♂Sir Thomas St. Omer

Thomas St. Omer (died about 1 August 1364) was an English knight who held the manors of Mulbarton in Norfolk and of Britford, near Salisbury in Wiltshire, and Bramshaw, and who was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk^W in the year of his death. Five years before he died he gave Britford and Bramshaw to his brother for life, and after his death the Crown spent years in court trying to claim them. He was the eighteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Alice St. Omer (born 1340).

Family

Thomas was a son of Sir William St. Omer, lord of Britford, and had a brother, also named William. Thomas St. Omer married Petronilla Malmains, written Pernell in the records of their day. She is said to have been a daughter of Sir Nicholas Malemayns of Ockley in Surrey, and Thomas’s father is said to have settled land at Mulbarton on the couple. They had two daughters: Elizabeth, born about 1338, who died at about the age of ten, and Alice, born at Britford on 25 March 1340. When Alice proved her age in 1356, neighbors remembered Petronilla’s churching^W after the birth, held in the manor house of Thomas’s father at Britford.

Petronilla died before 16 October 1349, when an inquisition taken after the death of Sir Nicholas Malemayns named her daughters, not her, among his heirs. Thomas married again. His second wife, Margaret, bore him another daughter, also named Elizabeth, at Mulbarton in September 1350, and by the time of his death he had married a third wife, Beatrice, who outlived him.

The Britford manors and his death

At Britford on 24 June 1359 Thomas granted the manors of Britford and Bramshaw to his brother William and two parish priests for the term of their lives. Five days later they leased both manors back to him for ten years at 100 shillings a year, the rent to end if he died within the term. In 1364 he was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and he died about 1 August that year.

His death set off a long dispute. The king’s officers held that he had still owned the two manors when he died, so that they should have passed into royal wardship^W with his thirteen-year-old daughter Elizabeth, and they accused his brother of entering them by collusion, to the king’s loss of £200. The case was adjourned again and again until a jury at Salisbury found for William: Thomas had given the manors away for life, and had not held them at his death.

Mulbarton

On 25 May 1366 his lands at Mulbarton were divided between Alice, by then the wife of Sir William Hoo, and her half-sister Elizabeth, still a minor in the king’s wardship. Part of the manor was held in dower by his widow, Beatrice, who had married again, to Thomas de la Ryvere.

Sir William later rebuilt Mulbarton church and filled its windows with portraits of his wife’s family. The Norfolk historian Francis Blomefield^W recorded in 1769 that one of the north windows had until lately shown Thomas kneeling in armour, his sword at his side and his arms on his surcoat, Petronilla kneeling behind him with the arms of St. Omer and Malmains, and Alice behind them both.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Alice, her daughter Margaret Hoo, Margaret’s daughter Edith Saint Clair (born about 1423), Edith’s daughter Alice Harcourt (died 1526), Alice Harcourt’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

His death

The date about 1 August 1364, “St. Peter ad Vincula, 38th year” of Edward III, is from a royal writ of 1366 to the sheriff of Wiltshire, copied into the Hungerford family’s cartulary: J. L. Kirby, ed., The Hungerford Cartulary, Part Two (Wiltshire Record Society 60), no. 1009. F. N. Craig, “Maternal Ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley: Hoo, St. Omer, Malmains, St. Leger, Fitzwarin and Andevill Lines”, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 140 (1986), p. 220, and the Victoria County History of Hampshire, vol. 4, p. 624, both give his death as 1365, Craig saying he then held Mulbarton and Brundall; the family tree follows the writ.

The Britford manors and his office

The grant of 24 June 1359 to “William de Sancto Omero his brother” and to Henry de Blakeborne, parson of Stokenham, and Walter Wauncy, parson of Birdbrook, the lease back of 29 June 1359, and the king’s suit against William, with the jurors’ verdict, are in the Hungerford Cartulary, nos. 1007–1010; the National Archives lists the same grant under E 210/9962, item vi (33 Edward III), which gives the grantor as “Thomas de Sancto Omero, knight”. The editor dates the final hearing at Salisbury to 1370. His office as sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk is from a petition of 1364 in the National Archives (SC 8/228/11359).

His family

Alice’s proof of age, taken at Britford in June 1356 (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 10, no. 336), gives her birth there “on the feast of the Annunciation, 14 Edward III”, says that her sister Elizabeth “died eight years ago” aged ten, and places the churching of “Pernell, wife of Thomas de Sancto Omero and mother of the said Alice” in the manor of “Sir William de Sancto Omero, father of the said Thomas, at Brutford”. The inquisitions of 1349 on Sir Nicholas Malemayns (vol. 9, no. 418) instead give the girls’ ages as eight and seven, about three years younger, and still name Elizabeth among the heirs; the family tree follows the proof of age. A memorandum in the Hungerford Cartulary (no. 1003) also traces Britford from William to his son Thomas, and from Thomas to Alice and Elizabeth.

Craig (p. 220) names Petronilla as the daughter of Nicholas Malmains, makes Thomas’s father lord of Brundall, and says that William gave land at Mulbarton to Thomas and Pernell (Calendar of Fine Rolls, vol. 7, p. 312). The records of 1349 and 1356 call Petronilla’s daughters “kinswomen” and heirs of Sir Nicholas without naming her his daughter; the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 6, under Hoo) calls her “da. and coh. of Sir Nicholas Malmayns, of Ockley, Surrey”.

The proof of age of the younger Elizabeth (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 12, no. 185) calls her the daughter and heir of “Margaret late the wife of the said Thomas” and gives her birth at Mulbarton (written Mulkeberton) and baptism in September 1350. The dower of 23 May 1366 and the division of Mulbarton are in the same volume, no. 79, which names “Beatrice wife of Thomas de la Ryvere, late the wife of Thomas de Sancto Omero”.

Mulbarton church

The rebuilding of the church and the windows are from W. D. Cooper, “Notices of the Family of Hoo”, Sussex Archaeological Collections 8 (1856), pp. 108–109, who takes the windows from Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, vol. 3, p. 51; Blomefield describes the kneeling lady only as Thomas’s wife, with the arms of St. Omer and Malmains.