♀Margaret (surname unknown)

Margaret (died 11 May 1336) was a daughter of the Welsh prince Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn^W of Upper Powys^W, and married the English baron Fulk FitzWarin, lord of Whittington on the Welsh border; her marriage brought back to the FitzWarins the land of Bauseley, which her father had held until the wedding. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her daughter Hawise FitzWarin (died 1344).

Marriage

Fulk married Margaret, a daughter of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, Prince of Upper Powys, before 25 February 1276/7. Fulk’s father had held the land of Bauseley, on the Welsh border in Montgomeryshire, as his right, until Gruffydd occupied it during a dispute with Thomas Corbet; Gruffydd kept it until Fulk married his daughter, and then gave it back to Fulk as his right. Later disputes arose, and Fulk lost Bauseley again.

Their son and heir was another Fulk. Their daughter was probably the Hawise, “daughter of Sir Fulk son of Warin”, who married Ralph de Goushill, a young heir who died before 30 August 1294, and later Robert Hoo. The record does not say which of the successive Fulks of Whittington was her father, but the dates fit Margaret’s husband, not his father, who drowned in 1264.

Widowhood and death

Fulk was summoned to Parliament from 1295 and is held to have been the first Lord FitzWarin. He died on 24 November 1315, and Margaret outlived him by more than twenty years, holding a third of the manor of Alveston, in Gloucestershire, as her dower^W for the rest of her life. She died on 11 May 1336; the inquest held in Gloucestershire that July named her “Margareta que fuit uxor Fulconis le FitzWaryn”, Margaret who was the wife of Fulk FitzWarin.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her daughter Hawise, Hawise’s son Thomas Hoo (died 1380), Thomas’s son William Hoo (1335–1410), and William’s daughter Margaret Hoo, whose descendants include Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 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 and marriage

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 5, p. 497, under FitzWarin) names her as Margaret, daughter of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, “called also de la Pole” (Welshpool), Prince or Lord of Upper Powys, by Hawise, daughter of Sir John Lestrange of Knockin, Shropshire. The marriage date and the Bauseley story come from an inquest taken in Shropshire on 25 February 1276/7, which says that Gruffydd held the land “until the Fulk fitz Warin now living married his daughter”.

Her death

The writ for the inquest after her death is dated 28 June 1336, and the inquest was held in Gloucestershire on 10 July 1336. She held the third of Alveston for life, of the inheritance of Walter, son and heir of Walter de Gloucestre, a minor in the king’s wardship. The escheator accounted for the issues from 11 May 1336, the day she died (Complete Peerage, vol. 5, p. 497, citing the inquisition and the escheators’ enrolled accounts).

Her daughter Hawise

The inquisition after the death of Ralph de Goushill (1294; Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 209) names his wife as “Hawis daughter of Sir Fulk son of Warin”, without saying which Fulk. Hawise is taken to be Margaret’s daughter because Margaret is the only recorded wife of the Fulk whose dates fit; the Complete Peerage’s FitzWarin article names no daughter Hawise.