Pictured above: George Washington, a portrait in oils by Gilbert Stuart, the greatest American portrait painter. It hangs in the Great Hall of Sulgrave Manor, Northamptonshire.

The Washington’s of North East England

The U.S. National Flag. The Washington coat of arms is often imagined to have inspired the 'stars and stripes' a description making nonsense of the correct heraldic blazon: Argent (silver) two bars and in chief three molets (spur rowels) gules (red).

George Washington hoisted the flag of the East India Company as the national flag on 2nd January 1776 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Known as the Union Flag, the Grand Union, or more often the Cambridge Flag, it had thirteen stripes, alternately red and white, with the Union (the combined crosses of St. George and St. Andrew) in the canton (i.e. the top left hand corner). The thirteen stripes stood for the thirteen united American colonies, the Union signified allegiance to Great Britain soon thought inappropriate. After seeking alternatives. on 14th August 1777, Congress resolved “that the flag of the United States of America be thirteen stripes alternately red and white and that the Union (i.e. the canton) be thirteen stars white on a blue ground representing a new constellation". The stars, originally in a circle, were soon re-arranged in three rows of four, five and four, as new states joined, stars were added. The old East India flag, with stars replacing the Union as the 'new constellation', has no reference to the Washington coat of arms.

The story of the Washington family begins with William, who settled at Washington in north-east England before 1180; but his forebears may be traced for many generations. William's parents, Sir Patric, second son of Earl Gospatric III of Dunbar (who died in 1166) and his wife Cicely, appear with their son in a list of benefactors of Durham Priory. From his grandmother, the pious Countess Dierdre, who, with her husband Earl Gospatric, founded the nunnery of Coldstream, William inherited the Border estate of the Hirsel (today the seat of the Douglas- Home family, also descendants of Earl Gospatric) and lands at Greenlaw nearby.

The Earls of Dunbar held extensive estates both in north-east and north- west England, including the barony of Beanley in Northumberland, besides being tenants of Milburn, not far distant in Westmorland (Cumbria). Patric, William’s father, seems to have held Helsington, Westmorland, under William of Lancaster, lord of Kendal; and from this period members of the Washington family appear frequently in Kendal records. The descent of the family properties in Berwickshire, Northumberland, Durham and Westmorland, appears to have been well established before William settled at Washington and adopted its name, explaining the early and continuing connections of the family with these widespread areas.

Like other great medieval landed proprietors, the Washingtons moved between their estates, living in different properties in turn while performing local duties and services, but known by the name of their principal residence. William, descended from the younger son of an ancient noble house, became the founder of another great line which, after varied fortunes, produced the first President of the United States of America.

The Washingtons took their name from a parish in the old County Palatine of Durham in north-east England. Wessyngton, variously spelled, and Washington today lies north of the River Wear on a tidal stretch a few miles upstream from Monkwearmouth (now part of Sunderland), where the Venerable Bede became a monk in the seventh century.

WILLIAM DE WESSYNGTON, the first of the family to bear the name, was the son of the Berwickshire thegn, Sir Patric of Le Hirsell, a Scottish estate on the Tweed. Sir Patric held also Offerton across the Wear from Washington and his son William was the tenant of Hartburn, further south in County Durham. As William de Hertburn, he exchanged Hertburn (now Hartiburn) for Washington, which became his principal residence a little before 1180. It was natural for him to assume 'de Wessyngton' as his new name. Surnames as we now know them had not yet developed. Both places were part of the estates of the bishops of Durham, who exercised a three-fold role: first, as bishops of a great diocese stretching from the River Tees to the Scottish Border; second, as owners of vast estates covering the whole of the old county of Durham (the lands between Tyne and Tees) as well as others in Yorkshire and elsewhere; and third, as counts palatine, holding vice regal powers and with responsibilities for defending the Scottish borders.

Bishop Hugh of Le Puiset (1153-95), nephew of King Stephen, able administrator and great builder, reorganised the bishopric estates and developed new towns. At Stockton-on- Tees, he built a new fortified manor house and wanted Hartburn to round out the property. It was convenient for William to relinquish it in exchange for Washington because of its closeness to Ofterton, to which he was heir. About 1182 he married the twice – widowed Countess Margaret, his kinswoman and younger sister of William the Lion, King of Scotland. She was first married to Conan le Petit, Earl of Richmond and Duke of Brittany. who died in 1171; and afterwards to Humphrey de Bohun who died in 1181. In 1184 she is recorded as holding unspecified lands in Westmorland.

William de Wessyngton had four children, evidently by an earlier marriage: Walter, William, Marjory, and Agnes. Their first home at Washington, now vanished, stood on the south-facing slope below the church, where the Old Hall stands today, (pictured above from the south, in a watercolour in 1869 by George Price Boyce. Like similar contemporary dwellings, it was probably fortified, with a pele-type tower and other buildings in a courtyard, surrounded by a moat or ditch fed by Washington Beck. To the south, stretching down to the River Wear, lay woodlands where the Washingtons were granted freedom to hunt game.

