♂William de Beauchamp

William de Beauchamp (died 1269) was an English baron of Elmley and Salwarpe in Worcestershire whose marriage to Isabel Mauduit brought the earldom of Warwick to the Beauchamp family. He was the twenty-third great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son William de Beauchamp (died 1298).

Marriage and the Warwick inheritance

William held Elmley and Salwarpe, and with them two hereditary offices, Sheriff of Worcestershire and Pantler at the king’s coronation, which passed to his eldest son. He married Isabel Mauduit, a daughter of William Mauduit, Baron of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire. Their sons included William, the heir; Walter, of Alcester and Powick, who died in 1303; and John, of Holt, who was living in 1297.

Isabel’s brother, William Mauduit, became Earl of Warwick^W in 1263 and died childless on 8 January 1267/8, leaving her as his heir. It was not Isabel who took up the title: their eldest son took the style of Earl of Warwick in the lifetime of both his parents, and did homage on 9 February 1267/8. Isabel had founded a nunnery at Cokehill^W in Worcestershire, and by then she had probably taken the veil there.

Death

William made his will on 7 January 1268/9. In it he named his son as his firstborn and Earl of Warwick, and named his wife together with the church and nuns of Cokehill. He died before 6 May 1269, when his son did homage for Elmley and the other family estates.

Notes

Sources

The account of the Warwick inheritance, the son’s homage, the will and Cokehill is from G.E.C., Complete Peerage, 1st ed., vol. VIII (1898), WARWICK, pp. 55–56. The younger sons Walter and John are from the Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. II (1912), BEAUCHAMP, pp. 44–47. William’s estates and the two hereditary offices are from Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), BEAUCHAMP 4, p. 53. These are printed genealogies of the medieval nobility; the Complete Peerage cites the inquisitions taken after death and the will itself.

The will and Cokehill

The Complete Peerage gives the will’s words for the son as “Willielmus, primogenitus meus, comes Warewici”. It quotes the historian Courthope: Isabel “is presumed therefore to have taken the habit of a nun at Cokehill nunnery, which she had founded”, a presumption “borne out by the will” naming her with the church and nuns there. She was living as late as 7 January 1268/9.

Dates

No birth date is known. The Complete Peerage places William’s death between 7 January 1268/9, the date of his will, and 6 May 1269.