Posted 28 Apr 2018 by donnacain60
In the 12th Century, King Richard the

Lion-Heart, King of England, led an

army of his finest and bravest Knights

to fight for the return of the One True

Cross, and to clear the passage of

Christians on Pilgrimage to the Holy

City of Jerusalem. Among those chosen

for this daring adventure was, Sir John

Holcombe (the First). These Crusaders

fought their way to the Holy Lands,

winning decisive battles against Muslim

forces.

He was reported to have been knighted

and granted the Manor of Holcombe by

King Richard The Lion Hearted for his

actions in Palestine in the third crusade.

Records in the College of Arms, in

London And elsewhere indicate that the

Holcombe family is one of the most

ancient

in England.

It is reported that a Holcombe soldier in

the Battle of Hastings bore the Standard

of Britiric Aldorman, of Devon.

There is a very old cemetery in Devizes,

Wiltshire, with tombstones bearing the

name of HoIcomb and Holcombe, and

the church records of Canterbury

Cathedral bear the name of Samuel

Holcombe, There is a very old town in

Lancashire, near Liverpool, called

"Holcombe," and another place known

as "Holcombe Brook,

It is in Devon, however, that the family

became permanently established.

Herald's Visitations of 1680 giving a list

of seven generations of Holcombes who

had lived there.

A Papal letter, #1., 1138-1304, p. 417

(N.Y. C. Library), says: "The Pope,
having ordered the Bishop of Exeter,

on

Richard's resignation of Holcombe,

to make

provision for him, etc."
Feudal Aids, Vol. I, p. 545, we find

"Devon of 1303" Stundredem de

Wonford,

" Stephamos (?) de Hoccomb",

Hamfredus

call tenet in Holcombe", p. 346- Uprecote

(?)

Cum Holecombe in Exministre quartum

partem".
"In Devonshire Wills "index" p. 773,

appears the will of Thomas Holdomb,

St.,

Sidwell 1649 - Thomas Holdombe 1705,
Halberton, Elizabeth 1628,

Elisabeth 1664,

John 1620, John 1622, John 1665,

Thomas Holcombe 1622 at

Okahampton."
In the catalogue of "Ancient Deeds,

Calander of State Papers of Great

Britain,

#1 (p. 490) on December 26, the

12th year
of Edward IV" is a grant by Richard

Cach

of Cokefield to John 0nstye alias

Holcombe,

the Elder.
Also in "Catalogue of Ancient Deeds

in the

16th year of Henry III, grant in frank by

Walter, son of Amfrid de Bereford of
Land in Holcombe, etc."
Also p. 485-Grant of Thomas Alisander

of

Dorchester to Nicholas de Noble over

headland. ......... .extending to. . . 

and a
djoining to highway leading to

Holcombe

(signed) Friday after St. John ,

the Baptist,

1st year of Edward III.
In Victorian History of County of

Devon,

p. 390, "These lands were the dower

which

Henry I bestowed on his natural son
Robert, on his marriage with Maud

(eldest daughter of Robert of Tar of

Hamen).

ln l241 those manors were included

in the
honour (?) of Gloucester, Followed

by

description of Holcombe Burnell.

P. 400

describes salt wells (saltum) at

Hollacomb
and Tower Holcombe...p. 455 savs

"Baldu

in Sheriff has a manor called Holcoma

(Holcombe).
In the Domesdav Book in Exminster

Hundred

Lower Holcombe in Drewlish is noted -

p. 480 (Victorian History) says

"Ralf has
a virgate (?) called Holcomma

(Holcomb).
There was a Holcombe Hall and a

Holcombe

Monument, in an old church on an old

Holcombe

estate at Bainscombe, Devon.
The house used by the Holcombe

families,

for many generations still stands and

is used

as a farm house. Holcombe Rogus
lies on the line between Devonshire

Somerset,

the boundary line running down the

central aisle

of the church
, the architecture on each side of the

aisle

being the architecture of that county in

which

it lies. Inside the church there
are tombs in "the alcoves which ope


on each

side of the pulpit, The village of

Holcombe is

very beautiful, lying between
two hills ("a valley between two hills").

The adjacent country is fertile and

there are

groves and beautiful drives in a
bundance. It was here that Sir Walter

Raleigh

was born and it is reported that his

mother was

a Holcombe, For many
years and until recently a magazine

was regularly

published called

"The Holcombe Parish Almanac

" The village is located a
bout seven miles west of Exeter and

about fifteen

miles northeast of Dartmoor Forest.

