John Helion is a person related to the history of Belchamp Walter. He is mentioned by
Thomas Wright in his History and Topography of Essex. Further research reveals that the fate of the
Belchamp Walter estate is complicated due to the marriages between many inportant families in the region
where there were multiple lines
of succession in which there was co-heiress' where "ownership" was transferred in a non-apparent manner.
A simple view of family trees does not make this easy.
John Helion is connected through a marriage of the daughter of Sir Robert Swinbourne
and Joanna Botetourt, Alice (Alicia) Botetourt.
There seems to be a gap between 1450 and the 1490's/1500 - Alice (Edith) Helion
and Anne Montgomery/Tyrell. John Helion died in 1490 according to TW.
This page is part of an on-going research project on the history of Belchamp Walter and
the manor of Belchamp Walter.
If you have found it making a web search looking for geneological or other information on the village then please bookmark this page and return
often as I am likely to make regular updates. If you delve deeper into this website you will find many other pages similar
to this one.
Alternative spelling - Johannes Hyllivyn - Son of Boutetort and Swynborne.
She bore to Sir Robert five sons, who all died without issue, and two daughters, Alice and Margery; the
latter married to Nicholas Berners, of Aberden Hall, in Debden,
and Codham Hall, in Wethersfield, whose daughter Catharine was wife of
Sir William Fynderne;
but this estate was the inheritance of Alice, the eldest daughter, married to John Helion, Esq. of
Bumpsted Helion.
John's father and mother were both heirs, and Morant calls him the
"last heir male of this ancient family". His own co-heirs
were his two daughters. Richardson lists some of his importance holdings as "Belchamp Otto, Belchamp Walter, Bumpstead-Helion,
Gernon (in Wormingford), Ovington, and Parkhall, Essex etc." He also mentions that John left a PCC will proved 27 July 1450
(PCC 12 Rous).
Morant stated that John died in 1449, and that his wife Edith was still holding one third of Bumstead-Helion when she died
1 June 1498.
Tihel de Helion - de Helion and the Conqueror
As a consequence of an email to this website and some other searching for Le Beton and de Helion,
I find another reference posted from the Battle Abbey Roll through 1066 - A Medieval Mosaic.
The entry in the Battle Abbey Roll prepared by Micheal A. Linton:
Breton: Brito, or Le Breton. No less than nine of this name appear in Domesday Book: all of them probably
Breton knights that had followed the fortunes of Alain-le-Roux or his kinsmen. Alured Brito held of the
King a barony of twenty-two lordships in Devonshire: Gozelin another in Bucks, Gloucester, and Bedfordshire;
Oger one in Leicester and Lincoln; Rainald one in Sussex; Tihel one in Essex and Norfolk; Waldeve one in
Lincoln and Cheshire; and Maigno or Manno Brito one in Bucks and Leicestershire. Two others, Roger and
William, were mesne-lords in Somerset and Huntingdon. It would seem an endless—not to say a hopeless—task to
disentangle the genealogies of all these various adventurers from Brittany; the more so as many of them
probably assumed the name of their manors. This was the case with Richard Brito's descendants in
Nottinghamshire. Annesley, part of the great fee held by Ralph FitzHerbert at the time of Domesday, was
held under him by "one Richard, who probably was father or ancestor of Ralph called Brito, who, together
with his son Reginald de Anesleia, gave the church of Felley to the Priory of St. Cuthbert de Radford,
near Worksop, in the year 1158."—Thoroton's Notts. From him descended Francis Annesley, first Viscount
Valentia, temp. James I., and the Earls of Anglesey, Mountmorris, and Annesley. Maigno Brito,
the Buckinghamshire baron, was the ancestor of the Wolvertons of Stoke-Hamond (one of his manors mentioned
in Domesday), where they continued for a considerable time. —Lysons.
Banks enumerates several "persons of great eminence" bearing this name among his Barones Pretermissi.
Amongst them are Ranulph Briton, of Northamptonshire, Chancellor to Henry III., as well as to his Queen,
who died of apoplexy about 1247; John Briton, Bishop of Hereford, one of the King's Justices in the same
reign; another John, seated in Norfolk, who affixed his name to Edward I.'s memorable letter to the
Pope as Johannes le Briton, Dominus de Sporle; and William Breton, whose identity has never been
satisfactorily established, who had a writ of military summons to attend the King at Newcastle in 1295.
Morant informs us that the surname of the "Tihell Brito" of Domesday was De Helion, and that he founded a
flourishing and richly-endowed family in Essex, which gave the name to their seat of Bumsted-Helion.
Their barony was, however, subjected by the Empress Maud to Alberic de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
The last heir-male, John Helion, whose mother, a very great heiress, had brought the estates of the
Swinburnes and Bottetourts, died 28 Hen. VI. He had himself acquired Gosfield Hall through his wife,
Alice Rolf; and the whole accumulated inheritance centred on his second daughter, Isabella Tyrell;
the eldest, who had married Sir Thomas Montgomery, of Falkborn Hall, being childless.
The contents of the email prompted the research into connections with the Norman Conquest.
Those that are connected to the Conquest and particularly those that fought alongside William at
Hastings.
Tihel (Tihell) de Helion is reported to have presented Harold's head to William after the battle.
So far I have not seen another reference to this and I cannot recollect that this is either reflected
in the accounts of the medieval historians of even on the Bayeux Tapestry.