♂Richard Fettiplace

Richard Fettiplace (died 1510 or 1511) was an English squire of East Shefford in Berkshire. He made his will on 11 August 1510 and named his wife, Elizabeth Bessiles, as his executrix, and she was then expecting a child. He was the thirteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Anne Fettiplace.

Early life

Richard was the son of John Fettiplace of East Shefford and his wife Joan Fabian. His father, said to have been a citizen and draper of London and a member of the household of King Henry VI, died in 1464 while all his children were still young. John’s will left bequests “to Richard my son” and to his brothers Antony, Thomas and William and his sister Margaret, and it provided for what should happen “if my Richard my son decesse afore he come to lawfull age”. Richard was the son and heir, and like his father he made his home at East Shefford.

Marriage and family

Richard married Elizabeth Bessiles, the daughter of William Bessiles of Bessels Leigh in Berkshire and his wife Alice Harcourt. They are said to have had five sons and seven daughters: John, Edward, Anthony, a second John and Thomas, and Susan, Jane, Anne, Dorothy, Mary, Eleanor and Elizabeth. Three of the daughters are said to have become nuns, Dorothy and Eleanor at Syon Abbey^W and Elizabeth at Amesbury Priory^W, and Susan later took a widow’s vow of chastity at Syon. The Anne who married Edward Purefoy, a gentleman of Shalston in Buckinghamshire, was probably their daughter.

Death

In his will Richard called himself “Richard ffetiplace of Estshifford in the Countie of Berk Squyer” and asked to be buried “in the Chauncell of the priory of Poghley”, the small house of Poughley Priory^W in the parish of Chaddleworth. He left the estate in Elizabeth’s hands as executrix and chose as supervisors “my wifes fader William Besils and my brother William ffetiplace”, the same brother who had been a child beside him in their father’s will. The will remembered “my two doughters Dorothe and Elinor” and “my wif now beyng with childe”. It was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 15 May 1511, so Richard died within those nine months. Elizabeth is said to have married Sir Richard Eliot before 1515, and she died before 9 October 1520.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Anne, her 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 will

The will is entered in the registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PROB 11/17, quire “Fetiplace”; cited by Douglas Richardson as P.C.C. 1 Fettiplace). It is dated “Anno dni Millmo quingentesimo decimo, vndecimo die Augusti” (11 August 1510), and the probate act is dated “xv die mensis Maij … millesimo quingentesimo vndecimo” (15 May 1511). No record of his burial is known.

His parents

Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., p. 264) calls Richard “son and heir of John Fettiplace, of East Shefford, Berkshire, Citizen and draper of London, member of the household of King Henry VI, by Joan, daughter of Edward Fabian”. John Fettiplace’s own will (PROB 11/5, quire “Godyn”) names Richard first among his children, with Antony, Thomas, William and Margaret. An interpolated leaf in the Berkshire visitation pedigree (The Four Visitations of Berkshire, Harleian Society vol. 56, p. 28) instead makes “Rycharde his eldist Sonne” the son of Sir Thomas Fettiplace and “the Ladye Beatryce. Countesse of Shrewsburye. and daughter to Alphoncius Kinge of Portingall”. Sir Thomas was in fact John’s father, and the royal birth of his wife Beatrice is a family legend; this account follows Richardson and the will.

The children

The Berkshire visitation pedigree (p. 28) names Richard’s children as John, Edward, Anthony, a second John, Thomas, Susan (wife of Kingston), Jane (Moore), Anne (Purefoy of Shalston), Dorothy, Eleanor (a nun of Syon) and Elizabeth (a nun of Amesbury). Richardson (p. 264) agrees and adds Mary, wife of James Yate; he makes Dorothy the wife of John Codryngton and afterwards a nun of Syon, and Susan the wife of John Kingston and afterwards a vowess of Syon. The repeated name John may mean that an elder son of that name died young; neither source says.

Anne

Anne’s place as Richard’s daughter rests on the Berkshire visitation and Richardson, who both make her the wife of Edward Purefoy of Shalston. The 1619 Leicestershire visitation pedigree of the Purefoy family instead calls Edward’s wife “Anne Da. of Tho. Phetiplace”, naming a Thomas rather than Richard as her father.