A 2017 study of John Cope, Esq., of Denshanger suggests that Elizabeth Cope must have had child / children, or he would have lost his share of the manor at her death. However, that issue didn’t survive, because his heir was born 1396.
I’m actually not sure that rules out John Cope as Elizabeth’s son, however.
Opinions?
Northamptonshire Past and Present (2017) Number 70. John Cope of Deanshanger (c.1355 – 1414)...an eminent person. By William Cope. Page 9-15. < PDF >.
John’s first marriage ended with Elizabeth’s death in the mid 1390s, certainly before 1397. In that year, John took the ‘unusual step’ of buying the reversion of the manor of Deanshanger for a fee of 100 marks, and a fortieth part of a knight’s fee, because he held the manor ‘by the courtesy’,9 meaning that he and Elizabeth had had a child or children. Since the manor was Elizabeth’s to start with, had he not taken this step, on his death it would have passed back to her family. One third was still held by Anne, widow of William Hausted, his wife’s aunt. ….
John married his second wife Joan in 1395 or 1396.Their first born was a son named John, born in 1396. John’s Stony Stratford Inquisition Post Mortem tells us that his son and heir John was a minor of 18 years at the death of his father in December 1414.12 Some pedigrees have John married to second wife Joan in 1393 but wrongly call her Joan Newenham, so this period in John’s pedigree can be confusing. Joan survived John and died in 1434.13 It had been said in one pedigree that the son John ‘died before his mother.’14
John and Joan had two more sons.The naming of Stephen, second born, as heir in 1434 confirms that his elder brother John was already deceased. Joan’s Inquisition Post Mortem tells us that Stephen was 24 and more at her passing in 1434,15 so he was born in 1410. Stephen died on 29 July 1445 …
The last son of John and Joan was William, born between 1410 and 1414, who married the daughter and heir of William Gossage of Spratton. Spratton is a village north of Northampton, 22 miles from Deanshanger.William Gossage acquired Spratton in its entirety, and his daughter carried it in marriage to William Cope, who according to Victoria County History, held it in 1488.19 This succession makes some sense, but the date is problematic in that it makes this William a contemporary of his grandson, William Cope of Hanwell, Oxfordshire. For this, VCH cites George Baker in The History and Antiquities of the county of Northampton and Baker cites Knightley’s Evidences.20 William and wife Gossage had one son, named either Stephen or Alexander, of whom there is sparse documentary evidence. Other than his listing, by either name, in various Cope family pedigrees, nothing is known of his birth or death dates, marriage, domicile, or occupation. In Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, he is purported to have died ‘temp HenryVII’.This is possible, but he did not leave a documentary footprint. There is much confusion over his name and he is listed as either father or grandfather of William Cope of Hanwell, cofferer to Henry VII. I come down on the side of Alexander and father.Adding proof ofAlexander’s early demise,upon the death ofAlexander’s father, William Cope, the manor of Spratton passed to his nephew, John Cope, son of his elder brother Stephen. Consequently, we must assume that Alexander had already died earlier than ‘temp Henry VII’.
The pedigree unhelpfully ignores widow Joan Cope altogether and elides her into Elizabeth Newenham. It later goes into a period of more massive confusion I’ve seen before. I believe this Cope line leads to the Puritan Rev. Francis Marbury and the radical Anne Hutchinson.
See https://archive.org/details/miscellaneagenea04howa/page/432/mode/2up
In any event, still no sign of siblings for heiress Elizabeth Newenham.
Disconnecting Thomas Newnham and next step will be to go down that tree to make sense of dates.