The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
ADDITIONAL NAMES GIVEN BY DUCHESNE.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Belomy : Ralf Belami occurs in the Norman Exchequer Rolls of 1189. In England Robert Bellamy held of the fee of Henry Gaston, Seneschal of Richmondshire.—Gale. It seems likely that this name had a similar origin to Bonamy, derived from Bon Ami (which is found in Normandy at the same date), and stands for Bel Ami.
A family of Bellamy was seated at Radford in Nottinghamshire; and, according to Thoroton, bore Azure on a bend Or, cotised Argent, three crescents. He furnishes us with no account of them but the Bellamys of Markham must surely have belonged to the same stock. Robert, grandson of Nicholas Bellamy of Markham, was in 1570 seated at Lambcote Grange, Stain ton, "a grange of the neighbouring Abbey of Roche. It continued in the possession of his descendants for several generations. His son, Original Bellamy, and Ralph Fretwell of Hellaby, both at the time aged men, appeared at St. George's visitation 1612."—Hunter's South Yorkshire. In the pedigree they then entered, I find two more generations bearing the remarkable Christian name of Original—also used by the Babingtons of Rampton—and the last of these, born in 1606, was the eldest of eleven brothers. "It appears in the Journals of the House of Lords, vol. iii. 136, that Original Bellamy, one of the yeomen of His Majesty's guard, being arrested at the suit of Bryan Cooke and others, by the under sheriff of Nottinghamshire, it was ordered that an habeas corpus be awarded for bringing him before the lords, and that Bryan Cooke be brought to answer for the contempt. This was in March 1621."—Ibid. Lambcote Grange was afterwards in the name of Pursglove, and what became of this numerous family does not appear.
The Bellamys of Uxendon in Middlesex, who bore similar arms, occur in the previous century. A brass in Harrow Church commemorates one of the daughters of this house, Dorothy Bellamy, the wife of Anthony Frankysche, with the date 1574. The family were devout Roman Catholics, and it was in their house that Anthony Babington and his fellow-conspirators took refuge from their pursuers in 1586, and remained for some time concealed.[1] An old Derbyshire ballad, the Complainte of Anthonie Babington, tells how
"Not knowing where to goe nor have perfitt staye,
To Harrow-on-the-Hill myselfe I convayde,
There in Bellamyes howse a little tyme I stayde."
Jerome Bellamy was in consequence executed as a traitor.
Other scattered notices of the name are forthcoming. In the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. we find Gilbert and Roger Belamy in Oxfordshire, Matilda Belamy in Dorsetshire, and Hugh and John Belami in Kent. John and Peter Belami were of Edenbridge, in the latter county, in 1317 (Kent Fines): and the family reappears in Dorset during the last century, when Edward Bellamy of Rampisham, a wealthy wool-stapler, bought Beuvill in Corscombe, and owned Evershot, Cheddington, &c. The last-named died intestate in 1815.—Hutchins' Dorset. In Northants "one Bellamy gave lands in Elmington Lordship to Tansover, Oundle, Cotherstock, and Glapthorne; XL shillings to each town, to put two scholars to the University." Bellamy of Sudley is among the recorded pedigrees of the Visitations of Bucks, 1575, and 1634. Sir Edward Bellamy was Lord Mayor of London in 1735, and bore Or on a cross Azure five crescents of the field.