♀Beatrice (surname unknown)

Beatrice (died before 1276) was a thirteenth-century widow whose remarriage lay in the king’s gift. Her first husband, John de Basingeham, had been a tenant-in-chief^W of the king, holding his lands directly of the Crown, and in 1240 the king gave her marriage to Peter de Mauley^W, for the use of his kinsman Gerard de St. Flouer. From then on she could not marry without Gerard’s leave and consent. She later married Matthias Bessiles, marshal of the queen’s household and afterwards sheriff of Gloucestershire. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through the younger Matthias Bessiles (died 1295).

Widowhood

John de Basingeham had died by 1239. That year Beatrice gave the king a pledge that she would not marry without his leave and consent, and in return the sheriff of Middlesex was ordered to give her without delay her reasonable dower^W in all the lands that had been John’s in his county. The same order went to the sheriffs of nine more counties, from Kent and Essex to Yorkshire and Berkshire. A year later the king handed her marriage to Peter de Mauley and ordered her to make her oath not to marry without leave to Gerard de St. Flouer instead.

Marriage to Matthias

Beatrice married Matthias Bessiles, a knight in the service of Henry III. The king released her from her oath not to marry without his licence “if she will receive Matthew de Bezill as a husband”, and by 1250 they held her dower lands at Wahull in Bedfordshire together, with the right to take wood from Saer de Wahull’s wood there. That year the sheriff of Bedford was ordered to stop Saer from wasting the wood so badly that it would spoil their right. Their eldest son, John, was born about February 1246. A younger son, Matthias, who married the heiress Elizabeth de Averenges, was probably theirs as well. In 1264 Beatrice had the king’s safe conduct to come to England in the company of Mary, wife of Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby^W, with three damsels and four English esquires.

Death

Matthias died before 29 November 1268, and John inherited his lands. Beatrice died before 1276, when John acknowledged that he owed 80 marks to Adam de Northwyz and the executors of her will.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through the younger Matthias and his son Geoffrey Bessiles (1276–1339) down to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They part among the Dudleys and meet again in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825) both descend from Beatrice.

Notes

Sources for her life

Her life comes from J. Renton Dunlop’s “The Besils Family of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Somerset” in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th series, vol. 5 (1923–25), Notes 2 and 6, which abstract the Close and Patent Rolls. Dunlop heads her entry “Beatrice de Basingeham”, her first husband’s surname; her own family is not known. The debt of 1276 is from the Close Rolls of 5 Edward I, a regnal year that ran from November 1276 to November 1277; the abstract calls Beatrice “John’s mother”.

The licence to marry

Dunlop dates the king’s licence 1246 but cites the Patent Rolls of 27 Henry III, a regnal year that ran from October 1242 to October 1243. A marriage about 1243 fits the birth of their son John about February 1246, whose age was given as 23 at the Feast of St. Peter in Cathedra (22 February) 1269 in his father’s inquest.

Her sons

Her husband’s inquest of 1268 names John as his eldest son and heir. No record names the younger Matthias (died 1295) as Beatrice’s son. Dunlop’s editorial note calls him “a younger son of Matthew de Besilles and his wife Beatrice”, married “by family arrangement” to Elizabeth de Averenges.