Agnes Coale

• General Notes
  • This Thomas(1) evidently married twice, probably firstly to a Miss Gooch of Stratford (then Essex, now Middlesex) (ref.: Visitation of Essex) and subsequently to an Agnes Coale of Essex.   Thomas(1) died in 1581-2, leaving a will, (Essex Archives D/AER 14/10, written 18 Feb., 1581; proved 1582)    Agnes, his wife, survived until c.1616, leaving a damaged will (Essex Archives D/ABW, the date on which has been torn off.) There seem to have been at least three sons, of which the surviving heir was probably the second, another Thomas(2), born before 1582 at Hadleigh, co. Essex. (Your IGI marriage, 23 June, 1594 to Elizabeth Streecke at Wenfield, co. Berks., might be his first, but he may have been too young?) He subsequently certainly married a Susan (surname not known), with whom he had at least three sons: William, Joshua & John, before Thomas(2), identified as a gentleman and a Roman Catholic recusant, died before 1652. (Have found no record of a will)   His widow, Susan, was also an active recusant, and as a result had an ongoing running battle with the Committee for Compounding, who had forced her to compound some of her Essex properties around Hadleigh, which she was evidently managing for her sons. We know that she was also born in circa 1582, because she was a 70 year old widow at the time that her properties were compounded by that charming Commonwealth Committee. [I am being deliberately sarcastic!]
    William, the eldest son and heir, was declared insane in about 1662, just after the Restoration, so that their second son, Joshua Kirton, armiger, inherited the Hadleigh freehold and additional copyhold land. However, Joshua had been apprenticed to a London bookbinder, and became a well known bookseller, and Catholic recusant.