♀Constance (surname unknown)

Constance (living in 1266) was the twenty-first great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Fulk FitzWarin (1251–1315), who became the first Lord FitzWarin. She married Fulk FitzWarin, an English knight and lord of Whittington on the Welsh border in Shropshire, and was widowed in 1264, when her husband lost his life at the battle of Lewes^W.

Marriage

Constance was probably a daughter of Sir Ralph de Tony, lord of Castle Maud (now Painscastle) in Radnorshire, of South Tawton in Devon and of Flamstead in Hertfordshire. After Ralph’s death his widow, Parnel, gave half of the manor of Yarkhill, in Herefordshire, to Fulk and Constance in frank-marriage^W: the land was to pass to the heirs of their bodies, and to come back to Parnel and her heirs if their line failed. Their only son, Fulk, was born at Whittington on 14 September 1251. Early in 1258 Fulk and Constance made over their half of Yarkhill to Richard Pryde and his wife, Margery.

Widowhood

The battle of Lewes, fought on 14 May 1264, was the victory of the barons under Simon de Montfort^W over King Henry III in the Second Barons’ War^W. Fulk was at the battle, and according to a chronicler of the time, he drowned in the river Ouse, which runs past Lewes, while trying to escape. Their son was twelve. On 11 February 1265/6 Constance had livery of the manor of Alveston, in Gloucestershire, and of land at Stanton, in Wiltshire, which had been assigned to her as her dower^W, the share of her husband’s lands a widow held for the rest of her life.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Fulk FitzWarin (1251–1315), Fulk’s probable daughter Hawise FitzWarin (died 1344), Hawise’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 (about 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 family

The records that name her call her only Constance, Fulk’s wife. The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 5, p. 495, under FitzWarin, an article by G. W. Watson) calls her “da. of Sir Ralph de Tony, of Castle Maud (now Painscastle), co. Radnor, South Tawton, Devon, and Flamstead, Herts.” Its evidence is the Yarkhill gift: Parnel’s father, Walter de Lacy, had granted Britford in Wiltshire and Yarkhill to Ralph de Tony in frank-marriage with Parnel, between 1232 and 1240 (J. L. Kirby, ed., The Hungerford Cartulary, Part Two, Wiltshire Record Society 60, no. 999), and Parnel, as Ralph’s widow, passed the half of Yarkhill on to Fulk and Constance in the same way. In 1307 Robert de Tony, “son of Ralph, son of Roger, son of the said Ralph de Tony”, sued John Pryde to recover it, and Pryde called on Constance’s son to warrant his title. Such a gift was normally made for a daughter of the family, so the Complete Peerage takes Constance for Ralph and Parnel’s daughter, though no record names her parents outright.

Sources for her life

The Yarkhill gift and the fine to Richard Pryde and Margery, levied in the three weeks after St Hilary, 42 Henry III (early 1258), are from Feet of Fines, case 80, file 14, no. 277, and a plea of Easter term 1307 (De Banco, Easter 35 Edw. I, m. 186), as abstracted in the Complete Peerage (vol. 5, p. 495, note d). Her dower is from the Close Roll of 50 Henry III (m. 7d). Her son’s birth at Whittington on 14 September 1251 is from the proof of his age taken on 27 April 1273 (Ch. Inq. p.m., Edw. I, file 3, no. 17). Her husband’s drowning is from the chronicler William Rishanger^W (De Bellis, p. 34), “in flumine vicino submersus”, drowned in a nearby river; the Complete Peerage names the river as the Ouse.