♀Alice de Tony

Alice de Tony (died shortly before 8 January 1324/5) was an English noblewoman, the heiress of the Tony barony, who was married in turn to a Kentish knight, to Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and to William la Zouche Mortimer, later Lord Zouche. She was the eighteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Joyce la Zouche.

Early life and first marriage

Alice was a daughter of Sir Ralph de Tony of Painscastle in Radnorshire and Flamstead in Hertfordshire, and of his wife Mary, and she was born about 1282–85. Her father fought in the Welsh wars and in Gascony, where he was taken prisoner on 31 March 1295 and died on 27 May that year. Alice married first Thomas de Leyburn, of Leybourne in Kent, who died shortly before 30 May 1307. Their daughter, Juliana, was six when her grandfather William, Lord Leyburn, died in 1309, and she was his heir.

Heiress and countess

Alice’s only brother, Robert, Lord Tony, died in 1309, and she was his heiress. The inheritance took in Flamstead, Walthamstow in Essex, Elmley Lovett in Worcestershire, Saham Toney and Necton in Norfolk, Newton Toney in Wiltshire, East Bergholt in Suffolk and manors in Cambridgeshire, Cornwall and Oxfordshire. Shortly before 28 February 1309/10 she married Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick^W, the great opponent of Edward II’s favorite, Piers Gaveston^W. In June 1312 Guy seized Gaveston at Deddington and carried him off to Warwick Castle, and from there he was handed to the Earl of Lancaster and put to death. Alice and Guy had two sons and five daughters, and the elder son, Thomas, became the next Earl of Warwick. Guy died at Warwick Castle on 12 August 1315 and was buried at Bordesley Abbey.

Third marriage

By a license dated 26 October 1316 Alice married William la Zouche Mortimer, a younger son of Robert de Mortimer, Baron of Richard’s Castle, who had come into the la Zouche estates at Ashby de la Zouch two years before. Through her he held Walthamstow in Essex, Cherhill in Wiltshire and Elmley Lovett in Worcestershire. They had three sons, Alan, Robert and, it seems, Philip, and one daughter, Joyce. William was summoned to Parliament as Lord Zouche from December 1323. Alice died shortly before 8 January 1324/5.

The family

Alice and William’s eldest son, Alan, born in 1317, became the second Lord Zouche, though he was never summoned to Parliament. He served in Flanders in 1340, in Scotland in 1341 and in France in 1342, fought as a banneret^W in the king’s division at the Battle of Crécy on 26 August 1346, and died on 12 November that year. Their son Robert, aged fifty in 1368, became the heir that year of Alan’s son Hugh, who had died without children, and he too died childless, before 1398. Their daughter Joyce married John Botetourt, 2nd Lord Botetourt, before 31 May 1347. The line probably runs on from Joyce, through her great-granddaughter Joan Mitton, to Joan’s son John Washburn (died 1547); the Notes explain why that link is given as probable.

Notes

Sources

Alice’s parentage, her birth about 1282–85, her three marriages, her inheritance from her brother, her children by Guy de Beauchamp and by William la Zouche Mortimer, and the date of her death are given by Douglas Richardson in Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), in the Beauchamp and Tony chapters. Her father’s capture and death in Gascony are from Richardson’s Tony chapter, which quotes a petition of 1295 from his executors. Her daughter Juliana, and Juliana’s age at her grandfather’s death, are from the first edition of the Complete Peerage (vol. 4, 1892), and the Complete Peerage (vol. 8, 1898) also names Alice as William’s first wife. Richardson calls Philip “evidently” a son.

Her age and her death

Richardson gives her age as 24 or 27 in 1309; the Complete Peerage gives 26 in 1309–10. Richardson has her dying shortly before 8 January 1324/5 and the Complete Peerage in 1324.

Her mother

Her mother is known only as Mary, who was living in 1283; Richardson says that conclusive evidence of her parentage is lacking.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joyce Botetourt’s great-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.