♂Sir Nicholas Malemayns

Nicholas Malemayns (about 1275 – 12 May 1349) was an English knight, lord of Ockley in Surrey, who inherited his father’s manors in Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Kent and Essex at about seventeen and held them for more than fifty years, serving Edward I first as a king’s yeoman. He was the nineteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through Petronilla Malmains (died 1349).

Inheritance and marriage

Nicholas was the son and heir of an older Nicholas Malemayns. When his father died, inquisitions^W taken in the spring of 1292 found him heir to Aldwick in Sussex, held of the archbishop of Canterbury, to Warnborough and Stamshaw in Hampshire, to Rainham in Essex and to land on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He was still under age, and in 1293 the king held the family’s manor of Ockley in custody for him. By 1300 he was of age, named as his father’s son and heir in a royal inquiry into the liberties of the manor.

In 1296 Nicholas surrendered his manors of Ockley, Newland, Stamshaw, Warnborough, Aldwick, Rainham and Sheppey to the king, who granted them back to Nicholas and his wife Alice together. Her seal and his survive side by side on a document of 1315; hers shows a saltire, a diagonal cross, of a family that has not been identified.

Service to the king

He is said to have been at the siege of Caerlaverock^W in 1300, when Edward I took the Scottish castle in his summer campaign. In January 1304, at Dunfermline, where the king was wintering with his army in Scotland, Nicholas, still a king’s yeoman, was granted the marriage of John, the young son and heir of William de Hardredeshull, for the benefit of one of his daughters. Two years later, on 22 May 1306, he is said to have been knighted, on the day of the great knighting at Westminster known as the Feast of the Swans^W.

By 1309 he also held land in Lincolnshire, at Cuxwold, Rothwell and Thoresway, and records of 1309 and 1316 show other men in debt to him.

Death and heirs

Sir Nicholas died on 12 May 1349, aged about seventy-four, and left no son. His heirs were his daughter Beatrice Malemayns, the wife of Sir Otes de Grandison; Elizabeth and Alice St. Omer, the young daughters of Thomas St. Omer and Petronilla, who is said to have been his own daughter; and four-year-old Margaret, the daughter of William de Hardeshulle. His manors were divided among them, the Lincolnshire manor of Rothwell in three parts. More than a century later, in 1468, the daughters of Thomas, Lord Hoo, who descended from Petronilla, sued for the manor of Ockley as the heirs of “Nicholas Malmayns and Alice”.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through Petronilla’s daughter Alice St. Omer (born 1340), Alice’s daughter Margaret Hoo, Margaret’s daughter Edith Saint Clair (born about 1423), Edith’s daughter Alice Harcourt (died 1526), Alice Harcourt’s daughter Elizabeth Bessiles, Elizabeth’s daughter Anne Fettiplace, Anne’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’s 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

His birth and inheritance

The inquisitions after his father’s death (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 13; writ of 20 April 1292) give his age differently by county: “aged 17 at Christmas next” in Sussex and Hampshire, 18 in Kent and 19 in Essex. The family tree takes about 1275. The Hampshire manors are written Suthwargheborgh and Stampneshou, Rainham is Reinham, and Sheppey is Scapeia. The custody of Ockley in 1293 is from the Victoria County History of Surrey, vol. 3, under Ockley; the entry of 1300, naming him son and heir of Nicholas Malemeyns, “De libertatibus in manerio de Okele”, is in the Calendarium Genealogicum, vol. 2 (28 Edward I, no. 54).

His wife, his service and his lands

F. N. Craig, “Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley: Hoo, St. Omer, Malmains, St. Leger, Fitzwarin and Andevill Lines”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 140 (1986), pp. 221–224, gives the surrender and regrant of 1296 (Calendar of Charter Rolls, vol. 2, p. 464) and the two seals (W. de G. Birch, Catalogue of Seals in the British Museum, vol. 3, p. 223), describing Alice’s arms as “a saltire lozengy or engrailed”. Craig is also the source for his presence at Caerlaverock in 1300 and for his knighting on 22 May 1306, which he calls making a knight of the Bath; Craig gives his death as 1350. The grant of 1304, to “Nicholas Malemeyns, king’s yeoman, to the use of his daughter”, is in the Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1301–1307, p. 208; the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, under Hardreshull) dates it 20 January 1303/4. The Lincolnshire fees and the debts owed to him are in certificates of 1309 and 1316 in the National Archives (C 241/66/44, C 241/81/113).

His death and heirs

The inquisitions of 1349 (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 9, no. 418) differ on the day of his death: “He died on 12 May, 23 Edward III” in Sussex, 4 May in Hampshire, “10 May last” in Kent, and “Thursday before the Nativity of St. John the Baptist” in Lincolnshire. The family tree follows Sussex. The same inquisitions name the heirs, calling Beatrice “daughter of Nicholas … married to Otto de Grauntsoun, knight”, and the girls “Elizabeth daughter of Thomas de Seyntomer and Pernell his wife” and her sister Alice. A separate inquisition at Caistor (no. 419) names Beatrice alone as his heir; the division of Rothwell (no. 433) gives a third to “Elizabeth and Alice, daughters of Pernell de Sancto Omero, kinswoman of Nicholas”. The Complete Peerage (vol. 6, under Hardreshull) makes Margaret’s mother Katherine, “da. and coh. of Sir Nicholas Malemayns”, and says that he left four coheirs. The suit of 1468, brought by the daughters of Thomas, Lord Hoo, and their husbands against Thomas Echingham, is from the Complete Peerage, vol. 6, under Hoo (De Banco Roll, Michaelmas 8 Edward IV, m. 606).

His daughter Petronilla

The records call Petronilla’s daughters his “kinswomen” and heirs without naming her as his daughter. The Complete Peerage (vol. 6, under Hoo) calls her “da. and coh. of Sir Nicholas Malmayns, of Ockley, Surrey”, and Craig (p. 220) takes her as his daughter, while noting that the heirs other than Beatrice were most likely the children of Beatrice’s sisters. The family tree follows them.