Notes for: Roger Wycliffe

The name of this Wycliffe comes from a Wycliffe pedigree in The History of Yorkshire; Wapentake of Gilling West, by Marshall General Plantagenet Harrison (1885). I don't know where Harrison got this information. I can only assume it is guesswork on his part from looking at old records. Harrison's pedigree seems to be the only one that goes back this far; so I will go with it for now.

About this Roger, the pedigree says "Sir Roger de Wycliffe, Knight, Lord of Wycliffe and Ulvington, etc., served in the Scottish wars with his father. Was a man-at-arms in the army of King Edward III, in France. Was at the battle of Crescy, 1346, after which he was knighted by the King. Was one of the knights in the English army at the battle of Poitiers, 19th September, 1356." His wife's name is not mentioned.

An article in The Quiver from November 1884 on pages 181-182 says that it is "averred" that the eldest brother of John Wycliffe the Reformer was a knight and that his descendants inherited the Wycliffe estate until the last heir-apparent male died in 1606. That male's sisters then became joint-heiresses. And ultimately the Wycliffe name died out there. From what I have seen so far, this does seem to be the case.