Bennett Aldy

Notes for Thomas Alday and Bennett Exherst

In 1556 or early in1557, Walter Mayne of Staplehurst, Kent, initiated a lawsuit against Edward Stoughton and his sons Francis and Thomas over the “detention of deeds relating to the manor of Exherst in Staplehurst, bought of John Monnynges, of Dover, gentleman, and Margery his wife.” [1] In his bill of complaint, Walter Mayne claims he purchased Exhurst Manor in 1547 from John Monins and his wife Margery, who owned it in the right of Margery. Francis and Thomas Stoughton answer that “Rychard Exherste,” who “was Lawfullye Seased in hys demeane” of the manor, had issue “Bennett Marye and Elyzabethe his dawghters,” and that after Richard’s death the manor “of ryght ought to distend and come to the said Bennett Marye and Elyzabethe as daughters and cohey(r)es.” Their answer names the husband of Bennett as "Thomas Aldye" and states that Thomas Alday and Bennett “hys wyffe hade issue betwene them Margerye Aldye,” and that after Bennett died “the said Margerye toke to husband the said John Monnynges.”

Footnotes:

[1] National Archives of the United Kingdom Catalog, Court of Chancery, C 1/1450/16–19, [UK_National_Archives].

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bobwolfe/gen/mn/m20061x20058.htm

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Benett Exherst, daughter and eventual coheiress of Richard Exherst by his first wife, Alice Notebeme [?], was b. say 1494, and d. before 9 April 1534 (since she is alluded to as deceased in her husband’s will). In the Monins pedigree in the 1619 Visitation of Kent she is called “Benetta filia maxima natu et cohaeres Ric[ar]di Exherst … de Ashe,” i.e. her father’s first-born daughter and coheiress. She was clearly the de facto heiress (in her issue, at least) of Exherst, which as will be seen below passed, not without dispute, to her daughter Margery. She m. (as one of his two wives, perhaps the second as he seems to have been considerably older than her) probably before January 1512, Thomas Aldy or Alday,[45] of “The Checker,” Ash-next-Sandwich, b. ca. 1480, d. in April or May of 1534, son of Nicholas Aldy of Alday, of Ash, by the latter’s wife ________, and grandson of John Aldye,[46] of the same place, probably by the latter’s first wife, Joan ____.

.....Neither of the visitation pedigrees makes note of any wife of Thomas Aldy other than Bennet Exherst, so the other wife referred to but not named in his will was probably childless. Nevertheless, it would be desirable to have better proof of his children’s maternity.

http://library.uwinnipeg.ca/people/dobson/genealogy/ff/Exherst.cfm

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Photo of St. Nicholas Church from blog "The Outside of the Asylum"

http://jelltex.blogspot.com/2009/12/boxing-day-and-beyond.html