♀Isabel Brome

Isabel Brome was an Englishwoman of the Brome family of Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire, in the later fifteenth century. She was married twice, first to Philip Purefoy of Shirford and then to John Denton of Wightam in Berkshire. Through her daughter Alice, Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, was her great-great-great-grandson. She was the fourteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Alice Denton.

Family

According to the heraldic visitation^W pedigrees of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire, Isabel was a daughter of John Brome of Baddesley Clinton and his wife Beatrix Shirley, a daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley.

First marriage

Isabel’s first husband was Philip Purefoy of Shirford, and they had three sons, John, Nicholas and William. Philip made his will on 26 March 1468. He asked to be buried in the church of Saint James at Baddesley, gave Isabel all his lands for the rest of her life, with the remainder to their son John and after him to Nicholas and William, and charged her to “fynde my said sonne John to his lernyng”, that is, to keep the boy at his schooling. Philip died in 1468, the year in which her father, John Brome, is said to have been killed, and the will was proved in June 1470.

Second marriage

Isabel then married John Denton of Wightam. John and Isabel had a son, Thomas Denton of Caversfield, and two daughters: Anne, who married Sir Edward Greville of Milcote, and Alice, who married Nicholas Purefoy, the son of Philip Purefoy’s brother John. Alice’s husband was thus a cousin of Isabel’s own son Nicholas.

Widowhood

John Denton made his will on 1 September 1493. He made “my wif Isabell” his executrix, left her all his lands in Oxfordshire and Berkshire for her life if she remained unmarried, “to the use of her and her children”, called her first husband “my broder her housbonde Purfey”, and provided a priest to sing for the souls of her parents, “my ffader Browne and my moder his wyf”. John died on 12 July 1497. At the inquisition on his lands that September, his land at Shalston in Buckinghamshire was found to be held of “Isabel Denton”, as lady of the manor of Shalston. As “Isabelle relicte et executricis”, his widow and executrix, she proved the will at Lambeth on 17 November 1497. The records do not give the date of Isabel’s death.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Alice Denton, Alice’s son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas’s 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 parents and her two marriages

The Warwickshire visitation of 1619 (Harleian Society vol. 12, p. 97) gives the Brome pedigree: John Brome of Baddesley married Beatrix, daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley of Shirley, and their children included Nicholas Brome of Baddesley Clinton and Isabel, wife first of Philip Purefoy and then of John Denton, by whom she had Anne, the wife of Sir Edward Greville. The Oxfordshire visitation chart (Harleian Society vol. 5, pp. 228–229) names her “Isabell daur. to John Brome of Baddesley”, with Philip Purefoy as her first husband, and gives her three Denton children. A history of the Hawes family published in 1914 (pp. 77–80) agrees, and is the source for her father’s death: John Brome was killed about 5 November 1468, and Beatrix died on 10 July 1483.

Philip Purefoy’s will

The will is registered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury^W (PROB 11/5), under the name “Philippi Pursey”. It is dated “the morowe after our lady day Annunciation in the viij yere of the reigne of king Edward the iiijth”, which is 26 March 1468, and was proved on 8 June 1470 (Douglas Richardson gives 18 June). The Buckinghamshire visitation (Harleian Society vol. 58, p. 199) calls Philip “S.P.”, that is, without children, and names his wife “Isabell da. of .... Brown”; the will, which names three sons, shows the first to be wrong. The Hawes history and Nichols’s history of Leicestershire give Philip’s death as 1466, which the will’s date rules out.

John Denton’s will

John Denton’s will is registered in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PROB 11/11, Register Horne, f. 139r), dated “the first day of Septembre” 1493 and written in English. Its priest is to sing “for the soules of me my ffader and moder my broder Philip Purefoy his ffader my ffader Browne and my moder his wyf”; these are prayers for the dead, and “my ffader Browne” fits Isabel’s father, John Brome, killed in 1468, as does the Buckinghamshire visitation’s “Brown”. The probate is entered in Latin: “Probatum fuit suprascriptum testamentum coram domino apud Lamehith xvij die mensis Novembris Anno domini Millesimo CCCC nonagesimo septimo iuramento Isabelle relicte et executricis”. The will settles that the Isabel who had been Philip Purefoy’s wife was John Denton’s wife. The inquisitions on John’s lands (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Henry VII, vol. 2, 1915, pp. 40–41, nos. 40–42) give his death as 12 July 1497 and find a messuage and four virgates in Shalston “held of Isabel Denton, as of the manor of Shalston”.