In some curious manuscript memoirs of the family of Horner of Mells, co.
Somerset, written probably about the middle of the last century, I find
the following statement:--
"The gentleman at Mells last mentioned, whose name I don't know,
had his _eldest son George_, who succeeded him at Mells. He
married the Countess of Montgomery, supposed to be the widow of
that earl, who, in tilting with Henry II., King of France caused
his death by a splinter of his spear running into the king's eye.
But most probably she was the widow of that lord's son, which I
conjecture from the distance of the time of that king's death to
her death, which must needs be near seventy years, as she lived at
Cloford to the year 1628. She must certainly be a considerable
heiress, as several estates came with her into the family, and,
among others, Postlebury-woods in particular, and, possibly, also
the Puddimore estate; as her son, Sir John Horner, was the first
of the family that presented a clerk to that living in 1639, viz.,
William Kemp, who was afterwards one of the suffering clergy. Her
jointure was a 500_l._ a-year, which was very considerable at that
time."
Can any of your readers assist in elucidating this story, of which no
existing family records afford any corroboration, and which the
parochial registers of the neighbourhood appear rather to invalidate in
some of its statements? As far as we can gather from such sources, the
gentleman alluded to in the extract was not _George_ but _Thomas_
Horner, born 1547, M.P. for Somersetshire 1585, and sheriff 1607, who
was buried 1612. He married three times: _first_, Elizabeth Pollard, who
died, as well as her only son John in 1573; _secondly_, Jane Popham, who
died 1591, having had, amongst other issues, _Sir John_, born about
1580; and _thirdly_, as it would seem, a person called "The Lady
Elizabeth," who had issue _Edward_, born 1597, and who was buried at
_Cloford_, in 1599. Even allowing for the errors attendant upon a
tradition, it is scarcely _possible_ that this "Lady Elizabeth" should
have been widow of Count Gabriel de Montgomery,--_Elizabeth de la
Zouch_,--who married her first husband in 1549, and was left a widow in
1574. She _might_ have been widow of one of his sons; though the only
two mentioned in the _Biographie Universelle_, Gabriel and Jacques, left
issue, to whom their wives' property would have probably descended.
The whole matter, as far as I have been able to examine it, is a very
obscure one, and yet can hardly, I should think, be without some
foundation in fact. The title-deeds of Postlebury and Puddimore perhaps
would throw light upon it.