Known as John "The Fugitive" Greene.

There never were any "Earls of Isham" - the title is bogus.

No contemporary sources have been found for a person of the surname Green(e) living in Gillingham in the 1400s. There is also no evidence of a connection between the Greene family of Gillingham in the mid 1500s and the Greene family of Drayton or Greene's Norton (Northamptonshire) in the early 1400s, as would be suggested by this profile.

John Greene the son of Thomas de Greene and Ela Malorie) was born 1468 in Gillingham, Dorset, England.

John "the Fugitive" Greene

• Gordon Greene24 (View posts)
• Posted: 7 Mar 2000 10:11AM
• Edited: 29 Aug 2005 9:27PM

I can provide some information re John "the Fugitive" Greene. I don't have many good solid facts because very few are available.

Most of what I have came from

• La Mance, Lora S., The Greene Family and Its Branches, from A.D. 861 to A.D. 1904: Mayflower Publishing Company, Floral Park, New York, p. 34-37, and from
• Ancestral File of the LDS Church.
• Records from family members, now deceased, contributed a little.

I have encountered errors in all of these sources. I have not yet checked for verification from original sources.

The La Mance reference covers the legends handed down re John.

The Ancestral File provides a little data on his family, and how I am related to him.

I do not have a scanner, but I can Photostat the pages of interest, and mail copies to you if you wish. The book is available as a reprint. I can provide the information on where. My copy is an original, and it looks it's age.

John Greene: Where Does "The Fugitive" Come From?

NOTE: The following excerpt is taken from another Geni member's profile and was not written in my words. I believe it explains best the story of "The Fugitive", John Greene. The link is found below.

The Fugitive

John Greene, son of the foregoing, was sent, in 1483, by King Richard III as a messenger bearing a letter from the King to Sir Robert Brackenbury who was then the keeper of the Tower of London. In this letter the King gave orders that his two nephews, "the little Princes in the Tower," should be put to death.

Although this inquitous command was later obeyed by another governor of the Tower, Sir Robert refused to commit murder at his sovereign's behest, and sent his message of refusal back to the King by John Greene.

It is a tradition that when King Henry VII came to the throne he bore enmity to this John Greene because he had played (only) the part of a messenger for Richard III in the later's wicked designs, and that John Greene fled from England lest he be captured by the King.

It is said that "John the Fugitive" returned to England and for safety assumed the name of John Clarke. . . Despite his change of name, the identity of John Greene, the Fugitive was discovered, and he again fled from England, his further history being unknown.

Fate

There is no evidence that Richard III ever ordered the murder of his nephews by any hand or at any time whatsoever.

He is not even the only suspect with access to the Tower and the staff thereof in 1483 - Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham also had such access. Buckingham had his own motives to kill the Princes, having a claim of his own to the throne equivalent to that of Henry Tudor, depending on one's view of the legitimacy of the Beaufort line.

According to a manuscript discovered in the early 1980s in the College of Arms collection, the Princes were murdered "be [by] the vise" of the Duke of Buckingham. There is some argument over whether "vise" means "advice" or "devise".[4]

According to this perspective, if Buckingham killed the Princes and blamed Richard, he could form a rebellion, putting the throne into play with only Henry Tudor as a rival.

Indeed, he was one of the leaders of a rebellion, ostensibly in favor of Henry Tudor, in October 1483.

However, the rebellion was quickly crushed and Buckingham executed. Henry Tudor would succeed in defeating Richard III two years later. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

(Henry VII is yet another suspect, with the strongest motives of all - if the Princes were still alive and accessible to him in 1485, he would have had to dispose of them in order to secure his claim.)

Whether this means that John "the Fugitive" Greene was involved in the Buckingham/Tudor rebellion of 1483 and fled lest he be tried and executed, or whether he stayed out of that but Henry VII later took against him for some other reason (like knowing too much), we may never know.

(Taken completely from another Geni user, link below).

Links

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GREENE/2000-11/097317...

Here is another good read on John Greene and the Greenes in general:

WikiTree: http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Greene-490

He [John] purchased an estate in Gillingham Dorsetshire which was called Bowridge, sometimes called Porridge Hill. Most of the subsidy rolls of that century have been destroyed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillingham,_Dorset

The Greene family in England and America, with pedigrees - https://archive.org/stream/greenefamilyinen00bost#page/n181/mode/2u...

Sometimes known as 'John The Fugitive'.

It has been said that John had "taken the wrong side" in the War of the Roses and was forced to flee England. He supposedly spent some time on the continent and legend has it he went by the name of "Clark" for a time. His son was restored to his position.

The "Strouse House" website, located at www.cpinternet.com/~rootie/index.html gives a lineage for the Greene familiy starting with John the Fugitive. They list John as being born in 1478 and dying in 1558 - marrying Elizabeth in 1498.

See www.hap-pc.org/~wmewrght/greenej.html for a discussion regarding John Greene the Fugitive.

Died before 1445; Sir William Mallory (of Papworth St. Agnes) took the opportunity to seize possession of the manor at Sudborough.