Introduction
Conspiracy of the times.
The life of Dorothy Hogben (1629–1688) has three strong themes:
1) pride in her nobility,
2) guidance by the Spirit of God,
3) gullibility and fraud.
The first two work against each other, which seems to lead to the third.
From our perspective her times seem to have conspired to make life particularly challenging.
The changes in the social order that were taking place motivated her grandfather
to write a book pleading that there be a return to respect and honor for those of noble birth.
Their noble class was being displaced by an expanding and inexorably rising middle class.
Protestantism had set the pace when it became established in England,
but Puritanism and other forms of dissension were on the rise.
A Presbyterian form of church government was establishing itself in Scotland,
each form trying to exclude other more extreme forms, such as that of the Covenanters.
The Church continued in its loss of influence over the lives of the population.
Non-local leaders tended to continue their political power-brokerage among the noble and royal classes.
Especially among these classes were wantonness and corruption on the increase.
In the midst of this Cromwell’s revolution in 1650 made further inroads
on the influence of the nobility as it had been handed down from ancient times.
Amid the turmoil of social disruption Dorothy became a devout Quaker.
It was not long and her social associations brought her into contact with a charlatan from America
who succeeded in separating her and her husband from a great part of their once quite respectable estate.
Possible modern fraud.
It is easy to underestimate the work involved in putting together Dorothy’s biography.
One might suppose that the sheer number of documents available would make it less daunting,
and indeed in some ways it is.
For many years it has been impossible to document any events relating to her after about 1680.
In 1967 the lack of evidence was rectified, all too conveniently according to some,
by a newly discovered family record, written on the pages of a bible published in 1754.
Amid cries of forgery, we have desperately made attempts to sift the accurate statements of fact from the surmises and assumptions of claimed descendants,
some clearly more zealous than responsible, no doubt too strongly desiring to demonstrate their right to noble roots.
Without the bible record numerous documents paint a relatively detailed picture of Dorothy’s life up to near its end.
It is clear enough that there was ample traditionary evidence in the eighteenth century,
yet attempts to chain it together credibly, have often allowed errors and misunderstandings to creep in.
The genealogist’s tendency has been to throw up the hands.
Some of them, for a time myself included, found themselves throwing out the whole tub of dirty water baby and all.
Sources.
Associated with the references in footnotes are hyperlinked abbreviations that the reader may then use to locate a full extract
— transcripts of the sources.
Headings are full citations of original documents.
Otherwise we provide the more traditional sort in the footnote.
We mean to include the most pertinent historical traces of Dorothy’s life story to the extent of our efforts to discover them.
