♀Hawise FitzWarin

Hawise FitzWarin (died before 26 September 1344) was an English gentlewoman, the daughter of Sir Fulk FitzWarin. She was widowed in 1294, the year her daughter, her first husband’s heir, was born, and later, with her second husband Robert Hoo, held land at Bloxham in wardship for that daughter, Margaret de Goushill. She was the nineteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Thomas Hoo (died 1380).

First marriage

Hawise, whose father Sir Fulk was probably the first Lord FitzWarin^W, married Ralph de Goushill, a young heir born about 1274. Ralph died before 30 August 1294, still under age, and their daughter Margaret de Goushill, born that year, was his heir. On 30 January 1294/5 Hawise was assigned her dower^W, the share of her husband’s lands a widow held for the rest of her life.

Marriage to Robert Hoo

By 18 May 1308 Robert had married Hawise FitzWarin, the widow of Ralph de Goushill. That year the two of them held land at Bloxham as guardians of the heir of Ralph de Goushill, Hawise’s own daughter Margaret. Such a wardship^W, with the profits of the heir’s lands until the heir came of age, was valuable and often went to outsiders; this one stayed with the child’s mother. Robert came of a family that held land around Luton, at Hoo, Stopsley and West Hyde, and he was almost certainly the father of Hawise’s son, Thomas Hoo.

She was still called by her first husband’s name in some deeds: as Dame Hawise de Goushill she had a grant of Stopsley, and in 1321 a grant of a house and land at Wheathampstead. By 6 January 1328/9 she was Dame Hawise de Hoo, when a grant was made to her and her son Thomas together, and on 11 March 1330/1 a release of dower in West Hyde, in Luton, was made to Sir Thomas Hoo and Hawise, his mother.

Later life and death

In 1342 Thomas, his wife Isabel St. Leger and his mother, Dame Hawise, settled the manors of Offley and Wartling on Thomas and Isabel and their children. Hawise died before 26 September 1344. Her will, as “Lady Hawyse de Hoo”, was entered in the register at Lincoln and left a legacy to Lady Margaret, widow of Sir John de Roos - most likely her own daughter, Margaret de Goushill, whose second husband, Sir John de Ros, had died by 1339.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Thomas Hoo, 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

Her identity and parentage

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, under Goushill) says that Ralph de Goushill, born about 1274, “m. Hawise, da. of Sir Fulk FitzWarin”, citing the inquisition after his death (Cal. Inq. p.m., Edw. I, vol. ii, no. 209), and that he died before 30 August 1294 “still under age”, leaving his infant daughter Margaret, born in 1294, as heir; his widow had dower assigned on 30 January 1294/5 (Close Roll). Under Hoo (Note A) it calls Sir Robert de Hoo’s wife Hawise “apparently widow of Ralph de Goushill and da. of Fulk FitzWarin”. The two Hawises are joined by the inquisition of 1 Edward II (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 8, no. 692), in which “Robert de Hoo and Hawis his wife” hold Bloxham in the wardship of Ralph de Goushull’s heir under a commission of 18 May 1308, and by the grant of 1345 to “Hawise de Goushill, late wife of Sir Robert de Hoo”. The Complete Peerage also cites the Feudal Aids of 1303 (Lincoln, p. 149) for the second marriage, which may therefore be as early as 1303. F. N. Craig, “Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 140 (1986), pp. 219–229, gives the same descent.

Which Sir Fulk

The inquisition after Ralph de Goushill’s death (Cal. Inq. p.m., Edw. I, vol. ii, no. 209) says he had a daughter “by Hawis daughter of Sir Fulk son of Warin”, but does not say which Fulk FitzWarin was meant. The Complete Peerage (vol. 5, pp. 495–497, under FitzWarin) gives Sir Fulk, the first Lord, born at Whittington on 14 September 1251 and married before 25 February 1276/7 to Margaret, daughter of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn; it names no daughter Hawise. He is taken to be her father on chronology: a wife for Ralph, born about 1274, fits a daughter of the first Lord far better than one of his father, who drowned in 1264.

Her son Thomas

The Complete Peerage shows Hawise as Thomas’s mother from the grant to “Dame Hawise de Hoo and Thomas de Hoo, her son” of 6 January 1328/9 and the release of 11 March 1330/1, both in the Harleian roll of Hoo deeds. The settlement of Offley and Wartling was a fine of Hilary term, 16 Edward III, between Sir Thomas, Isabel and Dame Hawise.

Her will and the grant of 1345

The will is abstracted in Alfred Gibbons, Early Lincoln Wills (Lincoln, 1888), p. 17, under “Lady Hawyse de Hoo”, dated vj Kal. Oct. 1344 (26 September 1344), Lincoln register fo. 98, with the legacy to “Lady Margaret widow of Sir John de Roos”. The Complete Peerage (under Goushill) records that Margaret de Goushill married secondly Sir John de Ros, who “was dead in or before 1339”, and that she died on 29 July 1349; on that ground the legatee is taken to be Hawise’s daughter. The Complete Peerage (under Hoo) also records a grant of the manor of Dunsby, Lincolnshire, to “Hawise de Goushill, late wife of Sir Robert de Hoo” and her heirs in 1345, with Thomas de Goushill among the witnesses. That date falls after the date of her will; the records do not explain the difference.