♀Margery Hannys

Margery Hannys (died 18 May 1484) was an English gentlewoman who married Sir Peter Bessiles of Bessels Leigh in Berkshire as his second wife, and afterwards William Warbelton of Warbelton in Sussex. Both husbands made her the executrix of their wills. She outlived Sir Peter by fifty-nine years, and in that time she kept the manors his will had ordered sold for his soul and handed them on to her son Thomas’s son, William Bessiles. She was the sixteenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Thomas Bessiles (died 1458).

First marriage

Margery’s brother was Richard Hannys, whose son John Hannys of Shropshire would be her heir. Before October 1424 Margery married Sir Peter Bessiles as his second wife. Margery had a son, Thomas. Thomas was born outside marriage; Sir Peter is said to have been his father, and Thomas later called himself Sir Peter’s son. When Sir Peter made his will on 23 October 1424 he named Margery his executrix, gave her Kingston in Warwickshire for her life, and asked that Thomas be kept at school. He died on 2 March 1425 with no lawful child.

Second marriage

Margery then married William Warbelton, an esquire with lands in Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire. Sir Peter’s will had ordered Grafton and Radcot in Oxfordshire, and Bessels Leigh after Margery’s death, to be sold and the money given in alms for his soul, but as his executrix Margery and her new husband took the manors for themselves. Thomas Somerton, Sir Peter’s cousin and next of kin, sued Warbelton in the Court of Chancery^W, complaining that they had held the manors for fourteen years and more. William and Margery had no children together.

The Warbeltons looked after Thomas and his family. Thomas held Carswell and Longworth in Berkshire jointly with them, and they provided for his children for as long as he lived. Knowing that neither he nor his son could inherit land except at the Warbeltons’ pleasure, Thomas gave his son William into their keeping, marriage and all. Thomas died on 29 September 1458, and the Warbeltons, with the boy’s consent, married William at fourteen to Alice, a daughter of Richard Harcourt. By a settlement of 16 July 1461 Radcot and Grafton were to go to William Warbelton and Margery for their lives, and then to William Bessiles and Alice.

Widowhood and death

William Warbelton died on 4 January 1468/9, and Margery proved his will together with William Bessiles. On 16 June 1476 she surrendered Radcot and Grafton to William Bessiles and Alice, who took possession. Margery died on 18 May 1484. The inquisitions^W taken that July at Lewes, Guildford, Sherfield and Bampton found that the Warbelton lands in Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire passed under an earlier settlement to William Puttenham, and named as her heir her nephew John Hannys, aged forty.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son Thomas, Thomas’s son William Bessiles (1444–1515), William’s daughter Elizabeth Bessiles, her daughter Anne Fettiplace, Anne’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’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

Sources for her life

Nearly everything here comes from J. Renton Dunlop’s account of the Besils family in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, 5th series, vol. 5 (1923–25), which abstracts the records: Sir Peter’s will and inquisitions; Thomas Somerton’s bill in Chancery (Early Chancery Proceedings, bundle 10, no. 304); Thomas Besyles’s inquisition taken at Twyford in 1458; Richard Harcourt’s answer to the bill of John Nowers and Clemence (Early Chancery Proceedings, bundle 28, no. 384); William Warbelton’s inquisition of 1469; and Margery’s own inquisitions of July 1484 (2 Richard III), which give “The said Margery died the 18th May last” and name “John Hannys of the county of Shropshire, son of Richard Haunys, brother of Margery, aged 40”. Dunlop says that Margery was executrix of both husbands’ wills and that William Warbelton “died s.p. 4 January 1468-9”. Her marriage to Sir Peter “bef. Oct. 1424” and the date of Sir Peter’s will come from the History of Parliament volumes for 1386–1421 (Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe, 1993), which also give her death as 18 May 1484. The name is also written Haines, Hainys and Haunys.

Her son Thomas

The History of Parliament calls Thomas “the illegitimate son of his second wife Margery Haines (who afterwards called himself Thomas Bessels and claimed to be Sir Peter’s son and heir)”, and says that the widow had “Radcot and Grafton entailed to the advantage of the issue of her bastard son Thomas”. Dunlop’s abstract of Sir Peter’s will speaks of “Thomas, son of Margery”. Dunlop’s pedigree joins Thomas to Sir Peter by the wavy line used for a child born outside marriage, and in a Chancery bill of his own (Early Chancery Proceedings, bundle 9, no. 127) Thomas called himself “son of Sir Piers Besyles, knight”. Thomas had died before her, and neither a child born outside marriage nor his descendants could be her heirs at law, so her heir in 1484 was her brother’s son; that does not weigh against her being Thomas’s mother.