♂Adam Peshale

Adam Peshale^W (died 26 October 1419) was a knight of Weston under Lizard in Staffordshire who sat in Parliament for Shropshire and for Staffordshire and served as sheriff of both counties. He married three times, and his third wife, Joyce Botetourt, was the mother of his two daughters and co-heiresses. He was the sixteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Margaret Peshale (1393–1420).

Career

Adam was the younger and only surviving son of Adam de Peshale of Horsley in Staffordshire and his second wife, Joan, the daughter and heiress of John de Eyton. He became a king’s knight, sat as a knight of the shire^W for each of his two counties, and was sheriff of Staffordshire in 1380 and of Shropshire from 1397 to 1399. He was sheriff of Shropshire again in 1418–19, the last year of his life. His lands lay at Weston under Lizard, Blymhill, Hagley in Rugeley and Tamhorn in Fisherwick in Staffordshire, and at Shifnal in Shropshire, which he held in right of his second wife.

Three marriages

Each of Adam’s three wives was a widow, and each was, or became, an heiress. About 1362 he married Elizabeth de Weston, the widow of John de Whiston and a daughter and co-heiress of Sir John de Weston of Weston under Lizard; she died about 1366. In 1369 or 1370 he married Elizabeth ferch Philip ap Rees, the widow of Sir Henry de Mortimer of Chelmarsh in Shropshire and a daughter and co-heiress of Sir Philip ap Rees of Talgarth; she died about 1384.

His third wife was Joyce Botetourt, the widow of Sir Baldwin de Freville of Tamworth, whom he married before 11 November 1388. They had married without the king’s license, and a pardon for it was granted on 28 May 1389. They had two daughters, Joan, who married William de Birmingham, and Margaret, who married Sir Richard Mitton in or before 1406 and was given the manors of Hagley and Tamhorn as her marriage portion. Adam and Joyce were members together of the Trinity Guild of Coventry, whose register enters them as “Adam, Lord Pethsale, Knight, and Jacosa his wife”.

Last years

In 1407 Joyce became one of the co-heiresses of her niece and namesake, Joyce Botetourt, the wife of Hugh Burnell, Lord Burnell. Her share brought her the manor of Bobbington in Staffordshire and the reversion of the manors of Newport Pagnell and Linford in Buckinghamshire and of other manors in Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, that is, the right to them when the present holders’ interests came to an end. In 1419 Adam and Joyce sold the reversion of the Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire properties to Joan Beauchamp, Lady Bergavenny, for perhaps as much as 1,000 marks.

Adam died on 26 October 1419. Joyce outlived him by less than a year: their daughter Margaret died on 5 August 1420, and Joyce a week later, on 12 August 1420.

Lines of descent

Adam’s line to Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) runs through his daughter Margaret Peshale, whose son William Mitton had a daughter, Joan Mitton. Joan’s son John Washburn (died 1547) is probably the John Washburn who carries the line on, and from him it runs down through the Washburn and Blanchard families to Nancy.

Notes

Sources

Adam’s parentage, offices, lands and three marriages, the pardon of 1389, Joyce’s inheritance of 1407, the sale of 1419 and the couple’s death dates are given by Douglas Richardson in Magna Carta Ancestry (2005) and Plantagenet Ancestry (2011). He cites among others the printed list of sheriffs, the register of the Coventry guild, Canon Bridgeman’s history of Weston-under-Lizard (1899) and the biography of Adam in The House of Commons 1386–1421 (1992). The years of his sheriffships, Shifnal held in right of his second wife, and the guild membership are from Plantagenet Ancestry.

His death date

The Peshall pedigree in the Staffordshire visitations of 1614 and 1663–64 calls Adam lord of Weston in the nineteenth year of Richard II (1395–96) and gives his death as 1439 and Joyce’s as 1455. Richardson gives 26 October 1419 and 12 August 1420.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Margaret’s granddaughter Joan Mitton was John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is given here as probable.