Prelude to the Search

The Wintour family of Huddington Court in Worcestershire played a prominent role in the events of the Gunpowder Plot. Two of the principal conspirators - Thomas and Robert Wintour - were brothers who belonged to this family. Their half-sister Dorothy was also the wife of another principal plotter, John Grant of Norbrook, Warwickshire.

I first became interested in the Gunpowder Plot because of a legend which linked the Burbury family with the Wintours of Huddington. My 7th great-grandfather, William Burbury, married Elizabeth Winter in 1743 in the parish of Leek Wootton, near Coventry in Warwickshire. The legend states that this Elizabeth Winter was "... daughter of Winter of Haddington Court, Worcester, who was a descendant of the Thomas Winter who, with his brother Robert, and cousin, Sir Edward Catesby [sic], suffered death for their complicity in the Gunpowder Plot."

The source for this statement was a book written by my great-grandfather Alfred Burbury in 1938. I also have a copy of a handwritten family tree which has the same sentence in an almost verbatim form written at the bottom. This particular family tree came from an elderly, unmarried Burbury lady in England, and was compiled during the early 1920s.

As far as I knew, no-one in the family had ever attempted to establish the genuineness of this legend. Thus I decided to see if I could find out myself whether the legend was true or not. And as I started to delve into the matter, I began to find other people whose families had a similar legend. In most cases the story was basically the same - their family claimed descent from the Wintour family of Huddington Court. Unfortunately, none of these contacts had been able to find definitive proof of the link - it was merely a "claim", or a "family legend".

An Outline of the Wintour Family

There is controversy surrounding the early origins of the Wintour family. Some accounts say that the family was descended from a knight who came over to England with William the Conqueror, whereas others say the family was originally Welsh.

The family acceded to the estates of Huddington in Worcestershire when a Roger Wynter married Joan de Hodington, heiress of Huddington and Cassy. A few generations later, the family split into two principal branches - the "Huddington" branch, from which were descended the Gunpowder Plotters Robert and Thomas; and the "Lydney" branch, from which were descended notable historical figures as Admiral Sir William Wynter, who played a prominent role in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and Sir John Wynter, a Royalist leader during the Civil War.

Surname spellings tended to vary greatly in earlier times, and the surname Wintour is no exception. In the beginning the surname seems to have been predominantly spelt as "Wynter". Other common variations which appear are "Wintour", "Wyntour" and of course "Winter". Often different sources will use different spellings even when referring to the same person. To get around this problem, I have decided to consistently use the spelling "Wintour" for members of the Huddington Court branch, principally because this is the spelling which Thomas Wintour is believed to have used himself.

The family around 1605

As the family legends usually claim that a line of descent exists from the Gunpowder Plot Wintours, I will concentrate on the generations of the Wintour family which were contemporary to the year 1605 and later.

George Wintour of Huddington Court had five children in all: Robert and Thomas were children of his first marriage to Jane Ingleby, daughter of Sir William Ingleby of Ripley Castle in Yorkshire; and John, Dorothy and Anne were from his second marriage to Elizabeth Bourne, daughter of Sir John Bourne of Battenhall. When George died in 1596, his estates were inherited by his eldest son Robert.

Robert and Thomas Wintour are counted among the group of thirteen principal Gunpowder Plotters; their younger half-brother John was also convicted and executed for playing a minor role in the Plot. John was substantially younger than his two half-brothers, and appears to have been in his early twenties at the time of the plot events. There is no record that he ever married or had issue. Thus the question would seem to be: did Robert or Thomas have any issue?

The Wintour line descending from Robert is fairly well documented by wills and Chancery inquisitions.

Robert Wintour had made an important dynastic alliance by marrying Gertrude Talbot, daughter of Sir John Talbot of Grafton, the heir presumptive to the earldom of Shrewsbury. There were two children of this marriage, a son John and a daughter Helena.

After Robert was condemned and executed for treason, his estates do not seem to have been immediately forfeited to the Crown as was normal in such cases, but instead passed to his wife Gertrude. However, the estates were eventually forfeited by Gertrude in 1607, but for recusancy, not because of treason. In any case, the family regained the estates at some stage, as Robert and Gertrude's son John died "seised of the manor" in 1622. Antonia Fraser claims that "... Sir John Wintour [son of Robert and Gertrude], was 'a noted Papist' in the English Civil War" (Faith and Treason, 1996, p. 273). This is in fact incorrect--Fraser has confused Robert Wintour's son John with Sir John Wynter, who was a member of the Lydney, Gloucestershire branch of the Wynter family.

John had apparently been a sickly child, and it is reasonable to assume that he was not very old when he died in 1622. His sister Helena was probably born around 1600, so John may have been in his early or mid thirties at the most. Nevertheless, he was the father of three sons, John, Robert and George, all of whom succeeded in turn to the Huddington Court estates.

The younger John Wintour of Huddington Court married Margaret Russell, daughter of Sir Thomas Russell of Strensham. John and Margaret were probably very distant cousins: Joan de Hodington, who married John's ancestor Roger Wynter, had a sister Agnes who married William Russell of Strensham.

