The origins of the Spencer name come from the 11th Century A.D. in Norman England, after the conquest of England by William the Conquerer in 1066. One of the Norman knights, who accompanied William's order of knights, was Robert the DiSpencer. He was the son of Amauri d'Abbetot. The name Spencer or DeSpencer comes from the Latin dispensarius, or 'le dispencer' in Norman French, according to historians. The term 'spence' also means a kitchen. However the intended meaning of Spencer was 'Steward' or Stewart', one who is entrusted with the management of property and finances, and that surname also derives from the same source. Robert DeSpencer had fought along side William in his invasion of England, and was rewarded by William for his support with land grants in County Bedford. His children who took the surname, married into the royal blood which descended from English, French and Spanish royalty lines. In 1086 Robert was granted the Motte and the Bailey Castle in Tamworth Burgess.

Robert's son was named William and he married Alix De Burgoyne and had two sons, named Thurston and Richard, born about the beginning of the twelth century. Thurston inherited the castle and lands and married a noblewoman who bore him five sons- Almaric, Walter, Hugh, Galfridus and Thomas. The oldest son, Almaric, married Eldai Blewett and their son was named Thurston, and he moved first to London where he lived with his wife Lucia, and their son Geoffrey was born at Ellington, Lincolnshire, England and died in 1251. Geoffrey's sons were named Geoffrey and Hugh, born in Worcestershire and Rutolandshire, England, respectively, during the last decade of the twelth century.

Hugh Le DeSpencer, the Elder, great great grandson of Thurston was born about 1262 and supported King Edward I in the war against his rival, the Earl of Lancaster. He served in the Welsh war but was fined 2,000 marks because he married, without the king's license, Isabel, daughter of William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, the widow of Patrick of Chaworth. He accompanied Edward to Scotland and fought in the Battle of Dunbar (I) and the expediition against Flanders in 1297. The King used him to negotiate for peace between Edward I and the King of the Romans and the King of France. He served again in Scotland and then was sent to negociate with France which led to the peace of 1303. In 1305 he was sent to see Pope Clement V at Lyons and obtained a Papal bull which absolved King Edward from the oaths he had been forced to take to his people. When Edward II was coronated as King, Hugh carried part of the royal insignia. He defended the king's favorite, Gaveston, in 1308 against the league of barons, which alienated him from the barons who regarded him as a deserter from their cause. The parliament, which met at Northampton, declared his dismissal from the council (Vita Edwardi II, ii. 158; annales Paulini, i. 264). He was soon back in the favor of the King and received the castles of Devises and Marlborough and soon became the chief adviser to the King. In 1312 he was sent, along with Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, to attempt to secure London for the King, but a riot ensued and they fled the city (Annales Londondienses, i. 215). After the murder of Gaveston by the barons, Hugh Despencer became the head of the court party and plotted with the King to exact revenge against the barons. He bitterly opposed the Earl of Lancaster, and accompanied the King on his disastrous expedition to Scotland in 1314, and the defeat at Bannockburn, which placed the King at the mercy of Lancaster, Hugh was forced to resign from the court and the council. However, in 1318, when the king had recouped his strength and was ready to oppose Lancaster, Hugh joined the other lords of the same party. At approximately this time, his son, Hugh Despencer, the younger, joined the King's side, and father and son received large land grants from the crown. They were hated by the barons and were accused of acts of oppression and wrongdoing. Because they were of noble family, they held the most prominent place in the party against Lancaster's plans, and sought after their own advancement through alliance with the King in opposing Lancaster. Because of their greed and amibition, they used their influence from the King for their own purposes. Hugh the younger began a quarrel with Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, and the latter formed a league against the Despencers, which included the lords of the Welsh marches and other powerful nobles, who in 1321 ravaged the Despencers' lands and captured their castles in Wales and destroyed their manors and fences around their chaces in England. The King tried to interfere on their behalf but was persuaded to call a parliament and the King was pressured by parliament to consent to the banishment of the Despencers. Finally, he consented to the banishment and in July, 1321, the charges against them were formally stated and considered in parliament, which caused the estrangement of the King from his people, since parliament had usurped his authoriy and wouldn't allow the Despencers to see the King. The elder Despencer went abroad, but by December of 1321 the King had obtained a condemnation of the sentence from the convocation of the clergy, and on January 1, 1322, Archbishop Reynolds declared it illegal and the elder Despencer returned, joined the King in attacking his enemies. After the battle of Boroughbridge at which Lancaster was defeated, he assisted the King in Lancaster's trial and condemnation, and was created Earl of Winchester by the parliament held at York. Unfortunately, the Despencers were hated by Queen Isabella, who had gone to France as an ambassador to her brother Charles IV. War between the two countries seemed imminent, and the queen refused the king's summons, until the Despencers were removed from power, and the Queen plotted to overthrow the elder Despencer and his son. They persuaded the King to outlaw the Queen and her son, who was with her, but she arrived in England with an armed force in September 1326 and issued a proclamation against the Despencers. The king fled before her army, and he sent Hugh the elder to secure the town and castle of Bristol, but the Queen marched to Berkely, where she recaptured the castle previously held by the Despencers and returned it to its owner, Thomas, Lord Berkeley. Then she marched to Bristol, where most of the people were on her side and turned the elder Hugh over to the queen. The next day, October 27, 1326, he was sentenced to death, and executed as a traitor by being hanged from a gallows 50 feet high, drawn, deboweled (See Braveheart) and beheaded, his body given to the dogs after four days, his head was sent to Winchester. Hugh and his nephew Edward Le DeSpencer had strongly supported Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire, and between the two of them, completed the Choir, the Roof, and the Chevet Chapels during the reigns of Edward II, III, Richard II and Henry IV, between 1307 and 1413, and the remains of his body was entombed there. His son, Hugh Le DeSpencer, the Younger, had accompanied King Edward II in his flight from London to Cardiff in Wales, where they sought refuge in the Despencers' castles at Caerphilly and Neath. The queen sent William de la Zouche and Rhys ap Howel to capture them, and they surrendered on November 16, 1326 at Llantrissaint, and were brought to Hereford where the queen was waiting. The younger Hugh was charged with piracy, complicity in the murder of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and was condemned and was excuted as a traitor with a death similar to his father, and his head was send to London where it was placed on London Bridge. *(2).

