Vol II File 5: The Paternal Ancestry of Homer Beers James

7. Beauchamp Line (Earls of Warwick)

Ref: "The Ligon Family in England"

Ref: Burke, pp. 29-34.

Among the most eminent Norman families in the company of William the Conqueror, was that of Beauchamp, and among those that shared most liberally in the spoils of the conquest was Hugh de Beauchamp. See Burke, pg. 29.

1. Hugh (Hugue) de Beauchamp, the companion in arms of William the Conqueror, obtained large estates in Hertford, Buchingham, and Bedfordshire, and was the founder of the house of Beauchamp. This Hugh had the following children:
- 1. Simon de Beauchamp, d.s.p.
- 2. Payne de Beauchamp, ancestor of the Beauchamps of Bedford, that barony having been conferred upon him by King William Rufus.
- 3. Walter de Beauchamp, the third son. See below.
- 4. Milo de Beauchamp, of Eaton, co. Bedford.
- 5. Adeline Beauchamp, married Walter Le Espec, Lord of Kirkham and Helmsley, co. York.
  
  Regarding his third son, Walter, there have been some doubts expressed with regard to the question of his having been the son of Hugh. Sir H. Nicholas stated him to have been "supposed of the same family."
2. Walter de Beauchamp of Elmsley Castle, co. Gloucester, married Emeline Abitot, daughter and heiress of Urso de Abitot, Constable of the castle of Worcester and hereditary sheriff of Worcestershire (who was brother of Robert le Despencer, steward to the Conqueror). He was invested with that sheriffalty by King Henry I., and obtained a grant from the same monarch (to whom he was a steward) of all the lands belonging to Roger de Worcester, with a confirmation of certain lands given to him by Adelise, widow of his father-in-law, the said Urso de Abitot.

This marriage happened after the Conquest; for at that time the General Survey was made, the name of Beauchamp is not once mentioned as lord of any manor in England. But Urso de Abitot had manors almost in very part of it. He being hereditary sheriff, his office was to keep this part of the new-conquered kingdom in subjection; it was necessary, therefore, that his power should be very great, to enable him to withstand any neighboring prince inclined to rebel, and that he should have influence in every part of the county. Robert de Abitot, the Conqueror's steward, built Elmsley Castle upon an eminence under Bredon Hill, and dying without issue, the manor and castle descended to his brother, Urso. The hereditary office of sheriff by this marriage descended to the Beauchamps, in which family it continued till the 10th year of King Edward IV, when Richard Nevill, the Earl of Salibury, in right of his wife, Ann, sister and sole heiress of Henry Beauchamp, Duke and Earl of Warwick, being slain in Barnet Field fighting against the king, lost his office.

Walter de Beauchamp was succeeded, as well in his estates as in the royal stewardship, by his son, William.
3. William de Beauchamp, for his zeal in the cause of the Empress Maud, was dispossessed of the castle of Worcester by King Stephen, to which, and all his other honors and estates, however, he was restored by King Henry II.; and in that monarch's reign, besides the sheriffalty of Worcestershire, which he enjoyed by inheritance, he was sheriff of Warwickshire (2nd year of Henry II.), sheriff of Gloucestershire (from the 3rd to the 9th year of Henry II., inclusive), and sheriff of Herefordshire (from the 8th to the 16th year of Henry II., inclusive). Upon the levy of the assessment towards the marriage portion of King Henry's daughters, this powerful feudal lord certified his knight's fees to the amount of fifteen. He married Maud Braose, daughter of William de Braose, Lord Braose, of Gower, and was succeeded, at his decease, by his son, William.
4. William de Beauchamp married Joan Walerie, daughter of Thomas Walerie. He died before the 13th year of King John's reign (1211-1212), succeeded by his son, Walter (a minor, whose wardship and marriage Roger de Mortimer and Isabel, his wife, obtained for 3,000 marks).
5. Walter de Beauchamp was appointed Governor of Hanley Castle, co. Worcester, in the 17th year of King John, and entrusted with the custody of the same shire in that turbulent year. Walter de Beauchamp married Bertha Braose daughter of William de Braose, Lord Braose, by whom he had two sons as follows:
- 1. Walcheline de Beauchamp. See below.
- 2. James de Beauchamp
  
