The Waterton Story

The Waterton Family

Charles the Catholic

The Last Years
 
 
 

The Waterton family tree can be traced back to the Norman invasion, although the name itself was not adopted until 1160.  The Waterton's arrived in Walton in the 15th Century and lived there continuously until 1865.

Following the Reformation there was a considerable price to be paid for being a Catholic.  Sir Robert Waterton, Henry VIII's Master of Horse, gambled with his life when he refused to acknowledge the king as supreme head of the church in England.  He was obviously favoured by the king since he received the following memo:

Therefore Robert Waterton lost his estate in Lincolnshire and moved to Walton where he was subject to the restrictions placed on all Catholics of the age.  They were denied access to the Universities, banned from owning a horse worth more than £5 (to prevent them leading an uprising), and made to pay a fine of £20 for each failure to attend the Sunday service in the Church of England.   No Catholic could sit in Parliament, hold an army commission or serve as a Justice of the Peace.   The Waterton's fortunes steadily declined and some of the family moved abroad to settle in more hospitable countries.  Charles visited some of these relatives during his travels.

The Watertons of Walton, however, remained staunchly Roman Catholic and developed strong links with the few other wealthy Catholic landowners throughout England.  Charles's mother was a Bedingfeld of Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, another Catholic family that had braved the Reformation.  His grandmother was a direct descendent of Thomas More.  Some of Charles's relatives, including a brother, became Jesuits, and there are records of Jesuit chaplains at Walton Hall from the late 17th Century.  Indeed Charles seems to have had some inclination to the priesthood, a calling which he denied himself because he saw it as being his duty to continue the family line.