♀Anne Fettiplace

Anne Fettiplace was an Englishwoman of the Fettiplace family of East Shefford, Berkshire, who married Edward Purefoy, a gentleman of Shalston, Buckinghamshire. She was the twelfth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Mary Purefoy and Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne.

Family

Anne was probably a daughter of Richard Fettiplace of East Shefford and his wife Elizabeth Bessiles, the only daughter and heiress of William Bessiles, and one of a large family of sons and daughters. Her father made his will on 11 August 1510, and it was proved on 15 May 1511. Her mother then married Sir Richard Elyot^W, a King’s serjeant-at-law and judge of the Common Pleas, and died before 9 October 1520.

Marriage and children

Edward Purefoy married Anne Fettiplace. The Purefoy pedigree recorded at the 1619 heraldic visitation^W of Leicestershire gives them eleven sons and a daughter: John, William, Thomas, Edward, Nicholas, Henry, a second Thomas, Charles, Francis, a second Henry, Richard and Mary. John was the son and heir, and Mary married Thomas Thorne, a gentleman of Yardley Hastings in Northamptonshire. Through Mary, Anne was most likely the great-grandmother of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Edward is said to have died at Shalston on 1 June 1558. The records do not give the date of Anne’s death.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Mary, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas’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 parents

The Berkshire visitation pedigree of the Fettiplace family (Harleian MS 5867, printed in The Four Visitations of Berkshire, Harleian Society vol. 56, 1907, p. 28) gives Richard Fettiplace of East Shefford and Elizabeth, daughter and heir of William Bessilles, with their children John, Edward, Anthony, a second John, Thomas, Susan, Jane, Anne (married to Purefoy of Shalston), Dorothy, Eleanor and Elizabeth. Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., p. 264) agrees, lists five sons and seven daughters, and names “ANNE FETTIPLACE, married EDWARD PUREFOY, Gent. of Shalstone, Buckinghamshire”. The same page gives her father’s will (dated 11 August 1510, proved 15 May 1511, P.C.C. 1 Fettiplace) and her mother’s second marriage to Richard Eliot or Elyot, and says that Elizabeth “died before 9 Oct. 1520”. The 1619 Leicestershire Purefoy pedigree instead calls Edward’s wife “Anne Da. of Tho. Phetiplace”, naming a Thomas rather than Richard as her father.

Mary as her daughter

No will or register names the mother of Mary Purefoy. Anne’s place as Mary’s mother rests on the visitation pedigrees and later compiled descents alone. Mary’s tie to Edward Purefoy is firmer: the 1579 will of his son John Purefoy calls Mary’s son Edward Thorne “My nephew”.