A VERY "KINGLY" FAMILY

Descendants of Nathaniel Littleton (1605-1654) have as ancestors over a hundred kings, more than a dozen emperors, plus two saints and Lady Godiva. Tenures by Sir Thomas Littleton (1422-1481), published over 500 years ago, has been recently reprinted again and is still available after hundreds of editions. This book was described by Sir Edward Coke as "the most perfect and absolute work that ever was written in any human language." Our ancestors were highly literate 700 years ago. Jean, Sire de Joinville (1224-1317), was a pioneer biographer. He was in the pre-Renaissance Period a major figure of modern biography and was the leading historian in Europe in his day. He lived to 93. Through Joan Burley (wife of Sir Thomas Littleton), Sir Roger Kynaston, and Sir Henry Grey, the Littletons have at least six lines back to King Edward I and King Henry III. Our ancestors include the Emperor Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, and Hugh Capet, King of France. The English kings to Henry IV, except the childless ones, are ancestors. The royal lineage is comparable to the British Royal Family. In addition our ancestry goes back to every King of France from 987 to 1314, King Duncan of Scotland (who was murdered by MacBeth), and the saints, St. Margaret (wife of Scotland's King Malcolm III) and St. Louis IX, King of France. Further, our ancestry includes the rulers of Bohemia, Flanders, and Hainault (modern Netherlands and Belgium), Hungry, Poland, Sweden, Germany (the Holy Roman Empire), the Byzantine Empire, the Iberian kings (Castile, Leon, Aragon, Navarre), Naples and Russia. This represents the chief makers of history during the Middle Ages; also Brian Boru, King of Ireland, Lady Godiva, and more than a third of the Barons of Runnymeade. There are 1052 lines of descent from the Emperor Charlemagne, 257 from Henry IV, 89 from Alfred the Great, and 37 from William the Conqueror. (Information from publications by Alf J. Mapp, Jr., Matthew M. Wise and Fred W. Sawyer, III, who are unimpeachable historians.) More details are available in The Tazewell Quandary No. 19, Aug. 1993.