♀Lady Joan de Valoines

Joan de Valoines (died before 6 September 1312) was an English heiress and landholder, the daughter of Thomas de Valoines, whose manor of Shabbington in Buckinghamshire came to her as his heir. Widowed by 1295, she lived on for seventeen years and outlived her eldest son by less than a year. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son John de Grey (1266–1311).

Marriage and family

Joan married Robert de Grey of Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire. Thomas de Valoines gave the couple half the manor of Winterbourne in Berkshire in frank-marriage^W, the form in which a father endowed a daughter and her husband at their marriage, and his manor of Shabbington in Buckinghamshire later came to Joan as his heir. They had two sons, John and Thomas, and a daughter, Margaret.

Widowhood

Robert died before 27 May 1295. That November, when a son was born to Fulk de Rucote, a messenger was sent “to Lady Joan de Grey at Schobyndon” with the news; she was most likely Robert’s widow, living at Shabbington. Her daughter Margaret is said to have lost her own husband, John FitzBernard, by May 1297. That year Joan settled her land at East Claydon in Buckinghamshire on herself for life, then on her daughter Margaret and Margaret’s daughter Joan, with her younger son Thomas to inherit only after them.

In the autumn of 1300 her eldest son’s wife, Margaret de Oddingseles, bore a son, John, at Rotherfield. Joan was most likely the Joan de Grey who, with William de Warmoteston and John de Sakevill, lifted the infant from the font at his baptism.

Death

Joan died before 6 September 1312, when the writ for the inquest^W on her lands was issued. Her son John had died the previous October, so her heir was that grandson John, then eleven. The jurors found that Shabbington had descended to her on her father’s death, and that she had held the Winterbourne land for life in frank-marriage. Her dower lands are said to have been granted to Hugh le Despenser the elder^W for as long as the heir was under age.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son John de Grey (1266–1311). One comes down through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844); the other reaches Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825). The two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

Parentage and lands

The inquest after her death found Shabbington (“Schobyngton”) “descended to the said Joan after the death of Thomas de Valoignes her father, being held of Edmund, earl of Cornwall”, and a moiety of Winterbourne in Berkshire “held for life in free marriage, because Thomas de Valoynes thereof enfeoffed the said Robert and Joan” (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 5, no. 398). The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, p. 144) gives her as “Joan, da. of Thomas de Valoines”, and quotes a plea of 1330 in which her grandson John de Grey of Rotherfield sued for land in Shabbington “which Thomas de Valoines gave to Robert de Grey and Joan his wife and the heirs of their bodies”. The Victoria County History of Buckinghamshire (vol. 4) names her as Thomas’s heir and has her holding there with Robert in 1284. Final concords of 1299 and 1300 name “Joan de Valoygnes, who was the wife of Thomas de Valoygnes”, holding in dower “of the inheritance of Joan de Grey”; they do not call her Joan’s mother.

Her children

Robert’s inquest of 1295 names his heir John but no wife. Joan’s own inquest makes John’s son her heir, which points to John as her son; so does the plea of 1330, which treats the grandson as an heir of her body. Her settlement of East Claydon, as quoted in the Complete Peerage (vol. 5, pp. 398-399) from the feet of fines of Easter 1297, ran to “Margaret her da. late the wife of John le fiz Bernard, for life, rem. to Joan da. of the said John and Margaret … rem. to Thomas de Grey, son of the first-named Joan, in fee”. Her inquest of 1312 repeats the remainders to “Margaret her daughter”, to Margaret’s daughter Joan, and then to “one Thomas de Grey”. The Complete Peerage has John FitzBernard dead before 12 May 1297.

Lady Joan de Grey in 1295 and 1300

At the proof of age of Fulk son of Fulk de Rucote, born at Rucote on 16 November 1295, a juror recalled that John de Scalebrok was sent “to Lady Joan de Grey at Schobyndon to announce that his wife had a son” (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 6, no. 123). The place, Shabbington, is what makes her most likely Robert’s widow. At the proof of age of her grandson John, a juror said that he, “with John de Sakevill and Joan de Grey, lifted the said heir from the sacred font” (vol. 6, no. 336). No other Joan de Grey old enough to be a godmother in 1300 is known in the family, so she was most likely the grandmother.

Date of death

The writ for her inquest is dated 6 September in the sixth year of Edward II (1312). The Complete Peerage (vol. 6, p. 144) gives “His widow d. before 12 Nov. 1312” and cites the Fine Rolls for the grant of her dower land to Hugh le Despenser the elder during the heir’s minority.