Round and Round the Mulberry Bush

Here we go round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush
On a cold and frosty morning.

Sorting out family trees is a bit like the old nursery rhyme, Round the Mulberry Bush, it never seems to end.

Manchester

Manchester, England today is a bustling metropolis of over three million, and famous for its soccer team, affectionately called ManU that plays at Old Trafford.

Edward Peersonne

The area where the city of Manchester is now located was home to Edward Peersonne, my first recorded ancestor, born about 1575 in Bollin Township in Wilmslow Parish, Cheshire, England. Edward gave birth to a son, named Lawrence, born in 1620, who gave birth to a son Edward, born 1651 in Wilmslow, Pownall Fee, Cheshire, England, who married Sarah Burgess on March 6, 1671, and sailed to America with brothers John and Thomas around 1683. Some say John went first.  Either way, they arrived at a time when William Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania, as a safe place for Quakers to practice their religion. Our Edward settled down and died at the age of 46, on June 3, 1697 in Falls Mountain, Bucks, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America, but not before he fathered 11 children.

Bollin Fee

The Bollin Township from whence Edward came was part of the “Demesne… of the Fee of the Manor of Bolinn, in the undred of Macclesfield, with the Advowson of Wilmslow Church.” This same Bollin-Fee was mentioned in 1328 in connection with one Edward Fitton of Bollin-Fee, of Maxwell Hundred and the same Wilmslow Church. History of the County Palatine and Cheshire County. A long and worthy history, full of names, long forgotten.

One wonders if it is worth the effort to peal back the layers of history, to go back in time to the beginning. One does not really know when an ancestor is introduced into a place and by whom. Blood lines are attainted or extinguished.

Life continues.

If we may be so bold as to claim a connection to those originally inhabiting the land then that connection goes back to the Celtic tribes known as the Carnabii or Cornavii, then to the Romans as part of the Province of Flavia Caesariensis. It was Agricola who founded Chester in 84 AD. The Roman soldiers stationed there would have had their hands full keeping out the untamed Scots and Picts in the north of the British Islands. The Romans withdrew, as we all know, and Britain descended into what is called the Dark Ages.

England

The Saxons entered the picture and the area became part of the Kingdom of Mercia, but the kingdom became diminished by new invaders from Denmark. King Alfred would finally bring order and England was born. So matters stood until 1066 when William the Conqueror arrived and bested King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. As a result all the Saxons were ejected from their lands, the lands given to Hugh d’Avranches, William’s kinsman. Centuries pass.

King Henry VIII became king, established the Anglican faith, and religious controversies arose. King Edward VI took the throne and then Queen Mary, known as Bloody Mary, then Elizabeth, then James, then Charles. Charles became cross-wise with Parliament. Enter stage right, Oliver Cromwell, who deposed and executed a king and then became Lord Protector of the British Commonwealth in 1653. King Charles II became king of a restored monarchy in 1653.

Of Charles II, it was said:

"We have a pretty witty king,
Whose word no man relies on,
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one"

Charles tried to accommodate religious dissenters during his reign, a policy not popular with Parliament which passed the Clarendon Act and the Penal Acts. These laws severely restricted nonconformists like Catholics and Quakers from practicing their religion.

Charles survived until 1685, when he died of a stroke.

Elsewhere it is written:

"In 1657, Lawrence Pearson of Wilmslow Parish refused to pay a tithe, and had a horse worth three pounds confiscated to pay an eight shilling tithe. In 1665 Lawrence Pearson of Pownall Fee was arrested at a Quaker meeting and jailed for two months. In 1650, Lawrence Pearson was imprisoned for testifying in the streets at Highfield, County Derby. In 1660, Robert Pearson, his brother, was put in jail for refusing to take an oath."

See Steve Pearson's genealogy

Our ancestors departed England in advance of the Glorious Revolution of 1688.