♂John FitzGeoffrey

John FitzGeoffrey (died 23 November 1258) was an English knight of Shere in Surrey, a son of the Earl of Essex, who served Henry III as Justiciar of Ireland^W from 1245 to 1256. He was the twenty-third great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Maud FitzJohn (died 1301).

Family and lands

John was the only son of Geoffrey Fitz Peter, Earl of Essex and Justiciar of England, by his second wife, Aveline de Clare, a daughter of Roger de Clare, Earl of Clare. He was probably born about 1205. When his half-brother William, Earl of Essex, died, part of their father’s lands came to John: King Henry III took his homage on 3 June 1227, and John paid a fine of 300 marks for them. Besides Shere, he came to hold Fambridge in Essex and Whaddon, Steeple Claydon, Quarrendon and Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

Before 12 April 1234 John married Isabel le Bigod, a daughter of Hugh le Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Maud Marshal, and the widow of Gilbert de Lacy of Ewyas Lacy. John and Isabel had two sons, John and Richard, and four daughters, Maud, Isabel, Aveline and Joan.

In the king’s service

John was sent to the Council of Lyons^W to protest against the tribute the pope demanded from England. The king gave him the manor of Whaddon on 14 November 1242, and on 4 November 1245 appointed him Justiciar of Ireland, the king’s governor there, an office he held until 1256. In January 1250/1 he bought, for 3,000 marks, the wardship and marriage of the boy Theobald Butler, who later married John’s youngest daughter, Joan. Before September 1254 the king also granted him the cantred of the Isles in Thomond^W.

Death

John died near Guildford, in Surrey, on 23 November 1258. The news reached the king at St Albans, and the chronicler there, Matthew Paris^W, recorded that before Henry III left the abbey he had a solemn mass celebrated for him. The king also ordered his treasurer to give a cloth for the funeral rites when John’s body was carried through the city.

The family

Their elder son, John FitzJohn, was still under age when his father died, and bought the custody of his own lands. He became one of the leading supporters of Simon de Montfort^W in the Second Barons’ War^W, and with the Earl of Gloucester he commanded the second division of the barons’ army at the Battle of Lewes^W on 14 May 1264. At Evesham the next year he was wounded and taken prisoner, and his lands were given away, but he was pardoned in July 1266 and recovered them under the Dictum of Kenilworth^W.

Notes

Sources

John’s parentage, birth, marriage, children and lands, the Lyons mission and his death date are from Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), VERDUN 3, p. 849, a printed genealogy of the medieval nobility. His homage and fine of 1227, the Whaddon grant, his years as Justiciar of Ireland, the Thomond grant and the story of his death are from the Complete Peerage, 2nd edition, vol. V (1926), under FITZJOHN, pp. 433–434, whose notes cite the fine, patent and close rolls, the Annals of Oseney and Matthew Paris. The Butler wardship is from the same work, vol. II (1912), p. 449, and his son John’s career from vol. V, pp. 434–435.

Dates

Richardson dates the Lyons mission to 1237 and the Thomond grant to 1253; the Complete Peerage gives the grant as made before 3 September 1254. The Annals of Oseney place his death about the feast of St Clement, which falls on 23 November. Matthew Paris places it not far from Guildford; the Complete Peerage takes this to mean Shalford or Shere.

A generation too many

The Complete Peerage notes that the antiquary William Dugdale took the records of John’s death as belonging to two men, a “John FitzJohn FitzGeoffrey” and his father, and so put a spurious extra generation into the family’s pedigree. The John who married Isabel le Bigod and died in 1258 is the father of John FitzJohn of the Barons’ War.