♀Cecilia (surname unknown)

Cecilia (died before 1189) is known from a single line in a charter of her husband, Robert Brailsford, a Derbyshire landholder of the twelfth century: Robert made a gift to the Gilbertine^W priory of Sempringham^W pro anima Cecilie sponse mee, “for the soul of Cecilia my wife”. She was the twenty-fourth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Henry Brailsford (died about 1243). Through Henry she was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Marriage

Cecilia’s family is not known. She married Robert Brailsford, who succeeded his brother Henry in the family’s fee at Brailsford. Some time in the reign of Henry II (1154–1189), with the assent of his son and heir Nicholas, Robert made a gift to the Gilbertine priory of Sempringham in Lincolnshire for the souls of his father and mother and of Cecilia his wife. Cecilia had died by then.

Robert had four sons on record, Nicholas, Henry, Hugh and Aitrop, most likely all by Cecilia. It was Henry who succeeded to Brailsford after Robert died, before 1199.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Henry Brailsford (died about 1243), Henry’s son Henry Brailsford (died about 1260), that Henry’s son Henry Brailsford (died about 1304), his son Ralph Brailsford, Ralph’s son Henry Brailsford, Henry’s daughter Joan Brailsford, her son Thomas Basset, Thomas’s daughter Joan Basset and Joan’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and on through Governor Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down 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

Sources for her life

Robert’s charter to Sempringham is calendared in the Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland, vol. 4 (1905), pp. 53–54. He gives “pro animabus patris et matris mee et pro anima Cecilie sponse mee”, for the souls of his father and mother and for the soul of Cecilia his wife; Cecilie is the Latin genitive of Cecilia, a name also written Cecily. The editor dates the charter to the reign of Henry II, who died in 1189, so Cecilia had died before that year. Robert’s family is set out in S. P. H. Statham, “The Brailsfords”, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. 59 (1938), pp. 66–80.

Her children

No record names the mother of Robert’s sons. The charter names no other wife, and the sons are taken to be Cecilia’s.