♂Nicholas de Audley

Nicholas de Audley (died before 28 August 1299) was an English knight, lord of Heleigh^W in Staffordshire, who died while his heir was a boy of ten. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Nicholas de Audley (1292–1316).

The Audley inheritance

Nicholas was the fourth of the Audley brothers, and the lordship reached him late. The Complete Peerage records that it passed through three of his elder brothers in ten years: James died without children in 1273, Henry in 1276, and William was killed in the war in Wales^W in 1282, leaving Nicholas as his heir.

Besides Heleigh and the family’s other manors in Staffordshire, among them Audley, Talk and Tunstall, he held Red Castle and Edgmond in Shropshire, and in his wife’s right the castle of Llandovery^W in Wales. In 1292 he went to law against the Prior of the Knights Hospitaller^W in England, who, he said, had kept him from presenting a priest to the vacant church of Kinnersley, in Herefordshire. In January 1297 he was summoned to attend the king at Salisbury, and in 1298 and 1299 to serve against the Scots^W.

Marriage and family

Nicholas de Audley married Katherine Giffard, a daughter of John Giffard of Brimpsfield^W, in Gloucestershire, by his first wife, Maud, the heiress of Walter de Clifford. They had two sons, Thomas, born about 1289, and Nicholas, born on 11 November 1292, and a daughter, Ela; Katherine was most likely the mother of all three.

Death

Nicholas died before 28 August 1299, when the writ went out for the inquest into his lands, and the jurors found his heir to be “Thomas his son, aged 10 on the quinzaine of Easter last”, a boy born in the spring of 1289. He left a will, and in 1303 Ralph de Hengham sued his widow, Katherine, and three others, the executors of that will, for a debt of 208 marks. Thomas did not live to come of age, and in January 1308 the inquest after his death named his younger brother Nicholas as his heir.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Nicholas de Audley, Nicholas’s daughter Alice de Audley (born 1313), her daughter Isabel de Meynell (died 1393), Isabel’s son Hugh Shirley (died 1403), his son Ralph Shirley and Ralph’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from her through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 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

Death and heir

The writ for the inquest on “Nicholas de Aldithele alias de Audeleye” is dated 28 August 27 Edward I (1299) (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 536); the jurors named “Thomas his son, aged 10 on the quinzaine of Easter last” as his next heir and did not name his wife. The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 1, 1910, p. 338) gives his death as 28 August 1299; Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., 2011), p. 148 (Audley 6), has him die “testate shortly before 28 Aug. 1299”. The inquest on Thomas (vol. 5, no. 62, writ 16 January 1 Edward II) named Nicholas, “brother of the said Thomas, aged 18 at the feast of St. Martin last”, as his next heir; another jury there gave him as 17.

His brothers and parents

The Complete Peerage (vol. 1, p. 338) makes Nicholas “br. and h.” of William, “b. before 1258”, and gives the three elder brothers in turn: James, born 1250, died without issue 1273; Henry, born 1251, died without issue 1276; William, born 18 October 1253, “slain in 1282 … in the Welsh expedition”. Richardson (p. 147) calls Nicholas the fourth son and heir in 1282 to his brother William, and both works make the four brothers sons of James de Audley, who died in Ireland in 1272, and Ela Longespée. Those parents are not carried on this site.

Marriage and children

The Complete Peerage (vol. 1, p. 338): “He m. Catherine, da. of John Giffard, [1st Lord Giffard of Brimpsfield], by his 1st wife, Maud, widow of William Longespee … da. and h. of Walter de Clifford.” Richardson (pp. 147–148) agrees and lists the children as Thomas, Nicholas and Ela, “wife successively of Gruffudd ab Owain, James de Perrers, and Peter Giffard”. The inquests of 1299 and 1308 name the two sons but not their mother.

Lands, lawsuit and summonses

Richardson (pp. 147–148) gives his manors, Llandovery Castle “in right of his wife”, the plea of 1292 against the Prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem over the church of Kinnersley, the summonses against the Scots in 1298 and 1299, and Ralph de Hengham’s suit of 1303 against the widow and the other executors. The Complete Peerage (vol. 1, p. 338) records the summons of 26 January 1296/7 to attend the king at Salisbury, adding that it “cannot be considered as a regular writ of summons to Parl.”