Anne Hotham

Anne, daughter of Sir John Hotham IX is shown in Glover's Hotham visitation pedigree of 1585 as “.... daughter married to William Courser of Scorborough” [1].

Anne Hotham married firstly, William Normanville and secondly William Courser of Scorborough, as shown by this chancery plea dated between 1504 and 1515, “Coursey v Normavell. Plaintiffs: William Coursey and Anne, his wife, daughter of John Hothom, knight, and late the wife of William Normavell. Defendants: John Normavell, knight. Subject: Lands promised to the said Anne on her first marriage” [2].

Sir John Normanville of Kilnwick, Yorkshire, who died shortly before his will was proved at York on 30 July 1521, had a brother called William who died in 1520 [3], who cannot have been Anne's husband. It appears that the William Normanville who married Anne Hotham was a son of Sir John Normanville and this William died before 1515.

Anne Hotham married secondly William Courser, who was the steward of Sir John Hotham. At the inquisition post mortem for Sir John Hotham X in 1525, jurors said that "the said John Hotham was seised of a messuage in Lund, and being so seised, by his charter dated 12th Dec, 12, H. VIII. (1520), granted to William Courser, his servant for good services to himself, an annual rent of 40s. arising from the above, for his life, to be paid half yearly, with power of distraint in case of failure" [4] William Courser was one of the East Riding Captains in the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1537, and Henry Guyll sub-prior of Watton stated under examination "that he was forced to send horses and money to the captains of the first insurrection, viz., Sir Thomas Percy, William Hotham, John Halom, and William Courser" [5]. Courser apparently did not suffer for his somewhat reluctant part in the insurrection, because in the musters of array for the East Riding taken in April 1539, Robert Hotham and Mr. Courser were in charge of a levy of 24 men from Scorborough [6].

---

[1] Foster, Visitation of Yorkshire, 1584-85 and 1612, 89.

[2] Court of Chancery: Six Clerks Office: Early Proceedings, Richard II to Philip and Mary, C 1/295/20.

[3] Clay, Test. Ebor. VI, 123.

[4] TNA: C 142/43/64 as cited in Saltmarshe, History of the Hothams, 95.

[5] Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. 12 Part 1: January-May 1537 (1890), 169.

[6] Ibid., vol. 14 Part 1: January-July 1539 (1894), 310.