♀Margaret (surname unknown)

Margaret was a Derbyshire heiress of the late twelfth century, the daughter of Ralph FitzGeremund, who brought half the manor of Ockbrook to her marriage with Serlo de Grendon, lord of Bradley. Though she bore Serlo five sons, it was their three daughters, Johanna, Isolda and Agatha, to whom the inheritance ultimately descended. She was the twenty-fourth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Isolda de Grendon.

Family and marriage

Margaret’s father, Ralph FitzGeremund, was lord of half the vill of Ockbrook and of Alvaston, near Derby. Her brother William FitzRalph was the king’s sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire^W from 1168 to 1180, and from 1178 seneschal of Normandy^W.

Serlo married Margaret and received with her half the manor of Ockbrook in frank-marriage^W, a gift of land made with a bride to her husband and their heirs. Her brother William added the wood of Ockbrook called the Little Haye, and Serlo is said to have served as William’s deputy in the shire from 1177 to 1180. Sturston, too, came to the Grendons through her: Sewallis son of Fulcher, lord of Ettington, later confirmed the vill to her son William as his mother’s free marriage portion.

Children

Serlo and Margaret had five sons and three daughters. William became a priest, lord of Ockbrook and the advocate^W, or lay protector, of the abbey of Dale, and he and his brother Serlo gave the canons land in Ockbrook for the souls of their parents and of their brothers Jordan and Fulcher, William’s grant naming “Serlo his father and … Margaret his mother”. Her brother William FitzRalph called her son “William de Grendon, a priest, the son of his sister, and Lord of Okebroke”. The abbey’s chronicle names a son Bartholomew, who became a canon there. Isolda married Henry Brailsford, lord of Brailsford.

Margaret probably died before her husband, who married a second wife, Matilda, lady of the manor of Celston.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Isolda de Grendon and Isolda’s son Henry Brailsford (died about 1260), and on through their descendants to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One 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

Her name and parentage

The chronicle of Dale Abbey written by Thomas de Musca, one of its canons, translated by Charles Kerry in Depedale, and the Chronicle of Thomas de Musca, Canon of Dale Abbey (1883), chapter VII, calls her Margery: Serlo de Grendon “received Margery, the daughter of the aforesaid Radulph, the son of Geremund, as his wife, and with her the half of the Manor of Okebroke in free dowry”, and “By her he had three daughters; viz.: Johanna, Isolda, and Agatha, to whom … the inheritance ultimately descended”, and five sons. A later chapter gives William FitzRalph’s words about her son. The abbey’s chartulary, abstracted by J. C. Cox in the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. 24 (1902), pp. 87–88, names her Margaret in her sons’ grants, and the family tree uses that form. The chronicle calls Matilda Serlo’s second wife; that Margaret died first is an inference from this.

S. P. H. Statham, “Later Descendants of Domesday Holders of Land in Derbyshire”, in the same Journal, vol. 48 (1926), pp. 57–62, follows the Dale foundation history in making Ralph son of Geremund lord of half of Ockbrook and of Alvaston, quotes from the Tutbury chartulary a grant by “W(illiam) f. Ralph f. Geremund” naming “Ralph f. Geremund, my father”, and gives William’s years as sheriff and seneschal. He writes (p. 59) that Serlo de Grendon, William’s brother-in-law, acted as his deputy from 1177 to 1180, and (p. 62) that all of Margaret’s sons died without male heirs, so that “the main part of their mother’s inheritance went eventually to her daughters Johanna, Isolda and Agatha”.

Sturston and an earlier identification

The Sturston confirmation is printed in Stemmata Shirleiana (1873), appendix XV: “Sewalus filius Fulcheri” grants to William son of Serlo de Grendon “totam villam de Sturstona, sicut liberu maritagium matris suae”. The deed does not say who gave Sturston with her. A pedigree in the same book suggests that “Serlo de Grandon appears to have married a dau. of Fulcher”, which would have made Margaret a sister of Sewallis; the Dale chronicle names her father as Ralph son of Geremund, and the family tree follows the chronicle. How Sturston, held of the lords of Ettington, became part of her marriage portion is not explained in the records.