♀Agnes Baldington

Agnes Baldington was an English gentlewoman of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, a daughter of William Baldington of Shipton in Oxfordshire, who married Thomas Denton of Fifield. Through her son Thomas she was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W. She was the sixteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Thomas Denton.

Family

Her father was lord of the manors of Baldington, in Thame, and Albury, had been a royal ward^W as a boy, and died in 1419. According to the family’s pedigree, Agnes married Thomas Denton of Fifield, whom the pedigree dates to the eleventh year of the reign of Richard II, 1387–1388. Thomas and Agnes had a son, also Thomas Denton of Fifield, who married Alison Dauncey, the widow of Richard Wightam of Wytham. The records do not give the dates of Agnes’s birth, marriage or death.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Thomas Denton, Thomas’s son John Denton, John’s daughter Alice Denton, her son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas Dudley’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down through Samuel’s son Stephen Dudley (1654–1735) to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), and the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

Her marriage

The Denton pedigree in the Oxfordshire heraldic visitation^W (The Visitations of the County of Oxford, 1566, 1574 and 1634, Harleian Society vol. 5, 1871, p. 228) shows “Agnes daur. to Wm. Baldington of Shipton in Com. Oxon.” as the wife of “Thomas Denton of ffifeild in com. Oxon. A°. 11. R. 2.”, with their son Thomas Denton of Fifield, the “3rd. Husband” of Alison Dauncey. The chart follows the heir in each generation, so it does not name any other children. A visitation pedigree was compiled from the family’s own account, long after the events. Macnamara’s Memorials of the Danvers Family (1895, pp. 143–144), writing of her brother Thomas Baldington, also mentions “the marriage of his sister Agnes to Thomas Denton, of Caversfield”; Caversfield was the seat of a later generation of the Dentons.

Her father

The Victoria County History of Oxfordshire (vol. 5, 1957, ‘Albury’, pp. 8–14) gives the Baldington descent: John Baldington and his wife Alice held Albury before 1376; when Alice died in 1393 her son Sir William was under age and a royal ward; William died in 1419. The same history describes him in 1424–1425 as “William Baldington, recently lord of the manors of Baldington in Thame and Albury”. The pedigree calls him William Baldington of Shipton.

The dates

If William Baldington was still under age in 1393, Agnes can hardly have been born before about 1390, yet the pedigree dates her husband to 1387–1388. The records do not resolve the difference.