Elizabeth Shirley

Elizabeth Blount

• Elizabeth Blount1,2,3
• F, #47259, b. circa 1416, d. before 1455
• Father Sir John Blount4,2,3 b. c 1390
• Elizabeth Blount was born circa 1416 at of Rock, Worcestershire, England. She married Ralph Shirley, Esq., Constable of Melbourne Castle, son of Sir Ralph Shirley, Sheriff of Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire and Joan Basset, circa 1435 at of Wiston, Sussex, England; They had 1 son (Ralph, Esq.) and 5 daughters (Elizabeth; Alice; Sanche; Anne; & Margaret).1,2,3 Elizabeth Blount died before 1455.1,3
• Family Ralph Shirley, Esq., Constable of Melbourne Castle b. c 1410, d. 26 Dec 1466
• Child
  • Ralph Shirley+ b. c 1445, d. 1510

Children of Ralph Shirley & Elizabeth Blount

• 7(ii). Ralph Shirley, esq. of Staunton Harold, Leicestershire, of Wiston, Sussex, son of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Elizabeth Blount. He died at Wiston Sussex in 1510 Shirleys of Wiston Sussex
• 7(iii). Elizabeth Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
• 7(iv). Alice Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
• 7(iii). Anne Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
• 7(iv). Sanchia Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Elizabeth Blount. (source: visitation of Sussex)
• 7(v). Margeret Shirley daughter of Sir Ralph Shirley and wife Elizabeth Blount.(source: visitation of Sussex)
• Citations
• 1.[S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 652.
• 2.[S16] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. IV, p. 27.
• 3.[S4] Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, Vol. IV, p. 626.
• 4.[S15] Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, p. 749.
• From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p1572.htm#... ___________________________
  • ACCORDING TO OTHER SOURCES THE SON JOHN IS THE ISSUE WITH MARGARET STAUNTON NOT ELIZABETH BLOUNT
• Elizabeth Blount1
• F, #283703
• Last Edited=10 May 2008
• Elizabeth Blount is the daughter of Sir John Blount.1 She married Ralph Shirley, son of Sir Ralph Shirley and Joan Basset.1
• Her married name became Shirley.1
• Children of Elizabeth Blount and Ralph Shirley
  • 1.John Shirley+2 d. 1485
  • 2.Ralph Shirley+1 d. 1510
• Citations
• 1.[S37] BP2003 volume 1, page 1416. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]
• 2.[S37] BP2003. [S37]
• From: http://thepeerage.com/p28371.htm#i283703 ________________________________
• Stemmata Shirleiana
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n51/mode/2up
• . . "Of Sir Thomas Shirley I find nothing memorable but his death, which happened before the 36th of Edward III. and that by Isabel, his wife, he had issue Hugh."* This Isabel was the daughter of Ralph Basset of Drayton, and sister, and at length heiress, of Ralph the last Baron. She afterwards married John de Wodhull, son of John de Wodhull, knt. Baron of Wodhull, by whom she had two daughters. She remarried Sir Gerard III. de Braybroke, knt. . . . .
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n52/mode/1up
• The circumstance of Sir Hugh Shirley, only son of Sir Thomas, not being mentioned in the Inquistitions taken on the death of the last Ralph Lord Basset has appeared to some genealogist to cast a doubt on the legitimacy of Isabel Basset, Sir Hugh's mother.* The lands, however, referred to in the Inquisitions were, as Dugdale observes, otherwise settled by an old entail, Sir Hugh merely succeeding to the property whereof his uncle was seised in fee. See the curious documents in the Appendix, which appear to set this matter at res.T (App. LXXXIII. LXXXIV.)
  • * For the legitimacy of Isabel Basset, see Collectanea Topog. and Genealog. vol. vii. pp. 256, 392. See also Nicolas's Synopsis of the Peerage, vol. i. p. 43, and Beltz's Memorials of the Order of the Garter, p. 162 note.
  • T See also Sir Egerton Brydges' edition of Collins's Peerage, article, "Earl Ferrers," where Isabel Basset's legitimacy is ably vindicated.
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n59/mode/1up
• Sir Hugh Shirley had with Beatrix Braose his wife the manors of Wistneston or Wiston, Ashurst, Chiltington, Sloghton, Hion, and Iringtham in sussex, and Wedonhill, in the parish of Amersham, in Buckinghamshire.
• He had issue, besides Ralph, his son and heir, Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, Joan, married to Robert Newmarch, and Isabella, who wedded Sir John Cockayne of Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, knt. . . . The youngest daughter of Sir Hugh Shirley was Nicholaia, who, with Elizabeth, died unmarried.
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n63/mode/1up
• Ralph, son and heir of Sir Hugh Shirley, was in his thirteenth year when he lost his father at the battle of Shrewsbury (July 22, 1403), having been born on St. George's day (April 23) 1392. (App. LXXXV.) . . . .
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n66/mode/1up
• This Lady Joan, Sir Ralph's first wife, was the only daughter and heir, by Margaret, daughter of William Mering, of Thomas Basset, of Brailesford, . . . Sir Ralph Shirley had issue, by Joan his first wife, a son, named after, and who succeeded, his father; and a daughter Beatrix, who married John Brome, of Baddesley Clinton . . . .
