Robert "John" Belknap

• Preferred Name: Robert "John" Belknap^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}
  
• Gender: M
  
• Fact: with note: Description: https://www.geni.com/people/Sir-Robert-Belknap/4254439342190050424?through=6000000006444680173
  
• Death: ABT 1360 in Kent, England with note: The United Kingdom didn't exist before 1801.
  
• Birth: ABT 1282 in Hempstead, Essex, England at LATI: N2.0154 LONG: E0.374 with note: The United Kingdom didn't exist before 1801.
  
• http://familysearch.org/v1/TitleOfNobility: Sir
  
• FSID: G66H-42G
  
• Notes:

  === Life Sketch ===
  follow info
  
  The Ancestors and Descendants of Sir Robert Belknap
  Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas of England from 1377 to 1388
  
  (about 1330-1401) Related Families
  Copyright 2007-2016, Brent J. Belnap. All rights reserved. For questions or comments, please contact brent@brentjbelnap.com.
  
  http://www.sirrobertbelknap.org
  
  Gathered here is the most comprehensive repository of primary source materials, web links, and other information on the early Belknap family of England, with particular emphasis on Sir Robert Belknap (about 1330-1401), who served as Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas of England commencing in 1377 until his banishment to Ireland in 1388 by King Richard II.
  
  The recorded history of the Belknap family commences with John Belknap, father of Sir Robert Belknap. It continues through Robert's son, Sir Hamon Belknap (about 1380-1429), to Hamon's son, Sir Henry Belknap (about 1420-1488), to Henry's son, Sir Edward Belknap (about 1471-1521).
  
  The surname Belknap, as carried through descendants of Sir Robert Belknap, appears to have died out with Sir Robert's great grandson, Sir Edward. However, several other males surnamed Belknap, whose connections to Sir Robert are at present unknown, were contemporaries of Sir Robert's family during the 15th and 16th Centuries.
  
  The Belknap surname may have continued through one of these other contemporaneous Belknaps through the Beltoft family of Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire ("Beltoft" appears to be an Anglo-Saxon etymological derivative of the Norman surname "Belknap"), who assumed or resumed using the surname Belknap in the 1500s, not long before Abraham Belknap (formerly known as Beltoft) emigrated to Massachusetts in the 1630s.
  
  (Adaline Knight, first wife of Utah Pioneer Gilbert Belnap (5th great grandson of Abraham Belknap), is a direct descendant of Sir Robert Belknap several ways: through her paternal great grandfather, Samuel Knight, whose Hutchens ancestry ties to Sir Robert via the Whitney-Baskerville-Devereaux-Ferrers lines; and through her paternal grandmother, Rizpah Lee, whose Lee ancestry on both sides of her family ties to Sir Robert via the Hungerford and Shelley lines.)
  
  The early Belknaps married into a number of notable English families, including, among others, the families of Darset, Phelipp, Stonor, Hampden, Boteler, Beauchamp, Sudeley, Avenel, Kymbell, Knollys, Ferrers, Finche, Cooke, Hende, Wotton, Danett, Shelley, Carryll, Scott, and Bishop.
  
  Other direct descendants of Sir Robert Belknap include the surnames of Wynchingham, Arden, Putnam, Arundell, Devereaux, Hungerford, Southwell, Fortescue, Jenney, Playters, Wentworth, Le Strange, Shakespeare, Lee, L'Isle, Wriothesley, Clopton, Clifford, Stanhope, Clifton, Warwick, Sydney, Spencer, Savile, Winthrop, St. Leger, Bagot, Russell, Worsley, Sutton, Cavendish, etc.
  
  During the Protestant Reformation, some of Sir Robert's descendants, including Sir Edward Belknap, supported King Henry VIII. Others remained loyal to the Catholic faith. One, Father Robert Southwell, is officially venerated as a "saint." Another married Sir Adrian Fortescue, a martyr, who was later beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1895. Still others affiliated with Puritanism and emigrated to America.
  
  Sir Robert Belknap's direct descendants include many notable persons, including William Shakespeare, Lady Jane Grey, Sir Francis Bacon, Prime Minister Winston Churchill (through 2 known lines), Princess Diana (through 3 known lines), and England's current reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II (through 7 known lines).
  
