♂Walter de Waldeshef

Walter de Waldeshef was an English landholder of the early fourteenth century, lord of the manor of Boylestone in Derbyshire through his marriage to Joan Basing, the only daughter and heiress of a citizen of London. In 1322 his five daughters were named together in the patent rolls^W, with Juliana as his heir. He was the twentieth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Margaret de Waldeshef.

Boylestone

Joan’s father, John Basing (died 1304), was a citizen of London who in 1293–94 bought a share of the manor of Boylestone from Roger de Ridware. In 1297 he held the manor with the advowson of half its church, and in 1300 he presented the rector. Joan was his only daughter and heiress, and by June 1304 she and Walter held Boylestone together: in a fine^W made at York that month with Richard de Blundesham, the manor and the advowson were settled on them and on Walter’s heirs.

In March 1312 Walter and Joan settled Boylestone again, this time with remainder to their daughter Joan and her husband, Walter, son of Thomas de Rydeware, and failing their children to Walter’s own heirs. A third of the manor was then held in dower by Juliana de Basyng, most likely John Basing’s widow. In 1314 Walter presented William de Wykleswode as rector of Boylestone.

The High Peak

Walter is said to have served as butler to King Edward II, and to have been governor of the High Peak in 1311–12. He and Joan held lands in Hope and Castleton, and on 1 November 1314 they made a fine with Thomas le Coniers of Castleton at the castle of the High Peak, Peveril Castle^W. In 1312–13 they bought three and a half messuages in Bradefelde, and in 1321–22 they settled foresterships in Hopedale, in the royal Forest of High Peak^W.

His daughters

Walter’s lands were to pass to his daughters and their husbands. In October 1316 the elder Sir Ralph de Shirley acknowledged that the manor of Shirley belonged to Walter and was to pass after his death to Ralph, son of James of Shirley, and to Margaret, Walter’s daughter. In June 1317 Walter and Joan made a further fine with Ralph de Shirley over the manor of Hoon. On 5 July 1322, at York, the patent rolls named Juliana as Walter’s “daughter and heir”, and Elizabeth, Isabella, Joan and Margaret as “daughters of the said Walter”. Juliana married Richard de Gloucester.

His will

Walter made his will at Boylestone on 25 November 1333, and it was enrolled in London in the Court of Hustings^W. He left rents in Cheap and the Vintry for chantries^W at Boylestone and at St Michael Paternoster Church, and provided for a sale after the death of his wife Joan without an heir male of his body. He had London ties of his own: Richard de Blontesham’s will, enrolled in the same court, left him tenements in the parish of St Martin Vintry. The date of Walter’s death is not known.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Margaret de Waldeshef, her son Thomas Shirley (died 1362), Thomas’s son Hugh Shirley (died 1403), Hugh’s son Ralph Shirley and Ralph’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from her through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his 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

Butler to Edward II

William Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656), p. 466, gives Margaret’s father as “Pincernae Regis E.2”, the king’s butler under Edward II. Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage (31st ed., 1869), under Ferrers, calls him “Walter de Waldeshief, of Fuirfield, co. Derby, cup-bearer to Edward II”. Stemmata Shirleiana (2nd ed., 1873), p. 23, calls him “valettus” and makes him governor of the High Peak in the fifth year of Edward II (1311–12), with lands in Hope and Castleton (appendices LXIX and LXX). Its appendix also prints the final concord made at the castle of the High Peak on the Friday after the feast of Saints Simon and Jude, 8 Edward II, “int Wal[ter]um Waldesh[ef] et Johannam uxorem ejus” and Thomas le Coniers of Castleton.

His name and arms

The name is written Waldeshef, Waldeschef, Waldesheff, Waldershef and Waldeshief. Maxwell Craven’s A Derbyshire Armory (1991), p. 169, places the family at Boylestone, Fairfield and Wadshelf (Brampton), and gives the arms “Gules three swords erect argent”, “Borne by Walter de Waldeschef of Wadshelf, who marr. the heiress of Basings of Boyleston”; the Bradbourne family later quartered them on a monument in Ashbourne church. Craven adds that one co-heiress married Ridware and another Shirley. His parents are not known. J. Charles Cox notes a Walter de Waldeshef in the Originalia roll of 25 Edward I (1296–97), “Possibly … father of the husband of Joanna de Basing”; an Alan de Waldeschef bought land at Mugginton, Duffield, Chaddesden and Langley in 1281.

Boylestone

J. Charles Cox’s Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire, vol. 3 (1877), pp. 16–18, has Roger de Ridware’s son Roger sell a moiety of Boylestone “in the twenty-second year of Edward I., to John de Basing, a citizen of London”, and adds that “John de Basing had an only daughter and heiress, Joanna”. His list of rectors has John de Basing as patron in 1300 and Walter de Waldesheff in 1314. The 1297 holding is in the inquisition after the death of Edmund, the king’s brother (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 3, no. 423). The fines of 32 Edward I (morrow of St John the Baptist, June 1304), 5 Edward II (morrow of the Annunciation, March 1312) and 6 Edward II (Bradefelde) are printed in the Calendar of Derbyshire Fines in the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vols. 14 (1892), p. 13, and 15 (1893), pp. 17–18.

His daughters

The Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1321–1324, p. 142, names the five daughters. Stemmata Shirleiana, p. 23, note, has “Joan, sister of Margaret” marry Walter Ridware. The 1316 and 1317 fines are among the Shirley deeds at the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland (26D53/340–341 and 26D53/314). A settlement of 1321–22 on the Hopedale foresterships (The National Archives, C 143/152/3) gives a remainder to “James de Shirle, the said Margaret and the heirs of her body” - James rather than Ralph; the records do not explain the difference. Juliana’s husband is identified in the Survey of London, vol. 19, part 2, pp. 21–22; the inquisitions index of Edward II’s reign (vol. 6, no. 483) names Walter in the matter of the wardship of Richard de Gloucester’s lands in 1323–24.

His will

Sharpe, Calendar of Wills Proved and Enrolled in the Court of Husting, vol. 1 (1889), p. 395, gives the will, dated at Boylestone on 25 November 1333: the chantry rents in Cheap and the Vintry, and a sale “after the decease of Johanna his wife without an heir male of his body”. Richard de Blontesham’s will is in the same calendar. A Shirley deed catalogued under 21 April 1336 (26D53/332) still names Walter and Joan in a fine over Longford; the catalogue’s wording is unclear, and it is not used here to date his death.