General Notes

[spelman.FTW]

REFN: 668
HENRY SPILMAN was the youngest son of William Spileman and Matilda,
daughter of Sir William de Sarum. He died before either of his brothers,
Pe ter and Sir William Spileman, and his descendants, therefore, did not,
under the then laws of primogeniture, inherit any of the Lordships and
manors which had been his father's and his grandfather's. As we have
seen, Brokenhurst pa ssed to the heirs of one daughter of Sir William, his
brother, and Cowsfield to those of another daughter of Sir William.
Henry Spilman lived in the Parish of Christ Church, at Twineham, not far
from Brokenhurst Manor. Little is kno wn of his life. The name of his wife
has not been found, but he had two sons, Robert and David, the former of
the ancestral line of the American Spelmans.
Henry Spilman died in 1270, and was buried in Christ Church. There are
stil l extant several stone effigies in this old church, of which the
inscriptions have worn away, and one of these may have been made to his
memory. About 162 5 Sir Henry Spelman, the most important historian of the
Spelman family in En gland, to whom reference was made above, wrote that
there was then an inscrip tion in Christ Church to this Henry Spilman, his
ancestor.
Christ Church bel onged to a Priory, and was partly destroyed by Henry
VIII. The present buildi ng was the nave only of the original church. One
tomb, which escaped destruct ion, bears the date of 1216. Ruins of the
Priory, which was built before 1128 by Flambard, the Bishop of Durham,
still remain.