♂Geoffrey Bessiles

Geoffrey Bessiles (born about February 1276, died before 13 March 1339) was an English landholder who held the manors of Kings Brompton in Somerset and Radcot in Oxfordshire of the king in chief. In 1326 he was given a respite from taking up knighthood at the request of Percival Simeon, a King’s Serjeant. He was the eighteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Thomas Bessiles (1309–1378).

Early life

Geoffrey was the first-born son of Matthias Bessiles, a king’s yeoman, and his wife Elizabeth de Averenges. Most of the family’s land was Elizabeth’s inheritance: the manor of Kings Brompton, land at Buckland in Berkshire, and Radcot, which Matthias had granted to John Wogan for life. Matthias died late in 1295. The inquest^W held at Taunton in February 1296 found Geoffrey his heir, “aged 20 at the Feast of the Purification” just past, but the lands stayed with his mother for the rest of her life. When she died in 1315 Geoffrey inherited Radcot, still held by John Wogan, and Kings Brompton, a manor that took in a fishery and Barlynch Priory^W, whose prior owed suit at the manor court.

Marriage and settlements

Geoffrey’s wife was Agnes; her family is not known. In 1318 Geoffrey had the king’s licence to pass Kings Brompton to Robert de Walle, who was to grant it back to Geoffrey and Agnes and the heirs of their bodies. The licence noted the cost to the Crown: if Geoffrey died leaving Agnes alive and his heir under age, the king would lose the custody of the manor.

In 1323 he settled his lands on their son Thomas. Radcot was to be Geoffrey’s for life and then pass to Thomas and Beatrice, daughter of Percival Simeon, and the heirs of their bodies, and Kings Brompton was granted to Percival, Thomas and Beatrice for Geoffrey’s lifetime. Beatrice was probably Thomas’s first wife. Percival Simeon was a King’s Serjeant, and in 1326, at his request, Geoffrey was given respite until a year after Easter from taking up the arms of a knight. In this period a man who held land of a set yearly value could be ordered to be knighted, with the costs and duties that came with it, or pay a fine.

Death

Geoffrey died before 13 March 1339, the date of the writ for his inquest. The jury at Bampton on 29 April found that he had held Radcot for life under the settlement of 1323, and that his son Thomas, “aged 26 and more”, was his heir. Agnes outlived him by ten years.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Thomas and Thomas’s son Peter Bessiles (1363–1425) 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 Geoffrey.

Notes

Sources for his life

Everything here 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 16–19, which abstracts the Patent and Close Rolls and the inquisitions post mortem on his father (1295–96), his mother (1315), himself (1339, Edward III, file 59/18) and his widow (1349). The same inquests are in the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, volumes 3, 5, 8 and 9. The name is also written Besiles, Besilles, Besyles and Beysiles.

The abstract of the 1315 inquisition prints “prioress” for the head of Barlynch, but the priory was a house of Augustinian canons, and other entries in the calendars call its head a prior.

His age

His father’s inquest of 1296 gives his age exactly, 20 at the Feast of the Purification (2 February), which places his birth about February 1276. His mother’s inquests of 1315 give him as “aged 24 and more” and “aged 30 and more”; ages in these inquests were often round estimates, and this page follows the 1296 figure.

Agnes or Beatrice

Dunlop’s abstract of the 1318 licence names his wife as “Agnes (? Beatrice)”. Beatrice, daughter of Percival Simeon, appears in the 1323 settlement as the partner of his son Thomas. Agnes’s own inquest of 1349 calls Thomas “son of the said Geoffrey and Agnes”, so Agnes is taken here as Geoffrey’s wife and Thomas’s mother.