♂William de Say

William de Say (died August 1144) was a warrior of King Stephen’s reign and the second husband of Beatrice de Mandeville, the only sister of Geoffrey de Mandeville^W, first Earl of Essex. He was the twenty-fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his son William de Say (died 1177).

Marriage

Beatrice had first been married in Normandy to Hugh Talebot, and the marriage ended in divorce. Her brother Geoffrey then brought her to England and married her to William de Say, whom the chronicle of Walden Abbey^W calls “ferocis animi viro et bellicoso”, a man of fierce and warlike spirit. Beatrice and William had two sons, William de Say (died 1177) and Geoffrey de Say.

Death at Burwell

In the autumn of 1143 Earl Geoffrey was arrested at St. Albans and made to surrender his castles, and he broke into open revolt against King Stephen^W, sacking Cambridge and ravaging the fen country. In August 1144 he laid siege to Burwell Castle^W in Cambridgeshire, and there, having taken off his helmet in the heat, he was mortally wounded by an arrow. William de Say was killed at the same siege. As a widow, Beatrice made gifts to Walden Abbey for the souls of her brother, of “Willelmi de Say sponsi mei”, William de Say her husband, and of their son William.

Notes

Sources

William’s marriage, his death at Burwell and his sons are from the Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 5, 1926, pp. 116 and 120–121, under Essex), which cites the chronicles of Walden and Ramsey and Beatrice’s charters in the cartulary of Walden Abbey. The account of Earl Geoffrey’s revolt and death is from the same work, p. 116. The Complete Peerage does not say on which side William fought at Burwell.

The descent through John Washburn

That the John whom the pedigrees give as a son of Joyce Botetourt’s great-granddaughter Joan Mitton was John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547, is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is probable.