♂Sir Hugh de Meynell

Hugh de Meynell (before 1302 – 2 May 1363) was a Derbyshire knight of Langley Meynell, in Kirk Langley, whose father died in 1333 with, in the words of the inquest, “no heir of his blood”, and who took the family lands all the same, under a settlement his father had made in advance. He was the nineteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Isabel de Meynell (died 1393).

Inheritance

Hugh was the son of Hugh de Meynell the elder, who held Langley Meynell and Kingsnewton, in Warwickshire, for his life under a fine^W, a settlement of land made in the king’s court. When the elder Hugh died in 1333, the inquisition post mortem^W into his lands found that he “had no heir of his blood”, but that Kingswood and Kingsnewton were to pass by virtue of that fine to “Hugh son of the aforesaid Hugh”, then thirty-one years of age and more. The son thus came into them by the settlement and not as heir, most likely because he was not born of a lawful marriage. His mother is not named.

Marriages

Hugh’s first wife was Joan, and Langley and Yeaveley were settled on the two of them jointly and on the heirs of their bodies. Their son Richard became Hugh’s heir.

Hugh de Meynell married Alice de Audley before 16 January 1343, when an inquest held at Newbury, in Berkshire, described her as the widow of Ralph Basset the younger, “whom Hugh Meyngnel, knight, has now married”. She was a daughter of Nicholas de Audley, 1st Lord Audley^W. Hugh and Alice had a daughter, Isabel de Meynell, and most likely a son, Thomas de Meynell.

Death

Hugh died on 2 May 1363, “on the feast of SS. Philip and James”, as the Staffordshire jurors put it. The inquests found his son Richard, a knight, “aged 30 years and more”, to be his heir; Tissington was already Richard’s, and Hugh had held it from his son for life at a rent. Hugh’s younger son Thomas, twenty-three and more, was to have Cromford and four other holdings after him. Hugh had also held Pakington and Wigginton for his life only, and at his death they went back to Ralph Basset of Drayton, most likely Alice’s son by her first marriage, under a grant made by that Ralph’s grandfather. Half of Kingsnewton, with the advowson^W of the church in turn with another lord, he held directly of the king.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Isabel de Meynell, her son Hugh Shirley (died 1403), his son Ralph Shirley and Ralph’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from her through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to 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

Birth and parentage

The Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 7, no. 526, gives the inquest of 26 August 1333 on Hugh de Meignill the elder: Langley Meignill and Kingsnewton held for life by fine, and his wife Joan’s own inheritance (Melton Mowbray, Newhall, Upton and Burton Overy) set out separately. “He had no heir of his blood, but … Kyngeswode and Kyngesneuton shall remain to Hugh son of the aforesaid Hugh by virtue of a certain fine … which Hugh is 31 years of age and more.” That age places his birth by 1302. Some online trees give 1312, which does not fit it, and name his mother as Joan de la Warde without citing a record. The view that he was born outside marriage is an inference from the inquest’s wording; no record states it.

His wives

Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., 2011), p. 378, makes Alice Hugh’s second wife. Joan is named in his own inquest as “Joan late his wife”, holding Langley and Yeaveley with him. The Victoria County History of Warwickshire (vol. 4, Newton Regis) cites the 1390 inquest of Hugh’s grandson Ralph, which names among the dower widows “his grandfather’s widow Hawise, then wife of Sir William Flamville”, which suggests that Hugh married a third time after Alice.

Death and heirs

Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 11, no. 518: “He died on 2 May, 37 Edward III” (Warwickshire); the Staffordshire inquest dates it “on the feast of SS. Philip and James last”. Thomas, “23 years of age and more”, had the reversions of Kingsley, Yeaveley, Hollington, Cromford and Wyaston. Pakington and Wigginton reverted to “Ralph Basset of Drayton, knight, by virtue of a grant of Ralph Basset of Drayton, his grandfather”. No record names Thomas’s mother; he is counted here as Alice’s son, though his age in 1363 puts his birth by 1340.