♀Agnes de Warbleton

Agnes de Warbleton was an Englishwoman of the thirteenth century whose father, Thomas de Warbleton, gave the manor of Bucksteep as her marriage portion when she married Geoffrey St. Leger, a Sussex landholder. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through John St. Leger (died 1326).

Marriage

Her marriage is known from a roll of deeds of the Hoo family, who later inherited the St. Leger lands. In an undated charter Thomas de Warbleton gave Geoffrey the manor of Bucksteep in frankmarriage^W with his daughter Agnes, a marriage portion that was to return to Thomas if Agnes died without children. Bucksteep stayed in the family. On 20 December 1301 Geoffrey’s son John and John’s wife Isabel were granted free warren^W in Wartling, Bucksteep and other lands, and for that reason Agnes is taken to have been John’s mother. The dates of her birth, marriage and death are not known.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through John St. Leger, John’s daughter Isabel St. Leger (1320–1393), her son William Hoo (1335–1410), William’s daughter Margaret Hoo, Margaret’s daughter Edith Saint Clair (born about 1423), Edith’s daughter Alice Harcourt (died 1526), Alice’s daughter Elizabeth Bessiles, Elizabeth’s daughter Anne Fettiplace, Anne’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’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

Sources for her marriage

The grant of Bucksteep and the charter of 1301 are known from the Harleian roll of Hoo deeds as quoted in the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, under Hoo, Note A, p. 566): “an undated charter is a grant to him of the manor of Bucksteep by Thomas de Warbleton in free marriage with his da. Agnes, reversion to the grantor, if Agnes d.s.p.” The charter of 20 December 1301 names “John, s. of Geoffrey de St. Leger, and Isabel, his wife”.

Her son

No record names Agnes as John’s mother. She is taken to be so because Bucksteep, given with her in marriage and due to revert to her father if she had no children, was in John’s hands in 1301.

Her father

A Thomas de Warbleton who died by March 1300, leaving a widow, Christiana, and land at Tillingdon in Tandridge, Surrey (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 613), is probably of a later generation, since Geoffrey St. Leger already held Wartling in 1265. The two are not linked here.