  Of the nobleman we find further, that, being one of the baron-marchers, he gave security to the king for his faithful services with the other lords-marchers, until peace should be fully settled in the realm; and for the better performance thereof, gave up James, his younger son, as a hostage. He died in 1235, and was succeeded by his son, Walcheline.
6. Walcheline de Beauchamp, omitted in Sir H. Nicholas' account of the family, married Joane Mortimer, daughter of Roger Mortimer, Lord Mortimer, and dying in the same year as his father, was succeeded by an only son, William.
7. William de Beauchamp, 5th Baron Beauchamp, feudal lord of Elmley, attended King Henry III., in the 37th year of his reign (1252-53), into Gascoigne, and in two years afterwards marched under the banner of Robert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, against the Scots. In the 41st year of the same reign he had summons with other illustrious persons to meet the king at Chester on the feast day of St. Peter de Vincula, well fitted with horse ands arms to oppose the incursions of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales. Lord Beauchamp married Isabel Mauduit, daughter of William Mauduit, of Hanslape, co. Bucks, heritable chamberlain of the exchequer, and sister and heiress of William Mauduit, Earl of Warwick (who inherited that dignity from his cousin, Margery de Newburgh, Countess of Warwick, in the year 1263). He made his will in 1268, the year in which he died. He left several daughters and four sons as follows:
- 1. Unnamed daughters.
- 2. William de Beauchamp. See below.
- 3. John de Beauchamp, of Holt, co. Worcester.
- 4. Walter de Beauchamp, of Powyke and Alcester. (See Burke, pg. 34.) He having purchased from Reginald Fitzherbert a moiety of the manor of Alcester, co. Warwick, made that one of his principal seats, calling it Beauchamp Court; the other being at Powyke, co. Worcester. This Walter, who was an eminent person at the period in which he lived, being signed with the cross for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, had a legacy of 200 marks bequeathed to him by his father, for his better performance of that voyage. He was steward of the household to King Edward I., and attended that monarch to Flanders, and into Scotland, where he shared in the honors of Falkirk on July 22, 1298. In the 29th year of the same reign he was one of the lords in the parliament of Lincoln, being then styled Dominus de Alcester, who signified to the Pope, under their seals, the superiority of King Edward over the kingdom of Scotland. In Prestwich's "Edward I," it describes Walter de Beauchamp in a quotation from "The Siege of Carlaverock" as follows: "a knight who would have been one of the best of all, according to my opinion, if he had not been too proud and rashly insolent, but you won't hear anyone talk of the steward without a 'but' ". He married Alice de Toni (Tony), her first husband. [She is recorded in Burke, pg. 534, as the sister of Robert de Toni, Baron Toni, descendant of Ralph de Toni, Lord of Toni in Normandy, standard bearer of that duchy, and one of the soldiers of Hastings. Ralph de Toni married Alice Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and his wife, Maud of Eu. Humphrey was the son of Henry de Bohun, the Surety of the Magna Charta. Robert de Toni d.s.p. in 1311, and his estates devolved upon his sister, Alice de Toni, who married (2) Thomas Leybourne, son of William Leybourne, a descendant of the Sureties Roger and Hugh Bigod, from which there was issue; and (3) Guy de Beauchamp, a descendant of Sureties Roger and Hugh Bigod, from which there was issue (See Burke, Chapter 40) and (4) William de Mortimer, Baron Zouche of Ashby, co. Leicester, who assumed the surname of Zouche and was Constable of the Tower of London.] Wurts has her a daughter of Ralph de Toni of Castle Maud (now Painscastle) Radnor, and South Tawton, Devon, and Flamstead, co. Herts, and his wife, Alice Bohun (See Wurts, pg. 53). Alice Bohun and her husband Ralph de Toni were the parents of Constance Toni, whose husband was Fulk FitzWarin. (He had a daughter Eve who became the wife of Llewelyn the Great).
  
