Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 12, part 2: Warwick

WARWICK

Volume 12, part 2, page 362:
He [Roger, Earl of Warwick (d. 1153)] m. Gundred, elder da. of William (DE WARENNE), 2nd EARL OF SURREY, by Isabel (or Elizabeth), widow of Robert (DE BEAUMONT), COUNT OF MEULAN and 1st EARL OF LEICESTER, da. of Hugh (DE CRÉPY), COUNT OF VERMANDOIS.
Note d:
Roger also had a daughter Agnes, who m. Geoffrey de Clinton the Chamberlain (Round, in Ancestor, no. 11, pp. 153-57; cf. Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I, p. 105).

David Crouch [Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 55 (1982), pp. 113-124] dates the marriage contract to between November 1137 and December 1138, and identifies Agnes's husband as Geoffrey de Clinton the younger (d. c. 1175). A charter of Geoffrey "camerarius" de Clinton for Bretford Nunnery is witnessed by his wife Agnes and his son Henry; another charter for the same, evidently a later charter of the same grantor, is witnessed by Richard, abbot of Leicester, and must therefore be dated after 1143 [Monasticon, vol. 4, p. 158].

[This problem was discussed by Peter Sutton, Rosie Bevan, John P. Ravilious, Cris Nash and Kay Allen in August 2002. In October 2005 Clive West pointed out the evidence of the charters for Bretford.
Item last updated 24 October 2005.]

Volume 12, part 2, pages 363, 364:
He [Waleran, Earl of Warwick (d. 1203[?])] m., 1stly, Margery da. of Humphrey DE BOHUN, by Margaret, 1st da. and eventually coh. of MILES (of Gloucester), EARL OF HEREFORD and CONSTABLE OF ENGLAND.(a)
Page 364, note a:
Rows Rol, no 34; Red Book Exch., vol. i, pp. 293-94; ante, vol. vi, p. 457, sub HEREFORD [1200]. Earl Waleran made a grant to Pinley for the souls of Margery, his wife, Roger, his father, Gundred, his mother, and Earl William, his brother (Dugdale, Baronage, vol. i, p. 71).

Volume 12, part 2, pages 364, 365:
HENRY, EARL OF WARWICK, s. and h., by 1st wife. A minor at his father's death,(g) ... He m., 1stly, after 1205,(j) Margery, elder da. and (eventually, in her issue) coh. of Henry DE OILLY, of Hook Norton, Oxon., by Maud, da. of Humphrey DE BOHUN, CONSTABLE OF ENGLAND.(k) He m., 2ndly, before 1 May 1220, Philippe, 1st da. and coh. of Thomas BASSET, of Headington, Oxon.
Page 364, note g:
In 1205 Thomas Basset, his 2nd wife's father, paid 500 m. for his wardship and marriage to one of his own daughters (Pipe Roll, 7 John, p. 32; 8 John, p. 4; Rot Lit. Claus., vol. i, pp. 35, 36, 37, 53, 55).
Page 364, note j:
See note "g" above.
Page 364, note k:
Cal. Inq. p.m., vol. i, no. 558. When Henry de Oilly, s. and h. of Henry de Oilly abovenamed, d. s.p. in 1232, Thomas, Earl of Warwick, s. of Margery, was his heir (Excerpt. e. Rot. Fin., vol. i, p. 231; vol. ii, p. 357; Cal. Patent Rolls, 1247-58, p. 190). See Bayley, Hist. of the House of D'Oyly, pp. 10-14; ante, vol. vi, pp. 457-58, note sub HEREFORD [1200].

Volume 12, part 2, page 365:
6. THOMAS, EARL OF WARWICK, s. and h., by 1st wife,(e) was presumably of age in 1229.
Note e:
See p. 364, note "k" above.

Rosie Bevan, in May 2003, proposed a corrected reconstruction, in which Waleran's first wife was Margery, the daughter of Henry de Oilly by his wife Maud de Bohun (who was the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1165)), and Philippe Basset was the only wife of Henry, and the mother of Thomas.

Note first that the parentage of Maud de Bohun, the wife of Henry de Oilly, is established by an inquisition taken in 1263, which found that Humphrey de Bohun, grandfather of the Humphrey de Bohun who was Earl of Hereford and Essex in 1263, gave Bradenham in free marriage with his sister Maud to Henry de Oilly [Rosie Bevan, quoting Calendar of inquisitions post mortem, vol. 1, no 558]. This shows that Maud must have been the daughter of Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1165), who married Margaret, the daughter of Miles of Gloucester, Earl of Hereford and Constable of England.