As tenant of the bishops of Durham, William (and his descendants) held Washington except the church and its lands for an annual rent of £4, was required to attend the bishops' great hunts with two hunting dogs, and had to give one mark to the Common Aid (an occasional tax) when demanded. The great hunt held each autumn in the bishops' park in Weardale was primarily intended to provide meat for the winter. From the first, the Washington’s were attendant upon the prince-bishops as part of their entourage or court.

SIR WALTER DE WESSYNGTON, William's eldest son, had succeeded him before c. 1195. He had married Diana de Dilston, whose marriage settlement, before 1190, included lands in North Milbourne, Northumberland, specified in a deed to which is attached his seal. It bears the device of a lion passant, probably deriving from his descent from the earls of Dunbar. He died early and childless.

SIR WILLIAM DE WESSYNGTON 11 was his younger brother and heir, whose marriage to Alicia de Lexington, a ward of the Crown and the wealthy widow of a Nottinghamshire knight, cost him two palfreys and 60 marks in 1211. This was a large sum at the time and other evidence also suggests his wealth. His name, like that of his father and grandfather, appears among the benefactors of Durham Priory.

SIR WALTER DE WESSYNGTON II, his son and successor, married Lady Joan or Juliana de Ryal sister and heiress of Roger de Whitchester, Keeper of the Rolls in Chancery and Canon of St. Paul's. She brought to the Washington family lands in both Northumberland and County Durham. Her half-uncle was the Cumberland magnate William de Greystoke and later Washington’s held lands in the Greystoke barony. Sir Waiter II could afford to settle his father's estate of Offerton, as well as some Northumberland property, on his daughter Isabella on her marriage about 1250. It was probably Sir Walter II who improved upon his forebears' property at Washington by building a hall, vestiges of which remain in the present Old Hall. Most obvious are the two pointed arches (pictured above) which once led from the screens passage at the west end of the hall to the buttery and pantry (converted into a kitchen in the seventeenth century). In the west wall of the latter, a late medieval wood-mullioned window has replaced a lancet from Sir Waiter 11's time, part of which is still visible.

Sir Walter II was one of eighty-five knights who fought with Bishop Neville's forces on the barons' side in the rebellion led by Simon de Montfort against Henry III. The rebels were defeated at Northampton, but hostilities continued. The royal army asked for the treaty of peace which was signed at Lewes Priory on 14 May, 1264, bringing victory for the cause of Parliament. Two years later, Lady Juliana was a widow. Perhaps Sir Waiter had been killed in the Battle of Lewes, or in the conflict had suffered severe injuries which led to his death. Lady Juliana was alive in 1278.

Washington Old Hall today. The south front faces the former courtyard, now gardens, Cottages on the left were rebuilt from former stables and the lodgings of footmen who, in medieval times, would fight for their lord. The house, although extensively rebuilt about 1623, incorporates medieval masonry.

SIR WILLIAM DE WESSYINGTON III, his eldest son, succeeded him. William married Margaret de Morville, of Helton Fleckett in the Barony of Appleby, further increasing the Cumbrian properties of the Washingtons. Her forebears included Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland and his namesake Hugh, baron of Appleby and Knaresborough, who was one of the assassins of Thomas a Becket. Sir William Ill died in 1288, leaving Margaret a widow. When her elder brother died childless in 1290, she and her sister became joint heiresses of the Morville estates.

Their eldest son was Walter, continuing the tradition of naming the heir after his grandfather. William, the second son, became keeper of the manor of Wark in Tynedale for the King in 1327, but died childless before 8 August that year, leaving a widow, Elizabeth de Thweng.

Other progeny included Robert I, who in 1292 married Joan de Strickland, heiress of Carnforth in Lancashire. From this marriage were descended the Washington’s of Sulgrave, Northamptonshire.

SIR WALTER DE WESSYNGTON III, eldest son of Sir William Ill, succeeded to the property in 1287. His activities in Durham and Westmorland are well documented and his attendance on Bishop Bek and his successor Bishop Kellaw at their episcopal castles and manors in Durham and Yorkshire may be traced in detail. In September 1304, King Edward I visited Washington on his return journey from the Scottish Border, and transacted business in the area for several days. The accommodation which would be needed for the royal retinue is further evidence for the great establishment formerly at Washington; and the expense of entertaining royalty shows the prosperity of the family.

The following year, the king commanded Sir Walter to conduct three rebellious Scottish ecclesiastics-two bishops and an abbot-from Newcastle to prison in Nottingham, when he would be expected to use his own men as an escort. His first wife, Alice, died in his lifetime and he married again. He died in 1318 or shortly afterwards, leaving a widow Dionysia, who was living in 1349.

