♂William Martin

William Martin^W (died 1324) was an English baron, lord of Cemais^W in Pembrokeshire and of lands in Somerset and Devon, whose inheritance passed out of the Martin name within two years of his death: his son and heir William died in 1326 leaving no child, and the Martin lands went to his surviving daughter Eleanor and to the young son of his daughter Joan. He was the twenty-first great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Joan Martin (died 1322).

Lands and family

William Martin is said to have been the son of a Nicholas Martin who died before his own father, and so the heir of his grandfather, Nicholas Martin, lord of Cemais, whom he succeeded in 1282, doing homage that year for his lands in Devon and Somerset. He held the lordship of Cemais, with Newport in Pembrokeshire, together with Blagdon in Somerset and Barnstaple in Devon, and was summoned to Parliament from 1295 as the first Lord Martin.

The Complete Peerage records that his name, as “Willelmus Martin, Dominus de Camesso”, stands on the barons’ letter of 1301 to Pope Boniface VIII^W, in which the barons of England rejected the pope’s claim to be the overlord of Scotland.

His first wife is said to have been Eleanor FitzPiers, the daughter of Sir Reynold FitzPiers, of Blaen Llyfni in Brecon, and the widow of John de Mohun of Dunster. He had two daughters and a son. Eleanor, the elder daughter, married Philip de Columbers. Joan became the second wife of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln^W, and after the earl’s death married Nicholas de Audley. William, the son, was born about 1294.

Death and inheritance

William Martin died before 8 October 1324, when the king’s writ ordered the inquisition post mortem^W into his lands, and the jurors found his son William, aged 30, to be his next heir. The son outlived him by less than two years. When the inquest into the younger William’s lands was ordered on 4 April 1326, his heirs were his sister Eleanor, the wife of Philip de Columbers, aged forty and more, and James, the fourteen-year-old son of Nicholas de Audley and of Joan, his other sister, who had died in 1322.

Eleanor had no children. When she died on 13 December 1342 her nephew James de Audley, then 26, was found her next heir, and so the whole of the Martin inheritance came in the end to Joan’s son.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Joan Martin, Joan’s daughter Alice de Audley (born 1313), Alice’s daughter Isabel de Meynell (died 1393), Isabel’s son Hugh Shirley (died 1403), his son Ralph Shirley and Ralph’s daughter Beatrix Shirley (died 1483), and from her through the Bromes, Dentons, Purefoys and Thornes to Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his 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

Death and heirs

The inquest on his lands (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, vol. 6, no. 563, William Martyn, writ of 8 October 18 Edward II) found “William his son, aged 30, is his next heir”. The inquest on the son (vol. 6, no. 710, William son of William Martyn, writ of 4 April 19 Edward II) names his heirs as “Eleanor his sister, the wife of Philip de Columbariis, aged 40 and more, and James, son of Nicholas Daudele [alias de Audelegh] and of Joan his wife another sister, aged 14 on the morrow of the Circumcision last”. The inquest on Eleanor (vol. 8, no. 397, writs of 23 December 16 Edward III) gives her death on 13 December 1342 and finds “James de Audele, nephew of the said Eleanor, aged 26 years” her next heir. The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 3, p. 379, under Columbers) says she died without issue; the first edition (vol. 1, p. 198, under Audley) calls James coheir to Lord Martin’s “vast estates” in Pembroke and Devon, and eventually sole heir by Eleanor’s death.

Lands and title

Douglas Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed., 2011), p. 148, calls him “William Martin, Knt., 1st Lord Martin, of Newport (in Camois) Pembrokeshire, Wales, Blagdon, Somerset, Barnstaple, Devon, etc.”; The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 3, p. 379) has him “of Cemais or Kemes, co. Pembroke, and Blagdon, Somerset [Lord Martin]”. His parentage, his succession and the letter of 1301 are from the first edition of The Complete Peerage (vol. 5, 1893, p. 266, under Martin), which makes William Martin, of Kemeys and of Barnstaple, the son and heir of a Nicholas Martin who died in his father’s lifetime, and the grandson and heir of Nicholas Martin, of Kemeys, by Maud, daughter of Guy de Bryan, of Barnstaple. He succeeded his grandfather in 10 Edward I (1282), “doing homage for his lands in Devon and Somerset that same year”, was summoned to Parliament from 1295, and his name appears “as ‘Willelmus Martin, Dominus de Camesso’” in the letter to the Pope of 1301. Burke’s Peerage (1869) gives the same descent and summonses from 23 Edward I to 18 Edward II. That edition of The Complete Peerage gives a year of death later than 1324; the writ of 8 October 1324 is the record. No record of his birth survives.

His wife

Richardson, p. 148, and The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 3, p. 379) both call Eleanor, the daughter of Reynold FitzPiers, his first wife; The Complete Peerage (2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 339, under Audley) adds that she was the widow of John de Mohun, of Dunster. The first edition of The Complete Peerage had made her a daughter of William de Mohun, a reading the second edition corrected. No record names her, and the second wife the word “first” implies is not named in these works.