♀Alice (surname unknown)

Alice (died 4 June 1393) was a fourteenth-century English gentlewoman who, with her husband John Baldington, held the manor of Albury, in Oxfordshire, kept it as a widow after his death, and was succeeded by her fifteen-year-old son. She was the eighteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son William Baldington (1377–1419), and through William an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Family

Alice was the daughter of Margaret Despencer; her father’s name is not known. Her mother’s mother, another Margaret, was a sister of Agnes and of John de Draycote, of Draycote in Waterstock, and her mother’s brother was Nicholas Despenser. Albury had most likely come down through her mother’s family, the Despensers of Albury, who held it in the 1320s.

Marriage and widowhood

Well before 1376, John and Alice were granted the manor of Albury, written Aldebury, to hold for themselves and the heirs of their bodies, with the remainder to Alice’s own heirs. Their son William was born about 21 September 1377. John died before his wife, who kept Albury as a widow until her death on 4 June 1393. William, then fifteen, was found to be her heir and, being under age, became a royal ward^W.

Her family’s claims outlived her. In 1395 an inquiry into the Draycote lands traced a remainder through her grandmother, her mother and herself, and named her son William as the heir of her uncle Nicholas.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son William Baldington, William’s daughter Agnes Baldington, 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 death and her son’s wardship

The inquisition post mortem^W into her lands (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 17, no. 156), headed “ALICE LATE THE WIFE OF JOHN BALDYNGTON”, on a writ of 14 June in the sixteenth year of Richard II and held in Oxfordshire, records that Aldebury had been granted “long before 50 Edward III” (1376) to John and Alice “and the heirs of their bodies, with remainder to the right heirs of Alice”, and that “Alice survived the said John”. It continues: “She died on 4 June last. The aforesaid William her son by John Baldyngton, aged 15 years on the feast of St Matthew last, is her heir.” The feast falls on 21 September. The Victoria County History^W of Oxfordshire (vol. 5, 1957, ‘Albury’, pp. 8–14) adds that William was then a minor and a royal ward.

Her mother’s family

A second inquisition (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 17, no. 455), taken at Dorchester on 12 March 1395 after the death of Katharine, wife of Henry Chalfhunt, on whom and John de Draycote the manor had been settled, followed the remainders of Draycote in Waterstock to “Agnes sister of the said John”, then to “Margaret sister of the said Agnes”, and on to “Nicholas Spencere son of the said Margaret, whose heir William son of John de Baldyngdon is, to wit, son of Alice daughter of Margaret daughter of Margaret sister of Agnes”. The volume’s index lists Margaret’s daughter under Despencer, with a cross-reference to Alice Baldyngton. The Victoria County History’s suggestion that Alice was Nicholas Despenser’s daughter is a generation out.

Albury and the Despensers

In July 1324 John le Despenser of Aldebury had a royal licence to settle the manor on himself, “Margaret his wife and John their son”, with remainders to the younger sons Thomas, Nicholas and Richard and then to his own right heirs (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1324–1327, p. 6). The Victoria County History records the family’s hold on Albury into the 1360s. That this Margaret was Alice’s grandmother, the mother of Nicholas, is an inference from the matching names; that Alice’s mother was John le Despenser’s daughter is a further inference, which would explain why a manor entailed on his right heirs came to Alice and why the grant to John and Alice reserved it to her heirs.