♀Margaret ferch Llywelyn

Margaret ferch Llywelyn married John de Braose, lord of Bramber in Sussex and of Gower^W in South Wales, and after his death Walter de Clifford^W, lord of Clifford in Herefordshire. She was the twenty-first great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son William de Braose (died 1290).

Marriages

Margaret is said to have been a daughter of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth^W, prince of North Wales, known as Llywelyn the Great. John and Margaret are said to have married in 1219. Their son and heir was William de Braose (died 1290), and a John de Breuse of Glasbury, in the county of Brecon, was probably a younger son.

John died in 1232, while William was still under age. By 1235 Margaret was named as his widow, and she then married Walter de Clifford. Their daughter, Maud, became Walter’s heir.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through John and Margaret’s son William de Braose (died 1290), his son Peter de Braose (1273–1311), Peter’s son Peter de Braose (died 1377) and his daughter Beatrice de Braose (died 1440), then through Beatrice’s son Ralph Shirley and his daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from Beatrix through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and his 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

Her parentage

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 5, 1926, p. 642, note) gives the marriage of John de Braose to Margaret, daughter of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, in 1219, citing the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion^W. The same work names her as Llywelyn’s daughter in its account of her son William (vol. 2, 1912, p. 302), as do F. N. Craig, “Whose Son was Peter de Braose?”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (July 1996), Table 1 (p. 322), and a Braose pedigree in Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. 8 (1856). The record of her second marriage, cited by Dugdale, states that Margaret, John’s widow, married Walter de Clifford, but, as The Complete Peerage notes, “makes no reference to her parentage”.

Her widowhood and her children

She is named as John’s widow in the Close Roll of 19 Henry III (1234–35). William’s succession to his father in 1232 is from the Close Roll of 16 Henry III (The Complete Peerage, vol. 2, p. 302). Maud is called the daughter and heir of Walter de Clifford by Margaret in The Complete Peerage (vol. 5, p. 642). The younger John, of Glasbury, was summoned to the king’s service from 1276 to 1283; The Complete Peerage (vol. 2, p. 307) calls him “probably a yr. s.” of John and Margaret.

Her name

Ferch is Welsh for “daughter of”.