♀Beatrice de Andeville

Beatrice de Andeville (living in 1316) was an Englishwoman of the Andeville family who held the manor of Eversden in Cambridgeshire with her husband, Robert Hoo. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Robert Hoo (died before 1345).

Family and marriage

Beatrice came of the Andevilles, a family that had held land in Cambridgeshire since 1086, when her ancestor Humphrey de Andeville, lord of Clopton, held land at Hatley. In 1279 sixty acres at East Hatley were still held of her in her own name, as Beatrice de Andeville. Knebworth in Hertfordshire and Eversden had both been Andeville manors, and most likely came to the Hoo family through her marriage. Her father is not known.

In 1280 Robert and his wife Beatrice held three knight’s fees^W at Eversden in Cambridgeshire. In 1292, the year Robert was granted free warren^W at Knebworth and his other manors, Cicely, the wife of Henry de Hyde, granted land in West Hyde to Sir Robert de Hoo and Beatrice his wife, and to the heirs of Robert. Their son Robert Hoo had a grant of land in Luton on 30 November 1310 as the son of Sir Robert de Hoo.

Widowhood

Robert was still holding Knebworth in 1303 and had died by 1316, when Beatrice, as his widow, settled Knebworth and Eversden on Richard and Joan de Perers by a fine^W, with the manors to come back to Beatrice and her heirs if the Perers line failed. Joan was probably their daughter, Joan Hoo. The arrangement outlived everyone in it. Her grandson Sir Thomas Hoo (died 1380), as her heir, settled Eversden in 1373–4, and in 1398, a county history records, her great-grandson William Hoo (1335–1410) claimed Knebworth under her settlement of 1316 as the heir of the Perers line, more than eighty years after she made it. When Beatrice died is not known.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Robert Hoo, Robert’s son Thomas Hoo (died 1380), Thomas’s son William Hoo (1335–1410), and William’s daughter Margaret Hoo, whose descendants include Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his 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 name and lands

The Victoria County History of Cambridgeshire (vol. 8, East Hatley) records that “By 1279 he [John of Quy] also held of Beatrice de Andeville 60 a.”, land the Andevilles had held in demesne about 1235, which “probably represented the demesne of 1¼ hide at Hatley held in 1086 of Eudes the steward by Beatrice’s ancestor Humphrey de Andeville, lord of Clopton”. The Andevilles held Knebworth (Richard de Andevill, before 1224) and Eversden (Humphrey in 1087, Hamelin about 1208, Richard about 1235), and both manors were later held by her husband; the 1316 settlement returned them to her heirs, not his. The 1280 holding is in the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 2, no. 374, p. 208: “Everisdon, held for 3 fees by Robert del Ho and Beatrice his wife”. The West Hyde grant of 1292 is in the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, under Hoo, Note A), citing B.M. Add. Roll 28721.

Her parentage

A heraldic pedigree of the Hoo family (Harleian MS 381), printed by W. D. Cooper in Sussex Archaeological Collections 8 (1856) and followed by the Victoria County History of Cambridgeshire (vol. 5), makes her the daughter of “Alexander Earl of Andeville”. A later study, “Pedigree of Hoo”, Sussex Archaeological Collections 45 (1902), pp. 195–196, rejects this: the pedigree’s maker “has now got Alexanders of sorts for all occasions”, and there were never any earldoms in Normandy. The same pedigree’s claim that she died on 28 May 1314 and was buried at Knebworth cannot stand beside the settlement she made as a widow in 1316, and is not used. Richard de Andevill, who held Knebworth before 1224 and a fee at Eversden about 1235, may have been of her line, but no record makes him her father.

The settlement of 1316

The fine (C.P. 25(1)/27/57 no. 136) is known through the Victoria County Histories of Hertfordshire (vol. 3, Knebworth) and Cambridgeshire (vol. 5, Great and Little Eversden). The Hertfordshire history says the manor was “to return to Beatrice de Hoo and her heirs”, that Joan “appears to have been Beatrice’s daughter”, and that in 1398 William de Hoo, “son of Thomas grandson of Beatrice de Hoo”, claimed under the fine as cousin and heir of the Perers line. The Cambridgeshire history records that “her grandson, Sir Thomas Hoo” settled Eversden in 1373–4.