♂Sir Thomas de Aldham

Thomas de Aldham (died before 11 December 1275) was an English knight with land at Aldham in Kent. Through his marriage to Isabel, the widow of Ralph de la Haye, he held her inherited manors in Somerset, Sussex and Northamptonshire, among them Chiselborough, which Isabel held of the king by barony in her own right. It was her inheritance, and he held it only through her. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Joan de Aldham.

Life

Thomas was the son of a man named Sayer. His land at Aldham in Kent was held of Hugh Poynz of Lullingstone. On 17 June 1254, as Sir Thomas de Aldeham, he witnessed an agreement between Walter de Querelle and Sir John de la Haye over Puttes, part of the manor of Horsmonden in Kent.

Isabel, the widow of Ralph de la Haye, married Thomas de Aldham, and their eldest son, Baldwin, was born about 1259. They had two more children, William, born about 1262, and Joan. Isabel brought the larger estate: Chiselborough in Somerset, which she held of the king as a tenant-in-chief^W by barony, Little Preston in Northamptonshire, and manors in Sussex, among them Jevington, Tarring and Brambletye. Thomas held Chiselborough “through Isabel his wife of the inheritance of the said Isabel”. On 3 February 1274 the couple added a messuage, 24 acres of land and an acre of meadow at Exceat in Sussex, which they took from Henry son of Gilbert de Perles.

Death and heirs

Thomas died in 1275, before 11 December, when the king’s writ ordered an inquiry into his lands. In the inquisitions post mortem^W that followed, the jurors found that “Baldwin, son of the said Thomas and Isabel, aged 16, is their heir”, and in Kent that Baldwin and his brother William, aged 14, shared the socage^W land. Isabel kept her own inheritance and married again, to Richard de Pevensey, by December 1279.

When the lines of both sons had died out, Thomas’s own lands, Exceat and Lavertye in Sussex with Aldham and Romsehede in Kent, were found in 1327, together with Isabel’s, to descend to their daughter Joan’s son, John Saint Clair (1301–1335).

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Joan, her son John Saint Clair and the Saint Clairs down to Edith Saint Clair (born about 1423), and from Edith through five generations of daughters to Susanna Thorne, the mother of Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. From Thomas Dudley’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683), one line 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

Sources for his life

His death, his heirs and Isabel’s lands come from the inquisitions taken after his death (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 2, Edward I, no. 193; writ of 11 December 1275, 4 Edward I), where he is “Thomas de Audeham alias de Waudeham, de Aldeham”. The 1254 agreement is in the National Archives, Ancient Deeds, C 146/2167. The Exceat purchase is no. 829 (2 Edward I) in L. F. Salzmann’s abstract of the Sussex feet of fines, where the couple are “Thom. de Audeham et Isab. ux’ ejus”. His father’s name and the count of his three children come from the pedigree endorsed on the inquisitions taken in 1327 after the death of his grandson Francis de Aldham (vol. 7, Edward III, no. 5), which begins “Stirps Sayerus”; the memorandum with the same return sorts the lands into Thomas’s and Isabel’s.

Aldham in Kent

The 1275 inquisition writes the Kent land Eldeham and Audham. Ward, writing on the de Aldehams in Archaeologia Cantiana vol. 40 (1928), places it at Yaldham in Ightham, and reads the 1327 pedigree as saying that Thomas held half a knight’s fee there of Sir Nicholas Payns; the 1275 jurors named Hugh Poynz of Lullingstone as the lord.

A charter of 1268

A “Thomas of Aldeham” witnessed a charter of 1268 among other Kentish men (Lincolnshire Archives, Kirkstead charters, RA/1/KIRKSTEAD/2/30). He is probably this Thomas, but the charter does not say so.

Burke’s account

Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage (1869), in its account of the Gage family, calls him “Thomas de Aldham, of Igtham and Aldham, in Kent”, and says Heighton St. Clere came to the Saint Clairs by the marriage of John de St. Clere “with Isolda, sole heir of Thomas de Aldham”. The inquisitions name his daughter Joan, and in 1275 named his sons Baldwin and William as his heirs.

His name

The records write the name Aldham, Aldeham, Audeham, Audham and Waudeham.