♀Alice Stotesbury

Alice Stotesbury (dates unknown) was executrix to her husband, William Thorne, a landholder at Yardley Hastings in Northamptonshire, England, and his will settled on her his chief house at Syresham for life and the rest of his lease of a farm at Yardley called “The Byrry”. She was the twelfth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Thomas Thorne (died 1588).

Marriage and widowhood

Alice married William Thorne, probably before 1515. They had at least three children: Thomas, who inherited most of the land; George, the youngest son; and a daughter whose name, beginning with M, is lost where the page is torn.

William made Alice his executrix and provided her jointure^W, the settlement a husband made for his widow’s living. She was to have his capital messuage at Syresham for the rest of her life, after which it returned to his heirs, together with the remaining years of his lease of “The Byrry” and the residue of his goods. Out of the farm she was to pay their son George ten pounds. Thomas, the heir, was to have “the said jointure of his mother” once she had died. Alice outlived her husband, who died before 1537.

Her brother’s will

Alice was probably a sister of Thomas Stutysbury of Sulgrave, gentleman, who witnessed her husband’s will. Thomas made his own will on 4 July 1557. He left forty shillings to “my sister Borne”, three pounds to Thomas Thorne and forty shillings to George Thorne, and named “my cousin Thomas Thorne” one of his overseers. His lands at Sulgrave and Morton went to his daughter’s son, Thomas Leason, on one condition: if Thomas Leason ever let his own father, Robert Leason, live on them or farm them, the lands were to pass to Thomas Thorne. The bequest to his sister suggests that Alice was still living, some twenty years after her husband’s death. The will was proved at Towcester on 17 September 1557.

Lines of descent

Through her son Thomas, Alice was the great-grandmother of Thomas Dudley^W, later deputy governor and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, the son of Thomas’s daughter Susanna.

Both lines run through her son Thomas Thorne, Thomas’s daughter Susanna Thorne and her son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653). They part below Thomas Dudley’s son Samuel Dudley and meet again in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents, Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825), both descend from Alice.

Notes

The will

William Thorne’s will is known from two printed abstracts. Mary Kingsbury Talcott, in “The Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 66 (1912), pp. 342–343, dates it 8 March 1537 and calls the widow “Alys”. Brandon Fradd, “Ancestry of Thomas Thorne, Grandfather of Thomas Dudley”, The Genealogist 19 (2005), pp. 112–128, prints a fuller abstract (p. 127) dated 8 March 1528/9, with no probate recorded; the details of Alice’s jointure come from it. The two abstracts also differ on smaller bequests: Talcott gives the daughter 20 shillings, Fradd fifteen marks at her marriage. Fradd’s list of witnesses includes Thomas Stutysbury of Sulgrave, gentleman. Fradd (p. 119) gives the marriage as “probably before 1515”.

Her surname

Neither abstract gives Alice’s maiden name. Fradd (pp. 121–122) takes it from the will of Thomas Stutysbury of Sulgrave, dated 4 July 1557 and proved at Towcester on 17 September 1557 (Peterborough wills; abstract p. 128). The bequest to “my sister Borne”, the gifts to Thomas and George Thorne, Thomas Thorne’s place as heir to the Sulgrave lands should Thomas Leason break its condition, and “my cousin Thomas Thorne” as an overseer together “suggest that Thomas Thorne’s mother, Alice, was the sister of Thomas Stutysbury”. The surname is therefore Fradd’s inference. The Thornes were also written Dorne; the abstract prints the sister’s name as “Borne”. Fradd notes the family name spelled Stotesbury, Stotusbury, Stottusbury, Stutusbury, Stutysbury and other ways. The heralds’ pedigree of Stotesbury of Evenley in the visitation of Oxfordshire (Harleian Society vol. 5, p. 206) names no Alice married to a Thorne.

Mother of Thomas Thorne

William’s will leaves “my son Thomas Thorne my heir” the lands and, after her death, “the said jointure of his mother”, so Alice was the heir’s own mother. Fradd identifies this Thomas with Thomas Thorne of Yardley Hastings, buried there on 9 November 1588; both men’s wills name Syresham.

Dates

No record gives her birth or death. Online family trees give her a birth in 1487 at Sulgrave; Fradd’s “ca. 1487” is the birth year he estimates for her husband William, who by his reckoning came of age between September 1507 and September 1508. A death date of 4 July 1557 found in online trees is the date of her brother’s will.