Le Sire de Rupierre


Barons Teynham Coat of Arms
Catton's English Peerage 1790

Rupierre is near Caen, Normandy. The family is said to have been descended from the house of Musard, but the statement has not been substantiated. The lords of this house were of great consequence in the 11th and 12th centuries. William de Rupierre came to England with the Conqueror, and was in command of the forces of duke Robert in 1090 before the castle of Courci in Normandy, by which garrison he was taken prisoner with William de Ferrers. In 1099 William possessed Trenouville, Grenteville and Fremont, and was a benefactor of Troarn. In England Robert de Rupierre paid fines in Nottingham and Derby and the heiress of John Rooper of Turndish, Derby, married De Fourneaux, who assumed her name. Roger de Rupers of the Norman line held lands in Warwick and Leicester, temp. John, where he made a grant to Tewkesbury abbey. The counts of Rupierre continued in Normandy until the 18th century. From this family descends the Roopers and the barons Teynham.
--(This name appears on the Falaise Roll).

Baron Teynham

John Roper of Eltham had three sons, William, Edward, and Christopher. John Roper's properties of Eltham, St. Dunstan's, and Canterbury, went to William, while the Lynsted property went to Christopher, who, by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher Blore, of Teynham, became the father of John, first Baron Teynham and progenitor of the Ropers of Lynsted. John Roper was knighted in 1616, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He did not, however, live long to enjoy it, for he died in 1618. A monument stands in the Roper chancel of Lynsted church, to commemorate his wife and himself. He was buried in the family vault beneath the south chancel, where there is an altar-tomb of marble, and an effigy of Sir John and his wife. On the floor of the chapel is an engraved memorial brass to his first wife Elizabeth, the mother of his children, inscribed :

Here lyeth buryed Elizabeth Rooper late wiffe of John
Rooper of Kente Esquire, daughter & sole heyer of Richard
Parke of Kente Esquire, who had issue by the sayd John
Rooper one sonne & two dowghters. She ledd her lyfe most
vertuously and endyd the same most catholykely,
whose soule God pdon.