Geoffrey Le DeSpencer, who died about 1242, married Emma De St. John, on December 29, 1229, and they had one son named John. John later married a lady named Anne at Defford, Worcestershire, England and their son was named William, who lived until about 1328, and married an unknown lady about 1299 at Defford. The product of their union was named John, who lived in Defford until his death, after 1386. He and his wife, Alice Deverall, the daughter of Sir Giles Deverell, had a son they named Nicholas. Nicholas lived at Defford and married Joan Pollard about 1365 at Kent and their son Thomas was born after 1366 and lived at Badly, Nothamptonshire, England. The son of Thomas was the famous Henry G. Spencer, born after 1392 who lived at Badly and married Isabella Lincoln, the daughter of Henry Lincoln, at Hodnell, Northamptonshire, England.

It was about this time, 1392, that the De Spencer family dropped the French appellation De, and simply became known as Spencer. Henry G. Spencer had four sons, named Thomas, William, Nicholas and John, and one daughter named Margaret. Four U.S. Presidents, Princess Diana Spencer, and Winston Churchill, among other noted people from the past, could trace their ancestry back to Henry and Isabella, through their sons and daughter. Henry lived until the sixteenth year of King Edward IV, about 1477. One of Henry's executors, John, the youngest son, married a woman with the family name Warsted, and had three sons, John, Thomas and William, the latter was born about 1444. William married Elizabeth Empson, the daughter of Sir Peter Empson and Elizabeth Jospeh about 1469 at Towcester, Northamptonshire, England and later had two sons, John and Thomas. John was made a Knight and married Isabel Graunt, the daughter of Walter Graunt and Elizabeth Rudinge about 1485. The union of John and Isabel produced three sons and three daughters, named William, Thomas and Anthony, Jane, Elizabeth and Dorothy, all born near the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century. William married Susan Knightley, the daughter of Richard Knightley and Jane Skenard. William and Susan were married about 1514 at Fawsley, Northamptonshire, England, and they had one son, John, born in 1517, and five daughters, Isabel, Jane, Dorothy, Anne and Marie. John lived at Fawsley, but married Catherine Kitson, daughter of Thomas Kitson and Margaret Donington. The marriage of John and Catherine took place in 1545 at Hengrave, in Suffolk County, England, and they had five sons, John, Thomas, William, Richard and Edward, and five daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth, Katherine, Mary and Anne, between 1546 and 1563. John, who was born about 1551 in Wormleighton, Warwickshire, England, married Mary Catlin on September 11, 1566 in London, Middlesex, England. Mary was the daughter of Robert Catlin and Anne Boles. The only child of John and Mary was named Robert Spencer at his birth in 1570 at Wormleighton. He married Margaret Willoughby, the daughter of Francis Willoughby and Elizabeth Lyttleton. Robert and Margaret were wed on Feb. 15, 1586 at Brighton, Northamptonshire, England, and the marriage produced seven children between 1588 and 1595, William, Margaret, Elizabeth, John, Richard, Edward and Mary. William married Penelope Wriothesley in 1615 at Tichfield, Southamptonshire, England.*(1) She was the daughter of Henry Wriothesly and Elizabeth Vernon. Penelope Wriothesley was probably acquainted with the famous writer and playwright, William Shakespeare, because her father was his patron, and was acknowledged as such by Shakespeare in one of his writings. William Spencer and Penelope had thirteen children, named Robert, Margaret, Mary, Anne, Catherine, Alice, Richard, Thomas, John, Rachel, Elizabeth, Henry and William. Robert married a woman named Jane, who may have been a cousin, at Yarton, Oxfordshire, England and their son was named James who married a woman named Isabello.

