♂Nicholas Malemayns

Nicholas Malemayns (died by April 1292) was an English landholder of the thirteenth century whose manors lay in Sussex, Hampshire, Essex and Kent, and whose family held Ockley in Surrey. He was the twentieth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Nicholas Malemayns (1275–1349).

Life

Nicholas was probably the son of an older Nicholas Malemayns. In 1262 two suits were brought in the King’s Bench^W against John Gatesden over land in Ockley, one involving “Nicholas the son of Nicholas Malmains” and the other “Nicholas Malmains senior and Nicholas Malmains junior”, so that father and son were both alive at the time. The name of his wife is not known.

Death and heir

He died by 20 April 1292, when the king ordered inquisitions^W into his lands. The juries found that he had held Aldwick in Sussex of the archbishop of Canterbury, Southwarnborough and Stamshaw, by Portsmouth, in Hampshire, Rainham in Essex and land on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. His heir was his son Nicholas, “aged 17 at Christmas next” by the Sussex count. The boy was still under age, and in 1293 the king held the lands and heir of Nicholas in custody, acting for them at Ockley. The younger Nicholas came into the inheritance and held it until his own death in 1349.

Lines of descent

Both lines run from his son Nicholas through Petronilla Malmains (died 1349) and her daughter Alice St. Omer (born 1340) down to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). From Samuel they divide, one reaching Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and the other his wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

His death and the inquisitions of 1292

The writ of diem clausit extremum for his lands is dated 20 April, 20 Edward I (1292) (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 13; The National Archives, C 133/61/13). The Sussex inquisition, taken on the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross, gives the heir’s age as 17, as does Hampshire; Kent gives 18 and Essex 19. The manors are written Aldewyke, Suthwargheborgh alias Suthwargheburn, Stampneshou, Reinham and Scapeia. F. N. Craig, “Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 140 (1986), pp. 222–223, dates his death to 1291; this page keeps “before 20 April 1292”, the date of the writ. The custody of 1293 is from the Victoria County History of Surrey, vol. 3, under Ockley.

His father

The suits of 1262 are cited by Craig (Close Rolls, Henry III, vol. 12, p. 115), who concludes from them that this Nicholas was the son of the Nicholas Malemayns who, with his wife Agnes, made a fine over land in Pevensey in 1252. Whether Agnes was this Nicholas’s mother is not stated, and Craig adds that the wife of this Nicholas is not known. This page follows Craig on the father and leaves the mother blank.