♀Avice Marmion

Avice Marmion (living in 1378) was an English noblewoman who held the Sussex manor of Berwick in her own right and outlived her husband, John de Grey, Lord Grey of Rotherfield^W and Steward of the King’s Household, by at least nineteen years. She was the eighteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Maud Grey (died 1394).

Marriage

Avice is said to have been a daughter of John, Lord Marmion^W, and, with one sister, co-heir of her brother Robert, the last of the line, who died without children.

John de Grey married Avice Marmion, as his second wife, probably after 1335. Their two sons, John, born about 1343, and Robert, are said to have taken their mother’s family name, Marmion. Maud Grey, most likely their daughter, was married first to John Botetourt, shortly after November 1358, and then to Sir Thomas Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire.

Widowhood

John de Grey died at Rotherfield Greys on 1 September 1359. At the Sussex inquest on his lands, taken on 25 October 1359, the jurors found that he and Avice had held the manor of Berwick jointly, and that she, who survived him, held it “as of her right”. As one of his executors, Avice is said to have received the King’s protection on 25 September 1359 in consideration of his good services as Steward of the Household.

The Grey barony and its lands went to her stepson John, her husband’s son by his first marriage, subject, it is said, to her reasonable dower^W. In 1363 a service in the church at West Tanfield in Yorkshire, Marmion land that her elder son later inherited, was reportedly being kept according to her ordinance. In 1378 the manors of Cogges and Hardwick, with half of Rotherfield and Fringford in Oxfordshire, were “now held in dower by Avice late the wife of Sir John Grey”. The date of her death is not known.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Maud Grey. One comes down through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844); the other reaches Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825). The two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

Parentage

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, 1926, pp. 146-147) calls her “Avice, da. of John (Marmion), Lord Marmion … and sister and coh. of Robert, Lord Marmion”. The first edition (vol. 5, 1893, p. 259) makes Robert the only son and heir of John, Lord Marmion, “of an infirm constitution”, who died without children, when the barony fell into abeyance between his sisters, Joan, the wife of Sir John Bernack, and Avice, “who m. after 1335 (as 2d wife) John (Grey), 1st Lord Grey de Rotherfield”. The parentage rests on these compiled works.

The Marmion name

The first edition of the Complete Peerage (vol. 5, p. 259) states: “She had two sons, both of whom took the name of Marmion; the elder d. s.p. but the yr. s., Robert, had a da. and h., Elizabeth, who m. Henry (Fitzhugh), Lord Fitzhugh.” The second edition (vol. 6, p. 147) names the elder as Sir John de Grey, “who assumed the name of Marmion”, aged 16 and more in 1359 and heir to West and East Tanfield in Yorkshire and Quinton in Gloucestershire.

Maud

Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (p. 345) makes Maud the daughter of John de Grey “by his 2nd wife, Avice, daughter of John Marmion, Knt., 2nd Lord Marmion”, and has her marry John Botetourt “shortly after 28 Nov. 1358”. No record naming Maud’s parents survives.

Berwick, the executorship and the dower

The Sussex inquest of 25 October 1359 on John de Grey found: “Berewyk. The manor held jointly by the said John and Avice his wife, who survives, as of her right” (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 10, no. 518). The inquisition ad quod damnum of 2 Richard II (1378-79; The National Archives, C 143/394/23) describes the manors of Cogges and Hardwick and half of Rotherfield and Fringford as “now held in dower by Avice late the wife of Sir John Grey”. The Complete Peerage (vol. 6, p. 147) gives her as living on 20 March 1378/9, holding in dower “the manors of Cogges and Hardwick and a moiety of the manor and advowson of Fringford”. The same page gives the protection of 25 September 1359, granted to her as one of his executors, and the mention on 28 February 1362/3 “of the service in West Tanfield Church according to the ordinance of Avice, late the wife of John de Grey of Rotherfield”; the same entry records that her stepson had livery of his inheritance “saving to Avice, late wife of Sir John de Grey, reasonable dower”.