♀Isabel Picot

Isabel Picot was an Englishwoman of the thirteenth century and the twenty-second great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Henry Brailsford (died about 1304). Through Henry she was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Family

Henry Brailsford (died about 1260), of Brailsford in Derbyshire, is said to have married Isabel Picot, the sister and heir of Ralph Picot. Her husband held Brailsford in the middle of the century and served as the king’s escheator^W for Derbyshire in 1252–53. Their son Henry Brailsford succeeded to Brailsford, and Robert, and Thomas, who was rector of Brailsford, may have been younger sons. Isabel’s own dates are not recorded.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Henry Brailsford, Henry’s son Ralph Brailsford, Ralph’s son Henry Brailsford, Henry’s daughter Joan Brailsford, her son Thomas Basset, Thomas’s daughter Joan Basset and Joan’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and on through Governor Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down 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 marriage

Isabel is known from a single statement. S. P. H. Statham, in “The Brailsfords”, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. 59 (1938), p. 74, writes that Henry Brailsford was “said to have married Isabel, sister and heir of Ralph Picot”, citing Samuel Pegge’s History of Beauchief Abbey (1801), p. 94; his chart (p. 66) sets her beside Henry as his wife. Neither says what she inherited from her brother, and no record of her own is cited. That she was the mother of Henry’s children follows from the marriage; Statham says of Robert, and of Thomas, rector of Brailsford between 1281 and 1337, only that they “may have been” Henry’s sons.