17 July 2007 Percy to Garter
17 July 2007
Dear Mr Gwynn-Jones,
Re: the proving of the two Percy provenances brought from Sherborne Dorset to New Zealand in 1842 – Descent through Thomas Percy the Gunpowder Plotters line and unresolved title claims.
Please find enclosed payment to continue the investigation into the genealogy of our Percy family and our opinion of what has been achieved to this point in time.
- That none of our Sherborne and Taunton genealogical and historical research has been proven to be faulty. The ‘correction’ mentioned in your last letter regarding the baptism date of Edward Percy (to 1692/3) is the date we notified you in our genealogist’s letters (see report of April 8th, 1998).
- We understand from our correspondence with the city of Cambridge, where there is interest in our research that Francis Percy Snr had, like his son the younger Francis Percy of Cambridge, claimed to have been de jure Earl of Northumberland soon after the demise of Josceline, 11th Earl. One of the concerns you posed was the apparent lack of any claims to the title from our Taunton Parish of St. Mary Magdalene and Sherborne lines. Francis Percy Snr was christened in our Taunton parish line in 1616 and he was the Gunpowder Plotters eldest grandson.
- Brian Piercy, of the Percy-Piercey Family Historical Society, is updating Brenan’s “House of Percy” table III, the chart of the Beverley line of the family. In his latest email to us he makes this rather provoking comment:
“APPRAISAL
Your research is SO close! We have evidence that the descendants of Edward of Beverley and Elizabeth Waterton may have included two John P’s four generations later. Both, or either, may have ended up living in the SW. Perhaps either could be John Purse father of Edward baptised 1670 at Taunton who married 1687. Or perhaps NOT!”
I know that I have suggested this before but should we not first attempt to either confirm or eliminate the possibility of John, the brother of Alan Percy of Beverely (Table III) having moved to Taunton to be near to his cousins and that he is ‘our’ proven John Purse/Pursey? The time frames listed are right, the provenances equally apply. There is also the chance that we may discover who was the other ‘John’ that Brian Piercy also mentions in his appraisal.
Our new plan for progress:
- Continue your efforts, then if we consider little promise or sign of a resolution is possible, our wider family will be consulted to consider our future options. You may rest assured that until or researches are proven incorrect our endeavours will continue.
- Our second preference is to constitute an internet site to publicise our claims together with the known history and the accumulated research and to seek input into the solving of the family conundrum. This will entail offering a reward large enough to guarantee wide-ranging interest from genealogists, historians, researchers and the news media.
yDNA analysis. The absolute answer to our genealogy lies with ancestors in Cambridge (City and University) with whom our family have historic links:
a) Thomas Percy the Gunpowder Plotter was educated there.
b) Francis Percy Snr. Grandson of Thomas, was in Cambridge when he claimed to be de jure Earl of Northumberland
c) Francis Percy jnr. (later Mayor of Cambridge in 1709) also claimed the earldom. Not only was this Francis educated at Cambridge but he is also buried there. Hence the interest in his background from the city of Cambridge. Unfortunately a glaring misdirection of his descent provided by the then Garter Principal King of Arms, Sir William Dugdale, doomed his claim to failure.
d) Other members of the Percy family known to have carried the Louvain-Percy male bloodline are also buried at Cambridge.
Analyses of the DNA of one of our three direct living eldest sons and Francis Percy jnr. and/or any of the d) above, would establish beyond doubt if the Louvain-Percy line lives on in New Zealand as claimed and that it descended through Thomas the Gunpowder Plotter. It would also indicate that Cambridge’s Francis Percy jnr was the rightful Earl of Northumberland following the death in the main Percy line of Josceline 11th earl of Northumberland in 1670, without male heir.
If this DNA analysis was proven then this ancient bloodline which includes Charlemagne’s DNA is valuable and would need to be protected against exploitation by companies specialising in the world-wide marketing of mtDNA and yDNA. It is abhorrent to me that after having laboured over ten years in my attempt to prove the existence in New Zealand of the historic Louvain-Percy male line that our family would then demean it. Any benefits accruing should be invested in the university that conducts the exhumation and process – hopefully Cambridge.
If unproven then you will not hear from me again and I will finish the book I started over 30 years ago. Even then I will have been gazumped by my historian brother Graeme who has just finished a 1500 page book on the origin, history and intrigues of the Percys worldwide.
Your sincerely
Shirley Kevin Percy (Kevin)