There is a tradition that the Spencer Family fled England after the defeat of the Royal cause of Charles I in 1647/48.*(3) The constitution of all representative or governing bodies was affected, especially that of the Bermuda Company, where William Spencer was a member of the Bermuda Company. It is believed that William was imprisoned and his wife kept under observation, but during the dead of night, the family surreptitiously boarded a ship bound to Bermuda where they eventually arrived with no worldly goods except a chair in which a Bible was hidden beneath a seat. The infant son Nicholas is supposed to have been the first of the name in Bermuda, though he apparently didn't remain in Bermuda, but immigrated to America to Virginia and Philadelphia.

James and Isabello produced a son also named James, born about 1694 or 1695, probably in Virginia or the Barbadoes. He married Anne Benson about 1720 in Talbot County, Maryland, and they had four children, James Jr., Nicholas, Robert and Rhoda. Robert married Mary Sherwood about 1746 and they had seven children. Rhoda married Henry Abrams about 1748 and they had eight children. Henry Abrams was born in Wales, and lived to the age of 108. They lived at Turkeyfoot, Somerset County, Pennsylvania*(4). James Jr. married Mary Abrams, the daughter of Henry Abrams and Rhoda Spencer, about 1760 and they also lived at Turkeyfoot, but later moved to near Somerset, in Perry County, Ohio. James Jr. and Mary had thirteen children, Rhoda who married Benjamin Jennings Jr., who served in the Revolutionary War as a private in Captain David Kilgore's Company from Pennsylvania. James Spencer Jr. who was born about 1730 , died Dec. 9, 1825, also served as a ranger in the Revolutionary War. James is buried in the Hopewell Baptist Cemetery, Somerset, Perry County, Ohio, whose land was donated to them by James's son William. Their other children included Thomas, Olive, Jesse, William, Dinah, Elizabeth, Dorcas, Benjamin, Drusilla, James Spencer III, born June 16, 1787and Sarah, born about 1788. James Spencer III married Rachel Mitchell, granddaughter of James Mitchell and Elizabeth McIlhenny of Northern Ireland. Rachel bore James a son named Francis Marion Spencer, born August 9, 1811, but Rachel died only a few years later, April 2, 1814 in Fairfield County, Ohio. James remarried Nancy McClelland shortly after the death of his first wife and they had six children, Samuel, Asa, Abner, James B, Pearson and Caroline, between 1827 and 1840. Francis Spencer moved to Porter County, Indiana in 1832 where he married Anna Blalock on Sept. 22, 1827, but they moved to Missouri in 1838 and eventually settled in Putnam County, Missouri where they lived on a farm. They had nine children while living in Putnam Co., James who married Martha Ann Dunn, Harriet Ann who married Samuel Hurlburt, Mary Ann who married S. D. Humbling, Jesse L. who married Ida L. McLaglen, Sarah Jane who married John Parker Huffman, Francis Marion Jr. who married Missouri Mulkey, Eli who married Nettie Mulkey, and Ruth Ellen who died at the age of three in Walla Walla, Washington.