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n68/mode/1up
• Sir Ralph Shirley married secondly Alice, who according to Dugdale and the Harleian MSS. was the daughter of Sir John Cockayne, of Ashbourne, knt. . . . .
• The Lady Alice outlived her husband many years, and died on the Wednesday after Whitsunday 1466, in the sixth year of Edward VI.
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n69/mode/1up
• . . . . , on the 2nd day of April, in the year of our Lord 1423, he treated of a marriage betwixt him and the excellent and virguous gentlewoman, Margaret Staunton, sister and sole heir of Thomas Staunton, esq. for the accomplishing of which marriage, finding themselves both to be joined within the fourth degree of consanguinity, they presented a petition to Pope Martin V. . . . .
• By Margaret Staunton Ralph Shirley had issue one only son, christened John.
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029787250#page/n72/mode/1up
• His second wife was Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir John Blount, and sister of Walter, Lord Montjoy; by her he had issue one son, Ralph Shirley, who was the founder of that branch of the family long seated at Wiston in Sussex, and five daughters; to Elizabeth, the eldest of whom, Walter . . . .
• Ralph Shirley, the elder, married, thirdly, Lucy, daughter of Sir John Asheton, of Asheton-under-Lyne, co. Lancaster, Knight of the Bath, and widow, first, of Sir Richard Bryon of Colwich, co. Notts, knt. and Lord of Clayton, co. Lanc.; and, secondly, of Sir Bertram Entwissell, of Entwissell, . . . . .
• Ralph Shirley died on St. Stephen's day (Dec. 26) 1466 (6 Edw. IV.), seised of the manors of Shirley, Hone, Hope, and Brailesford, co. Derby; Nether Eatendon, with its . . . . ____________________________
• A gentry community: Leicestershire in the fifteenth century, c.1422- c.1485 By Eric Acheson
• http://books.google.com/books?id=0HhSjk4yZ6YC&pg=PA248&lpg=PA248&dq...
• Pg. 161
• To prevent his estate from being divided between the descendants of his grandfather's sisters, namely, Thomas, lord Stafford, and Alice Chaworth, Ralph Basset devised all his lands on his nephew, Hugh Shirley, son of Basset's uterine, or possibly illegitimate, sister, Isabel, with remainder to William Stafford, younger brother of Thomas. As Hugh Shirley had no rights by inheritance to the property and as William Stafford's claim was secondary to that of his elder brother, it is clear that lord Basset's device was intended to preserve the estate intact. . . . . The integrity of the Walsh family caput at Wanlif was similarly preserved, in its case by agreement between the husbands of the coheirs. Ralph Shirley III, husband of Elizabeth Walsh, received Wanlip, while William Llittleton, husband of Elizabeth's sister, Ellen, was compensated by grants of other lands of equal value. . . . .
• Pg. 248
• When Hugh Shirley died in 1403 his estate included manors in Warwickshire, Suffolk, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (Stemmata Shirleiana, p. 37). Under the terms of the will of Hugh's maternal uncle, the third and last Ralph, lord Basset of Drayton, Hugh was to receive the basset inheritance provided he assumed the name and arms of Basset (Stemmata Shirleiana, pp. 34, 376). As this bequest was made at the expense of lord Basset's true heirs, Thomas earl of Stafford and Alice Chaworth, Hugh and his son, Sir Ralph I, did not have immediate and peaceful seisin of the property in question (G.E.C., II, pp. 3-4, n.f.). On 8 August 1424, however, Basset's last surviving feoffee, John Brown, released to Sir Ralph I numerous manors including the manors of Ragdale, Dunton Basset, Willow and Radcliff-on-Wreake in Leicestershire (C.A.D., v, A11388). Sir Ralph nust have had de facto tenure of these manors before 1424 for he was appointed to Leicestershire's bench of JPs between 1514 and 1422, and . . . . Nevertheless, Sir Ralph Shirley expanded the estate he inherited by a judicious marriage to Joan, daughter and heir of Thomas Bassett, thereby adding the manor of Brailsford to the family holdings in Derbyshire (Dugdale, I, p. 622). Joan Bassett was dead before 1419, by which date Sir Ralph had taken Alice Cockayne as his second wife (H.M.C. Rut., IV, p. 52). Alice died in 1466 (E149/219/9). The removal of the family's caput to Leicestershire was achieved through the marriage in 1423 of Sir Ralph's son and heir, Ralph II, to Margaret, daughter of John, and sister and heir of Thomas Staunton of Staunton Harold (L.R.O. 26D53/254: E149/127/12). At the time of their marriage, Ralph II was about fifteen years old while his wife was barely eighteen years. Margaret bore a son, John, who was born before 1426 but she must have died soon after this date. Ralph II's second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Blount, was dead by 1457, but she had borne him five daughters and a son (L.R.O. 72'30/1/37; L.R.O. 26D53/192-3; Village Notes, IV, pp. 296-7). By 1458, Ralph II was married for the third time, to Lucy Ashton, widow of Sir Bertram Entwistle (L.R.O. 26D53/195; Stemmata Shirleiana, p. 49). Ralph Shirley II was an esquire of the chamber during the 1440s (E101/409/9, fos. 36v-7; E101/409/11, fo. 