Nathaniel Pyne

From 'The James, Pyne, Dixon Family Book' - the Reminiscences of Edith Elizabeth Chaplin (nee Pyne), 1913:

"The first Pyne of whom there is any mention was a 'Herbert de Pine' who, in the time of Henry I, held land at Upton Pyne, near Exeter. He proved a vigorous stock, handing down Upton Pyne for some 400 years in lineal male descendants and sending numerous shoots branching out from the district where Devon, Dorset and Somerset meet. His descendants still own the property of 'Pynes', which has been carried by a succession of heiresses into the Northcote family. The first of these heiresses was Constance Pyne, who married William Larder about the end of the fifteenth century; the last was Bridget Stafford, whose name reappears in that of the late Sir Stafford Northcote, who quarter the Pyne arms - Gules, a chevron argent between three pinecones, or - with those of the Northcotes.

The Pynes seem to have been for some centuries a prolific and successful family; they gave their name to the villages of Upton Pyne, Comb or Culm Pyne and Washford Pyne. The name occurs in various lists and rolls; Ralph Pine held the Manor of Ilrington by Knight's fee in the time of Edward II, Thomas d'Pyne is mentioned in R. Glover's Roll of Arms of the reign of Henry III, as bearing the same arms as those taken by Constance Pyne into the Northcote family.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, therewere several families of Pyne settled in the West Country and so far differentiated from the original stock as to have slight modifications in their coats of arms, at any rate in their descriptions of them. The parent family at Upton Pyne retain the expression 'pine-cones', the term 'pine-apples' being substituted for it in several of the other branches. Among these branches was Andrew Pine of Stawell in Somerset, son of George Pine of East Down. George Pine was the ancestor of the Pine-Coffin family, settled for many generations at East Down in Comwall.

Captain Hercules Pyne successfully held the town of Lyme Regis for the Parliament during the Civil War. John Pyne is mentioned in the Somersetshire Archaeological Society's Transactions as being arrested in 1661, with Colonel William Strode, the Colonel 'for refusing to obey the orders of the Deputy Lieutenant for Somerset', and John Pyne Esq. for disaffection and contempt of authority; 'to keep Mr. Pyne in jail until H. M.'s pleasure should be signified regarding them.' Col. Strode later made his submission; history is silent about John Pyne. Hutching's history of Dorset mentions a stone in Wootton Glanvill Church: 'Here lieth the body of John Pine, gent, who died 9th October 1643; ut umbra sic vita'; on another: 'Here lieth Ursula Pine wife to J. Pine died 30th Novr. 1639.' It is a curious coincidence that the uncommon names of Juliana and Ursula as well as that of Constance are all borne by present-day descendants of the Pynes.

In Charlton Mackarell Church under the chancel floor are buried Eleanor, daughter, and Charles and Arthur, twins, sons of John Pyne and Mary his wife. They died in their infancy. This entry is of interest, though undated. The family of Pyne in my childhood (about 1852) were settled at Charlton Mackarell. I remember playing with the children of that family when on a visit to the Vicarage of Charlton Adam, where my Father's sister, Elizabeth, was living, the wife of John Barney, the then Vicar of Charlton Adam. The present representatives of the Charlton Mackarell family still owned property at Curry Mallet in 1912 but apparently there was only one holder of the name, an old Miss Pyne, living at Charlton Mackarell, whose sister had married a Mr. Thomas, now residing at Hatch Beauchamp and owning old Pyne property at Curry Mallet.

I remember once talking to my Father about our family and the part they had taken in the Civil Wars and his telling me we had taken the parliamentary side. He said the Pynes of Charlton Mackarell had always looked on us as a branch of their family and it was historically known that they had taken that side. On another occasion he told me he had once traced back his family through a series of wills, to the time of Queen Elizabeth, when they owned a farm which they cultivated. But I was young at the time and never enquired whereabouts the 'farm' was. There is every probability, however, that the 'farm' was the property now in possession of the Wyndham family. It is still called 'Cathanger' in Fivehead, a parish near Langport, Somerset.

An old genealogy of 'Pyne of Cathanger in Fivehead' shows the connection between the Pynes of Cathanger and the Pynes of Curry Mallet. Richard Pyne, who married Alice, heiress of R. Percy of Shaftcsbury, must have been settled in Cathanger in the 15th century and the property descended lineally to John Pyne who, with his wife Juliana, is buried in Curry Mallet church. 'The monument in that church to John and his wife Juliana was erected by his son, Hugh Pyne, of Lincoln's Inn. Hugh was the father of Christabella Pyne, the Mrs. Wyndham who figures not very becomingly in the pages of Clarendon, as having been wet nurse to Charlcs II and taking advantage of her position to advance her family. She married Sir Edmund Wyndham of Knutsford, who was governor of Bridgwater, when it war besieged by Fairfax, and must have succeeded in appropriating the property of Cathanger. Perhaps the fact that her husband was a Royalist while her male relatives were mostly Parliamentarians, helped her in the matter. Cathanger remains to this day in the possession of the Wyndhams and is now used as a farm, like so many other small properties."