Francis Marion Spencer decided to move his family to the Oregon Territory in 1864, after his neighbors began pressuring him to come out for the Union or Confederate side during the Civil War. Because he feared possible har m to his family, he sold his farm, bought an Ox Team and wagon, and traveled from Missouri across the plains, along the Oregon trail, until he arrived at Fort Walla Walla in Washington in the winter of 1864/65. In the summer of 1865 he traveled with his family to Benton County, Oregon, where he purchased a homestead of 80 acres adjacent to the Alsea Highway, near Westwood, 7 miles from Philomath. He lived there until his children were grown and had left home, working as a farmer and part time as a blacksmith, where he provided horseshoes for his neighbors' horses. He and his wife later moved to Blodgett, in Benton County, Oregon, and lived there until his death in 1897.

Throughout the history of the last millenium (1000-2000 AD) the Spencer name has been famous throughout the world. Probably the most famous Spencer was Princess Diana Spencer (1961-1997), the wife of Prince Charles and mother of two sons. George John Spencer, the 2nd earl of Spencer was a British public official elected to the House of Commons in 1780. Prime minister William Pitt appointed him to the first lord of the admiralty in 1794, and he was responsible for the selection of Horatio Nelson to command the fleet that won the famous naval battle of Aboukir in 1798. He left office in 1801, but later served as home secretary. His son, John Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer, was chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons under Lord Earl Gray. He joined with Lord John Russell to formulate and pass the Reform Bill of 1832 through the Commons. In the United States, John C. Spencer was the Secretary of War and later Secretary of the Treasury under President Tyler. John Spencer of Wauconda, Lake Co., Illinois, though born in England, was a well known millwright in 1885. The name John Spencer can be found at the present time in many professions, including the astronomer at Lowell Observatory, and the well-known character actor who played on L.A. Law and currently plays Leo McGarry on the hit NBC TV series "The West Wing." In the U.K., John Spencer's Company publishes many science fiction magazines,and another jaohn Spencer has written a book about Self Employment, and another John Spencer is a noted Striker for various Scottish Soccer clubs. In the U.S., another John Spencer was the head coach of Bridgewater College rrom 1968-1984, and another John Spencer is a race car driver form Las Vegas, Nevada. Jeremy Spencer has been a long time band member of Fleetwood Mac. Joel Spencer is a Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics at N.Y. University.

*(1)The Visitation of the County of Warwick in 1619.
*(2)Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Bridlington, Vita Edwardi II, T. de la Moore's Vita et Mors Edwards II in Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, i. ii. ed. Dr. W. Stubbs, Rolls Ser., J. Trokelowe, ed. Riley, Rolls Ser
*(3) Bermuda Settlers of the 17th Century by Julia E. Mercer.
*(4)Turkeyfoot, Pennsylvania genealogy compiled by Eber Cockley, publisher of the Meyersdale, Pennsylvania newspaper, compiled for Anne Spencer Stallman.