♀Eva de Braose

Eva de Braose^W was an English heiress who brought her share of the Braose lands, among them Abergavenny on the Welsh border and Totnes in Devon, to her husband, William de Cantilupe. On Good Friday 1252 she gave birth at Abergavenny to their only son, George. A knight who came there on other business in Easter week found her “lying in childbed” with the boy, and twenty-one years later his memory helped to prove George’s age. She was the twenty-first great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Millicent de Cantilupe (died 1299).

Heiress

Eva is said to have been a daughter and co-heir of William de Braose^W, lord of Abergavenny, who was hanged by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth^W, prince of north Wales, on 1 May 1230. His lands were divided among his daughters. In July 1238, by one account, William de Cantilupe’s father obtained Eva’s wardship and marriage, the right to bring up a young heiress and choose her husband, together with the custody of Abergavenny and the other lands that fell to her share.

Marriage and children

William de Cantilupe and Eva de Braose were married between 1238 and February 1248, and had a son, George, and two daughters, Millicent and Joan. Through Eva, William came to hold the castle of Abergavenny, the borough of Totnes in Devon and other lands of the Braose inheritance.

The knight who saw Eva after George’s birth was Robert Blundel, sent to Abergavenny by his lord about some land. When George came to prove his age^W in 1273, Blundel told the king’s council that he “knew it well”, because he had found her lying in childbed on the Wednesday of Easter week.

Widowhood

William died about two years after George’s birth, at Calveston, most likely the family’s manor of Caleston, now Calstone, in Wiltshire. Eva died, by one account, the following year, leaving George, still a small child, as heir.

George came of age in 1273 and died that same year without children. The inquest^W on his lands named his sister Millicent, the wife of Eudes la Zouche, and the young John de Hastings, son of his sister Joan, as his heirs. Among George’s lands was a small chapel at Totnes where two chaplains said mass “for the souls of the ancestors and successors of Sir William de Cantilupo and Eva his wife”.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Millicent de Cantilupe and Millicent’s daughter Ellen la Zouche and, much further down, through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). From Samuel one line 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

Parentage and the Braose share

J. Horsfall Turner’s Ancient Bingley (1897, p. 67) says William de Cantilupe “married Eve dau. and co-h. of William Broase, lord of Brecknock and Abergavenny”, and the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 22) calls her “Eve de Briouze, da. and coh., heiress of Abergavenny”, daughter of William de Briouze, who “d. 1 May 1230, being hanged by Llewelyn”. The first edition (vol. 6, p. 204) lists her among “the four coheirs of Eva de Braose”, her mother. Her son’s inquisition (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 2, no. 17) bears out the inheritance: George held the borough of Totnes “by reason of his pourparty of the lands &c. which were of William de Brewosa”, and the writ for his Welsh lands went to “the constable of the castle of Bergeveny”.

Wardship and marriage

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 22) says she married William “after 25 July 1238 (when his father, William de C., obtained her wardship and marriage together with the custody of Abergavenny and the other lands falling to her share), and before 15 Feb. 1247/8”, the date of the restitution of the Marshal and Braose lands to the co-heirs, among them “Eve, wife of William de Cauntelo” (2nd ed., vol. 6, under Hereford, citing the Patent Rolls). The first edition (vol. 6, p. 204) gives the marriage as 1248.

George’s birth

At the proof of age taken at Westminster in 1273, witnesses placed George’s birth at “Bergeveny on Good Friday 35 or 36 Hen. III”; the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 23) gives 29 March 1252. Robert Blundel, knight, “knew it well because he was sent as messenger to Bergeveny by Sir Th. Corbet to seek his lord’s land of Lydeham, and on Wednesday of Easter week found the wife of the said William lying in childbed with the said George”. The same inquisition records the chapel at Totnes, a “poor free chapel, where two chaplains celebrate for the souls of the ancestors and successors of Sir William de Cantilupo and Eva his wife”.

Her death

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 23) says she died in 1255, before 28 July; the first edition (vol. 6, p. 204) gives “Eva (d. 1257)”. Records of her time write her Eva; the peerage books also call her Eve.