In Memory of Jolyne Sample 1934 - 2001 These pages would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of  Sewell and Jolyne Sample  who shared the results of their research.

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The Magna Charta

    "The Magna Charta (or Carta) is generally considered to be the cornerstone of Anglo-Saxon law, since it is the earliest agreement between sovereign and subject (i.e. the noble class) on the rights of both parties —— that is, what each can do, and the limitation of powers. In addition, the Great Charter set up watchdogs for both sides: twenty-five men representing the barons, which twenty-five signed for the barons and were sureties for the baronial performance, and the friends of the king, who were named in the Charter.

    "The story of the Charter and the study of its wording and provisions fills many books. The reader may perhaps find the most interesting and useful of these to be a nineteenth-century work by Richard Thomson entitled An Historical Essay on the Magna Carta of King John, published in London in 1828. At the head of each page is a shield of arms of a person who was in some way related to the Charter or the events surrounding it, and these arms are indexed in tables beginning on page xvii. The text of the Charter is given, accompanied by essays on content, but of primary interest to the users of the present volume are the extensive biographical notes on the Sureties, and on those individuals mentioned in the text of the Charter, or connected with it. This book runs over 600 pages.

    "Of the twenty-five Sureties only seventeen have identified descendants. Four had no known surviving issue; the issue of one died out in the third generation, and of another in the fourth. Nothing whatever is known of William de Hardell and his family. The twenty-fifth, Richard de Percy, left only an illegitimate son, Henry, to whom he gave the manor of Settle (Yorks). Henry is known to have had a son Alexander, but further information about this line is lacking, and since Henry surrendered his manor of Settle to his cousins, efforts to learn more by land records have been unsuccessful."

Click on the Coat of Arms for details.

Bigod		Marshal		De Clare
Roger Bigod m. Ida		William Marshal m. Isabel de Clare		Richard de Clare m. Amice of Gloucester
Hugh Bigod m. Maud Marshal		Maud Marshal and Isabella Marshal		Gilbert de Clare m. Isabella Marshal
Isabel Bigod m. John Fitz Geoffrey				Isabel de Clare m. Robert de Brus
Avelina Fitz John m. Walter de Burgh				Robert de Bruce m. Marjorie of Carrick
Egidia de Burgh m. James Stewart				Robert (I) the Bruce m. Isobel of Mar
Walter Stewart m. Marjory Bruce		Robert (II) Stuart m. Elizabeth Mure		Marjorie Bruce m. Walter Stewart
		Kings of Scotland		Stewart
		Click on the Coat of Arms for the continuation of this line.

The following families are also connected with the Magna Charta. Click on the Coats of Arms for details.

De Vere	Fitz Walter	Plantagenet	Warren

Saher de Quincy

Family records and traditions have long hinted at a descent from the Magna Charta Surety Saher de Quincy, and thanks to records shared through the kindness of Sewell V. Sample and John Rees we now have a connection.  Click here or on the coat of arms for details.

King John and his Advisors

King John	William Longespée	Alan,  Lord of Galloway

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