♂William d'Aubigny

William d’Aubigny (died 1139) was the twenty-sixth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son William d’Aubigny (died 1176), Earl of Arundel.

He is said to have been the king’s butler^W and lord of the manor of Buckenham in Norfolk, and to have been buried at Wymondham Priory. He married Maud, the daughter of Roger Bigod. Their son and heir, another William, held Buckenham after him and later became Earl of Arundel by his marriage to the dowager queen Adelise of Louvain.

Notes

Where this comes from

Everything above rests on one compiled source, the Complete Peerage (second edition, volume 1, 1910, under Arundel, pages 233 and 235). It calls the elder William “Pincerna Regis”, gives his death as 1139 and his burial at Wymondham Priory, names his wife as Maud, daughter of Roger le Bigod, and names his heir as William d’Aubigny of Buckenham. No record of his own time is known for him.

Roger Bigod

The Complete Peerage calls Maud’s father Roger le Bigod. He is not Roger le Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, who died in 1221; that man belongs to a later generation than Maud’s husband.

The descent through John Washburn

The line from William to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs through his granddaughter Alice d’Aubigny and her descendants to John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547. That the John Washburn of the pedigrees was this man is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is probable.