♂Robert Twyford

Robert Twyford was an English knight of the fourteenth century, of Kirk Langley and Spondon in Derbyshire, who sat in Parliament for his county five times and served the crown as sheriff and escheator. He was the twentieth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Joan Twyford. Through Joan he was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W. Sir Robert fought in the king’s wars, and in 1376 he was one of the men whom the Commons petitioned the king to ransom, asking the crown to pay for his release.

Career

Robert was the eldest son of Sir John Twyford, a knight of the shire under Edward II, who gave him land in Spondon and Chaddesden in 1343. Sir Robert followed his father into Parliament as knight of the shire^W for Derbyshire in 1352, 1365, 1368, 1369 and 1377. Between those parliaments he served on a commission of oyer and terminer^W in 1354, was sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in the mid-1360s and escheator^W for the same two counties from 1368 to 1370, and assessed taxes in 1379.

Family and death

In 1381 Sir Robert entailed^W the manor of Stretton Baskerville in Warwickshire on his son Robert, with a remainder to his other son, Ralph. He was alive in 1390 and dead by 1391, when his son Robert was patron of Kirk Langley. His wife is not known.

The old pedigrees give him two daughters and coheirs: Joan, who married Henry Brailsford of Brailsford, and Eleanor, who married John Curzon of Kedleston. Joan was probably his daughter, though one copy of the pedigrees places her a generation higher, as a daughter of Sir John.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Joan Twyford, her daughter Joan Brailsford, Joan Brailsford’s son Thomas Basset, Thomas’s daughter Joan Basset and that Joan’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and on through Governor Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and his son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One 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

His career

M. J. Sayer, “Twyford of Kirk Langley and Spondon”, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, vol. 94 (1974), pp. 26–31, works from the printed calendars of the public records. He gives Sir Robert’s seats in Parliament, his offices and the commission of 1354, the petition of 1376 (from the rolls of Parliament), the gift of land from his father in 1343, and the dates that bound his death: alive as late as 1390, dead in 1391, when his son was patron of Kirk Langley. Sayer gives the shrievalty as 1364–66.

The Victoria County History of Warwickshire, vol. 6, pp. 240–1, under Stretton Baskerville, has Ralph Pipard granting the manor to John de Twyford in 1301, and “In 1381 Sir Robert de Twyford entailed the manor on his son Robert, with contingent remainder to his other son Ralph”, citing a charter among the Harleian manuscripts. The Twyfords held the manor until 1488.

His daughters

The Shirley pedigree in the heralds’ visitations^W of Sussex (Harleian Society vol. 53, 1905, p. 6) makes Sir Henry Brailsford’s wife “Jone d. & coheire of Sr Robert of Twyford” and names a second coheir, “Eleanor d. & coheire mar. to John Curzow of Bedelston in Darbyshire” (that is, Kedleston). The Derbyshire visitation of 1569, printed in The Genealogist, new series vol. 7 (1891), p. 74, likewise has John Curzon of Kedleston marrying “Eleanor, da. and heir of Robert Twyford, Kt.”

Sayer compares two copies of the 1611 Derbyshire visitation. The Queen’s College, Oxford, copy makes Sir John the father of “Joanna wife of Henry -” and of Elena, wife of John Curzon; the Bodleian copy makes Sir Robert the father of Alice, wife of John Curzon, and “Margaret wife of Henry Brayford”. Sayer finds “some confusion as to the generations”. This page follows the Sussex pedigree, which names Sir Robert.

The dates lean the other way. Sir Ralph Shirley, the husband of Joan’s great-granddaughter Joan Basset, was born about 1391, which would put Joan Twyford’s own birth in the early fourteenth century, more easily the lifetime of a daughter of Sir John than of Sir Robert. This is an inference from the generations, not a statement of any of the sources.