William St Leger
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William St Leger of Bilsington should have inherited the great St Leger estates of Kent and did not: his father the Lord Deputy passed him over for a younger brother, for reasons no document explains, and the disinheritance is recorded as plainly by the Dictionary of Irish Biography as it must have been felt. He married Isabel Keys, and his son Sir Warham rebuilt the family's Irish fortunes that the Kentish lands had been meant to fund. The passed-over line, not the favoured one, is the ancestral one here.
Research notes
WILLIAM ST LEGER of Bilsington and Belgar, Kent, ELDEST son of Sir Anthony St Leger, Lord Deputy, disinherited in favour of his younger brother the elder Sir Warham (DIB a8225: 'His father should have succeeded to the sizeable St Leger estates in Kent but was disinherited'). M. Isabel Keys. Father of Sir Warham St Leger (d.1600), our line. Sources: DIB a8225; Office of Arms pedigree, Dublin ('Pedigrees' vol. v p.138), printed Abbott 1896. Direct ancestor. Added 8 Aug 2026.