♀Joan Basing

Joan Basing was an English heiress of the early fourteenth century, the only daughter of John Basing, a citizen of London, through whom the manor of Boylestone in Derbyshire came to her husband, Walter de Waldeshef. In 1322 her five daughters were named together in the patent rolls^W. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Margaret de Waldeshef.

Boylestone

Joan’s father, John Basing (died 1304), was a citizen of London who in 1293–94 bought a share of the manor of Boylestone from Roger de Ridware. In 1297 he held the manor with the advowson of half its church, and in 1300 he presented the rector. Her mother was most likely Juliana de Basyng, who in 1312 held a third of the manor in dower.

Joan was her father’s only daughter and heiress, and by June 1304 she and Walter held Boylestone together: in a fine^W made at York that month with Richard de Blundesham, the manor and the advowson were settled on them and on Walter’s heirs. In March 1312 Walter and Joan settled Boylestone again, this time with remainder to their daughter Joan and her husband, Walter, son of Thomas de Rydeware, and failing their children to Walter’s own heirs.

Marriage

Joan is named beside her husband in the records of their lands: a purchase of three and a half messuages in Bradefelde in 1312–13, a fine with Thomas le Coniers of Castleton made at the castle of the High Peak on 1 November 1314, a fine with Ralph de Shirley over the manor of Hoon in June 1317, and a settlement of foresterships in Hopedale in 1321–22. On 5 July 1322, at York, the patent rolls named Juliana as Walter’s “daughter and heir”, and Elizabeth, Isabella, Joan and Margaret as “daughters of the said Walter”. Margaret married Ralph Shirley, the son of James Shirley.

Walter made his will at Boylestone on 25 November 1333, and provided for a sale after the death of his wife Joan without an heir male of his body. The date of Joan’s own death is not known.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Margaret de Waldeshef, her son Thomas Shirley (died 1362), 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

Her parents

J. Charles Cox’s Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire, vol. 3 (1877), pp. 16–18, has Roger de Ridware’s son Roger sell a moiety of Boylestone “in the twenty-second year of Edward I., to John de Basing, a citizen of London”, and adds that “John de Basing had an only daughter and heiress, Joanna”. Stemmata Shirleiana (2nd ed., 1873), p. 23, calls her “daughter and heiress of John Basinge”. The 1297 holding is in the inquisition after the death of Edmund, the king’s brother (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 423), and Cox’s list of rectors has John de Basing as patron in 1300. No record names Joan’s mother. The fine of March 1312 shows Juliana de Basyng holding a third of Boylestone in dower, which makes her John’s widow; that she was also Joan’s mother is likely but unproven. Some online family trees call Joan herself “Juliana de Basing”, a confusion with the widow.

The fines

The Boylestone fines of 32 Edward I (June 1304) and 5 Edward II (March 1312), and the Bradefelde purchase of 6 Edward II, are printed in the Calendar of Derbyshire Fines in the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vols. 14 (1892), p. 13, and 15 (1893), pp. 17–18. Stemmata Shirleiana prints the High Peak concord of 8 Edward II, made “int Wal[ter]um Waldesh[ef] et Johannam uxorem ejus” and Thomas le Coniers. The Hoon fine of 1317 is among the Shirley deeds at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland (26D53/314), and the Hopedale settlement is in The National Archives (C 143/152/3).

Her husband’s will

Sharpe, Calendar of Wills Proved and Enrolled in the Court of Husting, vol. 1 (1889), p. 395, gives Walter’s will, dated at Boylestone on 25 November 1333, with a sale “after the decease of Johanna his wife without an heir male of his body”.