♂Sewallis Shirley

Sewallis Shirley (living in 1192) was lord of Ettington in Warwickshire in the late twelfth century, and held lands in Derbyshire as well under the Earls Ferrers. He was the twenty-fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Henry Shirley (died 1220).

Inheritance

Sewallis was a son of Fulcher Shirley, whose family had held Ettington since the Domesday survey of 1086. He had three brothers: Henry, the eldest, Fulcher and Jordan. According to a settlement between the brothers, printed in the family’s history, Henry, the first-born, handed his birthright to Sewallis, making him lord of the two baronies that had belonged to their father Fulcher and to their uncle Henry. The same settlement secured the dower Sewallis had given his first wife, Matilda Ridel, and the dower their brother Jordan had given his own wife.

Henry’s branch went on holding its lands under Sewallis. In 1192, after Henry’s death, Henry’s son Fulcher came before the court of William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby^W, at Tutbury, and by a final concord^W acknowledged that he held his whole tenement of his uncle.

Sewallis is said to have been the first of the family to call himself de Shirley, after the manor of Shirley in Derbyshire, and his deeds name him both as Sewallis son of Fulcher and as Sewallis de Scyrle.

Bradley and Sturston

Among the men who held land of him was William, son of Serlo de Grendon. Sewallis confirmed to William the whole vill of Bradley, which William’s father had held of him, and the vill of Sturston, which had been the free marriage portion^W of William’s mother, probably Sewallis’s own sister. He also licensed William to make a hay in Bradley wood, a fenced enclosure for taking deer; William paid Sewallis twenty shillings for the licence and gave half a mark of silver to Sewallis’s second wife, Alice. Henry, Sewallis’s son and heir, later confirmed Bradley and Sturston to William as lands Serlo had held of his father.

Family

Sewallis married twice, first Matilda Ridel and then Alice, and had at least four sons: Henry, who succeeded him as lord of Ettington, Ralph, Richard and Fulcher. Ralph and Richard witnessed a charter of their brother Henry.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Henry Shirley, Henry’s son Sewallis Shirley (died before 1255) and the Shirleys of Ettington down to 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 deeds

Almost everything known of Sewallis comes from the deeds printed in the appendix of Evelyn Philip Shirley’s Stemmata Shirleiana (2nd ed., 1873), most of them from Dugdale’s manuscript collections and the family’s Great Family Pedigree. The undated settlement between the brothers (App. xii) says that “Henricus Primogenitus fecit illum Dominum et antenatum”, that Henry the first-born made Sewallis lord and elder-born; Stemmata Shirleiana reads it as Henry having “sold his birthright to his younger brother Sewallis”. It names Sewallis’s wife “Matildi Ridel”. The concord of 1192 (App. xiii), made at Tutbury between Sewallis and “Fulcherum filium Henrici nepotem suum”, confirms the arrangement. The Grendon licence and grant are App. xiv and xv; the grant runs in the name of “Sewalus filius Fulcheri”, and Henry’s confirmation of it is App. xxix.

William de Grendon’s mother

The grant gives William the vill of Sturston “sicut liberu maritagium matris suae”, as his mother’s free marriage portion. Stemmata Shirleiana, introducing William as the son of Serlo de Grendon, adds of the Grendon “who had married his sister”, and its pedigree chart says that “Serlo de Grandon appears to have married a dau. of Fulcher”. On that reading William’s mother was Sewallis’s sister, which would explain why her marriage portion was Shirley land; no deed says so outright.

His wives and sons

Stemmata Shirleiana (p. 11) says he was twice married, first to “Matilda Ridell” and secondly to “Alicia”, and had five sons, Henry, Fulcher, Hugh the chaplain, Ralph and Richard, without saying which wife was their mother; its chart pairs him with Alicia. Ralph and Richard appear as “Rad fil Sewali, Ric fil Sewali” among the witnesses to Henry’s charter (App. xxxi). Hugh the chaplain is not counted here: the charter that names him, an act of Earl Robert de Ferrers, who died by 1162, lists “Hugone Capellano filio Sewalonis” beside Henry and Fulcher, which fits the generation of Sewallis’s father and uncles better than his sons.

Other accounts

The Victoria County History of Warwickshire (vol. 5, 1949) counts fewer generations than Stemmata Shirleiana: it runs Saswalo (1086), Fulcher (died about 1105), Sewallis (died about 1129) and Henry (died about 1165) straight to the Sewallis of 1242 and 1247. That does not fit a Sewallis son of Fulcher who was still living in 1192; this page follows Stemmata Shirleiana. When he died is not known.