♂John Washbourne

John Washbourne (died 1319) was a Worcestershire knight of the early fourteenth century, the son and heir of Sir Roger Washbourne, who held the family’s manor of Washbourne and lands around Stanford. He was the nineteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son Roger Washbourne.

A name not yet fixed

In his father’s lifetime John was known as John de Dufford, and a register of the bishopric of Worcester of 1298–99 calls him “Johannes de Dufford filius Rogeri de Washborn”. The antiquary Thomas Habington^W thought the name came from Defford, where John very likely lived, and saw in it how unsettled English surnames still were: the family, he wrote, “varyed theyre names accordinge to the places of theyre habitation” before they settled on Washborne. Only after his father’s death was he written Sir John de Washborne.

He already held land of his own at Bretforton, for which he paid in the subsidy roll^W of 1280, and in 1294–95, as Roger’s son and heir, he made a confirmation of family land.

Knight and landholder

According to Nash’s history of Worcestershire, John sat in Parliament as a knight of the shire^W in 1312.

He married Isabella. In 1310 Robert Lestourmy sued John and Isabella, as tenants, for a house, meadow, woodland, rents and two virgates of land at Overton, near Stanford; on 29 April the king ordered the justices of the Bench not to put John in default for failing to appear, because he had been away in the king’s service. In 1315–16 John confirmed all his manor of Washbourne to “Roger his son and heire and Margaret his wife”.

Death

John was dead before Michaelmas 1319. That year John Cassy, a minor suing through his guardians, was at law with Roger, son of Sir John, over premises at Droitwich that Isabella, “the late wife of Sir John”, claimed as her dower^W. Their known son and heir was Roger Washbourne, who had married Margaret by 1316.

Lines of descent

The line from John runs through his son Roger and down the Washbourne family of Wichenford to John Washburn of Bengeworth (died 1547), who is probably John’s fifth great-grandson.

Notes

Sources

John is known from James Davenport’s The Washbourne Family of Little Washbourne and Wichenford (1907), pp. 3–6, where he is Sir John (2), son of Sir Roger (1). Davenport draws on Habington’s notes on Worcestershire (Harleian MS. 6139), Nash’s history of the county, a College of Arms pedigree, the Calendar of Close Rolls^W (3 Edward II, 1310) and a De Banco roll of 13 Edward II (1319), m. 18. The name John de Dufford is dated to the twenty-seventh year of Edward I (1298–99); the parliament of 1312 is given as “5th P. of Ed. II”; the confirmation as son and heir is dated “Ed. filii regis Henri 23” (1294–95), and the confirmation to Roger and Margaret “E. filii regis E. 9” (1315–16).

His death

No record of John’s death is known. Davenport dates it before Michaelmas 1319 from the De Banco roll, where Isabella is “the late wife of Sir John” and claims dower, a widow’s right. In 1315 the king ordered a knight’s fee at Orleton, held by John, to be delivered to a Matilda to whom it had been assigned; Davenport’s extract does not say why.

The descent below

That John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, was the younger son of John Washbourne of Wichenford (died 1517) is Davenport’s identification, not a record’s, so the line from John to Nancy Jane Blanchard is probable below that generation.