♂John Basing

John Basing (died before 25 June 1304) was an English landholder of the late thirteenth century who held half of the manor of Boylestone in Derbyshire, with the advowson^W of half its church, and whose daughter Joan brought it to her husband, Walter de Waldeshef. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Joan Basing.

Boylestone

John is said to have been a citizen of London, and in 1293–94 he bought a share of Boylestone from Roger, the son of Roger de Ridware. In 1297, when the lands of Edmund Crouchback^W, the king’s brother, were surveyed after his death, John held half of Boylestone among Edmund’s Derbyshire fees for a quarter of a knight’s fee^W, with the manor and the advowson of half the church. In 1300 he used that right and presented Walter de Lega as rector.

His heirs

John died between 1300 and June 1304. His heir was his daughter Joan, said to have been his only daughter, and by June 1304 she and Walter de Waldeshef 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, when Walter and Joan settled Boylestone again, a third of the manor was held in dower^W by Juliana de Basyng, John’s widow.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Joan Basing, her daughter Margaret de Waldeshef, Margaret’s 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

Boylestone

J. Charles Cox’s Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire, vol. 3 (1877), pp. 16–18, citing the Pegge manuscripts, has Roger de Ridware’s son Roger sell the moiety of Boylestone “in the twenty-second year of Edward I., to John de Basing, a citizen of London” (22 Edward I ran from November 1293 to November 1294). The London citizenship rests on that account alone. The 1297 holding is in the inquisition post mortem^W of Edmund, the king’s brother (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 423, writ of 3 July 25 Edward I), which writes him John de Basinges: “Boilleston. A moiety held by John de Basinges for 1/4 knight’s fee”, and “The manor with the advowson of a moiety of the church, held by John de Basinges”. Cox’s list of rectors gives Walter de Lega in 1300, patron John de Basing.

His death and his daughter

No record of John’s death is known. He was alive to present the rector in 1300, and by the fine made at York on the morrow of St John the Baptist, 32 Edward I (25 June 1304), Walter Waldeshef and Joan his wife held the manor and advowson of Boylestone (Calendar of Derbyshire Fines, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. 14 (1892), p. 13). Cox writes that “John de Basing had an only daughter and heiress, Joanna”, and Stemmata Shirleiana (2nd ed., 1873), p. 23, calls her “daughter and heiress of John Basinge”. The fine of the morrow of the Annunciation, 5 Edward II (26 March 1312), in vol. 15 (1893), p. 17 of the same journal, excepts “the third which Juliana de Basyng held in dowry”; a dower third in John’s manor makes her his widow. No record names Juliana as Joan’s mother.