♂William de Montague

William de Montague (died about 1238) was an English landholder with manors in Sussex, among them Jevington and Brambletye, and land at Preston in Northamptonshire. He died while his young daughter, Isabel, was still a child, and her share of his lands passed through the hands of guardians and then of the king before his widow bought her wardship in 1249. He was the twenty-second great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Isabel (died 1285).

Lands

In 1234 his niece Katherine and Michael fitz Ralph sued him for eight and three-quarter knights’ fees^W that he held by the gift of John de Montague. The fees included Jevington, Chiddingly, Alfriston, Crowlink, Ratton, Burton, Holindale, Preston, Charlton and Brambletye.

Death and heirs

William died about 1238, leaving two daughters as his heirs: Margaret, already the wife of William de Echingham, and Isabel, still a child. In 1239 his widow, Agnes, sued Isabel’s guardians, Katherine and Michael, for her dower^W. The guardians of his young daughter were the niece and the claimant who had sued him for his fees five years before. Katherine died without children about 1244, and William’s two daughters were her heirs.

In July 1248 the king gave the wardship^W of the land “and of Isabel one of the heirs, of William de Monte Acuto” to Stephen de Salinis, with a share of the church of Jevington. On 25 May 1249, at Winchester, the king confirmed that Stephen had sold the wardship of Isabel’s lands, and the right to arrange her marriage, to her mother, Agnes de Monte Acuto.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Isabel, her daughter Joan de Aldham, Joan’s son John Saint Clair (1301–1335) and the Saint Clairs down to Edith Saint Clair (born about 1423), and from Edith through five generations of daughters to Susanna Thorne, the mother of Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. From Thomas Dudley’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683), one line 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

Sources for his life

The 1234 suit, his death “about 1238”, his “two daughters, Margaret, wife of William de Echingham, and Isabel, a minor”, Agnes’s dower suits of 1239 against Katherine and Michael “as guardians of Isabel, the young daughter of William”, and Katherine’s death without children about 1244 come from L. F. Salzmann, ‘Some Sussex Domesday Tenants: 1. Alvred Pincerna and his descendants’, Sussex Archaeological Collections vol. 57 (1915), pp. 173–176, which cites the Curia Regis rolls (roll 117 m. 1d for his death, roll 120 for the dower suits). The wardship grants are in the Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Henry III, vol. 4 (1247–1258), p. 21 (32 Henry III, July 1248) and p. 41 (33 Henry III, 25 May 1249), where Stephen de Salinis is the “king’s yeoman”.

His daughter Isabel

The 1248 grant names Isabel only as “one of the heirs” of William de Monte Acuto; Salzmann calls her his daughter. Her lands bear it out: when she died in 1285, as Lady Isabel de la Haye, she held Jevington, Brambletye, and fees in Preston, Holindale, Ratton, Charlton, Burton and Crowlink of the honor of Laigle (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 2, no. 571), the same fees William had defended in 1234.

His daughter Margaret

The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. V, under Echingham) calls William de Echingham’s wife “Margery, elder da. and coh. of William de Montagu, of Chiselborough, Somerset”, and says her husband died without children. Chiselborough was among the manors Isabel later held.

His name

The Latin records write his name de Monte Acuto; the English forms are Montague, Montagu and Montacute.