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Unfortunately we know no more about this Stephen, except that he was either a bachelor or widower, as no wife is named, and had no children above sixteen, or none at home. One of Lord Burghley's traducers asserted that his grandfather was an innkeeper at Stamford, which at least is incorrect. If this Stephen was a young man in 1379, which is not likely, and a bachelor, then he might have been the Stephen Cecill of Howden who with Alice his wife in 1390-1 sold or
conveyed to certain trustees two houses in the town, which were apparently hers (see former note). The Poll Tax Returns, which are very full, give us one other Cecil, and only one, viz., Robert Cecil, of Howden, 1379, a brewer, and rated at iis. There was only one brewer, but no less than twenty braciatrices, or ale-wives, brewing for the thirsty husbandmen, craftsmen, and labourers, and for the many prebendaries. Robert may have been brother, or son, or even father of Stephen, but he had no wife in 1379. He, however, must have been a young man if he was the Robert Cecil who, with Isabel his wife, by fine dated 1404-5, settled two messuages and eleven acres of land in Thorpe on their issue, and in default on her heirs, showing that this property came through her. Four years after he bought a house and lands in Thorpe and Belby, just outside the town. A house and land in Belby belonged to the second wife of David Cecill, Lord Burghley’s grandfather, as I showed in my former note. There are now only two farmhouses in Belby. The Court Rolls of Howden would reveal much if they go so far back. The last of this family at Howden appears to have been George Cecill, gent., an inquest after whose death was taken at Wetherby, Sept. 16, 1539 (Inq. p.m. 31 H. VIII., No. 52). The date of his decease is, most unusually, omitted. He was found to have died seised of 6 messuages, 4 cottages, 100 acres of land, 60 acres of meadow and pasture, a windmill, and an annual rent of 13s. 4d. in
Howden, Skelton, Laxton, Knedlington, and Asleby, by which deed, he had settled on Juliana, his daughter, and William Grave, her husband. She was his sole heiress, and then aged twenty-eight.
I have found nothing more. The name of Cecil Cecil is interesting as confirming the suggested
origin of the surname as a matronymic, not more than a generation or two before the earliest,
i.e., Stephen of 1313. It is remarkable that it should be so uncommon a name, as Cecil or Cecilia was a favourite Christian name in Yorkshire. I have only met with one instance of the name in more recent times in Yorkshire. William Nicholson, of Cawood (afterwards of York, and one of the chamberlains of the city in 1743), married in York Minster, Aug. 1, 1738, Mary Cecil, of Cawood (Yorks. Archeol. Journal, vol. iii. p. 86).
I notice that, according to a pedigree in Miscellanea Gen. et Her., new series, iii. 286, David Cecill was younger son of a Philip Cecill of Stamford. A. S. ELLIS.
Notes:
Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i. ch. xxi., 10.
The bishops of Durham had a " manor," 'i.e., manor house in Riccall parish called Le Welhalle. It was built by Bishop Kellawe, who was often there, and is now a farmhouse called "Wheel" Hall. It was on the banks the Ouse, and had, it is said, three moats. Foundations of considerable extent can be traced.
Howden, i.e., Hoveden, obtained its name when it was an insular site in the marsh or fen, and the head or chief of a group of similar sandhills. Near Christiana, in Norway, are some islands, the largest of which bears the name of Hoved-oen. On it certain monks from Lincoln founded a Cistercian monastery in 1147. " Hedon," which occurs more than once in my former note, is an
error of the MS. quoted for Howden, and evidently does not mean Hedon in Holderness
END
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