Early Yorkshire Bladens

Early Yorkshire Bladens is the result of many years research into the earliest settled Bladen family in Yorkshire. A companion book ‘Martin Bladen: A Biography’ has also been published at the same time focusing on one individual in the family whose political career warranted separate attention. The Bladens were in the beautiful West Riding of Yorkshire from the time of King James I’s arrival from Scotland with a new message on the coinage ‘I will make them one people’. Sadly, however, James would not live to see the union of the kingdoms as parliamentarians rejected the idea. Change was slow to take place and, in areas such as Yorkshire, a handful of ancient and noble families held control of the county in their hands. The earliest Bladens in Yorkshire prospered because they married into those families or became of service to them but, when Civil War came, they found their allegiances sharply divided and loyalties tested. The daughters of generation four were called ‘the Northern Stars’ at Court and, when they married their trail of descendants widened not just geographically but socially too and encompassed every level of society. There were descendants who became Earls, Lords, Governors, Secretaries of State, Members of Parliament, Lawyers, Army Majors, Colonels and Admirals of the Navy. Alongside those who achieved high office, success and even public adulation there were many who thrived happily in obscurity; Yorkshire Bladen descendants ran the gamut of less noble life experiences too, from clandestine marriages to theft, gambling and accusations of murder. This book tells some of their stories.