  They had the following children:
  - 1. Walter de Beauchamp, d.s.p., succeeded by his brother, William.
  - 2. William de Beauchamp, d.s.p., succeeded by his brother, Giles.
  - 3. Giles de Beauchamp, who had already inherited, by the settlement of his older brother, the lordship of Alcester, the manor-house of which, called Beauchamp's Court, he had license to fortify in the 14th year of Edward III. and to embattle it; and he obtained similar permission regarding his home at Fresh Water, in the Isle of Wight, in the 16th year of the same reign, 1342-43. He died October 12, 1361. He married in 1329 Catherine (Katherine) Buresa descendant of Surety William Malet. They had the following children:
    - 1. John de Beauchamp is little mentioned, save his founding a chantry in the parish church of Alcester, in the time of Edward III., for one priest to celebrate divine service daily at the altar of All Saints, and his being in the expedition against France in the 3rd year of King Richard II. This John de Beauchamp married Elizabeth St. John, who died in 1411; and they left two sons as follows:
      - 1. William de Beauchamp, of Powick, co. Worcester, who died before 1431, was Constable of the Castle of Gloucester in the 16th year of King Richard II. and Sheriff of Worcestershire in 1401, married Catherine Ufflete., eventually co-heir of Gerard de Ufflete. They had a son, John de Beauchamp.
        
        See the continuation of this lineage elsewhere.
      - 2. Walter de Beauchamp, from whom the Beauchamps, Barons of St. Amand, derived. He was a military person of renown in the reigns of King Henry IV. and King Henry V. He married Elizabeth Roche, daughter of John Roche
        
        John was succeeded by his eldest son, William.
    - 2. Ralph de Beauchamp, d.s.p. before 1313.
    - 3. Roger de Beauchamp. No further details.
    - 4. Thomas de Beauchamp, d.s.p.
      
