♀Aline Basset

Aline Basset (died 1281) was the daughter and heiress of Sir Philip Basset^W, Justiciar of England, the widow of a baron killed at the Battle of Evesham^W, and afterwards Countess of Norfolk. She was the twenty-second great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Hugh le Despenser (1261–1326).

Marriage and widowhood

Aline’s father, Philip Basset, held lands at Wycombe in Buckinghamshire and at Compton Bassett and Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire. Hugh and Aline were married in or before 1260, and their son and heir, Hugh, was born on 1 March 1260/1. Her husband sided with the barons against Henry III and served as their Justiciar of England. He was killed with Simon de Montfort^W at the Battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265, when their son was four. Hugh’s lands were forfeited to the crown, but on 5 October 1265 Aline was granted for life three of his manors, Loughborough, Freeby and Hugglescote in Leicestershire.

Countess of Norfolk

Before 29 October 1271 Aline married Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk^W and Marshal of England; she was his first wife, and they had no children. Her father died on 29 October 1271, and she was his heir. The king had granted Philip the ransom of the lands her first husband had forfeited; Philip left it to Aline, and she in turn left it to her son. She died shortly before 11 April 1281, named in the king’s writ “Alina la Despensere comitissa Norff’”, Aline le Despenser, Countess of Norfolk. Her son, then twenty, received his father’s forfeited lands that May and his mother’s in August.

Notes

Sources

Aline’s parentage, both marriages, the life grant of 1265, the ransom of the Despenser lands, her death and her son’s inheritance are from G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. IV (1916), DESPENSER, pp. 261–262, by G. W. Watson, citing the patent, close and fine rolls and the inquisitions post mortem. Her parentage, her first marriage and her marriage to Roger Bigod, with the note that they had no issue, are also in Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), DESPENSER 5, p. 275, and BIGOD, p. 87. Both are printed genealogies of the medieval nobility. The words “Alina la Despensere comitissa Norff’” are from the writ of 11 April 1281 as the Complete Peerage quotes it.

Her age

The inquisitions taken in November 1271 after her father’s death gave her age variously as 22 and more, 34 and more, 26, and 30 and more. The first edition of the Complete Peerage (vol. III, 1890, p. 91) takes 26.

Her mother

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed.) and Magna Carta Ancestry make her mother Hawise, daughter of Sir Matthew de Lovaine, Philip Basset’s first wife. The first edition of the Complete Peerage (vol. VI, 1895, p. 40) instead names Ela, daughter of William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury; its own vol. VIII (1898, p. 54) makes Ela Philip’s second wife.

Other children

Magna Carta Ancestry (p. 234) names a daughter Eleanor, wife of Hugh de Courtenay, and (p. 386) Anne, “said to be” a daughter, wife of William de Ferrers.