♂Bartholomew de Badlesmere

Bartholomew de Badlesmere^W (died before 18 April 1327) was an English knight who held lands in Kent and Shropshire. He married Margaret de Clare, and their four daughters shared the family’s inheritance after their only brother died in 1338. He was the twentieth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by three separate lines of descent, through two of his daughters, Maud de Badlesmere (born about 1308) and Elizabeth de Badlesmere (born about 1310).

In the king’s service

As the peerage histories tell it, Bartholomew was the son and heir of Gunselm de Badlesmere of Badlesmere in Kent, a Justice of Chester, and succeeded his father in 1301 at the age of twenty-six. He had already served in the war in Gascony in 1294, and he fought in the Scottish wars of 1303 and 1304. Under Edward II his rise was quick: he was made governor of Bristol Castle in 1307, was granted the castle and manor of Chilham in Kent in 1309, and from that year was summoned to Parliament as a baron. He was later given Leeds Castle^W in Kent and, in 1314–15, the keeping of Skipton Castle and the other castles in Yorkshire and Westmorland of the late Robert de Clifford, and he rose to be Steward of the King’s Household^W.

Marriage

Bartholomew and Margaret were probably married by the summer of 1308, and in 1311 or 1312 their land at Adderley in Shropshire was settled on the two of them jointly. They had a son, Giles, and four daughters, Margery, Maud, Elizabeth and Margaret.

Rebellion and death

In spite of the king’s favors, Bartholomew joined the Earl of Lancaster^W in rebellion against him, the rising known as the Despenser War^W. In the summer of 1321 his wife is said to have refused the queen admission to Leeds Castle, and the king besieged the castle and took it that November. After the rebels were defeated at Boroughbridge^W on 16 March 1322, Bartholomew was captured at Stow Park and, by the standard account, attainted and hanged as a traitor at Canterbury on 14 April 1322. A roll of the nobles who fought at Boroughbridge, made at the time, lists him as a banneret^W, a knight who led men under his own banner.

The inheritance

Early in the reign of Edward III his widow petitioned the crown as “Margaret, late the wife of Sir Bartholomew de Badelesmere”, and on 18 April 1327 a Shropshire jury found that she had been enfeoffed jointly with her husband at Adderley and that “Giles his son, aged 11 years and more, is his next heir.” In 1328 Giles, though still a boy, is said to have obtained the reversal of his father’s attainder, and in 1333 to have been given his father’s lands. When Giles died in 1338, his four sisters were found to be his heirs: Margery was married to William de Ros, Maud to John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Elizabeth to William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, and Margaret to John Tiptoft.

Lines of descent

The first two lines come down from their daughter Maud de Badlesmere through her daughter Margaret de Vere (died 1398), Margaret’s daughter Margaret Loveyne (died 1408) and her son Thomas St. Clair (1401–1435) to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One continues through Samuel’s son Stephen Dudley (1654–1735) to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

The third line, one generation longer than the others, comes down from their daughter Elizabeth de Badlesmere (born about 1310). The lines meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884) and Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) both descend from Bartholomew and Margaret de Clare.

Notes

Sources for his life

His widow’s petition, the joint holding at Adderley and his heir are from his inquisition post mortem^W of 1 Edward III (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 7, no. 104, pp. 89–93); the Shropshire jury held that the land had been settled on the couple in 5 Edward II (July 1311 to July 1312). His son’s inquisition (vol. 8, no. 185) names the four sisters as “sisters and next heirs of the said Giles” and refers to lands at Sellyngge in Kent “acquired by Bartholomew, his father”.

His parentage, his service in Gascony and Scotland, his offices and grants, the rebellion, Leeds Castle, his capture, his hanging and the Boroughbridge Roll are from G.E.C., Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (1910), p. 372, which agrees with the 1st ed., vol. 1 (1887), pp. 214–215. The same page gives the reversal of the attainder in November 1328 and the livery of his lands to Giles in 1333. The date of the marriage, “before 30 June 1308”, is from the same work, 2nd ed., vol. 1, pp. 149 and 372.

His death date

The inquisitions of 1327 show only that he was dead by 18 April 1327. Complete Peerage gives his hanging at Canterbury on 14 April 1322, five years earlier.

His son’s age

The Shropshire jury of April 1327 gave Giles as “aged 11 years and more”, which places his birth between April 1315 and April 1316. Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 372) gives his birth as 18 October 1314 at Hambleton in Rutland, which would have made him twelve.