♀Parnel de Lacy

Parnel de Lacy (living in 1281) was an English noblewoman, a daughter of Walter de Lacy^W, who outlived two husbands, Ralph de Tony and William St. Omer, and held the manor of Britford, near Salisbury, that had come to her on her first marriage. On 4 August 1278, as a widow, she granted her whole manor of Britford to Thomas St. Omer, to hold to him and his heirs for a bunch of roses at Midsummer, a token rent in place of a money rent. She was the twenty-first great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) through her son Roger de Tony (died 1264), and her twenty-second great-grandmother by two more lines through Constance (living in 1266): three separate lines of descent in all.

First marriage

Between 1232 and 1240 her father gave Ralph de Tony the manors of Britford in Wiltshire and Yarkhill in Herefordshire with her, and promised that if he could not make the gift good, he would make it up from his other lands in England or, failing those, from his castle of Trim^W in Ireland. Walter de Lacy, who held the barony of Weobley in Herefordshire, granted Britford and Yarkhill to Ralph in frank-marriage^W with Parnel: the manors were to pass to Ralph and his heirs by Parnel, and to come back to Walter and his heirs if she died without children. Ralph is said to have been lord of Castle Maud (now Painscastle) in Radnorshire and Baron of Flamstead in Hertfordshire.

Ralph and Parnel had a son and heir, Roger, and a daughter, Margaret, and probably a second daughter, Constance. Roger, who is said to have been born about 1235, was not yet four when an agreement was made on 30 June 1239 for his marriage to Alice de Bohun, a daughter of the Earl of Hereford. Ralph seems to have died while Roger was still a boy, for the king granted the custody of his lands to Queen Eleanor^W, though not the marriage of his heir. As his widow she gave half of Yarkhill to Fulk FitzWarin and his wife, Constance, in frank-marriage.

Second marriage

She is said to have married William St. Omer, an English knight, before 15 October 1256. In the Michaelmas term^W of 1277 “William de St. Omer and Petronilla his wife” were summoned to answer William de Bradicote in a Norfolk case before the Exchequer of Pleas^W. William died within the year. No children of the second marriage are recorded.

Widowhood

Parnel’s grant of Britford to Thomas St. Omer was made at Coulston on 4 August 1278. Thomas is thought to have been William’s son by an earlier marriage, and he is also said to have married her daughter Margaret, so that Parnel was both his stepmother and his mother-in-law. On 30 September 1281, before the king’s justices at Salisbury, a fine^W was levied by which she recognized Britford as his by her gift.

As a widow she made smaller grants as well: to Walter de Camera, the land in Britford that Lucy de la Stonenebrige had held of her, for 12 pence a year; to Peter Stultus of Kirtling, the lands that Godewin the reeve had once held of her, for 10 shillings a year and suit at her court of Britford; and to William the butler, her servant, all her lands in Bramshaw, except the wood called “Birchenwode”, which she kept for her own use, though he might run forty pigs in it free of charge. When she died is not known.

Her descendants did not let Britford go. Her great-grandson Robert de Tony sued Thomas for Britford and Bramshaw, saying that Ralph had held them in his own right in King Henry III’s time and that they had come down from him to Roger, from Roger to his son Ralph, and from that Ralph to Robert. Thomas answered that Parnel, as Ralph’s widow, had enfeoffed him, and on 25 April 1307 Robert gave up all his right in both manors for 170 marks, keeping only Thomas’s homage and the service of a chaplet of roses. The same year Robert sued to recover the half of Yarkhill as well.

Lines of descent

One line runs through her son Roger de Tony (died 1264), Roger’s son Ralph de Tony (died 1295) and Ralph’s daughter Alice de Tony (died 1325), and on through the la Zouche, Botetourt, Peshale and Mitton families to, probably, John Washburn (died 1547), and down to Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885). The other two run through her probable daughter Constance, Constance’s son Fulk FitzWarin (1251–1315) and Fulk’s probable daughter Hawise FitzWarin (died 1344), and down to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683); they part there and meet again in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839). All three lines come together in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), both descend from Ralph and Parnel.

Notes

Her name and family

The records give her name as Parnel, Pernel, Perronelle and, in Latin, Petronilla; as a widow she is Parnel de Tony or de Thony. Walter de Lacy’s own charter calls her “Parnel his daughter”. Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), p. 824 (Tony 3), names her father “Walter de Lacy, Baron of Weobley”; F. N. Craig, “Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 140 (1986), p. 219, names him William de Lacy, against the charter. Her mother is not named in these sources.

The marriage charter and her grants

Walter de Lacy’s charter granting Britford and Yarkhill to Ralph de Tony “in frank marriage with Parnel his daughter”, with the promise of an exchange from his lands in England or, failing that, from his lands in Ireland, “of the castle of Trim”, is no. 999 in J. L. Kirby, ed., The Hungerford Cartulary, Part Two (Wiltshire Record Society 60, 2007), dated by the editor to between 1232 and 1240. Her charter “in widowhood” granting Britford to Thomas St. Omer, at Coulston on 4 August 1278, “rendering a bunch of roses at Midsummer”, is no. 1000; the fine of 30 September 1281 is recited in no. 1001. Her grants to Walter de Camera, Peter Stultus and William the butler are nos. 1016, 1052 and 1074; the last is undated, of the late thirteenth century. The Yarkhill gift to Fulk and Constance is from Feet of Fines, case 80, file 14, no. 277, as abstracted in the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 5, p. 495, note d), where she is “Perronelle”.

Her second marriage

The marriage to William St. Omer before 15 October 1256 is from Craig (p. 219), who cites the Complete Peerage. The 1277 case is in Select Cases in the Exchequer of Pleas (Selden Society 48, 1932), p. 88, no. 147; with her grant “in widowhood” of 4 August 1278, it places William’s death between the autumn of 1277 and August 1278. A memorandum of about 1400 in the Hungerford Cartulary (no. 1003) makes her daughter Margaret the wife of William and the mother of Thomas; that cannot stand beside the 1277 case, and the Victoria County History of Hampshire (vol. 4, p. 624) and Craig (p. 220) marry Margaret to Thomas instead.

Constance

The records that name Constance call her only the wife of Fulk FitzWarin. The Complete Peerage (vol. 5, p. 495) calls her a daughter of Sir Ralph de Tony; its evidence is that Parnel, as Ralph’s widow, passed half of Yarkhill to Fulk and Constance in frank-marriage, a gift normally made for a daughter of the family. In 1307 Robert de Tony, “son of Ralph, son of Roger, son of the said Ralph de Tony”, sued John Pryde to recover it, and Pryde called on Constance’s son to warrant his title.

Ralph’s lands and the Tony suit

Ralph’s lordships are from the Complete Peerage (vol. 5, p. 495) and Richardson (p. 824), who also gives Roger’s birth about 29 September 1235, the marriage agreement of 30 June 1239 and the grant of the custody of Ralph’s lands to Queen Eleanor, citing the Close Rolls of 1237–1242 (p. 422). Robert de Tony’s plea against Thomas, in which Thomas answered that “Ralph and Parnel had issue Roger. Parnel survived Ralph and enfeoffed Thomas”, is no. 1001 in the Hungerford Cartulary; Robert’s quitclaim of 25 April 1307, which calls Parnel “Robert’s great-grandmother”, is no. 1002.