Hello
I hope that someone can help me with a puzzle. Our family have owned two portraits for many generations and they are supposed to be of Richard Shuckburgh and his wife, Grace, daughter of Sir Robert Doyen, former Lord chief Justice of Ireland. The portraits date from the late 17th century. My problem is that there doesn't seem to have been any such person who was Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. There was a Sir Robert Doyne, born 1651, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland, but he would have been younger than Grace Shuckburgh.
Using Find my Past, I discovered that Grace Doyne and Richard Shugborough were married at St Werburgh, Dublin, on 28th October 1664 (Betham's Genealogical Extracts) and this has to be the right marriage. Later on Richard Shuckburgh's will, of Bourton, Warwickshire, is recorded in Prerogative Wills of Ireland in 1687 (will destroyed). I am not sure where he died, but Grace died at Bourton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire, on the 29th January 1707, aged about 70 (registers and MI). We know that Richard Shuckburgh inherited Bourton from his brother, Henry, in 1676 and it is possible that he and Grace lived in Ireland before that time as their childrens' births cannot be found at Bourton or in England.
The mystery of Grace's father being Sir Robert Doyen stems possibly from Richard Shuckburgh's will, another copy of which I saw at Warwickshire county Record Office many years ago. It is then repeated in the 1730 edition of Dugdale's Warwickshire which states on the ownership of Bourton "....and after him Richard, another brother, who by Grace, daughter to Sir Robert Doyen, late Lord Chief Justice the Kingdom of Ireland, left issue John Shuckburgh, the present owner hereof." This has been repeated down to the present day and it was only when I, with the aid of the internet, tried to find out more about the Doyens and realised that there was a problem.
So who was Grace Doyen or Doyne?!
Best wishes
Jonson1
