♂Walter de Lacy

Walter de Lacy (died 27 March 1085) was an Anglo-Norman baron of the generation of the Norman Conquest. He was an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by three separate lines of descent, all through his daughter Emma de Lacy: her twenty-sixth great-grandfather by one line and her twenty-seventh great-grandfather by the other two.

Walter is said to have come from a family of Lassy, near Vire in Normandy, and to have fought at the Battle of Hastings. He is counted as the first Baron Lacy, a title held by tenure, that is, by the land he held rather than by a peerage. He is also remembered as the founder of St Peter’s church at Hereford.

He is said to have died while building it, when he fell from a ladder at St Peter’s, Hereford, and he was buried in the chapter house at Gloucester. By his wife Ermeline he left three sons, Roger, Hugh and Walter, and two daughters, Ermeline and Emma. The line to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs through Emma and her son Gilbert de Lacy.

Lines of descent

All three lines run through his daughter Emma de Lacy and come down on the father’s side of Nancy Jane Blanchard, through her father, Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975). They meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), both descended from Walter, and in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents, Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825), both descended from him too.

Notes

Sources

Everything above comes from one printed account, C. L. Kingsford’s article “Lacy, Walter de (d. 1085)” in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 31 (1892). It gives the death on 27 March 1085, the fall from a ladder at St Peter’s, Hereford, the burial in the chapter house at Gloucester, the family “settled at Lassy”, the title of baron by tenure, and the children: “By his wife, Ermeline, he left three sons, Roger, Hugh, and Walter, and two daughters, Ermeline and Emma.” The service at Hastings is given there on the authority of the chronicler Wace^W. No charter or other record of Walter himself is cited, so the whole account is a compiled one.

Emma as the link

Emma’s place as Walter’s daughter rests on the same volume: Kingsford’s article “Lacy, Hugh de (d. 1186)” names Gilbert de Lacy as the son of “Emma, daughter of Walter de Lacy, first baron”, and adds that Gilbert’s father’s name is not known.

Parentage

Walter’s own parents are not known. The article says only that he sprang from a family settled at Lassy, and that he was perhaps a brother of Ilbert de Lacy.