Chapter 2: JOHN HANCOCKS (b.1655), YEOMAN FARMER

John was a yeoman; a class of small landowner who farmed his own fields - a system that formed a bridge between the break-up of feudalism and the agricultural revolution of the 18th-19th centuries. He farmed and lived in Elmdon for his entire lifetime.

Elmdon Parish Church

In October 1689, eleven months after entering in to an agreement to look after, and pay a pension to, his aging father in return for his father estate, John married Ann Greene. The marriage took place eleven miles to the east of Elmdon in Coventry, which was presumably Ann's hometown. Ann was to have eight children, seven boys and a girl. Two of the boys died in infancy.

Unlike his father before him John lived in less political turbulent times. In 1688 the Catholic James II was driven from the British throne, an event known as the Glorious Revolution. James II (1633-1701) had come to the British throne in 1685. He was a Catholic and a determined advocate of the king's divine right to rule. The English Parliament regarded James as a totally unacceptable monarch. William of Orange (1650-1702), the Dutch stadholder, or leader of the state, was a dedicated opponent of Catholicism, a descendant of Charles I, and the son-in-law of James II through his marriage to Mary (1662-94). Invited by seven leading politicians to seize the British throne, William landed at Torbay, Devon, in November 1688. Deserted by almost everyone, James II fled ingloriously to France and was deemed to have abdicated. Parliament offered the throne to William and Mary jointly, as William III and Mary II.

The Glorious Revolution was so named because it was seen as establishing parliamentary government in Britain and the right of British citizens to certain freedoms that protected them from the arbitrary rule of a monarch. There is some truth in this view of the event. The power of Parliament to control taxation and approve legislation was confirmed. The British people enjoyed a freedom of expression unknown in France or Spain. However, the Glorious Revolution was also a triumph of Protestantism over Catholicism. James II had attempted to introduce religious toleration, but Parliament opposed the concession of freedom of worship to Catholics. They were denied many basic rights until the 19th century.

William's rein was not without incident however. He defeated a Catholic uprising in Ireland, under the deposed James II, at the battle of the Boyne in 1690 and ordered the murder of Macdonald clan chiefs in 1692 in an event that was to become known as the Glencoe Massacre.

As well as experiencing a new political era, John's family was being born in to a revolutionary period. The end of the seventeenth century saw the Scientific Revolution and the beginning of the eighteenth century ushered in the Age of Reason during which emerged a new intellectual approach in Britain, emphasising individual freedom and practical knowledge. These influences would ultimately lead to the agricultural and industrial evolutions in proceeding decades and centuries that would alter the face of the British countryside and commerce forever.

JOHN HANCOCKS bp.1655 bur.1706 m.ANN GREENE

…..OLIVER HANCOCKS b.c1690 m. MARTHA DAVYS (chapter 3)

…..JOHN HANCOCKS bp.1693 d.<1696

…..ELIZABETH HANCOCKS bp.1695 d.-

…..JOHN HANCOCKS bp.1696 d.1741 m. HANNAH/MARTHA BIFEL/BIS(S)EL(L)

…..THOMAS HANCOCKS bp.1697 d.-

…..WILLIAM HANCOCKS b.1699 d.-

…..ABRAHAM HANCOCKS bp.1702 d.1702

…..GEORGE HANCOCKS bp.1705 d.-