♀Hawise of Chester

Hawise of Chester (1180 – before 19 February 1242/3) was an English noblewoman, a sister and co-heiress of Ranulph, Earl of Chester, who became Countess of Lincoln in her own right after her brother’s death in 1232. She was an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by four separate lines of descent, all through her daughter Margaret de Quincy (died 1266): by three of them she was her twenty-fourth great-grandmother, and by the fourth her twenty-fifth.

Marriage and widowhood

Hawise is said to have been born in 1180. She was a daughter of Hugh, Earl of Chester^W, and Bertrade de Montfort, and the youngest of the four sisters of Ranulph, Earl of Chester^W. She married Robert de Quincy, the eldest son and heir apparent of Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester. For her marriage portion she had ten librates of land (land worth ten pounds a year) in Waddington, land in Sibsey, and the service of three fees in Cabourn, all in Lincolnshire. They had one daughter, Margaret de Quincy, who became her father’s heir.

Robert died in London in 1217 and was buried in the church of the Hospitallers at Clerkenwell^W. Between 1217 and 1219 his widow granted a rent to the brethren of the Hospital of Jerusalem in England to found a chantry^W in their house at Clerkenwell for his soul. Before 21 June 1221 Margaret was married to John de Lacy, Constable of Chester.

Countess of Lincoln

Ranulph had been made Earl of Lincoln in May 1217, just after the Battle of Lincoln^W. In about 1230–31 he gave Hawise a charter conveying the earldom of Lincoln to her. A charter alone, without the king’s confirmation, could not make her a countess. But on 27 October 1232, shortly after Ranulph’s death, the king committed to her the income Ranulph had drawn from the county as earl, and from then on she may be counted Countess of Lincoln. A few weeks later, on 22 November 1232, at her request, the king granted the earldom to her son-in-law John de Lacy, for himself and his heirs by Margaret.

In the first division of the Chester lands that November, Hawise received the castle and manor of Bolingbroke^W, with Ranulph’s lands in Lindsey and Holland. Her seal bore a stag and named her Hawise de Quincy, Countess of Lincoln.

Hawise was living on 6 June 1241 and died shortly before 19 February 1242/3, when Margaret’s second husband, Walter Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, gave Bolingbroke Castle back to the king. On 15 March 1242/3 the lands that came to Margaret from her mother were delivered to her and the earl.

Lines of descent

All four lines run through Margaret de Quincy. They meet again in Maurice Berkeley (about 1435–1506), whose parents James Berkeley (about 1394–1463) and Isabel Mowbray (died 1452) both descend from Robert and Hawise; in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825) both do; and in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884) both do.

Notes

Sources

Hawise’s birth year, parentage, marriage portion, her husband’s death and burial, the chantry, the charter, the grant of October 1232, Bolingbroke and her death are from Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), QUINCY 1, p. 684, with her daughter’s marriage at LACY 1, p. 479. The Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. VII (1929), LINCOLN, pp. 675–676, gives the same account of the earldom from the patent and close rolls, calls her the fourth and youngest sister of Ranulph, describes her seal, and dates the delivery of her lands to Margaret and Walter Marshal; the grant to John de Lacy is at p. 678. The 1st edition, vol. II (1889), CHESTER, pp. 224–225, gives Ranulph’s creation as Earl of Lincoln on 23 May 1217 and says the earldom was resigned to Hawise between April 1231 and his death. Only Richardson gives her a birth year.

Countess in her own right

The Complete Peerage says the charter could not by itself be deemed to have made her Countess of Lincoln, and that she “may be held to have become” countess through the king’s grant of 27 October 1232. A quitclaim of land made to her in 1231–32 already calls her Countess of Lincoln, and she is sometimes called Hawise of Chester in the rolls, as on 20 April 1230.

Her death

Richardson gives her death as shortly before 19 February 1242/3. The Complete Peerage says she was living on 6 June 1241 and dead before 3 March 1242/3. Richardson also cites the Chronicle of Peterborough, which records the death of the countess of Lincoln under the year 1241.