♀Sibyl de Neufmarche

Sibyl de Neufmarche^W was an heiress of the Welsh March, the daughter of Bernard de Neufmarche^W, lord of Brecknock, and the wife of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford, who gained the lordship of Brecknock through her. She was the twenty-fifth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Margaret of Gloucester (died 1187) and, probably, Margaret’s descendant John Washburn (died 1547).

The inheritance

Sibyl was not her father’s only heir: she had a brother, Mahel. Her mother, whose name and family are uncertain, is said to have sworn that her own son Mahel was not Bernard’s child, and on that oath the inheritance was given to Sibyl, whose descent from Bernard her mother vouched for. In the spring of 1121 King Henry I gave Sibyl de Neufmarche in marriage to Miles of Gloucester, together with all the lands of her father and mother, and from them came the lordship of Brecknock^W.

Countess of Hereford

Miles was sheriff and constable of Gloucester, and in the civil war of the 1130s and 1140s he took the side of the Empress Matilda^W, who created him Earl of Hereford on 25 July 1141. With her husband and their sons Roger, Walter and Henry, Sibyl joined in a grant to the priory of Llanthony^W that Miles had founded outside Gloucester.

Miles died on 24 December 1143 and was buried in the chapter house of Llanthony. Sibyl is said to have entered religion in the same house after his death; she was buried at his right hand, three of their sons later lay at his head, and their daughter Margaret was buried at her mother’s feet.

The family

The couple had five sons, Roger, Walter, Henry, William and Mahel, and three daughters, Margaret, Berthe and Lucy. Roger succeeded his father as Earl of Hereford and Constable of England in 1143 and founded Flaxley Abbey in Gloucestershire. All five sons died without children, and when the last of them, Mahel, died, the inheritance was divided among the three daughters and their husbands: Margaret, the wife of Humphrey de Bohun, is said to have had the constableship of England, Berthe the lordship of Brecknock, and Lucy the Forest of Dean.

Notes

Sources

Sibyl’s parentage, her marriage and her burial are given in the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, 1926, pp. 452–454 and notes, under Hereford), which cites the royal charter of 1121 among the Duchy of Lancaster records, dated between 10 April and 29 May, and Dugdale’s Monasticon (vol. 2, p. 262) for her mother’s oath and the king’s grant of Sibyl with all the honor of Brecknock. The joint grant to Llanthony is from the Monasticon, vol. 6, p. 137, and the graves in the chapter house from Aske’s Collections, as quoted in the Complete Peerage. Volume 1 (1910), p. 20, calls her Bernard’s daughter and heir.

Her mother

The Complete Peerage notes that her mother “is said to have been Nesta or Agnes”, a daughter of Griffyn, son of Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, but that the identity of this prince is doubtful. Her name is therefore left out here.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joyce Botetourt’s great-granddaughter Joan Mitton was John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is given here as probable.