♂Thomas Denton

Thomas Denton was an English gentleman of Fifield in Oxfordshire in the late fourteenth century, and the husband of Agnes Baldington, a daughter of William Baldington of Shipton. Through his son Thomas he was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W. He was the sixteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Thomas Denton.

Family

According to the family’s pedigree, Thomas was the son of John Denton of Fifield, of a line that traced itself to the Dentons of Apleton and Eaton in Berkshire. The pedigree dates Thomas to the eleventh year of the reign of Richard II, 1387–1388. He married Agnes Baldington, a daughter of William Baldington of Shipton in Oxfordshire. Her father was lord of the manors of Baldington, in Thame, and Albury, had been a royal ward^W as a boy, and died in 1419. Thomas and Agnes had a son, also Thomas Denton of Fifield, who married Alison Dauncey, the widow of Richard Wightam of Wytham. The records do not give the dates of Thomas’s birth or death.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Thomas Denton, the younger Thomas’s son John Denton, John’s daughter Alice Denton, her son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas Dudley’s 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 Denton pedigree

The Denton pedigree in the Oxfordshire heraldic visitation^W (The Visitations of the County of Oxford, 1566, 1574 and 1634, Harleian Society vol. 5, 1871, p. 228) is the only source for Thomas. It is headed “Denton of Apleton & Eaton in com. Barks.” and runs from John Denton to Thomas Denton, who married a daughter of Sir John Wike of Wike, then to John Denton “of ffifield in Com. Berk.”, whose wife was “Johanne sister & Coheire to Sr. Thomas De la launde, knighte”, and then to “Thomas Denton of ffifeild in com. Oxon. A°. 11. R. 2.”, the husband of “Agnes daur. to Wm. Baldington of Shipton in Com. Oxon.” Their son, Thomas Denton of Fifield, appears as the “3rd. Husband” of Alison Dauncey. The chart follows the heir in each generation, so it does not name any other children. A visitation pedigree was compiled from the family’s own account, long after the events. The chart’s Johanne, given there as his mother, was a Lincolnshire woman still living in 1522, so the heralds most likely borrowed her from another family of Dentons; this page does not name his mother.

Agnes’s family

The Victoria County History of Oxfordshire (vol. 5, 1957, ‘Albury’, pp. 8–14) gives the Baldington descent: John Baldington and his wife Alice held Albury before 1376; when Alice died in 1393 her son Sir William was under age and a royal ward; William died in 1419. The same history describes him in 1424–1425 as “William Baldington, recently lord of the manors of Baldington in Thame and Albury”. Macnamara’s Memorials of the Danvers Family (1895, pp. 143–144), writing of Agnes’s brother Thomas Baldington, mentions “the marriage of his sister Agnes to Thomas Denton, of Caversfield”; Caversfield was the seat of a later generation of the Dentons.

The dates

If William Baldington was still under age in 1393, his daughter Agnes can hardly have been born before about 1390, yet the pedigree dates her husband to 1387–1388. The records do not resolve the difference.