Theodosia Ivie facts for kids
Theodosia, Lady Ivie (1628–1697) was a wealthy woman from London in the 1600s. She was known for being very smart and good at understanding laws. Lady Ivie claimed to own a lot of land in the east end of London, which led to many legal battles that lasted for almost 75 years! At one important trial, a judge named Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys found evidence that Lady Ivie had used fake documents to claim land.
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Lady Ivie's Land Claims
Theodosia Stepkin, who later became Lady Ivie, inherited land in an area called Wapping. This land was once marshy but had been drained by an engineer. It was a very valuable area because it was close to central London and the River Thames.
Over time, London grew quickly, and it became hard to tell exactly where one person's land ended and another's began. Lady Ivie used these unclear boundaries to her advantage. She challenged the borders of her land and the land next to hers. This way, she managed to gain control of many more properties than she originally inherited.
The Shadwell Dispute
In a nearby area called Shadwell, a man named Thomas Neale had invested a lot of money to develop the land. Lady Ivie claimed that all of his new development was actually part of her family's land. She even managed to take the land from him!
Thomas Neale immediately went to court to fight back. In a trial in 1684, he not only got his Shadwell land back, but he also showed the court that Lady Ivie's land documents were fake. For example, some of her old documents from 1555 said that Philip and Mary were "King and Queen of Spain." But at that time, they were only "Princes of Spain," and they weren't married yet! This was a clear mistake that proved the documents were not real.
A witness also came forward and said they saw Lady Ivie herself making the fake documents. After Lady Ivie lost the Shadwell case and faced serious accusations, she ran away to a special area in London called Whitefriars. This place was a "liberty," meaning the usual laws didn't apply there, so she was safe from being arrested.
Her helper, Stephen Knowles, also ran away to another liberty. He had told the judge that Lady Ivie's documents were real, but then he watched as they were proven fake. Eventually, Lady Ivie left Whitefriars. She tried to calm down the people she owed money to and her tenants by publishing a paper about her land. But the law caught up to her, and she faced a trial. Surprisingly, she was found not guilty. The court decided that even though the documents were fake, it was hard to prove that *she* personally made them. Maybe one of her ancestors had made them, and she just believed they were real. After this, Knowles also left his hiding place.
Wapping Land Battles
The fight over Shadwell was just one part of many land disputes between Lady Ivie and Thomas Neale in Wapping. Lady Ivie did own many properties in Wapping, but she often argued with people who owned land next to hers. Old documents sometimes had unclear descriptions, or boundary markers had moved over the years. This led to constant arguments.
In 1677, there was a dispute over 22 acres of land. Lady Ivie claimed all of it. Instead of going to court right away, she bought the right to use five acres of the disputed land through someone else. Then, after the agreement ended, she just kept the land. This made it the original owner's problem to try and get her off the land. Once she had those five acres, she then tried to claim the rest. Her opponents included Thomas Neale and a respected London leader named Sir John Ireton. Ireton hired a lawyer to prove that Lady Ivie's main land document was fake. This was difficult because the document had been approved by Sir John Bramston the Elder, a very important judge and Lady Ivie's great-uncle.
The Johnson Case
Stories differ about what happened next. Lady Ivie said that the lawyer, George Johnson, offered money to anyone who could prove her document was fake. When she found out, she reported him to the authorities. Johnson was then accused of trying to get people to lie in court.
Johnson was found guilty in two trials. In the second trial in 1679, he was not only found guilty again but also lost his job as a lawyer, had to pay a fine, and promise to behave better in the future.
Lady Ivie's opponents saw things differently. They agreed Johnson was guilty, but they believed Lady Ivie had tricked him. This idea is quite strong because the person Johnson was talking to, who confessed to forging documents for Ivie, was actually her own helper, Thomas Duffett. After confessing, Duffett mysteriously disappeared and didn't give evidence against Ivie in Johnson's trials. Lady Ivie's opponents said Johnson was heartbroken after losing his career and died soon after. However, Lady Ivie believed Johnson was rightly punished for breaking the law.
The Salkeld Mortgage
Thomas Duffett's confession about forging documents for Lady Ivie helps explain an earlier event in 1670. Lady Ivie was living with one of her trustees, Sir William Salkeld, who died shortly after she arrived. Lady Ivie then presented Salkeld's widow with a document claiming she had lent Salkeld money and that his house now belonged to her.
The Salkeld family strongly rejected her claim. Sir Charles Cotterell, an important official, also lived there and later gave evidence against Lady Ivie in her 1684 trial. The argument only stopped when Lady Ivie gave up her claim to the house to Salkeld's daughter, Lucy. Lady Ivie avoided serious accusations because another of her trustees, Colonel Edward Grosvenor, promised that Lady Ivie would behave well in the future and would not bother the Salkeld family again.
