12. HEIGHLEY

Riley Tree

 WILLIAM HEIGHLEY and HESTER (12)

 

WILLIAM HEIGHLEY. We have traced one line of Jack Priestley’s Riley ancestry back to Ralph Bean who married Elizabeth Heighley in Tadcaster in 1636.

This leads us to the following baptism:
Baptism. St John the Baptist, Kirkby Wharfe.~1613 Jan 30  Elyzabethe daughter of Willm Heighley of Kirkby.

Kirkby Wharfe is a village on the north bank of the River Wharfe, 2 miles south of Tadcaster in Yorkshire. Its name means “church village” and there was a church there at least as early as Viking times. It contains the remains of three Anglo-Saxon crosses.

“Of Kirkby” means that the family were living in the village, and not in the rural hinterland.

Elizabeth’s baptism is preceded by a marriage in Kirkby Wharfe in 1606, but the bride’s surname is hard to read.

Marriage. St John the Baptist, Kirkby Wharfe.
1606 Nov 25  William Heighley and Hester ?Shore

The registers of St John the Baptist in Kirkby Wharfe go back to the 1580s. The first mention of the name Heighley is the following.
Baptism. St John the Baptist, Kirkby Wharfe.
1604  Jul 5  Thomas sonne of William Heighley.

This suggests that William had been married earlier, or there may be another William Heighley in Kirkby Wharfe. The former seems more likely, since we have found no burial for a second William Heighley. Research is hampered by the poor state of the register, with many faded entries. We have not found the burial of William’s first wife.

The lack of burials for older members of the Heighley family, and of evidence of Wiliam having siblings raising families, make it likely that William had come to Kirkby Wharfe from elsewhere. No baptism has been found for him, so he was probably born in a parish whose registers do not go back far enough into the Elizabethan era.

In 1609 we have the burial of a child whose baptism we have not found.

Burial. St John the Baptist, Kirkby Wharfe
1609 Mar 5  William son of William Heighley

We then have the baptisms of three children of William Heighley in Kirkby Wharfe. The early register does not give the mother’s name, but it would seem that these and William and Hester’s children.

Baptisms. St John the Baptist, Kirkby Wharfe
1611 Apr 7  Robert
1612  Oct 4  Mychaell. Mychaell lived less than three weeks and was buried on Oct 21.
1613 Jan 30  Elyzabethe

The register is badly faded, so there may be others now illegible.

The family seem to have moved on to Tadcaster. It was here that William and Hester were buried and Elizabeth was married.

Burial. St Mary, Tadcaster.
1634 May 5  Hester the wife of William Heighler

William, but not Hester, was alive for the Civil War that began in 1642. The Parliamentary general Lord Fairfax had garrisoned Tadcaster, but a large Royalist army, under Lord Newcastle, marched on the town. There was not a major battle, but musket fire was exchanged around the bridge over the Wharfe. The Parliamentarians were heavily outnumbered and running short of gunpowder. Fairfax decided to retreat, and Newcastle occupied the town for the king.

We have no way of knowing where the Heighleys’ sympathies lay.

William lived to see the end of the war, with Charles I’s execution, and the Commonwealth instituted under Oliver Cromwell. He died two years before the restoration of the monarchy

Burial. St Mary, Tadcaster.
1658 died Sep 24  William Heighley