♂Fulk FitzWarin

Fulk FitzWarin (died 14 May 1264) was an English knight, lord of Whittington on the Welsh border in Shropshire, who lost his life at the battle of Lewes^W. He and his wife, Constance, were given half of a Herefordshire manor as a marriage gift, and their only son, Fulk, became the first Lord FitzWarin. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Fulk FitzWarin (1251–1315).

Marriage and lands

Fulk married Constance, most likely 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.

Fulk also held the land of Bauseley, across the Welsh border in Montgomeryshire, as his right, until Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn^W, prince of Upper Powys, seized it in the course of a dispute with Thomas Corbet. Gruffydd kept it, and gave it back only when Fulk’s son married his daughter Margaret.

Death

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. His 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 his 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 (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

Sources for his life

His life is pieced together in the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 5, p. 495 and its notes, under FitzWarin, an article by G. W. Watson), in the account of his son. It calls the son “only s. and h. of Sir Fulk FitzWarin, of the same (who d. 14 May 1264, being drowned in the Ouse, when endeavouring to escape, at the battle of Lewes)”. The drowning is from the chronicler William Rishanger^W (De Bellis, p. 34): “in flumine vicino submersus”, drowned in a nearby river. The 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).

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). Constance’s dower is from the Close Roll of 50 Henry III (m. 7d). The Bauseley story comes from an inquest taken in Shropshire on 25 February 1276/7: “Fulk fitz Warin, father of the Fulk now living, held the land of Bauseley … as his right”, until Gruffydd occupied it, and Gruffydd held it until the younger Fulk married his daughter.

His parents

The Complete Peerage (vol. 5, p. 495, note c) makes him the son and heir of Fulk fitz Warin of Whittington, living in October 1250, who married first Maud, widow of Theobald Walter and daughter of Robert le Vavasur, and secondly Clarice Dauberville; it says that this elder Fulk had been outlawed and was pardoned on 15 November 1203, his castle of Whittington being restored to him on 17 October 1204. It does not say which wife was the mother.

Constance and the Tony family

The Complete Peerage calls Constance “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 Fulk’s son to warrant his title. Such a gift was normally made for a daughter of the family, so Constance was most likely Ralph and Parnel’s daughter, though no record here names her parents outright.