John Brandon
2004-07-01 01:26:10 UTC
Cotton Mather wrote that Gov. Thomas Dudley served as a law clerk to a
certain Judge Nichols, "being his kinsman also, by the mother's side."
Mary Kingsbury Talcott, in "The Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas
Dudley" (_NEHGR_ 66:342, footnote), correctly identified the good
judge, who was not actually a blood connection of Dudley, it turns
out:
"Judge Nicholls, or Nicolls (Sir Augustine Nicolls), a distinguished
lawyer and one of the justices of the Court of Common Pleas in the
reign of James I, was a son of Thomas Nicolls, a sergeant at law of
the Middle Temple, by his wife Anne Pell, daughter of John Pell of
Eltington, co. Northampton, Esq. She married for her second husband
Richard Purefoy, brother of the testator of 1579 [i.e., John Purefoy],
and was the Mrs. Purefoy mentioned by Cotton Mather [as having
instructed the young Dudley in Latin]. A pedigree of Nicholls of
Hardwick is printed in Metcalfe's Visitations of Northamptonshire, p.
119."
This is corroborated by _List and Indexes, vol. 297 [Calendar of
Patent Rolls 1587-1588]_, p. 52:
[No. 409] 2 Sep 1588. Licence, for Richard Purefey and Anne his
wife, late the wife of Thomas Nicolls, deceased, and Francis,
Augustine, Lewis and William Nicolls (sons of the said Thomas and
Anne), to alienate lands [named and described, ] in the parish of St
Margaret, Westminster, and within the sanctuary of St Peter,
Westminster, to Gregory Fynes, Lord Dacres, and Anne his wife. For
66s 8d paid to the queen's farmers under patent.
There are biographies of Sir Augustine Nicolls in _DNB_, 14: 493-94,
and in Foss, _The Judges of England_, 6: 172-73. There is also a nice
pedigree chart of these Nicollses in Nichols' _Leicestershire_, 3:
480.
certain Judge Nichols, "being his kinsman also, by the mother's side."
Mary Kingsbury Talcott, in "The Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas
Dudley" (_NEHGR_ 66:342, footnote), correctly identified the good
judge, who was not actually a blood connection of Dudley, it turns
out:
"Judge Nicholls, or Nicolls (Sir Augustine Nicolls), a distinguished
lawyer and one of the justices of the Court of Common Pleas in the
reign of James I, was a son of Thomas Nicolls, a sergeant at law of
the Middle Temple, by his wife Anne Pell, daughter of John Pell of
Eltington, co. Northampton, Esq. She married for her second husband
Richard Purefoy, brother of the testator of 1579 [i.e., John Purefoy],
and was the Mrs. Purefoy mentioned by Cotton Mather [as having
instructed the young Dudley in Latin]. A pedigree of Nicholls of
Hardwick is printed in Metcalfe's Visitations of Northamptonshire, p.
119."
This is corroborated by _List and Indexes, vol. 297 [Calendar of
Patent Rolls 1587-1588]_, p. 52:
[No. 409] 2 Sep 1588. Licence, for Richard Purefey and Anne his
wife, late the wife of Thomas Nicolls, deceased, and Francis,
Augustine, Lewis and William Nicolls (sons of the said Thomas and
Anne), to alienate lands [named and described, ] in the parish of St
Margaret, Westminster, and within the sanctuary of St Peter,
Westminster, to Gregory Fynes, Lord Dacres, and Anne his wife. For
66s 8d paid to the queen's farmers under patent.
There are biographies of Sir Augustine Nicolls in _DNB_, 14: 493-94,
and in Foss, _The Judges of England_, 6: 172-73. There is also a nice
pedigree chart of these Nicollses in Nichols' _Leicestershire_, 3:
480.