♀Isabelle (surname unknown)

Isabelle lived in fourteenth-century Worcestershire, where she married John Washbourne, a member of the family that took its name from Little Washbourne, in the parish of Overbury. She was the seventeenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Peter Washbourne.

Her husband was probably the younger son of Sir Roger Washbourne, lord of Washbourne. Sir Roger had two sons, both christened John, and the elder died without children. Isabelle’s own surname and family are not known.

Lines of descent

The line to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs down through Isabelle’s son Peter Washbourne, Peter’s son John, John’s son Norman, and Norman’s son John Washbourne (died 1517). Below that generation the line is probably carried by John Washburn of Bengeworth (died 1547), and from him it runs on to Nancy Jane Blanchard.

Notes

Sources

Isabelle is known only from James Davenport’s The Washbourne Family of Little Washbourne and Wichenford (1907), p. 8, which follows the two College of Arms pedigrees of the family. Of her husband Davenport writes that “little is forthcoming”: he was the younger son of Sir Roger, “his wife’s name was Isabelle”, and his elder brother, also called John, died without issue. No surname or parentage is given for her.

Another Isabella

She is a different woman from the Isabella de Wassebourn who presented to the living of Stanford in 1316 and to Clyvelode in 1322, and who appears in the lay subsidy rolls of 1327 and 1332–33. Davenport takes that Isabella to be the wife of Sir John Washbourne, Sir Roger’s father, and Sir Roger “doubtless her son”.

The descent below Peter’s great-grandson John

That the John named in the heralds’ pedigrees as a younger son of John Washbourne of Wichenford (died 1517) is John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is Davenport’s identification, not a record’s; the 1517 will does not name him. The descent from Isabelle is therefore given here as probable below that generation.