♂Sir Thomas Harcourt

Thomas Harcourt (about 1341 – 12 April 1417) was an English knight of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, a manor he held by an unusual service to the Crown: whenever snow covered the ground for three days without melting, its lord was bound to fell underwood in the king’s park at Woodstock to feed the deer. He was the seventeenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son Thomas Harcourt (1377–1420).

Heir male

Thomas was a younger son of William Harcourt and his wife, Joan. His father died in 1349, while Thomas was still a child. His mother is said to have married again, to Sir Ralph Ferrers, a captain of Calais, and in 1361 Thomas went to Ireland in his stepfather’s retinue. He is on record as a knight in 1369, though the family’s account puts his knighthood in 1366.

His mother died at Ellenhall in Staffordshire on 21 July 1369. The inquests^W held after her death show how the family’s settlements split its lands. Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire and Bosworth in Leicestershire had been entailed on heirs male, and they came to Thomas, then about twenty-eight. His elder brother, Sir Richard, was already dead, and Richard’s daughter Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Astley, was found heir general to lands in Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Stanton brought its duties at Woodstock with it: besides the felling in deep snow, its lord had to reap the king’s meadow there, called “Stauntonemed”, and carry it at his own cost.

Knight of Oxfordshire

Ellenhall, where his mother had died, was fought over for years between Thomas and the Astleys. A history of the family published in 1914 records that in 1371 he bribed the jurors with five marks and a pair of spurs apiece. By the end of his life the manor was his: the inquest after his death found that he held Ellenhall of the bishop.

He is said to have sat for Oxfordshire as a knight of the shire^W in the Good Parliament^W of 1376, and in the parliament before it.

Marriage and death

Thomas Harcourt and Maud Grey were most likely married by 1373; she was the widow of John Botetourt, who had died overseas in 1369. Their son and heir, Thomas, was born by 1377. Maud died on 29 January 1394 and is said to have been buried at Stanton Harcourt.

Thomas outlived her by twenty-three years. He died on 12 April 1417, and the inquests on his lands named his son Thomas, himself a knight and aged forty and more, as his heir. He is said to have been buried at Ranton Abbey^W in Staffordshire.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son Thomas Harcourt (1377–1420) and, much further down, through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). From Samuel one line 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 age and the 1369 inquests

The inquisitions taken after his mother Joan’s death are calendared in the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 12, no. 360. The Oxford inquest, taken at Witney on 19 August 1369, describes the tenure of Stanton Harcourt and names “Thomas de Harecourt, son and heir male of the bodies of Joan and William, aged 28 years and more”; the Leicestershire inquest of 29 September 1369 calls him “aged 26 years and more” and “younger (postnatus) son”, and names “Elizabeth wife of Thomas son of Thomas de Asteleye” as heir general, “daughter and heir of Richard de Harecourt, knight, her eldest son”. The Derbyshire inquest places Joan’s death at Ellenhall. The birth year of about 1341 follows the Oxford age. J. C. Wedgwood’s “Harcourt of Ellenhall” (Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 1914, p. 196) gives Thomas as “born c. 1330”, which does not fit the ages in the inquests.

The Woodstock service

The Oxford inquest of 1369 says Stanton Harcourt was held of the king in chief by knight’s service and by “felling underwood in the king’s park at Wodestoke for support of the deer there whenever between Michaelmas and the Annunciation snow falls and covers the earth for three days and does not melt within that time”, and that the tenant “shall reap the king’s meadow called ‘Stauntonemed’ in Wodestoke park and lift and carry it within the site of the manor at his own costs”.

Stepfather, Ireland and knighthood

Wedgwood (pp. 196–197) writes that Joan “re-married in 1350 Sir Ralph Ferrers, captain of Calais”, that Thomas “went to Ireland in 1361 in the retinue of his step-father Ralph Ferrers”, and, citing The Harcourt Papers, that he was knighted in 1366. The Harcourt Papers, vol. 1 (1880), give “Knighted 1366 : Knight of the shire for the county of Oxon, 1376”. Both are compiled family histories. The Leicestershire inquest of 29 September 1369 in that volume names him “Thomas de Harecourt, knight, aged 26”.

Ellenhall and the jurors

Wedgwood (pp. 196–197) writes that after Joan’s death “for many years Ellenhall was in dispute between the junior line of Harcourt and the heirs general of Sir William, the Astleys”, and that Thomas “was engaged with the Astleys in litigation over Ellenhall, and in 1371 we learn that he had bribed the jurors with the lordly sum of five marcs and a pair of spurs each”, citing Staffordshire Historical Collections, vol. 13. Wedgwood’s abstract of the Staffordshire inquest taken at Eccleshall on 7 May 1417 says that “Thomas Harcourt, sen. chiv. held Elnhale of the bishop”.

Parliament

Wedgwood (p. 197): “He sat for Oxfordshire in the ‘Good Parliament’ of 1376, and in the preceding one.” The Harcourt Papers give only 1376.

Marriage

Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (p. 345) has Maud, widow of John Botetourt, marrying Thomas Harcourt “before Michaelmas term 1373 (date of lawsuit)”; Wedgwood (p. 197) gives the marriage as 1370. No marriage record survives. Wedgwood also thought Thomas might have married earlier and had an elder son, John, who “seems to have died in 1406”; he held that Maud “was undoubtedly the mother of his heir Thomas”. Wedgwood and the Harcourt Papers give Maud’s burial at Stanton Harcourt in 1391, but the inquest after her death dates her death 29 January 1394.

Death and burial

The inquest taken at Market Bosworth on 3 May 1417 states: “He died on 12 April” (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 20, no. 723), and names “Thomas junior, knight, his son and heir”, aged 40 years and more. The burial at Ranton Abbey comes from Wedgwood (p. 197) alone.