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Eleanor WELLES

Eleanor WELLES[1]

Female Abt 1425 - 1455  (~ 30 years)


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  • Name Eleanor WELLES  [2, 3, 4
    Birth Abt 1425  Welles, Lincolnshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Gender Female 
    TitleOfNobility Ashton Hall, Lancashire, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Baroness (Lawrence) 
    Name Alianore Welles  [3
    Name Alyanore de Welles  [3
    _FSFTID 994L-SSD 
    _FSLINK https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/994L-SSD 
    _UID B4537E3397B84436BE40459B7CDA28B08DF5 
    Death 13 Feb 1455  Yorkshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Person ID I13301  Carney Wehofer July 2025
    Last Modified 13 Jan 2026 

    Father Lionel DE WELLES,   b. 25 Mar 1406, Welles, Lincolnshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 29 Mar 1461, Battle Of Towton, Yorkshire, England (As A Lancastrian) Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 55 years) 
    Mother Lady Joan (Cecily) De WATERTON,   b. 1407, Methley, West Yorkshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Aft 18 Oct 1434, Waterton Chapel, Methley, Yorkshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 27 years) 
    Marriage 15 Aug 1417  Methley, Yorkshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [5, 6
    Alt. Marriage 15 Aug 1419  [7
    Alt. Marriage 
    • Methley, Yorkshire, England
    Family ID F6775  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Sir Thomas 1St Baron HOO, Of Luton Hoo,   b. Abt 1396, Luton Hoo, Luton, Bedfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 13 Feb 1455, Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 59 years) 
    Marriage 1 Mar 1447  Gatton, Surrey, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 4
    Children 
     1. Anne HOO, Heir Of Roughey, Gatton, & The Maze,   b. Abt 1448, Gatton, Reigate, Surrey, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Abt 1535, The Maze, Southwark, Middlesex, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 87 years)
     2. Eleanor HOO,   b. Abt 1450, Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown
     3. Elizabeth HOO,   b. Jan 1451, Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Jan 1504 (Age ~ 53 years)
    Family ID F6774  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 13 Jan 2026 

    Family 2 Sir James LAWRENCE,   b. Abt 1428, Ashton Hall, Lancashire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 31 May 1490, Ashton Hall, Lancashire, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 62 years) 
    Marriage Y  [4
    Children 
     1. Agnes LAWRENCE,   b. 1443, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1490 (Age 47 years)
     2. Jane THOMAS,   b. 1448, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown
    Family ID F6410  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 13 Jan 2026 

    Family 3 Hugh DE HASTINGS,   b. Abt 1425, Hastings, Sussex, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown 
    Marriage Aft 1490  3rd Husband Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    Family ID F6310  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 13 Jan 2026 

  • Notes 
    • Biography
      European Aristocracy
      Eleanor Welles was a member of the aristocracy in England.

      Eleanor Welles, daughter of Lionel (Leo) Welles, K.G., 6th Lord Welles, by his first wife Joan (or Jane) Waterton, married (1) Sir Thomas Hoo, (2) Sir James Lawrence, (3) Hugh Hastings.[1]
      First Marriage to Thomas Hoo

      Eleanor Welles married (1st) Thomas Hoo, K. G., Lord Hoo and Hastings. [2]

      They had three daughters[3][4][5]

      Anne (wife of Roger Copley)
      Eleanor
      Elizabeth, (wife of Thomas Masingbeard and John Devenish, Knt.

      Through the first marriage of Eleanor de Welles to Thomas Hoo, 1st Baron Hoo, Eleanor became the ancestor of American Presidents George H. W. Bush and his son George W. Bush.[6]

      Second Marriage to James Lawrence

      Eleanor Welles married (2nd) James Lawrence, Knt, of Ashton by Lancaster, Lancashire [See Hoo-14] [2]

      Sir Thomas Hoo's widow married (2nd) before 1461 James Lawrence, Knt, of Ashton by Lancaster, Carnforth (in Warton, Middleton, Overton, Skerton, and Stodday, Lancashire, son and heir of Robert Lawrence, of Ashton, Middleton, Camforth, etc., Lancashire, by Agnes, daughter of Nicholas Croft. He was born about 1428 (aged 22 in 1450). He was knighted in Scotland in the expedition of 1482.[3] They had at least two children:[3]

