♂James Shirley

James Shirley (fl. 1311–1314) was the son of Sir Ralph de Shirley, lord of Shirley in Derbyshire and of Ettington in Warwickshire, in the reign of Edward II^W. He is known from two records of 1311 and 1314, and as the father of the Ralph Shirley to whom his grandfather settled the family estates, after his own lifetime, in 1316. He was the twentieth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Ralph Shirley (died 1342).

Life

On 4 May 1311, before Walter de Thornton, mayor of Nottingham, James bound himself to pay £100 to his own father. A bond of this kind was taken under the Statute of Merchants^W, which let a creditor have a debtor’s goods and lands seized if he did not pay. A hundred pounds was a large sum, and the records do not explain why a son should owe it to his father. In March 1314 the bond was certified into Chancery, the step a creditor took when such a debt went unpaid, and a writ went to the sheriff of Suffolk. In the meantime, on 3 January 1314, James was at London, where he witnessed a grant of lands at Ashbourne in Derbyshire made by Ralph de Wyssenden.

Two years later his father settled Ettington on himself for life, with remainder “to Ralph son of James de Shirley and Margaret daughter of Walter Waldeshef and their issue”, and the manor of Shirley was to pass to the same couple. The estates thus went past James to his son. James himself is named in the settlements only as Ralph’s father, and when he died is not known. When the elder Sir Ralph died in 1326, Ettington came to James’s son Ralph.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Ralph Shirley, Ralph’s son Thomas Shirley, Thomas’s son Hugh Shirley (died 1403), Hugh’s 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

The two records

The bond is a statute-merchant certificate at The National Archives (C 241/79/46). Its debtor is “James, the son of Ralph de Shirley, knight”, its creditor “Ralph de Shirley, knight, his father”, who held the manor of Shirley in Appletree Hundred, Derbyshire. The sum is £100, acknowledged before Walter de Thornton, mayor of Nottingham, on 4 May 1311; the certificate is dated 20 March 1314, with a writ to the sheriff of Suffolk. The London deed of 3 January 1314 is among the Berkeley Castle Muniments (BCM/D/5/8/5), where “James son of Ralf of Shirley” is one of the witnesses.

His place in the family

The Victoria County History of Warwickshire (vol. 5, 1949, pp. 77–84, Ettington) makes the younger Sir Ralph, who died in 1342, the grandson of the elder Sir Ralph through a son James, otherwise unrecorded, who had probably died young. Its evidence is the 1316 settlement of Ettington on “Ralph son of James de Shirley”. The two records above show the elder Sir Ralph with a son James who was alive in 1311 and 1314, and this page follows the Victoria County History in taking him for the younger Ralph’s father. A fine of 13 October 1316, among the Shirley deeds at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland (26D53/340 and 341), makes the same remainder of the manor of Shirley to “Ralph son of James of Shirle and Margaret daughter of Walter Waldeshef”. His wife, the younger Ralph’s mother, is not named in any of these records.

Stemmata Shirleiana (2nd ed., 1873), pp. 21–22, made the younger Ralph “probably … a son by a former marriage” of the elder, leaving James out, which the 1316 “son of James” rules out. The Shirley Association’s website makes the younger Ralph a son of Sir James de Shirley, the elder Ralph’s father, by a second wife; under that account the elder Ralph would have settled his lands in 1316 on a half-brother while his own son James was living.

Later traces

A Waldeshef settlement of 1321–22 (The National Archives, C 143/152/3) gives a remainder “to James de Shirle, the said Margaret and the heirs of her body”, where Ralph would be expected; it may be a slip in the calendar. A licence of 1341–42 (C 143/256/4) for “James de Shirle and William de Hoo to grant land in Barnham to Henry de Shirle, parson of the church” there may concern this James. Barnham, near Thetford in Suffolk, had been Shirley land in 1277, which would fit the 1311 writ to the sheriff of Suffolk. Neither record is taken as his here.