13. CORY

 

Cory Tree

 

JOHN CORY and ALICE (13)

 

JOHN CORY is one of the earliest of this family to appear in the Harpole Parish registers. Henry VIII decreed that every parish church should keep a register of the baptisms, weddings and burials conducted there. These registers began in 1538. On 19 December of that year, the baptism in Harpole is recorded of Robert, son of John Corye and his wife Alice.

From this we may conclude that John was born in the early 16th century, probably before 1515.

There is a will for Nicholas Corye, dated 1551, which names his sons Thomas, John, Nicholas, William and Henry. Marilyn Cory’s list of Harple Cory BMDs has added a note that this John married Alice. She equates this Nicholas with the Nicholas Corye who married Emma Dunckely at Harpole in January 1538, probably based on information in his will. This was his second marriage and Emma cannot be John’s mother. We do not know John’s mother’s name, nor when she died.

There is another possibility. There is a family tree of unknown origin which says “suggestion that John’s father was John (nothing more known)”. The source for this speculation is not given.

It is likely that he was a husbandman, farming on a small scale.

 

ALICE. We have no information about when or where Alice married John, except that it was before December 1538. Nor do we know her maiden name or where she was born. She may have grown up in Harpole, like John, but the parish registers had not begun then, and we cannot confirm this.

 

Assuming that Nicholas Corye is John’s father, John would have seen him marry his second wife Emma Dunckley on the same day in January 1538 as John’s brother Thomas married another woman of the Dunckley family.

Robert is the first of John and Alice’s children to appear in the new register. They may have had other children before this. There followed:

An  baptised 10 Aug 1541
Henrye  13 Sept 1543
William  14 June 1545

On 9 Nov 1546 there is a baptism for Ann, daughter of John and Anne Corye. Marilyn Cory has added a note that the mother should, perhaps be Alice.

The following year, Henry VIII died, and was succeeded by his young and short-lived son Edward VI.

On 18 March 1548 John, son of John Corye was baptised. We may assume Alice was his mother. Baby John was buried “aged a few days” on 20 March.
Nycholas, son of John and Alice, was baptised on 28 April 1549
There is another query about Mary, daughter of John and Amy Corye (again possibly Alice), baptised on 23 Aug 1551.

John’s father Nicholas died in 1551. John and his four brothers were named in his will.

There follow three more baptisms for which only the father John is named:
John, 8 Oct 1552

In 1553 Young King Edward died and was succeeded by his older half-sister Mary Tudor.

Alice was baptised 24 March 1554
Elizabeth 26 Oct 1556

 

There is a burial for Alice Cory at Harpole parish church on 9 Sep 1557 and another on 4 Feb 1559. The register gives no information about their marital status. Marilyn Cory gives the earlier one as John’s wife.

 

John remarried, to another Alice. On 15 May 1558 the wedding took place of John Corye and Alice Langham. Since it was at Harpole parish church, we assume that Alice Langham was also a resident of the village.
This was the year Elizabeth I came to the throne.
The marriage appears to have lasted less than a year. It was probably John’s second wife who was buried in February 1559. No children are recorded from this short-lived union.

There is information from 1567, probably from the will of John’s brother Thomas, who died that year, that John was now ‘of Upton’. Upton is a village two miles west of Harpole and only two miles from Northampton. We do not know how long John had been living there, though it is likely that he moved after the death of his second wife, unless he lived near enough to the parish boundary to continue using Harpole church.
John’s brother Thomas who made this will was a husbandman, farming on a small scale. John’s son, John junior, also became a husbandman. This is likely to have been the older John’s occupation, too.

In 1566 Elizabeth’s rival, Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to a son James, who was to become the childless Elizabeth’s successor as James I of England. The following year, Mary had her husband Lord Darnley murdered, and in 1568 a popular rising against her and her lover Bothwell drove Mary to flee to England. She became Elizabeth’s prisoner until her execution.

We do not yet have a date for John’s burial. It probably took place in Upton.

 

 

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Cory Tree