Royal Skeleton In Our Closets

Anyone who ever knew my grandmother, Martha Ann Sparks, or Matt, as she was known, had no doubt that she was royalty—all 4'11" of her. She was a Southern powder-keg with five daughters, married to Arthur Frances Quicksell, whom she never forgave for being a Yankee. A self-educated woman, there was only one topic in the Sparks-Quicksell household which was off-limits, (mostly by community consensus) and that was the Civil War—mention anything close to the subject you'd think the war had started all over again. My grandparents would go at it for weeks at a time, dishes would fly, dinners would be burnt, and Papa would resort to drinking milk for his digestion.

They were a pair. Matt claimed relations back to the beginnings of this country and before, naming Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Payne, Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Boone as close ancestors. And NO ONE contradicted her.

She was my hero. I grew up crawling between her hydrangeas and bishops lace. She commanded me to 'make your books before you make your babies…' and so it was ordained that I was to be a writer. Dada, as I called her, said so and it might as well have been written in stone.

Imagine my surprise when my little sister told me that the Sparks Family Tree was online. Interesting, I thought, but I wasn't prepared to find over a half of a century of history on over 26,000 people…

Nor was I prepared to find out that our ancestry went far deeper than my regal grandmother even claimed…

But it was amazing. With the WebGED software, you only have to type in your name, and ask it to tell you who your direct ancestors are… I discovered some very interesting skeletons in our closet!

Some of the most interesting are these.

George Calvert, and his son Leonard Calvert, both Lord Baltimores, the founders of the state of Maryland. Maryland's history is particularly interesting because the first Lord Baltimore dreamed of a place where Catholics could worship freely alongside Protestants. This was the dream that founded Maryland, and the name, Mary's Land, was really named for the Blessed Virgin Mary, although it was convenient that the queen at that time was also named Mary… The first freedom of worship legislation in the world was passed in Maryland, although it was soon overturned and would have a long struggle ahead before it gained its place again. George never saw his new colony, but his son, Leonard, became its first governor. On those ships that founded Maryland, the Ark and the Dove, I can claim three or four direct ancestors, including a Sparks.

The earliest name in my ancestral tree is Jasper Tudor, who is my grandfather to the 15^th degree, (and Lady Di's 16^th Great Uncle…) Any history buff will know Jasper Tudor—the Earl of Pembroke, the Duke of Bedford, the son of Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois, the man who put Henry VII on the throne of England and ended the Wars of the Roses (some will disagree with that but we'll debate it in another forum…)

His parent's story was the classic love story-princess falls for the stableboy....Katherine of Valois was the daughter of King Charles VI of France, and consort to Henry V of England, who died soon after their marriage. Their son, Henry VI, was the king at the center of the Wars of the Roses, because he was quite mad, just like Katherine's father, actually… Katherine was separated from her son and virtuallykept a prisoner in her castle, where she met Owen ap Maredudd ap Tudur of Wales who was her Keeper of the Wardrobe, (a very high and responsible position, btw). At this time, Henry VI was king of both England and France, so the regents wanted to keep a close eye on her. But, they must have underestimated her, for she secretly married Owen and gave birth to four or five of his children…

Jasper was the third son. His brother, Edmund, married Margaret Beaufort, great granddaughter of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, and gave birth to Henry the VII, the next king of England. Edmund died before Henry was born, but Jasper raised him as his own with his own daughter named Helen, who is my ancestor, (and the mother of some famous or rather infamous peppers in the pot).

So, it seems that I have a direct blood line into the House of Valois, also known as the Capetians and share a grandparent with Henry the VII. Perhaps not a thing to brag about since history tells us that King Charles VI believed he was made of glass and about to break (...you see, I often feel this way, too...) but at least now I know that my grandmother's regal posture was part of her DNA…and that our tendency toward nuttiness runs in the family...

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