♂Thomas St. Clair

Thomas St. Clair (28 October 1401 – 2 August 1435) was an English landowner, a younger son who lost both his parents within a week when he was six and came into the family estates at seventeen, on the death of his elder brother. He was the sixteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Edith Saint Clair (born about 1423).

Early life

Thomas was born at East Grinstead in Sussex on 28 October 1401 and was “baptised in the church baptistery there” the same day. His parents were Philip Saint Clair, a knight, and Margaret Loveyne, who had been married before, to Sir Richard Chamberlain, and had a son by him, so Thomas had an older half-brother, Richard Chamberlain. His mother died on 10 May 1408 and his father on 16 May, and the heir to the St. Clair lands was Thomas’s elder brother John, then about ten years old. John died still under age on 2 November 1418, and Thomas, who had just turned seventeen, became his heir.

Marriage and estates

Thomas is said to have married Margaret Hoo without the king’s licence while he was still under age and a ward of Henry V, and in 1424 Henry VI pardoned him for a fine of £200. A royal ward’s marriage was the king’s to grant or sell, so a ward who married without leave owed the Crown for it. They had three daughters, Elizabeth, Alianore and Edith.

A proof of age^W taken at East Grinstead on 6 March 1424 established that he was of full age, and the next year he held the manors of Aston Clinton, Wolde and Ashby Magna. In 1425 he and his half-brother Richard Chamberlain were also reportedly sued by Thomas de Pulteney over the manors of Penshurst and Yevesfeld in Kent. By the end of his life his lands are said to have lain in seven counties, from Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to Oxfordshire, Surrey and Sussex, where they included land at Brighthelmston, the later Brighton.

Death

Thomas is said to have died overseas on 2 August 1435, and his three daughters became his coheirs. He was thirty-three, and the girls were fourteen, thirteen and twelve. He was the last male of his line, so the St. Clair estates were divided among them; by 1443 Elizabeth was the wife of William Lovel, Alianore of John Gage and Edith of Richard Harcourt.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Edith, Edith’s daughter Alice Harcourt (died 1526), Alice’s daughter Elizabeth Bessiles, Elizabeth’s daughter Anne Fettiplace, Anne’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Thomas’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

Sources for his life

His birth and baptism come from his proof of age, taken at East Grinstead on 6 March 1424, and his brother John’s inquisition post mortem^W gives him as “aged 21 years and more on 25 March 1423” (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 22, 1–6 Henry VI). His parents’ deaths in May 1408 and John’s age come from their inquisitions (vol. 19); the inquisitions disagree on his father’s day, giving 14, 16 and 18 May, and 16 May fits the writ issued on the 17th. His own inquisitions (vol. 24) give his death overseas, his daughters’ ages, and the name of the second daughter as Eleanor.

The marriage without licence, the pardon (Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry VI, 1:180), the manors held in 1425, the phrase “the last male of his line” and the daughters’ husbands in 1443 (from George Wrottesley’s “Pedigrees from the Plea Rolls”) are from F. N. Craig, “Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley: St. Clair and Audley Lines”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 139 (1985), pp. 283–287. The 1425 lawsuit is from Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., 2011), p. 501, which also names Richard Chamberlain as his half-brother. W. D. Cooper’s “Notices of the Family of Hoo”, Sussex Archaeological Collections 8 (1856), calls him “the wealthy Thomas St. Clere” (p. 108) and lists the counties in which he died seized of land.

His death date

The inquisition taken at Thame for Oxfordshire on 9 November 1435 gives his death as 2 August 1435; the Surrey inquisition gives 7 September 1435. Several published and online genealogies give 6 May 1434 instead, and one online genealogy gives his birth as about 1403 at Chalgrove; the inquisitions and the proof of age are preferred here.

His name

The name is written St. Clair, Saint Clair, St. Clere and Seynclere in the sources.