Elizabeth, Lady Clinton

Elizabeth de la Plaunche was born after the death of her father, Sir William, in 1347. In the sealed grants made to particular persons by the Sovereign, which are called “the Close Rolls,” she is twice referred to (in 1361 and 1372) as being co-heiress with her elder sister Katherine of the estates of their father. It would seem from these Rolls that some sort of a partition of the estates was made, or intended to be made, between them. As however Katherine died without children, the undivided ownership passed to Elizabeth, as the sole surviving child of Sir William de la Plaunche.

Before she inherited her ancestral home and all its possessions, she had already come through marriage into the enjoyment of vast estates in many places; for instance there were manors and lands in Warwickshire (including Bermingham and Maxstoke Castle), in Staffordshire, Oxfordshire and other counties, as well as property on London and Southwark.

She does not seem to have entered into full possession of the Haversham estates until 1389, when she was the second wife of John, the 3rd Lord Clinton, who had been prominent during the wars of Edward III and Richard II. Elizabeth, Lady Clinton is best known to history as collaborating with Walter Cook, Canon of Lincoln, in founding a Guild or College of ten priests at Knoll (or Knowle) in Warwickshire, of which foundation, it is said, she was “a great Benefactress.” The King’s licence for this project was obtained in 1416.

At her death in Sept. 1423, the line of the de la Plaunche came to an end, as the children of Lady Elizabeth had all pre-deceased her, and the manor passed to a collateral branch descended from the original family of the Havershams.

Source: The History of Haversham

In her will, dated 1422, Elizabeth, ‘lady of Clynton’, requested ‘my body to be beryet in ϸe chauncel of haversham before ϸe ymage of oure lady Seynt Marie’. She makes no mention of a tomb monument, but one survives on the north side of the chancel of St Mary’s church at Haversham. Although there is no inscription or surviving heraldry it is of the right date to commemorate her.

Source: churchmonumentssociety.org

Her various IPMs give five different death dates: 6, 10, 11, 15, or 17 September 1423