The Crosse Family of Austrey – rising gentry

The advantages to be gained by placing daughters in high status marriages are demonstrated by the history of six generations of the Crosse family from the 1560s to the 1690s. The Crosses are typical of upwardly mobile families who started as smallholders and emerged among the ranks of the minor gentry through careful husbandry of resources and advantageous marriages. In the late Tudor period they were established among the ranks of the Austrey smallholders. Richard Crosse, who died in 1585, divided his estate between his widow, Elizabeth, and his eldest son, Robert, who had just turned twenty-one. His two younger sons, William and Thomas, aged nineteen and sixteen respectively, were to have forty marks each when they turned twenty-four, or on the occasion of their marriage, whichever came sooner. His only daughter, Dorothy, who was eleven years old in 1585, was to receive Ł40 when she reached 21 years, or on her marriage. Richard makes no further mention of his widow who presumably had a mere life interest in the holding after which it reverted to the heir.

Over the course of the next few decades all of Richard’s three sons married and produced families. Robert, the eldest, died in 1597 at a comparatively young thirty-four years leaving a widow with two sons and two daughters. In his inventory, valued at a modest Ł92.19.4, Robert is described as a husbandman. Little is known about Thomas, the second eldest son, except that be married and produced two children who appear as beneficiaries in their uncle William's will in 1626. William, the youngest brother, made the most noticeable status gains. As well as outliving his elder brother, he grew wealthier with goods valued in excess of Ł320 at his death at the age of sixty, having attained the status of ‘yeoman’. In later years William’s sons were called ‘yeomen’ and his daughter Elizabeth married a yeoman.

An examination of the Crosse family fortunes reveals that the senior line did not always make status gains ahead of younger brothers and sister and the age at which the householder died had an important bearing on future wealth and family position. Robert's eldest son, for example, died like his father at an early age, and thus failed to attain the status of a yeoman while his daughter, Katherine, lived long enough to secure a comfortable marriage to a clergyman.

Provisions in the elder Robert Crosse's will go some way towards explaining the disparities in the fortunes of the two branches of the family. As eldest son and heir, Robert was burdened with the task of paying legacies to his two brothers and his sister Dorothy, within a decade. Marriage merely increased the burden. If he married to have sons to help him on the land he was disappointed as it was not until eight years into his marriage, that his wife finally bore him a son. The financial demands upon the holding were aggravated by his early death. His younger brother William, on the other hand, escaped having to pay any of the legacies to younger siblings. He was able to call upon his eldest son for help on the land at a comparatively early stage and he lived to see one of his granddaughters marry into a local gentry family. William, his younger son, was firmly established among the yeomanry by 1645 when he paid Ł10 ‘proposition money’ to the Parliamentary cause making him the third most heavily taxed of the fourteen listed landholders. In Easter 1652 he took his turn as High Constable of Hemlingford Hundred.

Comparisons between the two branches of the Crosse family in the post-war period are hampered by the absence of any surviving wills or inventories for Robert's two sons. However, an inventory from 1677 belonging to Katherine Crosse, the widow of Robert's youngest son, Richard seems to indicate that the family fortunes of this branch had begun to improve. Katherine, who survived into her late sixties to outlive her husband by twenty-one years, left goods worth Ł383.12.8. A combination of early marriage, personal longevity and the late marriage of William’s two sons, helped her to accumulate this comfortable amount. For more than twenty years Katherine received all of the profits from her husband's holding together with income from a mortgage worth Ł160 owed to her by Robert, her nephew and son-in-law. She may also have received all or part of the Ł60 legacy set aside for her sister-in-law at her marriage to John Farmer in 1628, since she remained unmarried and outlived them both.

Anne Crosse's marriage to John Farmer, and her brother William's marriage to Katherine Farmer two years later, was intended to preserve and enhance the Crosse family holdings. In his will Robert ensured against the possibility of an unfavourable marriage, with the traditional stipulation that Anne was to forfeit her inheritance if she refused to obtain the consent of her mother beforehand. But these carefully laid plans were confounded by a preponderance of females among the fourth generation of Crosses in both branches. As sole surviving heir Robert, born in 1620 and descended from a younger son of Robert Crosse senior, had excellent prospects. These were enhanced even further by his marriage to a cousin from the other branch of the family. The Ł160 mortgage owed to his mother-in-law was not too great a burden to pay off over a long lifetime, without the burden of younger brothers or sisters.

The marriage arrangements made by William Crosse for his daughter Katherine in 1649, and the subsequent provisions in his will restricting her choice of a marriage partner, came from a realisation that there would be no sons to carry on the family name. Robert was an obvious choice as his heir. In 1649 when the marriage was arranged Robert was twenty-nine, a bachelor and the only son. A marriage between the two branches would consolidate the family fortune and provide William with a surrogate son to manage the family holding. All this was undone by his daughter Elizabeth’s untimely death in 1652 which deprived him of direct male heirs bearing the family surname. In these circumstances William's decision to leave everything to his wife and daughter Katherine, except for Robert's mortgage debt and a Ł5 legacy to his granddaughter, Elizabeth, was a prudent compromise. Despite being saddled with his father’s mortgage, Robert did remarkably well. When he died 26 years later he left goods worth Ł240. But his failure to produce a male heir caused the accumulated fortunes and landholdings of the Crosse family to be divided and dispersed among descendants who bore other surnames. On Robert's death in 1682, therefore, the Crosse family became extinct despite a century of cautious dealings, settlements and marriage alliances designed to perpetuate the family name and holdings within the parish.

Sources and Notes

Robert and Thomas Crosse each held 1 virgate on Paget's Austrey demesne in 1546: S.R.O. Court Roll, D (W) 1734/J2009.

L.J.R.O. wills, William Crosse, 1626, inventory, Robert Crosse, 1598.

William left William Crosse, 'the son of my brother, Thomas Crosse', 2s and his niece, Elizabeth 3s 4d.

The first recorded baptism by Katherine Crosse and Robert Lilley was on 6th March 1660, suggesting they married a few years before that date.

The Proposition tax was an enforced loan to Parliament paid by the more substantial landholders. William’s contribution ranks alongside that of Richard Crosse who paid Ł6, Mrs Elizabeth Leving, widow, (Ł14), John Prior, the vicar (Ł12). William also suffered the loss of one of his servants in June 1644: P.R.O. Account of Losses from Quartering, SP 28/186. Warwick County Records Series, Quarter Sessions Order Book III, pg. 103; A.L. Hughes, thesis, 490 (Appendix II, table 6). L.J.R.O. inventories, Katherine Crosse, 1677.

P.R.O. will of William Crosse, 1656: PROB 11/261/11.