♂John de Grey

John de Grey (between 1266 and 1272 – 17 October 1311) was an English landholder of Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire. When his wife was churched after the birth of their heir in 1300, he gave a feast so great that it was still talked of in the district twenty-one years later. He was the nineteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son John de Grey (1300–1359).

Early life

John was the first-born son of Robert de Grey of Rotherfield and, it appears, of Robert’s wife, Joan de Valoines. When Robert died in the spring of 1295, the inquests on his lands named John as his heir, though the juries did not agree on his age: the Yorkshire jurors made him 23 and more, while those in Oxfordshire called him “his first born son, aged 28 and more”.

Service under Edward I

He is said to have been summoned to a council in January 1297 and for military service in 1298 and 1299, the years of Edward I’s wars in Scotland. He was reportedly one of the executors of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall^W, the King’s cousin, who died in 1300. He is also said to have been at the siege of Caerlaverock^W in the summer of 1300, where a herald’s poem on the siege picked out “Johan de Grai” and his banner “of silver and blue, with a red bend engrailed”.

Marriage and family

John de Grey married Margaret de Oddingseles, the youngest of the four sisters who shared the inheritance of the Oddingseles family of Solihull in Warwickshire. Their son and heir, John, was born at Rotherfield Greys on 29 October 1300 and baptized in the church there three days later. On St Andrew’s Day, 30 November, when Margaret was churched^W after the birth, John gave a great feast at Rotherfield. The abbots, the priors and almost all the leading men of the neighborhood came, and a merchant advanced his servants £6 to buy cloth for it. When the younger John proved his age in December 1321, the jurors still remembered the feast.

Death

John de Grey died on 17 October 1311, the eve of St Luke. The inquests on his lands found that he and Margaret had held Sculcoates in Yorkshire jointly, and that Solihull in Warwickshire and the right to present to the church of Arley were hers by inheritance. His heir was their son John, then ten years old and already married. Margaret, his widow, was given her dower^W.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son John de Grey (1300–1359). 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

Birth and age

The inquests after his father’s death, taken in June 1295, give his age two ways: at York “John his son, aged 23 and more, is his next heir”, and in Oxfordshire “his first born son, aged 28 and more” (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 284). His birth is therefore placed between 1266 and 1272. The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, p. 144) notes the same two returns and a third, of 1304, that makes him 30.

Parentage

The inquest of 1295 names Robert de Grey as his father but no wife. The Complete Peerage (vol. 6, p. 144) gives Robert’s wife as “Joan, da. of Thomas de Valoines”, and cites a plea of 1330 in which John de Grey of Rotherfield, the son of this John, sued for land at Shabbington in Buckinghamshire “which Thomas de Valoines gave to Robert de Grey and Joan his wife and the heirs of their bodies”. Joan’s own inquest, on a writ of 6 September 1312, comes closer. It found that a moiety of Winterbourne in Berkshire was held “in free marriage, because Thomas de Valoynes thereof enfeoffed the said Robert and Joan, to them and the heirs of their bodies”, that Shabbington had “descended to the said Joan after the death of Thomas de Valoignes her father”, and that her heir was John, son of John de Grey, aged 11 (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 5, no. 398). Her heir to her own inheritance was this John’s son, which is the main ground for taking her as this John’s mother. Neither record calls him her son in so many words.

Career and Caerlaverock

The summonses to a council on 26 January 1296/7 and for military service from 30 March 1298 to 27 September 1299, his part as an executor of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall (Close Rolls, 6 February 1301/2), and his presence at the siege of Caerlaverock all come from the Complete Peerage (vol. 6, p. 144). For Caerlaverock it cites Sir N. H. Nicolas’s edition of The Siege of Carlaverock (p. 40) and prints the verse with its translation: “Also I know John de Grey was there, who I saw had his banner of silver and blue, with a red bend engrailed.” The identification of that knight with John de Grey of Rotherfield is the Complete Peerage’s.

The feast of 1300

The proof of age of his son, taken at Rotherfield on the feast of St Thomas the Apostle in the fifteenth year of Edward II (21 December 1321), is calendared in the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 6, no. 336. One juror was “present at the banquet when Margaret mother of the said heir purified herself from her childbirth”; another, Henry de Ardern, then a merchant, said that “for celebrating the feast at the time of the said purification, the servants of John de Grey received from him 6 l. for buying cloths”. Six more jurors knew the date “because of the great feast which John de Grey made at Rutherefeld on the day of St. Andrew next after the said heir’s birth … which feast is still notorious in those parts, because the abbots, priors and almost all the other good men (probi homines) of those parts were present.” The son was born “on the morrow of SS. Simon and Jude” (29 October) in the twenty-eighth year of Edward I, and baptized on the third day after.

Death and lands

The inquest after his death states: “He died on the eve of St. Luke” in the fifth year of Edward II, that is 17 October 1311. It records Sculcoates as “jointly held by the said John with Margaret his wife”, Solihull and the advowson of Arley as “of the inheritance of Margaret his wife”, and dower for “Margaret, late the wife of the said John”. One return gives the heir as “aged 10 on 1 March, 5 (Edw. II), and married” (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 5, no. 345). The Complete Peerage (vol. 6, p. 145) gives the same death date and adds that inquests were taken in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.