♀Agnes de Wauton

Agnes de Wauton (died before 13 February 1278) was an Englishwoman who married Sir James Shirley, lord of Ettington in Warwickshire and of Shirley in Derbyshire, in the reign of Henry III. Her marriage ended in scandal: she was abducted by Henry Fown, who kept her with him for more than five years, and she died while still with him. She was the twenty-second great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Ralph Shirley (died 1326).

Marriage

Agnes is said to have been a niece of Simon de Walton, bishop of Norwich. She married James Shirley about 1247, and by a fine made that year his father, Sewallis Shirley, settled the manor of Shirley on James to provide Agnes’s dower, with Ettington to come to James after him. James and Agnes had a son, Ralph, who became his father’s heir, and probably another son, Simon.

Abduction and death

In February 1278 the bishop of Worcester, Godfrey Giffard^W, wrote to the king’s justices about Henry Fown, “who abducted Agnes, the wife of Sir James de Etyndon, knight, and for five years and more publicly detained her in adultery”. By then Agnes had died, still in Henry’s keeping. A sentence on Henry followed in July 1278, in which the bishop’s register calls her “Agnes, late the wife of Sir James de Etyndon”.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Ralph Shirley, Ralph’s son James Shirley, James’s son Ralph Shirley (died 1342), Ralph’s son Thomas Shirley, Thomas’s son Hugh Shirley (died 1403), Hugh’s son Ralph Shirley and Ralph’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from her through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his 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

The bishop’s letters

Both entries are in the Register of Bishop Godfrey Giffard (Worcestershire Historical Society, 1902): p. 95, fol. 74, dated 13 February 1278, the letter to the justices about Henry Fown, “who afterwards died in his unlawful embraces”, and p. 98, fol. 78d, July 1278, the sentence on “Henry, called Fohun”. A later entry of 1281 names “Henry le Foun and Isabella his wife”, a later wife of Henry’s. Whether Henry was kin to Richard Foun, to whom Sir James mortgaged his Derbyshire rents in 1276, is not known.

Her family

Wauton is an old spelling of Walton. Her parents are not known. Stemmata Shirleiana (2nd ed., 1873) makes Simon de Walton, bishop of Norwich, her son Ralph’s “mother’s uncle” (p. 22), and calls the pedigrees that make her the bishop’s daughter “without sufficient authority” (p. 15 n.).

The marriage settlement

The fine of 1247 (31 Henry III) is printed in Stemmata Shirleiana, pp. 362–363: it settles Shirley “ad dotandum inde Agnetam de Wauton ux ejusd. Jacobi”. The Victoria County History of Warwickshire (vol. 5, 1949, pp. 78–79) gives the settlement “on his son James, on his marriage with Agnes de Wauton”. Simon appears as Ralph’s brother in Stemmata Shirleiana, p. 22 n.