♂William Mauduit

William Mauduit (died April 1257) was an English baron of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire who held the hereditary office of Chamberlain of the Exchequer^W, and whose wife’s claim to the earldom of Warwick passed to their son and then, through their daughter, to the Beauchamp family. He was the twenty-fourth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Isabel Mauduit.

Hanslope and the Warwick claim

William Mauduit married Alice, a half-sister of Henry, Earl of Warwick^W. Alice was the heir presumptive of Henry’s daughter Margaret, Countess of Warwick. In Hilary term 1246/7 a fine^W was made between Margaret’s second husband, John du Plessis^W, and William and Alice: the Warwick lands were settled on John for life, and William and Alice granted him the earldom itself for his lifetime, so that he would not have to give up the title if he outlived the countess and had no children by her. John held the earldom until his death on 6 February 1262/3.

William died in April 1257, before the earldom came back to his family. His son William succeeded him as Chamberlain of the Exchequer and in 1263 became Earl of Warwick^W. Alice died before 1263. When the younger William died childless in 1268, his heir was his sister, William’s daughter Isabel Mauduit, the wife of William de Beauchamp of Elmley, and their son took the title of Earl of Warwick.

Notes

Sources

His title, Baron of Hanslope, and his daughter Isabel’s marriage to William de Beauchamp are from Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), BEAUCHAMP 4, p. 53, and CLARE 3, p. 196. His death in April 1257, his wife Alice (living 1246, dead before 1263), the fine of 1246/7, and his son’s succession as Chamberlain and as Earl are from G.E.C., Complete Peerage, 1st ed., vol. VIII (1898), WARWICK, pp. 55–56. These are printed genealogies of the medieval nobility rather than original records; for the fine, the Complete Peerage follows Dugdale.

The fine of 1246/7

The Complete Peerage, quoting Dugdale, says John du Plessis was “loath, as it seems, to use that attribute” of earl until he had an agreement with the next heir, and that William and Alice “do, as much as in them lies, confer the same Earldom upon him for life.” It calls Alice the “heir presumptive of the Earldom” and her descent “by the half blood”, and notes that such a succession of the half blood “seems at variance with the old law.”