  Life sketch
  "ALTHOUGH Robert Bealknap had very considerable possessions in the county of Kent before he could have acquired them from the profits of his profession, we do not find with certainty who his parents w
  
  === Robert Belknap ===
  READ FAMILY
  Robert Bealknap
  Robert Bealknap (or Belknap, II.) JP (died 19 January 1401) was a British justice. He is first mentioned in June 1351 in a papal register of indults issued to inhabitants of Great Britain, where he is called a "clerk, of the diocese of Salisbury" in Wiltshire. He next appears in 1353 as a member of a commission to survey Battle Abbey. This commission was followed by an extensive number of others, as evidenced by extant patent rolls, until 1388, most of which related to oyer and terminer, walliis et fossatis, gaol delivery, sewer, and the peace primarily, but not exclusively, in Kent and other parts of southeastern England. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Kent on 18 May 1362, and at the same time began serving as legal counsel. In July 1362 he served on a commission with William of Wykeham investigating lands granted to the Bishopric of Winchester, which Wykeham at that time held. From this point Belknap's career as a lawyer began to prosper; from 1371 he was retained as a lawyer by Westminster Abbey, and from 1374 by John of Gaunt. He was sent along with John Wycliffe and John Gilbert to Bruges in July 1374 to negotiate papal provisions; he returned in September and on 10 October he was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and was Knighted on 28 December of that same year. From 1375 to 1388 he served as a Trier of Petitions in Parliament, and in 1376 he was involved in investigating Richard Lyons in Essex and Sussex after complaints of embezzlement.
  
  Following the death of Edward III he was reappointed as Chief Justice under Richard II but was widely unpopular; at the time of the Peasants' Revolt he was in Essex conducting a court of trailbaston and was forced to promise not to conduct such courts again, as well as physically attacked;[1] When the rebels reached London he was one of 15 people whose deaths they demanded. He also offended the people of London itself by suggesting that their claim to the position of Chief Butler of England for Richard's coronation should be rejected; in response they placed a model of his head on a water fountain in the marketplace so that it would vomit wine when Richard walked by.[2] Belknap's downfall began when he advised the commission created in Parliament on 19 November 1386 to reform the government. The king and his advisers saw this commission as infringing on royal authority, and on 25 August 1387 Belknap and the other justices involved were summoned to Nottingham and asked whether such a commission was lawful and, if not, how the summoners should be punished. The justices responded that such a commission was unlawful, and that the summoners should be punished as traitors. Belknap reportedly refused to seal the answers until threatened with death by Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland, and Michael de la Pole.
  
  In response to this the Lords Appellant seized power on 17 November. After the Merciless Parliament began on 30 January 1388 Robert Charleton was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Belknap was arrested along with his fellow justices. The group were brought to trial on 27 February due to their answers in relation to the legality of the parliamentary commission, and were sentenced to death. After many high-ranking figures including William Courtenay and Queen Anne pleaded on their behalf, the sentence was changed to that of forfeiture and attainder, including exile to Drogheda, Ireland.
  
  At the time of his attainder, Belknap held extensive manorial properties in Kent (Beachborough Manor, Orpington, Seintling or Saint Mary Cray, Bybrook Manor, Westcombe Manor, Kingsnoth, among others), Sussex (Knelle Manor, Wilting Manor), Hampshire (Crux Easton, Penton Mewsey), Hertfordshire (Rushden, La More Manor), Cambridgeshire (Gamlingay, Caldecote), Norfolk (Salthouse), Bedfordshire (Little Holwell), and Oxfordshire (Hoo Manor). The attainder and exile were revoked in the January 1397 parliament. Some of Belknap's land holdings were returned to him or members of his immediate family with the first parliament of Henry IV in October 1399, although his wife Juliana in a noted case was allowed to bring suit as feme sole for certain lands. Belknap died less than two years later on 19 January 1401, and was buried in Rochester Cathedral.
  
  Robert Belknap was born about or before 1330, possibly in Kent or Wiltshire, England, the son of John Belknap and his wife Alice. He was married twice, first to Amy (possibly de Say), who died before 1373, and second to Juliana Darset (died 1414), daughter of John Darset (or Darsett/Dorsett) and Elizabeth Phelipp, daughter of Thomas Phelipp of Baldock, Hertfordshire. Belknap presumably had all of his five known children through Juliana:
  
  Thomas Belknap (died before 1414)
  John Belknap (died before 1414)
  Joan or Joanna Belknap (died before 1419), married (1) Ralph de Stonor (died 13 November 1394 accompanying King Richard II of England while en route to Ireland) and (2) Sir Edmund Hampden (died before 29 April 1420), Sheriff and Escheator of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire
  Sir Hamon Belknap (died before 18 March 1428/1429), Treasurer of Normandy, married Joan Boteler, daughter of Thomas Boteler, 4th Baron Sudeley.
  Juliana Belknap (died after 1417), married (1) Robert de Avenel and (2) Nicholas Kymbell
  Robert Belknap is the great grandfather of Sir Edward Belknap, Privy Councillor to Henry VII and Henry VIII, through Sir Hamon Belknap's son Sir Henry Belknap (died 20 June 1488).
  
