♂Sir Ralph Shirley

Ralph Shirley (died 1326 or 1327) was an English knight, lord of Ettington in Warwickshire and of Shirley in Derbyshire in the reigns of Edward I and Edward II. In 1277, while his father was still living, he took on his father’s debt of 144 marks to free the mortgaged Shirley lands, and held the manor of Ettington by his father’s quitclaim. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son James Shirley.

Family and inheritance

Ralph was the son and heir of Sir James Shirley and Agnes de Wauton, whose marriage had been settled in 1247, when James’s father settled the manor of Shirley to provide Agnes’s dower. In February 1278 the bishop of Worcester wrote to the king’s justices that one Henry Fown had abducted Agnes, “the wife of Sir James de Etyndon, knight”, and kept her with him for more than five years, and that she had since died.

Sir James was also deep in debt. In 1276 Sir James had pledged his rents at Shirley, Hollington and Bupton to Richard Foun for a loan and acknowledged a debt to him of 144 marks. In February 1277, at Woodstock, Ralph acknowledged the same sum as his own, to clear the lands his father had mortgaged, and he already held Ettington by his father’s quitclaim. A month later he granted Barnham, near Thetford in Suffolk, with the advowson^W of the church of St Gregory, to John de Ubbeston.

His father probably died in 1278, and in 1279 Ralph is said to have held Ettington as two knight’s fees^W, with two plowlands in his own hands. Sir James had married again, and in November 1280 his widow, Isabella, and her new husband, John de Brumston, gave up her dower third of Shirley and Longford to Ralph for 35 gold marks. About 1282 a deed names Ralph “son and heir of James de Shirley”.

Lord of Shirley and Ettington

In 1282 Ralph is said to have granted a house and a bovate^W of land in Shirley to Geoffrey de Burgylon of Weston and to his own daughter Isabella for their lives, most likely on their marriage. Deeds of 1285 to 1291 call him lord of Shirley, and by 4 May 1311 he was a knight.

On 4 May 1311, before Walter de Thornton, mayor of Nottingham, his son James bound himself to pay Sir Ralph £100, under the Statute of Merchants^W. In March 1314 the bond was certified into Chancery, the step a creditor took when such a debt went unpaid, and a writ went to the sheriff of Suffolk. The records do not explain why a son should owe so large a sum to his father.

In 1316 Sir Ralph settled Ettington on himself for life, with remainder “to Ralph son of James de Shirley and Margaret daughter of Walter Waldeshef and their issue”. By a fine of 13 October that year he acknowledged that the manor of Shirley belonged to Walter Waldeshef, Margaret’s father, and was to pass after Walter’s death to the young couple. The family’s two manors were thus settled on his grandson, not on his son James.

Death

Sir Ralph is said to have died in 1326 or 1327, and Ettington came to his grandson Ralph under the settlement of 1316. In the remains of the old church at Ettington Park, the oldest of the Shirley monuments is a much-damaged stone effigy of a knight beside a lady, traditionally named as Sir Ralph de Shirley, with the year 1327, and Margaret de Waldeshef. The year points to this Ralph, the lady’s name to his grandson’s wife.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son James Shirley, James’s son Ralph Shirley (died 1342), Ralph’s son Thomas Shirley, Thomas’s son Hugh Shirley (died 1403), Hugh’s 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

The debts of 1276 and 1277

All three entries are in the Calendar of the Close Rolls, Edward I, vol. 1 (1272–1279). On p. 332 (1276) “James de Shirl[eye], knight” grants Richard Foun his rents in Shirley, Hollington and Bupton for a loan of 84 marks, and on p. 351 (August 1276) “James de Shirle acknowledges that he owes to Richard le Foun 144 marks”. On p. 413 (7 February 1277, Woodstock) “Ralph son of James de Shirley acknowledges that he owes to Richard Foun 144 marks for acquittance of the lands in Shirley, Olinton, and Bubbeden that James mortgaged”, and the entry mentions “the charter of quit-claim that the said Ralph had of James for the manor of Etindon”. On p. 415 (9 March 1277) “Ralph son of James de Shyrleye” grants Barnham near Thetford, with the advowson of St Gregory, to John de Ubbeston. The Shirley Association’s website cites a petition of 1277 in which James sued his son Ralph over Ettington; it is not taken here. The Victoria County History of Warwickshire (vol. 5, 1949, pp. 77–84) says that Sir James made the manor over to Ralph in 1276 and “probably died in 1278”. The records do not say whether Richard Foun was kin to the Henry Fown who abducted Agnes.

His mother

The bishop’s letter is in the Register of Bishop Godfrey Giffard (Worcestershire Historical Society, 1902), p. 95, fol. 74, dated 13 February 1278: “Henry Fown, who abducted Agnes, the wife of Sir James de Etyndon, knight, and for five years and more publicly detained her in adultery … who afterwards died in his unlawful embraces”. A sentence on Henry followed in July 1278 (p. 98). The 1247 fine, printed in Stemmata Shirleiana (2nd ed., 1873), pp. 362–363, gives Shirley “ad dotandum inde Agnetam de Wauton ux ejusd. Jacobi”. Stemmata Shirleiana makes Agnes a niece of Simon de Walton, bishop of Norwich, and calls the pedigrees that make her the bishop’s daughter “without sufficient authority”.

His stepmother, his daughter and the later deeds

The 1280 fine and the deed of about 1282 are among the Shirley deeds at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland: 26D53/336 (18 November 1280), John de Brumston and Isabella his wife against “Ralph son of James de Shirle”, and 26D53/1105, a Bobbington release by “Ralph de Shirley son and heir of James de Shirley”. Deeds 26D53/335 (1285), 184 (about 1287) and 338 (1291) name him lord of Shirley. The grant to Geoffrey de Burgylon and Isabella is a deed of St James’s day 1282, printed from Glover’s pedigree of Shirley in Stemmata Shirleiana, p. 371: “inter Radulphum de Schyrley filium Domini Jacobi de eadem … et Galfridum de Burgylon de Weston et Isabellam filiam Radulphi de Schyrley”. The holding in 1279 is from the Victoria County History. Stemmata Shirleiana also gives Ralph a brother, Simon.

The bond of 1311 and the settlement of 1316

The bond is a statute-merchant certificate at The National Archives (C 241/79/46), dated 20 March 1314: the debtor is “James, the son of Ralph de Shirley, knight”, the creditor “Ralph de Shirley, knight, his father”, who held the manor of Shirley in Appletree Hundred, Derbyshire. The Ettington settlement of 1316 is given in the Victoria County History, p. 79, and the fine for Shirley is 26D53/340 and 341 at Leicester. The Victoria County History also notes a settlement of 1318 on Ralph and an Isabel de Etindon, whom it takes to be a second wife he meant to marry; no wife of his is named in the records used here.

His death and Dugdale’s pedigree

William Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656), p. 466, says that he “in 20 E. 2. departed this life, leaving Raph his son and heir”. The twentieth year of Edward II ran from July 1326 to January 1327; the Victoria County History gives 1326. Dugdale’s chart marries this Ralph to Margaret Waldeshef and makes the next Ralph his son, a generation fewer than the Victoria County History, which makes the younger Ralph his grandson through James. The 1311 bond and the 1316 “son of James” fit the Victoria County History, and this page follows it. The effigies are described in the Victoria County History as “the recumbent effigies of Sir Ralph de Shirley 1327 and Margaret (de Waldeshief) his wife”.