♂John de Braose

John de Braose^W (died 1232) was an English lord of Bramber in Sussex and of Gower^W in South Wales, and the husband of Margaret ferch Llywelyn. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son William de Braose (died 1290).

Family

John is said to have been the son and heir of a William de Braose who was starved to death by King John in 1210. John and Margaret are said to have married in 1219. Margaret is said to have been a daughter of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth^W, prince of North Wales, so John was a son-in-law of Llywelyn the Great. Their son and heir was William de Braose (died 1290), and a John de Breuse of Glasbury, in the county of Brecon, was probably a younger son.

Death

John is said to have died after a fall from his horse. His son William succeeded him in 1232, before 18 July, while still under age. Margaret, his widow, married Walter de Clifford^W, lord of Clifford in Herefordshire.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through John and Margaret’s son William de Braose (died 1290), his son Peter de Braose (1273–1311), Peter’s son Peter de Braose (died 1377) and his daughter Beatrice de Braose (died 1440), then through Beatrice’s son Ralph Shirley and his daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from Beatrix through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) 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

His father

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 2, 1912, p. 302, note b) makes John the son and heir of William, “who was starved to death by King John in 1210”, son and heir of William, lord of Braiose (now Briouze) in Normandy, of Bramber and of Brecon.

His marriage and his son John

The year of the marriage is from The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 5, 1926, p. 642, note), citing the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion^W. Margaret’s parentage is given there, in the same work’s account of their son William (vol. 2, p. 302), in F. N. Craig, “Whose Son was Peter de Braose?”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (July 1996), Table 1 (p. 322), and in a Braose pedigree in Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. 8 (1856); the record of her second marriage, as The Complete Peerage notes, does not name her father. The younger John, of Glasbury, was summoned to the king’s service from 1276 to 1283; The Complete Peerage (vol. 2, p. 307) calls him “probably a yr. s.” of John and Margaret.

His death

William’s succession in 1232, before 18 July, is from the Close Roll of 16 Henry III, as cited in The Complete Peerage (vol. 2, p. 302). The fall from his horse is from the 1856 pedigree, which records that John died “by fall from horse” in the sixteenth year of Henry III (October 1231 to October 1232). Margaret is named as his widow in the Close Roll of 19 Henry III, and a record cited by Dugdale states that she, as John’s widow, married Walter de Clifford (The Complete Peerage, vol. 5, p. 642, note).