      Thomas, Knt[7]
      John, who was killed in the Battle of Flodden in 1513[7]

      Sir James Lawrence died 31 May 1490. His widow, Eleanor, is said to have married (3rd) Hugh Hastings. She died before 1504.[3]

      Research Notes
      Previously shown son

      Eleanor has previously been shown on WikiTree as mother of John Lawrence of Ramsey, Huntingdonshire. This is incorrect. James and Eleanor did have a son called John, but he died at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513, and his IPM the next year shows that he had no male heirs and that his estate passed to a collateral member of his family, Lancelot Lawrence.[7]
      Other suggested children of her second marriage

      Douglas Richardson lists three other children of Eleanor's second marriage: Robert (a priest), Jane, and Agnes wife of William Tunstall.[3] Richardson's source appears to be an 1868 pedigree in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica which claims to be based on a Lawrence pedigree in the 1567 Visitation of Lancashire,[8] but no such pedigree exists in the Chetham Society edition of the Visitation.[9] A reasonably well-sourced 1874 article names only Thomas and John his younger brother, who survived Thomas but, as stated above, died in 1513 with his estate passing to a collateral relative in the absence of nearer heirs.[7] There is therefore doubt as to whether Robert, Jane and Agnes were children of James Lawrence and Eleanor Welles.

      A Robert Lawrence was presented by Sir James Lawrence to the church living of Warton, Lancashire in 1589/90. He was succeeded in 1507/8 by Richard Dudley, so he almost certainly died about then. He was presumably a relative of James, but there is no indication of how they were related.[10]
      Sources

      ? Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols., ed. Kimball G. Everingham, (Salt Lake City, Utah: the author, 2013), Vol V, p 336 WELLES #13ii
      ? 2.0 2.1 Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, 2013, Volume 5, page 336
      ? 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, 2013, Volume 3, pp. 308-309
      ? Nicholas Harris Nicolas. Testamenta Vetusta, Vol. I, Nichols and Son, 1826, pp. 272-274, will of Thomas Hoo, Internet Archive
      ? Robert Clutterbuck. The History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford, Vol. III, John Bowyer Nicholls (London), 1827, p. 95, viewable on Familysearch (go to image page 99)
      ? Gary Boyd Roberts, Ancestors of American Presidents (New England Historic Genealogical Society; Location: Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA; Date: 2009), p. 381
      ? 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 John Gough Nichols, Lawrence of Ashton, Co. Lancaster in 'The Herald and Genealogist', Vol. VIII, R C Nichols and J B Nichols, 1874 - includes abstracts of IPMs of her second husband Thomas Lawrence and (in Latin) their son John at pp. 216-219, Internet Archive
      ? Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, Vol. I, 1868, p. 199, Internet Archive
      ? The Visitation of the County Palatine of Lancaster made in the year 1567 by William Flower Esq., Chetham Society, 18670, Internet Archive
      ? 'The parish of Warton', in A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 8, ed. William Farrer and J Brownbill (London, 1914), pp. 151-161, British History Online, accessed 31 October 2021

  • Sources 
    1. [S579] Jim Weber.

    2. [S845] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists, 7th Edition, by Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr., 1999, 18-35 (Reliability: 3).

    3. [S1160] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, FamilySearch Family Tree (http://www.familysearch.org), ((http://www.familysearch.org)), accessed 17 Dec 2024), entry for Eleanor Welles, person ID 994L-SSD. (Reliability: 3).

    4. [S63] Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000, VI:561-4 (Reliability: 3).

    5. [S25] Magna Charta Sureties 1215, Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Sheppard Jr, 5th Edition, 1999, 82-10 (Reliability: 3).

    6. [S63] Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000, XII/2:444 (Reliability: 3).

    7. [S845] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists, 7th Edition, by Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr., 1999, 202-35 (Reliability: 3).