Sir Henry Boynton: My Rebellious Ancestor

You will find the good, the bad, and the ugly when researching your ancestry.  Going back 22 generations, Sir Henry Boynton, a knight, is a grandfather of mine on my mother’s side.  He was executed in 1405 for taking up arms against king Henry IV of England in the “Northern Rising.”  Boynton had joined Sir Henry Percy, 1^st Earl of Northumberland and Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York, in the rebellion.  The insurrection was fueled by the king’s proposal to confiscate the clergy’s landed wealth.  On May 27, Percy, Scrope, Boynton and a force of 8,000 men assembled to battle at Shipton, North Yorkshire.  Instead of giving battle, Scrope parleyed and was tricked into disbanding the army in return for ensuring their personal safety.  Scrope and Boynton were arrested yet Percy was able to escape across the border to Scotland.  Scrope was then executed June 8 and Boynton on July 2.  At his execution, Sir Henry Boynton left behind his wife Elizabeth (daughter of Sir John Merrifield) and his son William, which is why I am here able to write this!

The Northern Rising rebellion was just one of many during the 15^th century between the two royal houses of York and Lancaster that eventually became known as the War of Roses, which in turn inspired today’s novels and TV series “Game of Thrones.”

Andrew Van Vranken, Union University, p. 213-214, accessed from https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=XOMnAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA214.