♀Maud FitzJohn

Maud FitzJohn (died 16 April 1301) was an English noblewoman, the eldest daughter of John FitzGeoffrey, who married first Gerard de Furnival of Sheffield and then William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. She was the twenty-second great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Isabel de Beauchamp (died 1306).

Marriages

Maud was the eldest daughter of John FitzGeoffrey^W, of Shere in Surrey, and Isabel le Bigod. Her first husband, Gerard de Furnival, of Sheffield in Yorkshire, died before 18 October 1261, and they had no children.

Maud FitzJohn, the widow of Gerard de Furnival of Sheffield, married William de Beauchamp before 1270. He had inherited the earldom of Warwick from his uncle in 1268. The couple had one son, Guy, who succeeded his father as Earl of Warwick, and three daughters, Isabel, Anne and Amy; Anne and Amy became nuns at Shouldham.

Heiress and widow

In 1297 Maud was one of the co-heiresses of her brother, Richard FitzJohn^W, and inherited the manors of Cherhill in Wiltshire, Potterspury in Northamptonshire and Quarrendon in Buckinghamshire, with townships in Thomond^W in Ireland.

William de Beauchamp died at Elmley on 5 June 1298, leaving a will. In 1299, as a widow, Maud presented her own nephew, Nicholas Boteler, a clerk, to the church of Wickwar, naming him to its living under the patron’s right called an advowson^W. She died on 16 April 1301. Both were buried at the Franciscan friary, the Friars Minor, at Worcester.

The family

Their son Guy de Beauchamp was knighted by Edward I on 25 March 1296. Weeks after his father’s death he fought in the king’s division at the Battle of Falkirk^W on 22 July 1298, where he distinguished himself for bravery and was rewarded with estates in Scotland. In 1300 he took part in the siege of Caerlaverock^W.

Notes

Sources

Maud’s parentage, both marriages, her children, her inheritance from her brother, the Wickwar presentation, her death and burial, and her husband’s death, are from Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), BEAUCHAMP 4, pp. 53–54, a printed genealogy of the medieval nobility that cites the Complete Peerage, the Victoria County History and the registers of the bishops of Worcester. Guy’s knighthood and service in Scotland are from the same work, BEAUCHAMP 5, p. 54.

Dates

Richardson gives Maud’s death as 16 (or 18) April 1301, and William’s as 5 (or 9) June 1298. Her date of birth is not given.