Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 12, Part 2: Verdun

VERDUN

See also "proposed" section

Volume 12, part 2, page 250:
He [Theobald de Verdun] m., before 6 Nov. 1276, Margery.(c) He d. 24 Aug. 1309 at Alton afsd., aged about 61, and was bur. 13 Oct. in Croxden Abbey, in that co.
Note c:
Cal. Patent Rolls, 1272-81, p. 165. By right of his wife he held ¼ of the hundred of Bisley, co. Gloucester (Plac. de Quo Warranto, p. 257).

Margery was the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1275). She was married to Theobald by 1274 [Rotuli Hundredorum, vol. 1, p. 170, where he is called Theobald le Botiler]. She was dead by Michaelmas Term 1303 and is said to have been married previously to "Robert de W." [A. J. Horwood, ed., Year Books of the Reign of King Edward the First, Years XXXII-XXXIII, pp. 28, 29 (1864)].

In a plea of 1306, Margery is described as the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, the great-grandfather of the earl of Hereford and Essex at the time of the plea [CP 40/159, rot. 237d].

This identification is confirmed by a related plea of 1303, in which she is described as the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, formerly the earl of Hereford and Essex [CP 40/147, rot. 1a]. Given that she is known to have been married to Theobald by 1274, on chronological grounds the only Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and Essex, who could have been her father is the one who died in 1275.

[N.B. It has been suggested previously (including on this website) that Margery was probably the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1265), the son of the earl who died in 1275. This was on the basis of a summary in a year book of the plea of 1306 referred to above, according to which she was the daughter of one Humphrey, the father of the earl of Hereford [A.J. Horwood, ed., Year Books of the Reign of King Edward the First, Michaelmas Term, Year XXXIII and years XXXIV and XXXV, pp. 170, 171 (1879)]. This was evidently chronologically impossible and required correction, but the previous suggestion still allowed her father also to be the father of an earl, as the year book stated. But comparison with the plea roll shows that "father" in the year book was an error for "great-grandfather".]

[The evidence originally used here was provided by Douglas Richardson and Cris Nash, and the question was also discussed by John P. Ravilious and Doug Thompson. The information from the plea of 1306 correctly identifying her parentage was supplied by Christopher Colson in May 2022.
Item last updated: 19 June 2022.]