♂John Beke

John Beke^W (before 1230 – 1303 or 1304) was an English baron, lord of Eresby in Lincolnshire, whose only son died before him, so that his lands and his line passed through his daughters. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Margaret Beke.

Lord of Eresby

John was the son and heir of Walter Beke of Eresby and his wife, Eve, a niece of Walter de Gray^W, Archbishop of York, and he was probably born before 1230. Both his younger brothers rose high in the Church: Thomas became Bishop of St Davids^W, and Anthony Bishop of Durham^W.

The peerage histories record that in 1275–76 Edward I granted him a licence to crenellate^W his manor house at Eresby, that is, leave from the king to fortify it with battlements and make it a castle. In 1295 and 1296 he was summoned to Parliament by writs addressed to “Johanni Bek”, and on the strength of them he is counted the first Lord Beke.

Death and heirs

John made his will on 18 July 1301 and asked to be buried in Kirkstead Abbey^W. By it he left “the remainder of his arms” to be divided between two of his grandsons, Sir Robert de Willoughby and Sir John Harcourt. His only son, Walter, was still alive in August 1301 but died soon afterwards, childless and before his father. When John died in 1303 or 1304, his heirs were his daughters: Alice, the wife of Sir William Willoughby and mother of Robert; Margaret, most likely the wife of Richard Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire and mother of John; and Mary, who never married. When his brother Anthony died in March 1311, the same two grandsons, Robert de Willoughby and John Harcourt, were found to be the bishop’s next heirs.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Margaret Beke and her son John Harcourt (1274–1330) 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

Sources for his life

His parentage, birth, licence, summonses, will, burial and death are given in The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 2, 1912, p. 89), which calls him “s. and h. of Walter B., of Eresby, co. Lincoln, by Eve, niece of Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, b. before 1230”, and says that he “d. s.p.m.s., 1303-04” - died with no surviving male heir. The same page names his brothers Thomas, Bishop of St Davids, who died in 1293, and Anthony, Bishop of Durham, who died on 3 March 1310/1, and says that his “only s. and h. ap., Walter Beke, was living 1 Aug. 1301, but d. v. p. and s.p. soon after”. Burke’s peerage of 1869 says the licence was “to make a castle of his manorhouse at Eresby”. The Complete Peerage adds that on his death any barony created by the writ of 1295 “would be held, by modern doctrine, to have fallen into abeyance”^W between his daughters.

His daughters

The Complete Peerage lists the coheirs as “(1) Alice, who m. Sir William Willoughby, and was mother of Robert Willoughby … (2) Margaret, or Milisent, who m. Richard Harcourt … (3) Mary, who d. unm.” The pedigree of the Harcourts in the cartulary of Ronton Priory in Staffordshire, which appears to have been written in the lifetime of Margaret’s son, names Richard Harcourt as the man “qui desponsavit Margaretam, filiam Domini Johannis Bek”. The inquests after Bishop Anthony’s death (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 5, no. 274) name Robert and John as his next heirs but do not say how they were related to him. The link through Margaret is therefore probable rather than proven. The name of John Beke’s wife is not known.

The will

The Harcourt Papers, vol. 1 (1880), pp. 35–36, quote an older note that “John Bek of Eresby, a Baron, by his will made 29 E. I, devised to Sr Rob. de Willoughby and Sr John de Harecourt the remainder of his arms, to be divided between them, therein mentioning his brother Anthony, Bishop of Durrham”. The same note calls Alice’s son Walter Willoughby; The Complete Peerage and the 1311 inquests name him Robert, as this page does. The Harcourt Papers also describe Margaret as “sister and co-heir of Sir Walter Beke”, which agrees with Walter’s dying soon after his father’s will.