Peach Genealogy - Newsletter, Issue 8
THE PEACH/PEACHEY PROJECT The Electronic Peach Tree Issue 8 Editor: John Harding Peach Peachroot@aol.com
THE MOST VALUABLE TREASURE OF ALL
As the H.M.S.Peachey ports at Normandy today, I would like to take the time to open the most valuable treasure we have found and probably will ever find on our cruise. We all seemed ecstatic when we brought it up from the depths of the sea. However, I feel some of you may be less than enthusiastic when we break the rusty ol' lock off the weathered trunk and start inventorying all the treasure inside.
For those of you who may think we are going too deep for you on this trip, then opening this valuable treasure is not for you. I want to warn you that the material in this trunk:
1. Has never been revealed to the public before. 2. Is quite difficult to comprehend, and thus will make many of us feel overwhelmed and ready to jump ship. 3. Comes from Edwin Peck's unpublished manuscript, which is even more difficult to decipher. I will be quoting verbatim from his unfathomable research, but I will need to interpret what I feel he was writing to help us to digest it. (I have found his manuscript one of the most difficult discourses I have ever read because his sentences are endless. One sentence runs together into another sentence without pausing for punctuation, giving the appearance that Edwin Peck was always running out of breath. His grammar is abominable, but his content is priceless).
Therefore, we are opening this most valuable trunk full of buried treasure in the Captain's Quarters. Only those who feel like they can stomach what they see are allowed to enter. Keep in mind that I believe this material IS NOT FOR EVERYONE!!! Please do not bother to come in and read the rest of this newsletter if you don't feel you can handle it. It is overwhelming and requires your most intense interest and comprehension.
Furthermore, what you are about to read I have copywrited, along with all the information I am publishing in THE PEACH/PEACHEY PROJECT. Enter the Captain's Quarters if you dare, but if you feel it is too much for you, please feel like you can leave at any time. To those who choose to stay and inventory ALL the treasure, I feel you will leave highly enriched......if not befuddled.
THE PARENTAGE OF WILLIAM DE PECHE I
William de Peche I is the common ancestor of most all those in England and from England whose lineage goes through the surnames of Peach, Peachey, Peachy, Peckham, Peche, Thurlow and Clopton. Edwin Peck claims that 1/4 of all the Pecks in America also descend from de Peche, including Peck himself.
Thus, as we spend an exhaustive amount of time on the parentage of William, we need to realize this is the common ancestor of most everyone on board and should be extremely important to each of us who cherish our genealogy. Therefore, gather around the rusty ol' weathered chest as we break it open for the very first time.
"William de Peche I, who accompanied Richard de Brionne (founder of the Clare family to England in 1066), is recorded as PECCATUM in Domesday Survey of 1066 and in later records as PECCATUM, PECHAM, PECHE and PECCHE." The latter is "the Norman French form of his name which means William of the Great Sin. He was the only person known bearing this name at time of Conquest, but which carried no stigma and was borne many generations by his descendants, when many Norman baronial families in England changed their surnames.
"Owing to the very scanty records of Normandy and England before reign of Henry II in 1154, his parentage and the reason for this most interesting name will probably never be found. There are two theories for which there is no definite proof for the reason for his name and his parentage.
"One is that he was born posthumous (after the death of his father) son of Count Gilbert de Brionne and his countess c.1040." Thus, he was "so named by his mother to hold up before Normandy the murder of her husband, the eldest son of Count Geoffrey de Eu and Brionne, son of Duke Richard I of Normandy..."
"The second theory is that there was a scandal in the family and that William de Peche was son of the Countess (of Brionne), but not of the Count (Gilbert of Brionne). But this hardly seems reasonable in the moral conditions in Normandy then.
"Count Baldwin IV of Flanders (who seems by reasonable evidence to be father of the Countess of Brionne) at once took the two elder sons of the murdered Count Gilbert to Flanders to prevent their murder. There he "educated and brought them up for 15 years at the Court of Flanders.
When Duke William of Normandy married Matilda of Flanders, daughter of Count Baldwin V (son of Baldwin IV), he persuaded the duke at the wedding feast at the Castle of Eu in Normandy to restore considerable part of the inheritance of Count Gilbert to his eldest son, Richard de Brionne." What is so significant about this Richard? Peck seeks to answer this question for us.
"William de Peche held all of his manors in England from Richard de Brionne, who was Tenant in Chief. William named his own eldest son 'Gilbert'." This was quite significant because "all of his other sons bore given names of the dukes of Normandy" with one exception, that of 'Geoffrey'.
"These names continued for many generations in the Peche (senior line). Most of the eldest sons for some 300 years bore the name of 'Gilbert' in the senior line." Peck notes that 'Gilbert' is a name found in other lines of Peche besides the senior line. (The senior line comes from the eldest son in each generation.)
"For generations men of the Peche held high posts under the Norman and Plantagenet (1154-1399) kings of England... Except in reigns of Stephen and John are shown by records (for Peche descendants) to have been close (to the royal family).
"An interesting and possibly valuable clue to the parentage of William de Peche I of Normandy, ancestor of all of the Peche, has been considered by the writer (Peck)."
"Yeatman of England, who is not considered an entirely reliable authority by Round, states that Count Gilbert de Eu and Brionne married Constance." She was "daughter of William Count de Hiemois of Normandy..." This statement is proposed by Peck as a theory that in spite of the unreliability of Yeatman possibly could be correct.
"If this marriage was performed, then it was the second marriage of Count Gilbert..." It also meant that this was a union of first cousins.
"We have no knowledge of the names of daughters of William de Peche I and very few of the daughters of eldest sons in the next two generations of the Peche." Therefore, "we cannot tell whether the (female) name 'Constance' appeared in the early generations of the Peche in England. But if William de Peche was son of Constance of Hiemois, we may be sure a daughter was named after his mother.
"A marriage between Count Gilbert de Eu and Brionne and his first cousin, Constance of Hiermois, would be well within the prohibited degree of blood relationship banned by the Church. But at that time the Church (as far as Rome was concerned) had little power in Normandy, at least over the ducal house (house of dukes of Normandy). Marriages were often made between cousins.
After thoroughly examining this last theory and all its ramifications, Peck came to the conclusion that his former one, supported by his most reliable source Round, is probably the correct one. Thus he writes,
"The conclusion then that seems reasonable is that William de Peche I was born posthumous son of Count Gilbert. He was named by his mother after her own father, Count William of Hiemois, a younger son of Duke Richard I of Normandy and half brother of Count Geoffrey de Eu and Brionne, the father of Count Gilbert."
Peck deals with the name 'Peche' again as he gives two possible reasons for his name. 1. "He was called by his mother (to hold up the murder of her husband before all Normandy) as William of the Great Sin, or 2. He was called generally in Normandy as William de Peche, which name persisted when surnames became fixed, and that he was the only son of Constance, second wife of Count Gilbert.
"That there is a possibility that the violation of the Church Laws and Orders in the marriage of first cousins, by Gilbert and Constance of Hiemois, may be the real reasons for his most unusual name. But this seems less true than the other reason, that the murder of Count Gilbert was the reason for his surname.
Regardless of the derogatory meaning of the name, Peck says, "The name of William de Peche carried no stigma...as he and his descendants would have changed their names when so many Norman families changed names. But the name of Pecham and Peche was borne for very many generations by prelates, abbots, priors, abbesses, barons and knights without change except the many forms of spelling by the illiterate clerks recording the official documents of England.
"Had William de Peche committed sacrilege, he would not have been so close to the Clare family nor held lordships in England from them or otherwise, nor his descendants marry into the Clare family, as they did in England."
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