      He was succeeded by his eldest son, William.
8. William de Beauchamp, 1st Earl of Warwick of the Beauchamp family, inherited not only the feudal barony of Elmley from his father, but had previously derived from his mother the Earldom of Warwick (originally possessed by the Newburghs), and the barony of Hanslape (which had belonged to the Mauduits). This eminent nobleman was a distinguished captain in the Welsh and Scottish wars of King Edward I. "In the 23rd year of which reign (1294-95), being in Wales with the king," as Dugdale relates, "he performed a notable exploit; namely, hearing that a great body of the Welsh were got together in a plain, betwixt two woods, and to secure themselves, had fastened their pikes to the ground, sloping towards their assailants, he marched thither with a choice company cross-bowmen and archers, and in the night time encompassing them about, put betwixt every two horsemen, one cross-bowman, which cross-bowman killing many of them that held the pikes, the horse charged in suddenly, and made a great slaughter. This was done near Montgomery." He married Maud FitzJohn, widow of Girard de Furnival (See Burke, Pg. 225), and one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of Richard FitzJohn, son of John FitzGeoffery, Chief Justice of Ireland. She died in 1301. They had the following issue:
- 1. Guy de Beauchamp, his successor, 2nd Earl, so called in memory of his celebrated predecessor, the Saxon, Guy, Earl of Warwick. He acquired high military renown in the martial reign of Edward I., distinguishing himself at the battle of Falkirk, for which he was rewarded with extensive grants of lands in Scotland, at the siege of Caerlaverock, and upon different occasions beyond the sea. In the reign of Edward II. he likewise played a very important part. In 1310 he was in the commission appointed by parliament to draw up regulations for "the well governing of the kingdom and of the king's household," in consequence of the corrupt influence exercised at that period by Piers Gaveston, in the affairs of the realm, through the unbounded partiality of the king; and in two years afterwards, when that unhappy favorite fell into the hands of his enemies upon the surrender of Scarborough Castle, his lordship violently seized upon his person, and after a summary trial, caused him to be beheaded at Blacklow Hill, near Warwick. The earl's hostility to Gaveston is said to have been much increased by learning that the favorite had nicknamed him "the Black Dog of Ardenne." For this unwarrantable proceeding his lordship, and all others concerned therein, received within two years the royal pardon, but he is supposed to have eventually perished by poison, administered in revenge by the partisans of Gaveston. The earl married Alice, relict of Thomas de Layboiurne, daughter (by Alice de Bohun) of Ralph de Toni, of Flamsted, co. Herts, and sister and heiress of Robert de Toni, by whom he had issue as follows:
  - 1. Thomas de Beauchamp, his successor, 3rd Earl, regarding whom we find King Edward II. in two years subsequently soliciting a dispensation from the Pope, to enable him to marry his cousin, Catherine, daughter of Roger de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, under whose guardianship the young earl had been placed; an alliance eventually formed, when his lordship had completed his fifteenth year. In two years, afterwards, the earl by special license from the crown, was allowed to do homage, and to assume the hereditary offices of Sheriff of Worcestershire, and Chamberlain of the Exchequer. This nobleman sustained in the brilliant reign of Edward III. the high military renown of his illustrious progenitor, and became distinguished in arms almost from boyhood. So early as the third year of that monarch, he commanded the left wing of the king's army at Wyzonfosse, where Edward proposed to give the French battle, and from that period was the constant companion of the king, and his gallant son, in all their splendid campaigns. At Cressy, he had a principal command in the van of the English army, under the Prince of Wales, and at Poitiers, where Dugdale says he fought so long and so stoutly, that his hand was galled with the exercise of his sword and pole-axe; he personally took William de Melleun, Archbishop of Sens, prisoner, for whose ransom he obtained 8,000 marks. After these heroic achievements in France, the earl was arrayed under the banner of the cross, and reaped fresh laurels on the plains of Palestine, whence upon his return he brought home the son of the King of Lithuania, answering for the new convert himself at the baptismal font; for his lordship was not more distinguished by his valor than his piety, as his numerous and liberal donations to the church while living, and bequests at his decease, testify. He rebuilt the walls of Warwick Castle, which had been demolished in the time of the Mauduits; adding fortified gateways, and embattled towers; he likewise founded the choir of the collegiate church of St. Mary, built a booth hall in the market place, and made the town of Warwick toll free. He was a Knight of the Garter, being one of the original knights. He died November 13, 1369, of the plague in Calais. He had issue, and he was succeeded by his son, Thomas.
  - 2. John de Beauchamp, d.s.p.
  - 3. Maud Beauchamp, married Geoffrey Say, Lord Say.
  - 4. Emma Beauchamp, married Rowland Odingsels.
  - 5. Isabel Beauchamp, married John Clinton.
  - 6. Elizabeth Beauchamp, married Thomas Astley, Knight.
  - 7. Lucia, married Robert or Roger de Napton.
- 2. Isabel Beauchamp. See below.
- 3. Maud Beauchamp, married _______ Rithco.
- 4. Margaret Beauchamp, married John Sudley.
- 5. Anne Beauchamp, a nun at Shouldham, co. Norfolk, a monastery founded by William's maternal great grandfather.
- 6. Amy Beauchamp, a nun at Shouldham, also, with her sister, Anne.
  
  William de Beauchamp, 1st Earl of Warwick of that family, died in 1298, having previous to his mother's death used the style and title of Earl of Warwick, with what legality appears very doubtful, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Guy.
9. Isabel Beauchamp married (1) Patrick (Peter) Chaworth, of Kidwelly, co. Carmarthen, who died in 1383, and (2) Hugh Despencer, Senior, Lord Despencer. She died in 1306. Her only daughter, Maud, was by her first husband. From her second marriage there was a son, Hugh Despencer, Junior. See continuation of this lineage in the Despencer Line in Volume II.
10. Maud Chaworth, born 1298, married Henry Plantaganet, Earl of Lancaster, in 1317. He died September 22, 1345. She died in 1322.

See the continuation of this lineage in the Chaworth Line.

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