♀Maud (surname unknown)

Maud was an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by four separate lines of descent, all through her son John de Lacy (died 1240): by three of them she was her twenty-fourth great-grandmother, and by the fourth her twenty-fifth.

Life

She married Roger Fitz John, hereditary Constable of Chester^W, later lord of Pontefract in Yorkshire. Her family is not certain: one account of the peerage calls her Maud de Clare. Their son and heir, John, was born about 1192 and came into his inheritance as Constable of Chester in July 1213. In 1194 Roger’s grandmother Aubreye gave him the honor of Pontefract^W, and Roger took the name of Lacy.

Lines of descent

All four lines run through John de Lacy. They meet again in Maurice Berkeley (about 1435–1506), whose parents James Berkeley (about 1394–1463) and Isabel Mowbray (died 1452) both descend from Roger and Maud; in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825) both do; and in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884) both do.

Notes

Sources

Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), LACY 1, p. 479, gives John de Lacy as the son and heir of “Roger Fitz John (de Lacy), of Pontefract, Yorkshire, hereditary Constable of Chester, by his wife, Maud,” born about 1192. Roger’s birth name, the gift of Pontefract in 1194 and his change of name, and John’s livery of his inheritance in July 1213, are from G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. VII (1929), LINCOLN, p. 676. Both are printed accounts of the medieval nobility.

Her name

Richardson gives Roger’s wife only as Maud. The Complete Peerage calls her Maud de Clare, without naming her parents.