Roots

That’s Towneley Hall. Ye Olde “Ancestral Pile,” located in Lancashire, England. Family on my mother’s side lived on that land from at least 1200 (or thereabouts) right up until the late 19th Century. It stands as proof that family legends sometimes turn out to be true.

In the late 1800s, when the male line of Towneleys had died out, a search was mounted in America for heirs. The family, being stalwartly Catholic, was often out of favor, and many of them emigrated in the 1600s. Since I was a child, I’d heard about the solicitor who found his way to teensy Henry, Tennessee and announced that my great-grandmother was entitled to the estate. Which would need a lot of work, by the way.

Being dirt poor, the family declined. Turns out other descendants had previously declined, saving one man who left his heiress wife and their several children to set out for England, only to be washed overboard and never heard from again. Clearly a doomed legacy. Fortunately, the town of Burnley purchased the house, restored it, and maintains it to this day.

I visited Towneley Hall a few years ago and verified what I had learned from family members who had done extensive genealogical research. It made me think I’d found a possible answer to something that had puzzled me for most of my life: Why have I always been so intensely drawn to England?

I first went there as a graduate student on a scholarship to study Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon. But the moment I stepped off the plane in London, I had the sudden and overwhelming sensation that I had come home. Odd, that. A Navy brat, I’d been on the move all my life. I never had a home for more than two or three years and didn’t expect to settle down, ever. Maybe the feeling came from being in love with Shakespeare since high school and devoting years of study to English literature. That must be it.

But since then, I’ve visited England five or six times, and always, that same sensation rushes through me. Home. Belong. Part of this country.

Could some genetic link have been developed, through centuries of ancestors, in my DNA? It wasn’t only the Towneleys and their predecessors who tied me to the land and its history. The other side of my mom’s family, the de Vesci (later Veasey, Veazey, and other name variants) family had arrived in England before or with William the Conqueror. We have deep roots there.

I’d have scoffed at the DNA theory, except that so many other connections–-scores of them, large and small--bind me to the country and the ancestors I’ve been reading about. One trivial example. A friend once remarked that in my books, I often have a major character who is a “collector.” Art. Antiquities. That sort of thing. Startled, I did a mental review. Wow. Lots of them! Even my very first book features a collector.

But I’ve never been one myself. I’ve never collected anything except, well, dust bunnies. And while I accumulate stuff (like canvas tote-bags), I own nothing of interest or value.

However . . . my 19th-Century ancestor, Charles Towneley, was a devoted collector whose antiquities now form an important part of the British Museum collection. Here he is in his London home, depicted in a “tribute” portrait that shows him fictionally surrounded by his important contributions to the museum.

Last time I was in London, my buddy Alicia Rasley and I visited the charming Sir John Soames museum. And by sheerest coincidence, it was featuring a special exhibit of artifacts from the collection of my great-great-great-great-something Charles Towneley.

I’ve also had a life-long interest in astronomy and space exploration, and except for my notable lack of talent in math, I might have tried for a career in the field. Maybe Sir Richard Towneley, 17th-century astronomer, inventor, and theorist passed on some of his desire, if not his ability, to me.

Anyhow, I’m thinking about this tonight because–-wondrous to tell–-Alicia and I will be making our fourth England trip together in October. Not to Lancashire or Northumberland, though, where most of my ancestors settled. We’ve secured a cottage in Glastonbury, “Cradle of Christianity” and Arthurian legend and all things New Age-y. Perhaps someone there, more attuned than I am to such matters, can clarify the spiritual bond between me and whatever it is that keeps drawing me inexorably home.

Lately, friends have been discussing “place” and how some of us know where we belong, while others of us are still looking for the place where we ought to be. I’m one of those who knew, since I first saw Coronado decades ago, that I was meant to live here. Yes, it took most of those decades to actually settle here, but I made it! And I’m happy. And home. For now.

Except for the invisible magnets that keep pulling me back to England.

How about you? What made you choose where you live? Does some other landscape call to you? Where would you be if you could settle in another place?