♂William Baldington

William Baldington (about 21 September 1377 – 1419) was an Oxfordshire landowner, lord of the manors of Albury and of Baldington in Thame, who inherited at fifteen and passed his last years of boyhood as a royal ward. He was the seventeenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Agnes Baldington, and through her an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Life

William was the son of John Baldington and his wife Alice, who had been granted the manor of Albury, written Aldebury, well before 1376, to hold for themselves and the heirs of their bodies. His father died before his mother. When Alice died on 4 June 1393, the inquisition post mortem^W into her lands found that William, her son by John Baldington, had turned fifteen on the feast of St Matthew the previous September and was her heir. Being under age, he became a royal ward^W.

In time he held both Albury and the manor of Baldington, in Thame, and he was later styled Sir William. He probably died in 1419, having settled Albury on his wife, Joan. Some five years later he was remembered as “recently lord of the manors of Baldington in Thame and Albury”. His son Thomas inherited and died in 1437, leaving three daughters as his heirs. His daughter Agnes, according to the family’s pedigree, married Thomas Denton of Fifield.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Agnes Baldington, her son Thomas Denton, Thomas’s son John Denton, John’s daughter Alice Denton, her son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas Dudley’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 birth and wardship

The inquisition taken after his mother’s death (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 17, no. 156), on a writ of 14 June in the sixteenth year of Richard II and held in the seventeenth, records that Albury had been granted “long before 50 Edward III” (1376) to John and Alice, that “Alice survived the said John”, and that “She died on 4 June last. The aforesaid William her son by John Baldyngton, aged 15 years on the feast of St Matthew last, is her heir.” The feast of St Matthew falls on 21 September, so he was born about 21 September 1377. The Victoria County History^W of Oxfordshire (vol. 5, 1957, ‘Albury’, pp. 8–14) adds that he was then a minor and a royal ward. The records write the name Baldyngton.

His mother’s family

A second inquisition, of 1395, into lands at Draycote in Waterstock (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 17, no. 455), traced a remainder to “Nicholas Spencere son of the said Margaret, whose heir William son of John de Baldyngdon is, to wit, son of Alice daughter of Margaret daughter of Margaret sister of Agnes”. This makes Nicholas his mother’s uncle; the Victoria County History’s suggestion that Alice was Nicholas Despenser’s daughter is a generation out.

His later life and death

The Victoria County History gives his death in 1419 and the settlement of Albury on his wife Joan, citing the inquisition taken after his death, and calls him Sir William Baldington of Albury. Its account of Toot Baldon (p. 51) describes him in 1424–1425 as “William Baldington, recently lord of the manors of Baldington in Thame and Albury”. Whether Joan was the mother of his children is not recorded.

His children

The same history gives his son Thomas’s death in 1437, setting aside an earlier inquisition as “probably incorrect”, with three daughters as coheirs. Macnamara’s Memorials of the Danvers Family (1895, pp. 143–144) gives Thomas’s death as 22 August 1435. The Denton pedigree in the Oxfordshire heraldic visitation^W (The Visitations of the County of Oxford, 1566, 1574 and 1634, Harleian Society vol. 5, 1871, p. 228) shows “Agnes daur. to Wm. Baldington of Shipton in Com. Oxon.” as the wife of Thomas Denton of Fifield, and Macnamara, writing of Thomas Baldington, mentions “the marriage of his sister Agnes to Thomas Denton, of Caversfield”; Caversfield was the seat of a later generation of the Dentons. A visitation pedigree was compiled from the family’s own account, long after the events.

The dates

If William was still under age in 1393, his daughter Agnes can hardly have been born before about 1390, yet the pedigree dates her husband to the eleventh year of Richard II, 1387–1388. The records do not resolve the difference.