♂Nicholas Brailsford

Nicholas Brailsford (died before 1166) was a Derbyshire landholder of the twelfth century, the son of Elfin, who held Brailsford in 1086, when Domesday Book was made. Nicholas held the manor after his father, as a tenant of the Ferrers earls of Derby, and passed it on to his sons. He was the twenty-fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Robert Brailsford (died before 1199). Through Robert he was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Life

Nicholas first appears beside his father. Elfin gave the township of Osmundeston to Tutbury Priory^W, with the consent of his lord, Robert de Ferrers^W, and of “Nicolao Alfini filio”, Nicholas the son of Alfin, and the earl’s son and namesake later confirmed the gift. Since the elder Robert died in 1139, the gift was made before that year.

Elfin’s is an English name, and most English landholders had lost their estates in the twenty years after the Norman Conquest. A modern Derbyshire armorial counts the Brailsfords as one of only two families in the county provably descended from a Saxon-named tenant of Domesday Book.

Nicholas was dead by 1166. In that year the barons returned to the king the names of the knights who held land of them, and in the Ferrers return, one of the Cartae Baronum^W, his fee was held by his son Henry.

Family

The name of Nicholas’s wife is not known. His children were Henry, Robert, Hugh and a daughter, Isabel, who married Hervey de Stretton. Henry, who held the fee in 1166, apparently left no children, and Brailsford passed to Robert and his line.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Robert Brailsford (died before 1199), Robert’s son Henry Brailsford (died about 1243), his son Henry Brailsford (died about 1260), his son Henry Brailsford (died about 1304), his son Ralph Brailsford, Ralph’s son Henry Brailsford, Henry’s daughter Joan Brailsford, her son Thomas Basset, Thomas’s daughter Joan Basset and Joan’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and on through Governor Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down 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 his life

The early generations of the family are set out in S. P. H. Statham, “The Brailsfords”, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vol. 59 (1938), pp. 66–80, where Nicholas is the second generation, after Elfin. Statham places his death before 1166 from the Red Book of the Exchequer (p. 338), where his son Henry holds his fee in the Ferrers return, and names his children Henry, who died without issue, Robert, Hugh and Isabel, the wife of Hervey de Stretton (pp. 67–68, 78). The Victoria County History of Derbyshire, vol. 1 (1905), prints the Domesday entry for Brailsford, “Elfin holds it” (p. 340), and gives the descent from Elfin to Nicholas and his son Henry from the Tutbury chartulary and the 1166 return (p. 301).

The Osmundeston gift is known from the younger earl Robert’s confirmation, printed among the Tutbury charters in Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. 3 (1846 edition), p. 392: “villam quae Osmundeston dicitur, quam Alfinus de Breleford, concedente patre meo Roberto de Ferariis domino suo, et Nicolao Alfini filio … dedit”. The remark on descent from a Domesday tenant is Maxwell Craven’s, in A Derbyshire Armory (Derbyshire Record Society, vol. 17), p. 24.

His father’s name

Domesday Book writes the name “Elfin”. The Victoria County History takes it to stand for Aelfwine or, “more probable”, Aelfsige; Statham calls him Aelfwine.

Two men named Hugh

A deed calendared in the Historical Manuscripts Commission’s Manuscripts of the Duke of Rutland, vol. 4, p. 54, has both “Hugo filius Nicolai” and “Hugo frater domini Henrici” among its witnesses: Hugh the son of Nicholas, and a second Hugh, the brother of a later Henry.

The number of generations

The Visitation of Sussex (Harleian Society, vol. 53, p. 6) makes Nicholas the father of a Henry whose son was living in 1286. Statham’s chain of records puts Robert and a second Henry between them, and this page follows Statham.