It's interesting that Lucy Salkeld, the person Lady Ivie gave the fake document to, was married to Lady Ivie's helper, Thomas Duffett. The Duffetts later separated, and Thomas ran away from the country to avoid trouble. It seems that Lady Ivie helped Duffett with his writing career, and in return, he helped her by writing and changing documents to help her win land claims.
Lady Ivie's Family
Lady Ivie was a direct descendant of Thomas Stepkyn and Macheline, who were German immigrants. They settled in the Wapping Marshes in the early 1500s. Thomas Stepkyn was the King's beer maker and supplied the Navy from his home near the Tower of London. As he became richer, Stepkyn bought many acres of land from a nearby abbey and other important people. This land eventually became Lady Ivie's inheritance and the reason for her many legal fights.
Lady Ivie's mother was Judith Atwood (1605-1634), and her father was John Stepkin (1605-1652). Her father was a Catholic who supported King Charles I and was also an eye doctor for the King. Lady Ivie had two brothers, but she became her father's heir after one brother died and the other was disinherited. After her mother died when she was young, Lady Ivie was cared for by female relatives. From her Bramston relatives, she learned about the law, and from the Atwoods, she learned about eye care.
Lady Ivie married at least three times. She had a son, George (1647-1667), with her first husband, George Garratt. With her second husband, Sir Thomas Ivie, she had a daughter, Theodosia (1661-1668). She also had a step-daughter from her marriage to James Bryan. Lady Ivie outlived all her husbands and her own children. Her grandmother was Mary Bramston, whose father was John Bramston the Elder, a very important judge in 1635. The Bramston family actively supported their Stepkin relatives in their legal battles.
A Fight Over Money
Before her big land disputes, Lady Ivie was already well-known because of her difficult marriage and her unusual attempt to get money from her husband. The idea of "alimony" (money paid to a spouse after separation) was new at the time, becoming law in 1649.
Lady Ivie and her husband fought each other, their relatives, and their friends in many different courts. The cases often overlapped and caused problems. Eventually, her husband, Sir Thomas Ivie, appealed to the highest authority, Oliver Cromwell, to try and stop his wife from getting money. But he failed.
Lady Ivie's Interests
Like her father and grandfather, Lady Ivie was known for her skill in helping with eye problems. She was also very interested in theatre. She was related to William Killigrew, whose brother ran a famous theatre. Both William and his son Robert helped manage Lady Ivie's properties.
Lady Ivie was also interested in mystical things and often visited fortune-tellers. She was called "The Catholic Patroness of alchemy" and owned a bezoar, a special stone believed to have magical healing powers, including protecting against poison.
Besides buying land, Lady Ivie tried other businesses, like making paper and trying to find treasure from shipwrecks. She even knew King James II and the famous Quaker, William Penn. She helped her friend Goodwin Wharton get permission from the King for a treasure-hunting trip to a shipwreck in Jersey in 1688. Lady Ivie invested money in this plan, but they didn't find any treasure.
Lady Ivie in Stories
A writer named M. R. James wrote a story called "A Neighbour’s Landmark" in 1924, which was based on Lady Ivie. In the story, she was shown as a crying ghost, forever troubled by stealing land from orphaned children.
In 1659, while her fight over money was happening, a comedy play appeared called "Lady Alimony, or, The Alimony Lady." It was written by an unknown author but was likely based on Lady Ivie herself. There are also reasons to believe that Thomas Duffett, her helper, mentioned the Ivies in some of his early plays.
Lady Ivie's Later Life
As the 1680s continued, Lady Ivie's luck began to run out. Losing the Shadwell land, her long absence in a "liberty," and the serious accusations against her made many people she owed money to nervous. She also lost a lot of property in a big fire in Wapping in 1682. She briefly left the country during the Glorious Revolution in 1688 but returned a few weeks later. However, people trying to collect debts were waiting for her and took all her personal belongings.
Even though she was found "not guilty" in her trial, her opponents gained strength and started to overwhelm her with many lawsuits and challenges to all her land claims. Lady Ivie began losing her remaining properties in Wapping very quickly. By the time she died, her last property in Wapping was about to be taken from her.
With her death, five generations of her family owning valuable land in Wapping came to an end. Most of the people she owed money to received nothing from her estate, and the legal battles continued for 30 years after she passed away.
Images for kids
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The disputed land. The land within the red line was obtained by Lady Ivie — implied the jury's verdict — by forgery of the title deeds. Today this land is, approximately, King Edward Memorial Park, Shadwell.
