♀Joan (surname unknown)

Joan (died 21 July 1369) was an Englishwoman who married the knight William Harcourt of Ellenhall in Staffordshire and outlived him by twenty years; at her death the family’s lands were divided between her younger son and her granddaughter. She was the eighteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Thomas Harcourt (1341–1417).

Marriage

She is said to have been a daughter of Sir Richard de Grey of Codnor in Derbyshire, though no record of her own names her family. By 1324 she was married to William Harcourt, a knight, and his father, John Harcourt, had passed a share of the manor of Pleasley in Derbyshire to the couple. About two years later John gave them the manors of Bingley and Helyghfeld in Yorkshire as well. After John’s death in 1330, a fine in the king’s court settled Bosworth in Leicestershire on William and Joan and the heirs male of their bodies, and Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire was settled on the couple in the same way. They had at least two sons, Richard, born about 1328, and Thomas, born about 1341.

Widow

William died on 6 June 1349, in the summer the Black Death^W swept through England. Joan is said to have married again, to Sir Ralph Ferrers, a captain of Calais, and to have held Ellenhall as her dower. Her elder son, Richard, died before her.

She died at Ellenhall on 21 July 1369. The inquests^W on her lands show how the settlements made forty years earlier now divided them. Stanton Harcourt and Bosworth, entailed^W on heirs male, passed to Thomas, then about twenty-eight, while Pleasley and Bingley went to Richard’s daughter Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Astley, as heir general. Ellenhall itself is said to have been fought over between Thomas and the Astleys for years afterwards.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Thomas Harcourt (1341–1417) and grandson Thomas Harcourt (1377–1420) and, much further down, through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). From Samuel one line 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 family

The records of her marriage and of her death call her only Joan, the wife and later the widow of William de Harecourt, and none names her father. J. C. Wedgwood’s “Harcourt of Ellenhall” (Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 1914, pp. 195–196), who calls her Jane, notes that the Papal Petitions would make her a daughter of John, Lord Grey of Codnor, “But this seems impossible”, and that other evidence shows “she was the daughter of Richard, Lord Grey of Codnor (born 1278, died 1335)”. The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. V, under Ferrers) also gives her as “da. of Sir Richard de Grey, of Codnor, co. Derby”, citing the cartulary of Ronton Priory. Both are compiled works, and the surname is left blank here.

Marriage and the settlements

A Chancery inquisition of 17 Edward II (1323–4; The National Archives, C 143/161/10) concerns “William de Harcourt, knight, and Joan his wife” retaining half of Pleasley, acquired from John de Harecourt; another of 1325–6 (C 143/182/7) concerns Bingley and “William son of John de Harcourt and Joan his wife”. The 1369 inquests (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 12, no. 360) say Bingley and Helyghfeld were held “by gift of John de Harecourt, lord of Boseworth, to William de Harecourt his son and the said Joan”, that Bosworth came by a fine of Martinmas 1330 “whereby Nicholas de Harecourt, parson of the church of Shepeye, granted the manor to William de Harecourt and Joan his wife and the heirs male of [their] bodies”, and that Stanton Harcourt was held “in joint feoffment with William her husband”. William’s own Leicestershire inquest of 1349 (vol. 9, no. 139) names “Joan his wife, who survives”.

Second marriage

Wedgwood (p. 196) writes that she “re-married in 1350 Sir Ralph Ferrers, captain of Calais, and they had Ellenhall as her dower, where they seem to have lived”, and that after her death “for many years Ellenhall was in dispute between the junior line of Harcourt and the heirs general of Sir William, the Astleys”. The Complete Peerage says that Ralph Ferrers, who died between 1391 and 1392, “married Joan, widow of Sir William de Harecourt”. The 1369 inquests treat her only as the late wife of William de Harecourt and name no later husband.

Date of death

The 1369 inquests disagree by a day. The Oxford inquest says “She died on 21 July last”, and the Leicestershire inquest gives “Saturday before St. James”, which was 21 July 1369; the Derbyshire and Yorkshire inquests give “the feast of St. Mary Magdalene”, 22 July. The Derbyshire inquest says she died “at Elnehale, co. Stafford”. The Complete Peerage gives “21 or 22 July 1369”.

Her heirs

The Oxford inquest names “Thomas de Harecourt, son and heir male of the bodies of Joan and William, aged 28 years and more”; the Leicestershire inquest calls him “aged 26 years and more” and her “younger (postnatus) son”, and names “Elizabeth wife of Thomas son of Thomas de Asteleye” her heir general, “as daughter and heir of Richard de Harecourt, knight, her eldest son and heir by William her late husband”. The Derbyshire inquest gives Elizabeth’s age as 22.