♂John Saint Clair

John Saint Clair (about 1301 – before 18 February 1335) was an English landowner who, at about twenty-six, was found heir to his cousin Francis de Aldham’s manors in Sussex, Somerset and Northamptonshire, the lands of his mother’s family, and who died eight years later leaving them to a son of three. He was the nineteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son John Saint Clair (1332–1387).

The Aldham inheritance

John was the son of John Saint Clair, called the elder, and his wife, Joan de Aldham. Joan’s brother Baldwin had a son, Francis de Aldham, and when Francis died in or before February 1327 with no heir of his own, his lands came to Joan’s son. The inquisition post mortem^W taken in Sussex on Ash Wednesday, 25 February 1327, named “John son of John Seyntcler, his kinsman, aged 26 years on the feast of the Purification last past” as the next heir; in Somerset the jurors called him the son of Joan, the aunt of Francis.

The return carried the family’s pedigree on its back. It began with Sayer, whose son Thomas de Aldham married Isabel and had three children, Baldwin, William and Joan; Baldwin’s son Francis and William had both died without heirs, “and Joan, who married John Seyncler (and had issue) John, who now claims.” Beside it stood a second line from the same Sayer, ending in another claimant, John de Lynam. A memorandum sorted the lands by where they had come from: Exceat and Lavertye in Sussex, with Aldham and Romsehede in Kent, had been Thomas de Aldham’s right, while Jevington, Tarring and Brambletye in Sussex, Chiselborough in Somerset and Woodpreston in Northamptonshire had come through his wife, Isabel de la Haye.

Marriage and death

John married Alice, whose family is not known, and their son, John, was born about 1332. John died before 18 February 1335, when the writ for the inquiry into his lands was issued, at about thirty-four. The jurors found that he and “Alice his wife” had held the manor of Chiselborough in Somerset together, and that “John, son of the said John and Alice, aged three years and more, is their next heir”. In Sussex he held Jevington, Brambletye, Heighton, Exceat and Tarring, with Larkety in East Grinstead. Alice outlived him by five years and died on 6 August 1340.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son John, John’s son Philip Saint Clair (1365–1408), Philip’s son Thomas St. Clair (1401–1435), Thomas’s daughter Edith Saint Clair (born about 1423), Edith’s daughter Alice Harcourt (died 1526), Alice’s daughter Elizabeth Bessiles, Elizabeth’s daughter Anne Fettiplace, Anne’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’s 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

Sources for his life

His parents, his age and the Aldham inheritance come from the inquisitions taken after the death of Francis de Aldham (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 7, Edward III, no. 5; writ of 12 February 1327), with the endorsed pedigree and the memorandum on the lands. His death, his wife and his heir come from the inquisitions taken after his own death (vol. 7, no. 686; writ of 18 February 1335), where he is “John son of John de Sancto Claro, de Seyncler or de Seyntclere”. Alice’s death is in the inquisition taken in 1343 after her death (vol. 8, no. 416).

Identification

The manors named in Francis de Aldham’s inquisitions of 1327 are the same as those named in John’s of 1335, which joins the heir of 1327 to the man who died in 1335. The same manors appear again in the inquisitions of 1387 after the death of his son John, which joins father and son.

His age

“Aged 26 years on the feast of the Purification” (2 February) 1327 puts his birth in 1300 or 1301; about 1301 is used here.

His name

The inquisitions write the name Seyntcler, Seyncler, Sencler, de Sancto Claro and Seyntclere, and his mother’s family Aldham and Aldeham.