Some fifteen

miles away are l
ocated Tiverton and Dulverton from

whence

John and Jacob Holcombe (p. 110)

emigrated

to America in 1700.
Among the manuscripts in the

possession of

Sir Thomas Philips, Baronet,

was one from

which a part of the following chart is
taken (Sir Thomas, himself, was

connected by marriage with the

Holcombes of Devon).

The earliest ancestor

(through intermarriage)

of the Holcombe family was

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

He was born
1027 (or 1028), the son of Robert,

duke of Normandy, Robert started

on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and

induced Noman

Barons to accept William as his

successor.

His early years were spent amidst

the dangers

and conspiracies of his enemies.
He was a great warrior with great

aptitude

toward government; when twenty

years old

he stamped out alone a serious
uprising in two of his districts.

In 1051

he visited England and probably

received a

promise of the throne of England

from
his kinsman, Edward the Confessor,

He married Matilda, daughter of

Baldwin V

of Flanders, who traced her descent

in
female line from Alfred the Great.

This marriage was politically, and in

the eyes

of religious beliefs of the day,

inadvisable.
However, Pope Nicholas II granted

the needful

dispensation in 1059. In penance,

William and

his wife established the
Abbies of St. Stephens and the

Holy Trinity at

Caens. He became King. of England

after

the treachery of Harold (who
had seemingly promised him tne

throne)

and the winning of the Battle of Senilac

(or Hastings) (14 October, 1066) on
Christmas Day, 1066. He overcame

North England; in 1072 he conquered

the Scots under King Malcom;

invaded Brittany,

1076; was wounded in campaign

against his son, Robert; left England

in 1086 and never returned. In 1087

he invaded French Vixen and was

killed after a fall from

his horse. He was buried under a

plain slab

at St. Stephen's at Caen (His
bones were scattered by Hugenots

in 1562).

He was noted, in a profligate age,

for the

purity of his married life and
temperate habits, powerful physique,

and

close-cropped hair.

He expelled many

English Church dignitaries and

installed

Normans; refused homage to

Pope Gregory

VIII; did not allow English prelates

to attend

Gregory's general council;
consented to levy of Peter's Pence;

instituted

the Domesday Book. His children

were:

Robert, Duke of Nornamdy;
Richard (killed while hunting);

William II and

Henry I (future Kings); five or six

daughters

(including Adela who married
Stephen, Count of Blois).


1~ HENRY I (Youngest son of

William (1)

the Conqueror and Matilda of

Flanders,

born 1068 on English Soil) was

nicknamed
Beauclerk; Knighted in 1086; he

is reported

to have "an unlettered King is a

crowned ass".

He lived two years in great
poverty in French Vexin.

By choosing the

Anglo'-Scottish princess,

Edity-Matilda,

daughter of Malcolm III,

King of the
Scots, as his future queen he

cemented

that alliance with the native

English which

was the foundation of his greatness.
He crushed the revolt of the

Montgomeries

in 1102 . He was feared by the

Baronage

"out popular with the non-feudal
classes; a conservative legislator;

issued few

ordinances. He married, after the

death

of Matilda in 1118, Adelaide
(daughter of Godfrey,

Count of Louvan),

He died in 1135 and was buried

in the

Abbey of Reading which he founded.
Empress Matilda (who had married

Henry V

and thus saved Normandy to the

King)

was designated his successor and
received the homage of English

Baronage

in 1126 and again in 1131.i;

(woc, wod).

His son, Reginald, Earl of Cornwall,
had a son Henry, also a daughter,

Beatrice

de Valle, who married Lord William

de la

Bruer (below).
Sir Geoffrey de la Bruer had two

children,

the youngest of whom was Anthony

de la

Bruer whose son. Sir William de la

Bruer,
married. Isabel de la Bruer (his cousin,

she being a daughter of Lord William

de la

Bruer, brother of Anthony de la Bruer).
Lord William de la Bruer

(son of Sir Geoffrey)

was one of the most powerful

noblemen

of his day and enjoyed the singular
good fortune of being the favorite

of Henry II,

Richard (the Crusader),

John and Henry III.

Upon Richard's going to the
Holy Land he was (with the Bishops

of Durham

and Ely) appointed to the government

of the

realm. King John granted him
many manors, and Henry III made him

sheriff

of twelve counties. His sons dying

without issue,

his daughters succeeded to his vast

inheritance.

The La Bruers were of Norman decent

and

came to England with William the

Conqueror.