  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bealknap
  
  ________________
  
  Sir Robert Belknap, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas1,2,3,4,5,6
  M, #24597, d. between 1399 and 1401
  Father John Belknap
  Mother Alice
  Sir Robert Belknap, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas was born at of Hempstead, Kent, England. He married Juliana Darset, daughter of John Darset.3,4,6 Sir Robert Belknap, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas died between 1399 and 1401.
  Family Juliana Darset d. bt 1414 - 1415
  Children
  Joanna Belknap+2,5 b. c 1356
  Hamon Belknap, Esq.+3,4,6 b. c 1390, d. 4 Jan 1429
  Citations
  [S7805] Unknown author, The Ancestry of Dorothea Poyntz, by Ronny O. Bodine, p. 40; Wallop Family, p. 84.
  [S16] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. III, p. 153-154.
  [S16] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. IV, p. 140-141.
  [S6] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: 2nd Edition, Vol. I, p. 232.
  [S4] Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, Vol. IV, p. 108.
  [S4] Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, Vol. V, p. 89.
  From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p819.htm#i24597
  ______________
  
  Sir Robert Belknap1
  M, #199884
  Last Edited=3 Jul 2006
  Child of Sir Robert Belknap
  Joan Belknap+2
  Citations
  [S37] BP2003 volume 1, page 658. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]
  [S37] BP2003. [S37]
  From: http://www.thepeerage.com/p19989.htm#i199884
  __________________
  
  Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 04
  Bealknap, Robert de by James McMullen Rigg
  BEALKNAP or BELKNAP, Sir ROBERT de (d. 1400?), judge, was doubtless descended from the Belknape found in the Battle Abbey list of the nobles who followed the Conqueror into England. Nothing appears to be known of the subsequent history of the family until we find Robert de Bealknap settled in Kent, as lord of the manor of Hempstead, in the fourteenth century. According to a deed dated 1 March 1375, Sir Robert de Belcknappe granted certain lands near Chatham to the prior and convent of Rochester; and his parents' Christian names were John and Alice. A certain Bealknap appears as a counsel in the year book for 1346-7, and may have been the father of Sir Robert. Sir Robert himself is first mentioned in the year book for 1362-3. In 1365 and 1369 Bealknap was named one of the commissioners appointed to survey the coast of Thanet, and take measures to secure the lands and houses in the district against the encroachments of the sea. In 1366 he was appointed king's sergeant, with a salary of 20l. per annum, at the same time doing duty as one of the justices of assize, at a salary of the same amount. In 1372 he was placed on a commission entrusted with the defence of the coast of Kent against Invaders. In 1374 he was nominated one of seven sent ad paries transmarinas, with a special mandate to confer with the envoys of the papal court, not, as Foss absurdly says, 'as to the reformer Wicliff,' who was himself a member of the embassy, but for the purpose of bringing about a happy settlement of such questions as involved the honour of the church and the rights of the crown and realm of England, and in the same year he was made chief justice of the common pleas, but was not knighted till 1385. In 1381, on the outbreak of the insurrection against the poll-tax, afterwards known as that of Wat Tyler, he was sent into Essex with a commission of trailbaston to enforce the observance of the law, but the insurgents compelled the chief justice to take an oath never more to sit in any such sessions, and Bealknap was only too glad to make his escape without suffering personal violence. In 1386 the impeachment of Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, for waste of the revenues and corruption, was followed by the transfer of the administrative authority to a council of nobles responsible to the parliament. The king, at the instigation of his friends, summoned the judges to a council at Nottingham (August 1387). With the exception of Sir William Skipwith, all the judges attended. They were asked whether the late ordinances by which Pole had been dismissed were derogatory to the royal prerogative and in what manner their authors ought to be punished. The questions were answered by the judges in a sense favourable to the king; and a formal act of council was drawn up, embodying the questions and the answers, and sealed with the seal of each judge. We learn from Knyghton that Bealknap protested with some vigour against the whole proceeding; but he yielde
  
  === https://wp.belnapfamily.org ===
  
  === SORLEY'S PEDIGREES (GS NUMBER Q929.242 S ===
  SORLEY'S PEDIGREES (GS NUMBER Q929.242 SO68) P.52;

• m. ABT 1334

1. Robert Belknap, b. ABT 1330 in Kent, England     d. 19 JAN 1401 in England

1. Title: Legacy NFS Source: John Belknap -
   Author: Ancestry Family Trees, Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members., Ancestry.com, http://www.Ancestry.com, Page number: Ancestry Family Trees
   Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. Note: The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created.
   Page: Migrated from user-supplied source citation: urn:familysearch:source:3245097418
   
2. Title: Web: Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015
   Publication: Name: http://search.ancestry.com/collections/9289/records/31290110;
   
3. Title: Legacy NFS Source: John Belknap -
   Author: GEDCOM File : (Francis Cooke26NOV1584-Part 4) 1767490.ged, BRUCE COOLEY PUSCH
   Note: 1 _TYPE Electronic File 4000 N. OCEAN DRIVE #2201 SINGER ISLAND, FL 33404 1 _TYPE Electronic File 4000 N. OCEAN DRIVE #2201 SINGER ISLAND, FL 33404
   Page: Migrated from user-supplied source citation: urn:familysearch:source:2032020106
   
4. Title: Family history
   Publication: Name: https://www.houseofnames.com/amp/belknap-family-crest;
   
5. Title: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Bealknap, Sir Robert (d. 1401), justice
   Publication: Name: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/1809;