♂Hugue de Lusignan

Hugue de Lusignan was a nobleman of Poitou, in western France, and a lord of the house of Lusignan^W. He was the twenty-third great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Raoul d’Exoudun.

He is said to have been Hugue VIII, Sire de Lusignan, and his wife was Bourgogne de Rancon, Dame de Fontenay, the daughter of Geoffroy de Rancon, Seigneur de Taillebourg. Hugue and Bourgogne were the parents of Raoul d’Exoudun, a younger son who took his name from Exoudun near Melle and became Count of Eu^W in Normandy by his marriage to Alice of Eu in or before 1191.

Notes

Sources

Hugue’s title, his marriage to Bourgogne de Rancon and his fatherhood of Raoul rest on the Complete Peerage (2nd edition, vol. 5, 1926, under Eu, pp. 159–160), which calls Raoul “a yr. s. of Hugue VIII, Sire de Lusignan, by Bourgogne, Dame de Fontenay, da. of Geoffroy de Rancon, Seigneur de Taillebourg”. No dates of birth, marriage or death for Hugue are given there.

Hugue VIII, not Hugue IX

The Complete Peerage calls it a mistake that some older French works made Raoul a son of Hugue IX: that would make him a younger brother of Hugue X, who was only a child in 1200. The mistake arose because Raoul is often styled, between 1208 and 1219, the brother of the Count of La Marche^W, that is, of Hugue IX, who lived until 1219.

The descent through John Washburn

The line from Hugue to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs through John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547. That he was the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joan Mitton is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, so the descent through him is probable rather than proved.