Isabel, daughter of Isabel de la Bruer,

married

Sir Ralph Downe (born *1255;

son of Isabel

of Bartholomew de Mosa, born 1230*;
and of Sir Ralph Downe). Their son.

Hugh Downe, Esquire of Down, born

1280*, had

three children, Isabel (born 1320 (?);
married SIR JOHN HOLCOMBE,

(next p.)

and Amy (who married Henry Ledred.).


(A) JOHN HOLCOMBE is the first

to be

mentioned in the Visitations of England.

He served in the War of the Crusades,
to Palestine, indications being that he

participated in two of the Crusades.

During the Third Crusade, while in

battle,
with one mighty sweep of his sword

he

severed the heads of three

Mohammedans.

This explains the significance of

the
four heads on the Coat of Arms

which was

bestowed upon him when he was

meritoriously knighted for this deed

of valor
by King Richard in the "latter part of

the

11th Century." The Heraldic Office

describes

the Holcombe Arms as follows:
"Azure field; chevron, argent, between

three Turks' heads in profile, couped

at

shoulders or, wreathed about the

temples,
sable and of the second. Crest

- a man's head, full faced couped

at the breast proper, wreath around

the temples or,

and azure

" The Motto "Veritas et fortitudo",

in English is Truth and Courage.

The effigy of the Knight Holcombe

now
rests in the old Abbey Church of

Dorchester, England, one of the

oldest abbies in England'

[Excerpt from THE HOLCOMB (E)
GENEALOGY; ..., by Jesse Seaver,

American

Historical- genealogical Society

(Philadelphia, 1925).

Lib Cong CS71 .H725.]
John de Holcombe was a knight of the

Crusades; knighted by King Richard the

Lionheart for bravery in battle.

Legend tells that Sir John beheaded

three

"Turks" with one mighty swing of his

sword.

The Holcombe coat of arms depicts

the

heads of the three Turks on an azure

field.

During one of the final battles, Sir John

received wounds that ended his quest.

He never recovered from his injuries,

living

long enough to complete the

accompanying

record, and to survive only part of the

journey back to his beloved homeland

and family in Dorchester, England.

After being orphaned at the age of

three

and reared in poverty, Sir John later

became

one of the wealthiest and most

respected

men of his time. In the short period

remaining

from his final battle in the Crusades

until his

ultimate death, he wrote this account

of the

experiences and knowledge that

brought him fame, wealth, and

happiness.

Sir John died of wounds received

on the battlefield and is buried in

Dorchester Abbey,

Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire,

England.

"The Holcombes - Nation Builders" by

Elizabeth Weir McPherson has an

extensive dissertation on

Holcombe Rogus and its

history.Source: http://view.atdmt

com/iaction

/ancestrycom_

non_secure_universal_v3/v3/atc1.-

lib-TinyMce

_2_1_0-blank_htm

( Verlo para copiar y poner en Google al

comienzo de esta entrada )

The Effigy
Although he cannot be identified with

certainty, it seems most likely that this

knight is William de Valance the

Younger

(died 1282), and not

Sir John de Holcombe

(died 1270) as was formerly believed.

His effigy is one of the best pieces

of 13th century funerary sculpture

in England.

Unusually life-like, in the act of

drawing his sword, with every detail

of his clothing and armour there for you

to see and touch,

this knight probably went on one of the

Crusades to the Holy Land. When first

made

the sculpture would have been brilliantly

coloured in blue, red and green, and

traces

of these colours can still be seen in the

folds of the cloak.
Source: http://www.dorchester-abbey.org.uk/historical-tour/

https://www.dorchester-abbey.org.uk/historical-tour/

( Verlo al comienzo entrada para copiar

y buscar en Google )

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Flores • 4

I leave a white rose for Sir John as a Mark of Royalty...

Dejadas por Christopher Holcombe Sr. en 17 Sep 2022

What a remarkable post (with terrific research) for Sir John. May he rest in Peace. I too, believe my lineage traces back to this extraordinary English knight. When in England, I hope to visit Devon and learn more one day.

Dejadas por Christopher Holcombe Sr. en 19 Feb 2022

Dejar una flor Ver todo

  2. Homenajes
  3. Región
  4. Europe
  5. England
  6. Oxfordshire
  7. South Oxfordshire
  1. District
  2. Dorchester
  3. Dorchester Abbey

  5. Sir John de Holcombe
  • Creado originalmente por: Our Family History
  • Añadido: 27 Abr 2018
  • Identificador de homenaje de Find a Grave: 189216413

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