♀Margaret de Clare

Margaret de Clare^W was an English noblewoman who married Bartholomew de Badlesmere and was an heir of her young nephew, Thomas de Clare. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by three separate lines of descent, through two of her daughters, Maud de Badlesmere (born about 1308) and Elizabeth de Badlesmere (born about 1310).

Family and first marriage

Margaret was the aunt of Thomas de Clare, the son and heir of Richard de Clare, and so Richard’s sister. She is said to have been a daughter of Thomas de Clare^W, a younger son of Richard, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, and his wife Juliana FitzMaurice, a daughter of Sir Maurice fitz Maurice, and to have been born about 1287. Her first husband is said to have been Gilbert de Umfreville, the son and heir of the Earl of Angus, who died before May 1303 in his father’s lifetime.

Marriage to Bartholomew

Bartholomew and Margaret were probably married by the summer of 1308, and in 1311 or 1312 their land at Adderley in Shropshire was settled on the two of them jointly. They had a son, Giles, and four daughters, Margery, Maud, Elizabeth and Margaret. Her husband rose high in the service of Edward II, who is said to have given him Leeds Castle^W in Kent.

Leeds Castle

When Bartholomew joined the Earl of Lancaster’s rebellion against the king, Margaret was at Leeds. In the summer of 1321 she is said to have refused the queen admission to the castle, a royal castle that the king had granted to her husband. The queen was Isabella of France^W, Edward II’s wife. The king besieged Leeds, and when it was taken on 11 November 1321 Margaret was sent a prisoner to the Tower of London. Bartholomew, captured after the rebels’ defeat at Boroughbridge, is said to have been hanged as a traitor at Canterbury on 14 April 1322, while she was still held.

Widowhood

Margaret is said to have been released on 3 November 1322, to have lived for a time with the Minorites outside Aldgate in London at the king’s charge, and to have been given leave to go to her friends on 1 July 1324. Early in the reign of Edward III she petitioned the crown as “Margaret, late the wife of Sir Bartholomew de Badelesmere”, and on 18 April 1327 a Shropshire jury found that she had been enfeoffed jointly with her husband at Adderley; their son Giles, then eleven, was named his father’s heir. She is said to have had her dower in lands at Castlecombe in Wiltshire, and she is said to have died late in 1333.

Her share of the Clare lands, which had come to her as the aunt and heir of the boy Thomas de Clare when he died a minor, descended to her son Giles. When Giles died in 1338, his four sisters were found to be his heirs: Margery was married to William de Ros, Maud to John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Elizabeth to William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, and Margaret to John Tiptoft.

Lines of descent

The first two lines come down from their daughter Maud de Badlesmere through her daughter Margaret de Vere (died 1398), Margaret’s daughter Margaret Loveyne (died 1408) and her son Thomas St. Clair (1401–1435) to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One continues through Samuel’s son Stephen Dudley (1654–1735) to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

The third line, one generation longer than the others, comes down from their daughter Elizabeth de Badlesmere (born about 1310). The lines meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884) and Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) both descend from Bartholomew and Margaret de Clare.

Notes

Sources for her life

Her petition, the joint holding at Adderley and her son’s place as heir are from her husband’s inquisition post mortem^W of 1 Edward III (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 7, no. 104, pp. 89–93); the Shropshire jury held that the land had been settled on the couple in 5 Edward II (July 1311 to July 1312). Her son’s inquisition of 1338 (vol. 8, no. 185) names his four sisters as his heirs and, at p. 149, deals with “the pourparty of Margaret, late the wife of Bartholomew de Badelesmere, aunt and heir of Thomas de Clare”, which had come into the king’s hand “through the death of Thomas, son and heir of Richard de Clare, a minor”.

Her parents, her age, her first marriage, the marriage to Bartholomew “before 30 June 1308”, Leeds Castle, her imprisonment and release, her stay at Aldgate, her dower and her death are from G.E.C., Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (1910), pp. 149 and 372; her husband’s offices, the rebellion and his hanging are from the same page 372.

Her parentage

The record makes her the aunt and heir of Richard de Clare’s son, and so Richard’s sister; it does not name her parents. Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., names her mother as Julian, daughter of Sir Maurice fitz Maurice, and notes that the 1st ed. (vol. 1, 1887, p. 215) was wrong to call her Amy.

Her name and age

She went on using her first husband’s name. Complete Peerage notes her as “Margaret Dumfravill, Lady of Badlesmere” on 19 June 1325, and as “Margaret de Umframville late the wife of Bartholomew de Badlesmere” in the Patent Roll of 13 December 1329. It gives her age as forty in March 1326/7, which places her birth about 1287.

Her death

The date “late in 1333” is Complete Peerage’s. Her son’s inquisition of 1338 already treats her share of the Clare lands as part of his inheritance.