♂Sir Peter de Braose

Peter de Braose (about 1273 – 1311) was an English knight of the Braose family, lords of Bramber in Sussex, who held the manor of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, and whose daughter Mary became Countess of Norfolk as the wife of Thomas of Brotherton^W, a son of Edward I. He was the nineteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Peter de Braose (died 1377).

Family and inheritance

Peter was a son of William de Braose^W, lord of Bramber and of Gower^W, by his third wife, Mary de Ros. His father provided for the children of this marriage in two settlements of lands in his rape of Bramber^W, made in 1281 and 1286, and in both Peter came next after his elder brother Richard. William also gave him the manor of Tetbury, to hold to him and the heirs of his body.

Richard died in 1295, and early in 1296 Peter, then aged 23, was found to be his next heir. He had livery of his brother’s lands on 17 March 1295/6.

Marriage and family

Peter married Agnes, the widow of Henry Huse, who had died in 1289; she already had a son, Henry Huse, from that marriage. Tetbury was the dower^W Peter assigned to Agnes at the church door when they married. Peter and Agnes had four children: Thomas, born on 8 September 1301, John, Mary, and most likely a younger son, Peter. Mary married first Ralph de Cobham and then Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk.

Death

Peter died in 1311/12; the writ for the inquisition into his lands^W was issued on 7 February 1311/12. His heir was his son Thomas, who had turned ten the previous September. Agnes’s dower was assigned to her on 18 May 1312, and by 1316 Peter’s lands and his young heir were in the keeping of Henry, Lord Tyeys. Agnes was living in 1324 and had died by 1333.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through Peter’s son Peter de Braose (died 1377) and his daughter Beatrice de Braose (died 1440), then through Beatrice’s son Ralph Shirley and his daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from Beatrix through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) 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

His son Peter

The inquisition taken after Peter’s death names only his heir, Thomas, so the younger Peter’s place in the family rests on an argument. F. N. Craig, “Whose Son was Peter de Braose?”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. 150 (July 1996), pp. 315–324, shows that the younger Peter did not inherit Wiston, as older genealogies held when they made him the son of William de Braose, the elder Peter’s youngest brother, and Eleanor de Bavent; he bought it from the king in 1357, with a remainder to a son of Thomas de Braose. The ten years between Thomas’s birth and his father’s death leave room for the younger children, and Nicholas de Percy, the younger Peter’s father-in-law, was in the service of Henry Tyeys, who had the keeping of the elder Peter’s lands in 1316. Craig concludes that “it seems safe to assume that Peter I and his wife Agnes were the parents of Peter II”, agreeing with Gerald Paget (1957): “he was probably younger son of Peter and Agnes”. The table on p. 322 marks the link with a dotted line.

His children

Thomas’s birth date and his father’s death are from The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 2, 1912, p. 308), after the inquisition of 1311/12. Mary is placed in the family by a record of 1345 naming Thomas the brother of Mary, Countess of Norfolk, and John by a plea of 1403 naming his son George as heir of Thomas’s line (Craig, p. 315, note 5).

His name

Records of his own time write him Peter or Piers de Brewose, Brewosa or Brewes; this page keeps the familiar form Braose.