I - Early Years

Summary

On 3 November, 1599, between the hours of eleven p.m. and midnight, at Bromham in the county of Bedford, a son was born to John Dyve and his second wife, Beatrice. An old Northamptonshire family, the Dyves had by marriage become connected with Bedfordshire, and both John and his father Lewis resided at Bromham Hall on the banks of the Ouse. John had first married Douglas, daughter of Sir Anthony Denny, but shortly after her death in 1598 he married Beatrice, daughter of Charles Walcot of Walcot in Shropshire, and this, their first child, bore the name of Lewis as his grandfather had done. The young Lewis was baptized at Bromham on 25 November, the godparents being Mr. Francis Goodwin, the Lord St. John of Bletsoe and Mrs. Boteler of Biddenham Ford End who was acting as deputy for the Countess of Warwick.

In July 1600, a brother for Lewis was born at Bromham, the baptism of the infant John taking place on Sunday, 9 August, the godparents on this occasion being Henry, Lord Mordaunt of Turvey, William, Lord Compton and the “Lady Rattcliffe of Ellstowe” : this child survived for a few months only, however, and was buried at Bromham 12 February 1602.

John Dyve was knighted in 1603 on the occasion of the visit of James I to Salden House in Buckinghamshire, and in the same year he erected in the church at Bromham a magnificent memorial to the memory of his father Lewis : Sir John’s first wife, Douglas, and his mother Mary were also commemorated on the memorial. To this day may be seen the effigy of Lewis under a canopy supported by columns, while on the beam on the wall above are the roughly cut initials J.B.D. and the date 1603, with a shield bearing the Dyve arms— gules, a fess dancetté or, between three escallops ermine.