♂Richard Harcourt

Richard Harcourt (9 December 1256 – before 1 March 1293) was an English landholder, lord of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, Bosworth in Leicestershire and Ellenhall in Staffordshire, who lost his father as a boy, came of age in 1278 and died at thirty-six, leaving an heir of eighteen. He was the twentieth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son John Harcourt (1274–1330).

Early life

Richard was the only son of William Harcourt, and his mother was most likely William’s second wife, Hillaria Hastings. His father died in 1269, while Richard was still a boy, and the king gave the custody of William’s lands and heirs to Adam de Monhaut. Richard himself is said to have spent his minority in the keeping of John Beke^W, lord of Eresby in Lincolnshire.

Marriage

Richard Harcourt and Margaret Beke were married by about 1274. Margaret’s father is said to have been the boy’s guardian, and so to have married the young heir to his own daughter. A guardian controlled the marriage of his ward^W, and marrying a well-endowed heir to one of his own children was a common use of that right. They had three sons: John, the heir, born about 1274; Henry, who with his wife, Eleanor, was given a yearly rent of £24 at Bosworth during his father’s lifetime; and Nicholas, who is said to have become rector of Sheepy in Leicestershire.

Coming of age

Richard turned 21 on 9 December 1277, and in January 1278 a jury at Woodstock heard the proof of his age^W. One witness remembered that Richard’s father had gone to Ela, Countess of Warwick^W, and “made known that he had a son named Richard, and he had no other than this”. With his age proved, he is said to have been given his lands that year. He seems to have made his home at Stanton Harcourt, and he was probably summoned for Edward I’s wars in Wales^W in 1282 and again in 1287, when he went with the Earl of Cornwall^W.

Death

Margaret died before her husband, and Richard married again; when he died early in 1293 his widow was Joan. The writ ordering the inquest^W on his lands is dated 1 March 1293, and the inquests at Bosworth, Stanton Harcourt and Ellenhall named “John his eldest son, aged 18 at the feast of All Saints last” as his next heir. By that reckoning Richard had become a father at about seventeen, although a later historian of the family thought the jurors had made John three or four years too old. On 2 May 1293 dower from Richard’s lands was assigned to “Joan late his wife”.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son John Harcourt (1274–1330) and grandson William Harcourt (1300–1349) and, much further down, through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). From Samuel one line comes down 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

Birth and proof of age

His birth date comes from the proof of age taken at Woodstock in January 1278 (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 2, no. 294): “the said Richard was 21 on the 3rd day after St. Nicholas, 6 Edw. I”, that is, 9 December 1277, so he was born on 9 December 1256. The same proof records the witness William de Sancto Audoeno’s memory of William Harcourt telling Ela, Countess of Warwick, that he had a son named Richard “and he had no other than this”. An editor’s note in Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 4 (1883), says that Richard “was a minor at his father’s death, and proved his age A.D. 1278”. J. C. Wedgwood’s “Harcourt of Ellenhall” (Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 1914, p. 194) says that he “proved his age and had seisin in 1278”.

Parents

The proof of age names his father but not his mother. William Harcourt’s first wife, Alice la Zouche, had two daughters, Orabel and Margery, and the lands settled on William and Alice and the heirs of their bodies went to those daughters, not to Richard (Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol. 4, pp. 182 and 188). The pedigree in the cartulary^W of Ronton Priory (printed there, pp. 272–273) places William’s marriage to Hillaria, “soror Domini Henrici de Hastingges”, after Alice’s death, and Richard after that marriage, and The Harcourt Papers, vol. 1 (1880), p. 63, say that “By his second wife, Sir William had an only son, Richard”. Hillaria is therefore taken to be his mother. William’s death is given here as 1269; Wedgwood (p. 194) says he was alive in 1270 and dead before 19 April 1271. The grant of custody to Adam de Monhaut is recited in a royal mandate of 1271 (vol. 4, p. 182).

Wardship and marriage

Wedgwood (p. 194) writes that “During his minority he was in the custody of John, Lord Beke of Eresby”, who married him to “his daughter and ultimate co-heiress, Margaret”. The Ronton pedigree, written in his son John’s lifetime, names Richard as the man “qui desponsavit Margaretam, filiam Domini Johannis Bek”. The marriage date is not recorded; “by about 1274” follows from the age given for John in 1293. An editor’s note of 1883 called Richard’s early fatherhood “a curious illustration of the early marriages of the heirs of great families who are in ward”.

Career and children

Wedgwood (p. 194) says that Richard “seems to have lived at Stanton”, that “he enfeoffed his younger son Henry, while still an infant, at Bosworth”, and that “He was summoned on the Welsh expedition of 1282, and on that of 1287 when he accompanied the Earl of Cornwall”. The rent for Henry is in the Bosworth inquest of 1293 (vol. 3, no. 116): Richard had “enfeoffed his son Henry de Harecourt and Eleanor his wife of 24l. yearly rent”. The Harcourt Papers (vol. 1, p. 63) name “Sir John, his successor, and Nicholas, Rector of Shippey in Leicestershire” as his sons. They also say that he obtained a grant of the fairs and markets at Bosworth in 1293; Wedgwood gives the first market grant at Bosworth to his grandfather, and Richard was dead by 1 March 1293, so the claim is left out of his story.

Death and his widow

The writ of diem clausit extremum is dated 1 March 21 Edward I (1293); the inquests (vol. 3, no. 116) cover Bosworth, Stanton Harcourt and Ellenhall. Dower was assigned to “Joan late his wife” on 2 May 1293 (vol. 3, no. 117). Wedgwood (p. 194) writes that the inquisition gives his son’s age “quite incorrectly, 3 or 4 years too old”, that “His first wife must have died some time before”, and that his widow, whom he calls Jane, had been the widow of John, a grandson of Robert FitzWalkelyn, and “obtained licence to re-marry in 1296”.