Henry Algernon Percy
John Graye Proctor was the first Proctor in the New World, and arrived aboard the two pinnances that were built from the shipwreck of the Sea Venture, arriving in Jamestown in 1610.
Tracing John Graye’s line back a few generations, his great-grandfather was Geoffery Proctor of Bordley, North Yorkshire. Geoffery was a devout Catholic who attended Rhylstone Church in the Ancient Parrish of Burnshall, and was a tenant of Fountains Abbey, and a treasurer to Henry Percy Algernon, the 5th Earl of Northumberland (who at one point was betrothed to Ann Boleyn).
Geoffery Proctor was a yeoman/gentleman farmer, a devout Catholic and “Procurator”, whose family had amassed a great estate in “feoffes”, with lands he managed in Litton, Owlcoottes, Hawkeswike and Scothorp in Craven… as well as Bordley, which “feoffes” he bequeathed to his sons at the time of his death 1523. Most of these came into dispute when the Statute of Uses converted all “use” titles into legal “equitable” titles. Henry the VIII became the owner of all the lands of the Catholic Church with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which would have put his descendants (and my ancestors) right in the middle of the Pilgramage of Grace.
Nether Bordley, North Yorkshire
Here is a picture of Bordley that I found on Google, in Craven, Yorkshire… near Malhamdale, in the Yorkshire Dales, which are reputed to be some of the most breathtaking vistas on the planet. The Pilgramage of Grace was romanticized in “The White Doe of Rylstone or, The fate of the Nortons” in 1815 by William Wordsworth.
More information about Geoffery Proctor’s very interesting will can be found at: http://www.kirkbymalham.info/KMI/bordley/morkillprocter.html
[...] of my ancestors, Geoffery Proctor of Nether Bordley, was the Treasurer for Henry Algernon Percy, the 6th Earl of [...]