The coat of arms of Sir Waiter III is preserved on one of his seals and shown also in Thomas Jenyns's Roll of Arms in the fourteenth century. It is a differenced version of the Dunbar lion: Argent, a lion rampant Gules, over all a bend compony Argent and Azure.

SIR WILLIAM DE WESSYNGTON IV was his father's successor, continuing also in the service of the bishops of Durham. Much of his activity was in the Scottish Borders and in 1335 he had custody of various lands in Roxburghshire. Some time before 1346 he was using a new coat of arms. The device was three bars with two molets in chief, apparently based on the shield of the de Lancaster’s, barons of Kendal. It is shown in 1390 as Gules, two bars and three molets in chief Argent. Soon afterwards the tinctures were reversed to the now familiar: Argent, two bars and three molets in chief Gules which descendants and later branches of the family have continued to use.

He was at the Battle of Neville's Cross, near Durham, against an invading Scottish army in October, 1346. Afterwards, he held prisoner three Scottish knights, one of whom died in his custody, and of whose barony, also in Roxburghshire, he became guardian, while the others were transferred to the Tower of London. Later, he seems to have forfeited some of his Scottish lands, for they were restored to him in 1364. In 1348 he made a settlement of two thirds of Washington on his wife Katherine, who survived him when he died in 1367.

SIR WILLIAM DE WESSYNGTON V was 24 years old when he succeeded to his father's estates in May, 1367. He was to be the last of the main line of the early Washington family. On 10th June 1369, he was granted royal letters of protection when he was about to leave the realm with the Duke of Lancaster; and he served 'beyond seas' for a year from 21st June, 1373 with Sir Henry de Percy. At the Battle of Otterburn (the inspiration for the ballad 'Chevy Chase') on 19 August 1388, he was among the companions of the younger Sir Henry de Percy (Shakespeare's 'Harry Hotspur'), continuing to fight valiantly after Percy's capture until he himself was taken prisoner by the Scots. He served on the council of Bishop Fordham of Durham until he died in 1399, leaving Alina his wife a widow. His heiress was his only child, Eleanor who, before April 1402, married her kinsman Sir William Tempest of Studley Royal, Yorkshire.

Durham Castle and Cathedral

JOHN WESSYNGTON (1371-1451), the famous Prior of Durham, was great-great-nephew of Sir Waiter de Wessyngton III. During his lifetime the last of the male line of the original Washingtons died, and Washington itself passed to the Tempest family through the marriage of Eleanor, and subsequently to the Mallory’s through her daughter. John took the monastic habit at Durham in 1390, received priest's orders and was sent immediately to Durham College, Oxford, where he was in residence during the academic year 1394-5 and remained for thirteen years, becoming a Fellow of his college. He served several times as one of its two bursars and was involved in extensive new building there, including the library which is now part of Trinity College. After returning permanently to the mother house at Durham in 1407, he became an efficient Sacrist and Chancellor. Of a scholarly disposition, he collected material for a history of the Benedictine order in Durham; and a manuscript preserved in Durham Cathedral Library contains works he wrote on fifteen different subjects.

He was elected Prior in 1416 and became first of those who were appointed Visitor of all other Benedictine monasteries in England. In his many and wide travels he must have encountered other members of his family. At Durham he was the greatest repairer the Cathedral has ever known. Especially he is remembered for the rebuilding of a room between the south transept and the chapter house, over the slype or parlour. It was fitted as a library to receive all the books, which he had rebound, from their cupboards in the cloister, which was being rebuilt in his time and where his coat of arms appears, with many others, in the roof.

Among other work in the church itself, he bought a pair of organs' to improve the music; and provided a room for the Sacrist, later used as a schoolroom, off the north choir aisle.

When he retired in 1446, having served as Prior for twenty-nine years, he was allowed a handsome pension and allocated a suite of rooms and attendance in his old age. He was buried in Durham Cathedral at the western end of the north aisle of the choir.

On George Washington's birthday, 1944, a plaque to the memory of John Wessyngton was unveiled in the cloister on the wall between the south-west door of the church and the day-stair to the dormitory.

It is inscribed: 'REMEMBER IN THESE/CLOISTERS WHICH WERE/FINISHED IN HIS DAY/JOHN WASHINGTON/OF WASHINGTON IN THIS COUNTY/PRIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH/1416-1446 WHOSE FAMILY HAS WON/AN EVERLASTING NAME IN LANDSITO HIM UNKNOWN.'

John Wessyngton's coat of arms appears in Selby Abbey in medieval glass on the south side of the choir clerestory in the second window from the east, doubtless because of Durham's connection with the neighbourhood, Among Yorkshire lands, the Bishop of Durham held Howden; and the Prior and Convent had churches there and at nearby Hemingborough, whose church was raised to collegiate rank during John Wessyngton's tenure of office. Other shields associated with Hemingborough were placed in Selby Abbey church also. The Washington glass was in the fifth clerestory window with three other medieval coats of arms before repairs in 1865,