The genealogy of the earls of Hereford given above suffers from several serious difficulties:

• (1) The chronology is implausible. Henry de Oilly, the husband of Maud de Bohun, died in 1163, so that if his daughter Margery had married Earl Henry after 1205, she would have been in her 40s at the time. In contrast, Earl Henry was certainly still a minor in 1205, and would appear to have been born around 1190. (An alternative version of the Oilly genealogy has been proposed, in which the Henry de Oilly who died without issue in 1232 was the grandson, not the son, of Henry de Oilly and Maud de Bohun, and in which Margery was a daughter of an intervening Henry de Oilly [Keats-Rohan, Domesday Descendants, p. 621]. But from the data presented by Rosie Bevan, it seems clear that there were only two Henry de Oillys.)
   
• (2) The alleged marriage of Earl Henry and Margery de Oilly would be well within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity - in fact the parties would be first cousins (as pointed out by John P. Ravilious in January 2003). (Once again, Keats-Rohan, Domesday Descendants, p. 332, gives an alternative, in which Margery the alleged wife of Waleran is placed a generation later in the Bohun family. This would make the relationship between Earl Henry and his wife a little more distant - they would be related in the 2nd and 3rd degrees - but would introduce another 2nd and 3rd degree relationship between Earl Waleran and his wife, as a result of their common descent from the Warennes.)
   
• (3) No explanation is offered for Earl Henry's strange marital history. According to the account above, Thomas Basset in 1205 paid for Earl Henry's marriage "to one of his own daughters", but Henry soon afterwards married Margery de Oilly, and it was only after being widowed by her that he married Thomas Basset's daughter Philippe.

The evidence for the version given above - apart from the late 15th-century Rous Roll - seems to be confined to the 1263 inquisition, mentioned above, which states that [Earl Henry's children] Thomas, Earl of Warwick, and Margery issued (exierunt) from the first-born daughter of Henry de Oilly. This has been taken to mean that this daughter was the wife of Earl Henry.

In Rosie Bevan's proposed revision, the word exierunt is assumed to have a looser interpretation, and it is suggested that the daughter of Henry de Oilly was the wife of Earl Waleran, so that Thomas and Margery were her grandchildren. This would eliminate the difficulties of chronology and consanguinity, and would make Earl Henry's marital history straightforward, as he could have married - as his only wife - Philippe Basset soon after her father purchased his wardship and marriage.

In August 2003, Rosie Bevan pointed out further evidence to support the revision - a dispensation in 1254 for the marriage of Ela of Warwick and Philip son of Alan [Basset], knight, in which they are described as being related in the third degree of affinity [citing Calendar of Papal Letters, vol. 1, p.307]. This relationship can be explained on the basis of the revised genealogy, as Ela's previous husband, Thomas, Earl of Warwick, as the son of Philippa Basset, would be related in the 3rd degree of kindred (strictly, the 2nd and 3rd degrees) to Philip Basset, through their common descent from Thomas Basset (d. 1182) [Keats-Rohan, Domesday Descendants, p. 167].

The suggested solution and its supporting evidence was presented in more detail by Rosie Bevan in Foundations, vol. 1, pp.194-197 (2004).

The correctness of the solution is further confirmed by an entry on the Close Roll for 1242, in which Thomas, late Earl of Warwick, is explicitly called the son of Philippe, Countess of Warwick [Rosie Bevan, Foundations, vol. 1, p. 245 (2004)].

[In addition to Rosie Bevan and John P. Ravilious, this problem was discussed by Linda Jack.
Item last updated 5 December 2004.]

Volume 12, part 2, page 396:
During the rebellion in 1487 of Lambert Simnel, who personated him, he [Edward (Plantagenet), Earl of Warwick (d. 1499)] was taken one Sunday in procession to St. Paul's to hear Mass, so that he might be seen and recognised.(d)
Note d:
This was probably the last occasion on which he passed outside the Tower (Polydore Vergil, op. ult. cit., pp. 13-19).

Around the same time, probably on 19 or 20 February, he was also led into a session of a convocation held at St Paul's, and shown to certain lords of the king's council who were in attendance together with the mayor and aldermen of London [Harper-Bill, Register of John Morton, vol. 1, p. 25]. After the defeat of the rebels he is stated to have been shown again at St Paul's, on 8 July 1487, together with Lambert Simnel [Green, English Historical Review, vol. 96, p. 589].

[Item last updated 25 September 2024.]