11. PAINE-GREENE

Cory Tree

JOHN PAINE and ELIZABETH GREENE (11)

 

JOHN PAINE. There are Paines in the registers of Great Brington in Northamptonshire from 1632 onwards. The dates of John’s children make it likely that he was born in the early 17^th century, and, that therefore, he came from another parish.

There are a number of John Paines born around Great Brington. It has not been possible to identify the right one.

We pick up his story with this baptism.

Baptism. St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington.
1632 Apr 5  Elizabeth daughter of John and Elizabeth.

There is then a gap in the baptisms for children of John and Elizabeth Paine until a sequence beginning in 1640. This makes it unclear whether Elizabeth’s baptism is to the same couple, or an older one. It may be that there were other baptisms between these two that are no longer legible.

What is more likely is that the first wife is a different Elizabeth.

There is a burial for Elizabeth Paine in Great Brington on 6 Sep 1634. She is not said to be anyone’s daughter, so she may be John’s first wife.

There is a marriage in Harlestone in 1638/9.

Marriage. St Andrew, Harlestone.
1638/9 Jan 7  John Paine of Brivan and Elizabeth Greene.

Harlestone is a village only 3 miles from Nobottle, the hamlet in Great Brington parish,  where John Paine lived.

We have not found Brivan. It may be mistranscription of Brington, though that does not seem likely.

 

ELIZABETH GREENE. There is just one baptism in Harlestone that fits this.

Baptism. St Andrew, Harlestone.
1606/7 Mar 8  Elizabeth daughter of Richard and Alice Green.

We know of three brothers, one older and one younger.

 

There are five baptisms following their marriage.

Baptisms. St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington.
1640 Jul 9  Alice
1642 May 1  Cecilia
1644 Dec 1  Richard
1647 Sep 19  Henery
1652 Apr 30  Allexander

The period of these baptisms covers the Civil War of the 1640s and Cromwell’s Republican Commonwealth in the 1650s.

Though Northamptonshire was predominantly Pariliamentarian, Henry Spencer of Althorp fought for the king in the Civil War, and was killed at the Battle of Newbury. An older Edward Spencer remained neutral.

At his burial, we learn that John Paine was living at Newbottle. This is today’s Nobottle, a hamlet in the parish of Great Brington, where we also find later Paines. It stands on an old Roman road. The name means “New Building”. It is a tiny hamlet, but it must once have been important, since it gave its name to the Newbottle Grove Hundred. The Althorp estate of the Spencer family borders it, and the family own much of Nobottle.

Tolkien used the name Nobottle in his map of the Shire on the endpapers of The Lord of the Rings. He shows it as a hamlet in the far NW corner.

Burial. St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington.
1667 Oct 19  John Paine of Newbottle

Elizabeth lived on until nearly the end of the century.

Burial. St Mary the Virgin, Great Brington.
1697 Dec 19  Elizabeth Pain widow of Nobottle.