John Wintour and his brother Robert both appear to have died at a young age and without issue, so that the estates eventually passed to their youngest brother George. The following account of Sir George is taken from page 33 of The Wynter Family:

"The last of the Wintours to live at Huddington Court was Sir George Wintour. He was born in 1622 and married as his first wife, Lady Frances Talbot, his second cousin, daughter of John, tenth earl of Shrewsbury. She died July 17th, 1641. He married secondly, Mary, eldest daughter of Charles, Lord Carrington, and she died November 16th, 1642. Thus Sir George was twice a widower before he was 21. Both these ladies are buried under the chancel [of the Church of St. James at Huddington Court] and have inscriptions to them. He married thirdly, Mary, daughter and heir of Sir George Kemp, Bart., of Pentlow Hall in Essex, and died without issue June 4th, 1658, leaving his estates to his first wife's brother, the then Earl of Shrewsbury. This was Frances [sic], the eleventh Earl, who was killed in a duel with Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in 1667. ..."

The inscription for Sir George's first wife also mentions a daughter Joan who died in infancy. Other than this, Sir George Wintour had no surviving issue, so that when he died in 1658, the line of the Wintours of Huddington Court died out with him.

I think that this shows fairly conclusively that none of the present-day families who claim to be descended from the Wintours of Huddington Court can possibly be descended from Robert Wintour. The only possibility is if Sir George Wintour's elder brothers John and Robert had had sons. However, if they did, then why did the estate eventually pass to the Talbot family?

Did Thomas Wintour ever marry?

Robert Wintour's descendants have thus been accounted for down to Sir George Wintour (d. 1658), the last Wintour to live at Huddington Court. So if we are to have a line of descent from a Wintour who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot, the only person left to consider is Robert's younger brother Thomas.

Mainstream sources are generally silent on whether Thomas Wintour was married or not, and thus the general assumption is that he remained single. He appears to have released all his rights under his father's will to his brother Robert. A document dated 9th March 42 Elizabeth (AS. No.1759), bearing the signature of Thomas Winter and part of a seal endorsed with signatures of witnesses, contains the following phrase:

"Release by Thomas Winter, gent, 2nd son of George Winter Esq decd, to his brother Robert Winter of Hoddington, Co. Worcestershire Esq of all annuities, rent charges and etc under the will of said George, his father".

"From 1658 onwards it is difficult to trace the family, as the Lydney and Huddington lines seem to have died out: but quite recently I came across some notes which were written in an old Bible, in the possession of a Mr. Harold Winter. I quote from it: 'Thomas Winter (of the Gunpowder Plot), brother of Robert Winter of Huddington Court, was secretly married to Elizabeth Catesby, who was the sister of his friend Robert Catesby. At the time of the Trial she was kept hidden away from the Authorities as she was expecting a baby: the baby was probably born in Guy Fawkes' home. The child, George, eventually became a sea captain'."

The CD-ROM version of the International Genealogical Index (IGI), compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has the following entries for the children of (Sir) William Catesby and Anne Throckmorton:

Robert, born abt. 1567, Barcheston, Warwickshire

George, born abt. 1567, Barcheston, Warwickshire

Anna, born abt. 1569, Barcheston, Warwickshire

Elizabeth, born abt. 1573, Barcheston, Warwickshire

William, born abt. 1575, Barcheston, Warwickshire

Richard, born abt. 1577, Barcheston, Warwickshire

However, this particular information in the IGI had not come from extractions from original parish registers, and for some reason it was not possible to trace where this information had come from.

Then, Jennifer O'Brien (a founding member of the Gunpowder Plot Society) obtained a copy of the reports made by Dugdale for the Royal College of Arms, one from 1585 and the other from 1592. Both copies show that Robert Catesby had two sisters, Elizabeth and Ann. Ann married a Sir Henry Browne, a relative of Viscount Montague, but no marriage is given for Elizabeth. Nevertheless, here we had independent proof of Elizabeth Catesby's existence.

It is possible that Thomas Wintour and Elizabeth Catesby may have made a clandestine marriage, particularly if the marriage was performed according to Catholic rites. Apparently this used to happen on a fairly frequent basis during this period, as marriages had to be conducted according to the rites of the Church of England to be considered valid. However, it must be noted that this is purely speculation in the case we are dealing with here: there simply is no evidence that Thomas Wintour married Elizabeth Catesby, or anyone else for that matter.

As far as I have been able to find out, there is nothing more known about the alleged son George who "went to sea". I have found one possible candidate for this George: there was a George Winter [sic] of Bugbrooke in Northamptonshire who apparently died in 1666 at sea on the naval ship Royal Oak. His will, which was proved in 1667, gives his wife Alice as his sole beneficiary, and does not mention any children. His parents are not known, nor is his age, but if he was indeed the son of Thomas Wintour who went to sea, then his age would have been around 61 in 1666.

Conclusion

Where does this leave us? Is there any evidence that lines of descent from the Wintour brothers of Gunpowder Plot fame continue to the present day? The short answer to this is a simple -- no.

Robert Wintour's line did continue for two more generations, but it died out fairly conclusively with Sir George Wintour in 1658. There is no firm evidence that his younger brother Thomas ever married, despite the tantalising but unsubstantiated remark in Peter Winter's bible. And the youngest half-brother John was executed when he was in his early twenties, and there is not even a hint of a rumour that he had married and left a widow to mourn him.

I would not want to shut the lid on this case until it can be definitively proved that Thomas Wintour did not marry, and I am always willing to consider new evidence which can shed more light on the issue, but to anyone who claims to be descended from Robert or Thomas Wintour, I would have to say that legends like this are what make the study of family history so interesting, but in this case that's all it can possibly be -- a legend.