThomaeLawsonGiggleswick
3.5.1638ThomasThomaeLawsonGiggleswick