♀Margaret Beke

Margaret Beke (died before 1293) was an English noblewoman who married Richard Harcourt, lord of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, as his first wife. In 1311 her son John Harcourt was found to be one of the two heirs of Anthony Bek^W, the Bishop of Durham. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son John Harcourt (1274–1330).

Marriage

Margaret was most likely a daughter of John Beke^W, lord of Eresby in Lincolnshire, who is said to have had the custody of the young Richard Harcourt during his minority. Richard Harcourt and Margaret Beke were married by about 1274. They had three sons: John, the heir, born about 1274; Henry, who with his wife, Eleanor, was given a yearly rent of £24 at Bosworth during his father’s lifetime; and Nicholas, who is said to have become rector of Sheepy in Leicestershire. Margaret died before her husband, and Richard married again; when he died early in 1293 his widow was Joan.

The Beke inheritance

Margaret did not live to inherit, but her son did. John Beke died without a surviving son in 1303 or 1304, and his lands are said to have been divided between Margaret’s son, John Harcourt, and Robert de Willoughby, the son of her sister Alice. When Beke’s brother Anthony, Bishop of Durham, died in March 1311, the inquests on his lands found that “Robert de Wyluby and John de Harecourt are his kinsmen and next heirs”.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son John Harcourt (1274–1330) and grandson William Harcourt (1300–1349) and, much further down, through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). From Samuel one line comes down 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

Parentage

The pedigree of the Harcourts in the cartulary^W of Ronton Priory in Staffordshire, which ends with her son John and appears to have been written in his lifetime (printed in Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 4, 1883, pp. 272–273), names Richard as the man “qui desponsavit Margaretam, filiam Domini Johannis Bek”. The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 2, p. 89) says that John Beke of Eresby “d. s.p.m.s., 1303-04” and lists his coheirs as “(1) Alice, who m. Sir William Willoughby, and was mother of Robert Willoughby … (2) Margaret, or Milisent, who m. Richard Harcourt … (3) Mary, who d. unm.”; it names Anthony, Bishop of Durham, as John Beke’s brother. J. C. Wedgwood’s “Harcourt of Ellenhall” (Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 1914, p. 194) and The Harcourt Papers, vol. 1 (1880), p. 63, give the same parentage. The inquests after Bishop Anthony’s death (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 5, no. 274) do not say how Robert and John were related to him; that the two were the sons of his brother’s daughters is the reading of the compiled accounts, and it fits the cartulary. Her mother is not known.

Her name

The Complete Peerage gives her as “Margaret, or Milisent”. The Ronton pedigree, and this page, use Margaret.

Wardship

Wedgwood (p. 194) writes that during Richard’s minority “he was in the custody of John, Lord Beke of Eresby”, who married him to “his daughter and ultimate co-heiress, Margaret”. The marriage date is not recorded; “by about 1274” follows from the age of 18 given for John in his father’s inquest of 1293 (vol. 3, no. 116). Wedgwood thought that age 3 or 4 years too high.

Death

Her death date is not known. Richard’s widow, assigned dower on 2 May 1293, was “Joan late his wife” (vol. 3, no. 117), so Margaret was dead before him; Wedgwood (p. 194) says that “His first wife must have died some time before”. Wedgwood also has Margaret dividing the Eresby estate with her sister when John Beke died in 1303–4; as she was dead by 1293, the share went to her son.

Her sons

Henry’s rent is in the Bosworth inquest of 1293 (vol. 3, no. 116): Richard had “enfeoffed his son Henry de Harecourt and Eleanor his wife of 24l. yearly rent”. The Harcourt Papers (vol. 1, p. 63) name “Sir John, his successor, and Nicholas, Rector of Shippey in Leicestershire”.