♀Margaret de Draycote

Margaret de Draycote was a fourteenth-century Englishwoman of the Draycote family of Draycote in Waterstock, Oxfordshire. In 1395 a royal inquiry into the Draycote manor traced her claim to it down four generations, through her son Nicholas, to her great-grandson William Baldington. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Margaret Despencer, and through her an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Family

Margaret was a sister of John de Draycote and of Agnes. The manor of Draycote had been settled on her brother John and his wife Katharine, with remainders first to Agnes and then to Margaret.

She was most likely the Margaret who on 8 July 1324 was named as the wife of John le Despenser of Aldebury, now Albury, when he had a royal licence to settle that manor on the two of them and their son John, with remainders in turn to the younger sons Thomas, Nicholas and Richard and then to his own heirs. Her daughter, Margaret Despencer, was the mother of Alice, who with her husband John Baldington was granted Albury well before 1376. John le Despenser died before 1349, and his widow, probably Margaret, held Albury in 1349 and again in 1361.

The Draycote inheritance

Her sister-in-law Katharine, by then the wife of Henry Chalfhunt, died on 20 June 1394, and the inquisition post mortem^W taken at Dorchester on 12 March 1395 followed the Draycote remainders down the generations. Margaret’s share passed to her son, “Nicholas Spencere”, and from him to his heir, William Baldington, “son of Alice daughter of Margaret daughter of Margaret sister of Agnes”.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Margaret Despencer, Margaret’s daughter Alice, Alice’s son William Baldington, William’s daughter Agnes Baldington, her son Thomas Denton, Thomas’s son John Denton, John’s daughter Alice Denton, her son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas Dudley’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

The 1395 inquisition

The inquisition taken after the death of Katharine, wife of Henry Chalfhunt (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 17, no. 455), records that Draycote in Waterstock had been settled on John de Draycote and Katharine, with remainders to “Agnes sister of the said John” and then to “Margaret sister of the said Agnes”. It names “Nicholas Spencere son of the said Margaret, whose heir William son of John de Baldyngdon is, to wit, son of Alice daughter of Margaret daughter of Margaret sister of Agnes”. The volume’s index lists her as “Margaret (Draycote)” under Despencer. Her parents are not named.

Her marriage

The Calendar of Patent Rolls^W (1324–1327, p. 6) records on 8 July 1324 a licence for “John le Despenser of Aldebury” to resettle the manor on “the said John and Margaret his wife and John their son”, with “successive remainders in tail to Thomas, Nicholas and Richard brothers of the latter”. The licence does not give Margaret’s family. That she was the Draycote sister rests on the matching names, a Margaret married to a Despenser with a son Nicholas. The Victoria County History^W of Oxfordshire (vol. 5, ‘Albury’, pp. 8–14) records, from the Lincoln bishops’ registers, that John le Despenser’s widow held Albury in 1349 and 1361; it does not name her. The records write the married surname Despenser, Despencer and Spencere.