♀Mary de Ros

Mary de Ros (died 1326) was an English noblewoman who married William de Braose^W, lord of the rape of Bramber^W in Sussex, as his third wife and outlived him by some thirty-five years. She was the twentieth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son Peter de Braose (1273–1311).

Marriage and children

Mary was William’s last wife; his heir, his son William, was the child of an earlier marriage. William and Mary had four children: Richard, Peter, Margaret and a younger William, born between 1281 and 1286. In two settlements of lands in his rape of Bramber, made in 1281 and 1286, William provided for them after his death, naming Richard, Peter and Margaret in the first and Richard, Peter and William in the second. He also gave Peter the manor of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, to hold to him and the heirs of his body.

Widowhood

William died in 1290 or 1291, and Mary held her dower “by the death of Sir William de Brewosa sometime her husband”. She outlived her two elder sons. Richard died in 1295, and Peter, then 23, was his heir; Peter in turn died in 1311 or 1312, leaving a son, Thomas, aged ten. When Margaret married Ralph de Camoys in 1303, Mary gave her a knight’s fee^W in Surrey.

The settlements were long contested: between 1308 and 1343 William’s heir, and after him that son’s heir John de Mowbray, went to law to recover the settled lands.

Death

Mary died in 1326; the writ for the inquisition into her lands was issued on 23 May that year. She then held the whole manor of Washington in Sussex, and two parts of the manor of Manningford Bruce, which her son Peter had granted her for life. Her heir was her grandson Thomas de Braose, Peter’s son, who was of full age.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through William and Mary’s son Peter de Braose (1273–1311), his son Peter de Braose (died 1377) and Peter’s 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

Her parents are not known. F. N. Craig, “Whose Son was Peter de Braose?”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (July 1996), p. 316, calls her “the royally descended Mary de Ros” but does not name them. A Braose pedigree in Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. 8 (1856), calls her a daughter of William de Roos.

Her marriage and children

Her marriage is on record in the inquisitions on her son Peter (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 5, no. 321, 1312) and on herself, as “Mary, late the wife of William de Brewosa” (vol. 6, no. 723). The four children, the settlements of 1281 and 1286 (Sussex feet of fines) and the knight’s fee given to Margaret are from Craig, pp. 316 and 322; The Complete Peerage (1st ed., vol. 2, p. 126) also has Ralph de Camoys marrying “Margaret, da. of Mary, widow of William de Braose”. Richard’s inquisition, early in 1296, names Peter, aged 23, as his next heir (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 346). The lawsuits are Craig’s reading of a King’s Bench case of 1308, a plea of 1317, the Patent Rolls of 1327 and the Year Books of 1343.

Her lands at death

Manningford Bruce and her heir are from her inquisition, writ of 23 May in the nineteenth year of Edward II (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 6, no. 723); Washington is from Craig, p. 316. The jury in Yorkshire gave Thomas’s age as 26, which does not agree with the age of ten given for him in 1312.