39; E101/409/16, fo. 35), but his career seems to have been otherwise undistinguished. He died in 1466, a few months after the death of his step-mother, Alice Cockayne (C140/19/18 MS 3). He was succeeded by his son John who, of all the fifteenth-century Shirleys, managed to made do with only one wife. John had married Eleanor Willoughby of Nottinghamshire by 1456 and she presented him with a large family of twelve children (L.R.O. 26D53/1947; Stemmata Shirleina, p. 51). In his will, dated 26 March 1485, he made provision for eleven of these children (L.R.O. 26D53/1947). John's son and heir, Ralph III, had already married around 1474, when he was about fourteen years old, to Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Thomas Walsh (q.v.) (L.R.O. 26D53/543). Their only child, a daughter Anne, married Sir Thomas Pulteney (q.v.) (L.R.O. 5D53/86, fo. 1). In 1496 Ralph, III married Anne Vernon of Derbyshire but by 1507 he had a third wife, Anne Warner (L.R.O. 26D53/2552; Stemmata Shirleiana, p.39). By his fourth and final wife, Joan Sheffield, Ralph III eventually sired a son, Francis (Dugdale, II, p. 622). Ralph III died in 1513 (L.R.O. 26D53/1948). The Shirley family was undoubtedly one of Leicestershire's most wealthy knightly families. Nevertheless, after the death of Sir Ralph I in or aroung 1443, no member of the family assumed the dignity of knighthood, preferring instead to accept distraint for failing to do so (Stemmata Shirleiana, p. 43; E159/234). In 1436, Sir Ralph had been assessed in Derbyshire on an income of L100 per year but his mother, Beatrice, wife of Hugh had an income of L92 while another Ralph Shirley probably Sir Ralph's son, was assessed n L40 (E179/240/266). Beatrice lived until 1440 while Ralph II's step-mother almost outlived him (C139/101/65 MS 2; E149/219/9). John Shirley had a step-mother and a large family to provide for, too. Shirley resources, therefore, were thinly spread during the fifteenth century. In the 1470's, both John and Ralph III were members of lord Hastings' retinue (Durnham, 'Lord Hastings' indentured retainers 1461-1483', pp. 119, 120), but during the period considered for office bearing, neither man performed administrative service in the county. Ralph III did, however, become sheriff of Leicestershire in 1493 (Lists and Indexes, IX, p. 146). There was, nevertheless, a family tradition of activity on behalf ot the duchy of Lancaster. Hugh Shirley had been constable of Castle Donington from 1400 and master-forester at Duffield in 1402 (Somerville, I, pp. 573, 556); Sir Ralph I was appointed master-forester in the honor of Leicester for life in 1414 (Somerville, I, p. 568); Ralph III was master-forester at Duffield in 1493, steward and then constable at Melbourne, steward of Appletree hundred and steward of Castle Donington (Somerville, I, pp. 557, 558, 559, 573). ________________________
• The Sherley brothers, an historical memoir of the lives of Sir Thomas Sherley, Sir Anthony Sherley, and Sir Robert Sherley, knights (1848)
• http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029881475#page/n13/mode/2up
• From the family of Bavent it passed by marriage to a younger branch of the great Norman House of Braose (Lords of the neighbouring Castle of Bramber,) under whose ancestors the manor had been formely held, and in the year 1423, by the death of Sir John de Braose, without surviving issue, it descended to his sister Beatrice, at that time the widow of Sir Hugh Shirley of Nether Eatington, in the County of Warwick, and of Shirley in Derbyshire, who fell at the Battle of Shrewsbury, on the 20th of July 1403.
• For two generations, the manor of Wiston, remained appendant to the House of Eatington, but on the death of Ralph Shirley, Esq., in 1466, it was settled on his son of the same name, by his second wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir John Blount, and sister of Walter Lord Mountjoy. This Ralph Sherley, (the name was always thus written by this younger branch of the family,) was the first of his Race who resided at Wiston, and was Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1504, he was buried in 1510, and was succeeded by his eldest son Richard, who died in 1540, leaving a son and heir William, who survived his father but eleven years, dying in 1551; this William was the father of Thomas Sherley, afterwards well known as Sir Thomas Sherley the elder, of Wiston, Knight, who was born in 1542, and by his marriage about 1559, with Anne daughter of Sir Thomas Kempe of Ollantighe in Wye in Kent, Knight, was the father of THOMAS, ANTHONY, AND ROBERT, the subjects of the following memoirs. -- ___________________________
• The noble and gentle men of England; or, Notes touching the arms and descents of the ancient knightly and gentle houses of England, arranged in their respective counties (1859)
• http://www.archive.org/stream/noblegentlemenof00shiriala#page/249/m...
• Until the reign of Edward III., Eatington appears to have continued the principal seat of the Shirleys, whose name was assumed in the twelfth century from the manor of Shirley, in Derbyshire, and which, with Ratcliffe-on-Wreke, in the county of Nottingham, and Rakedale and Staunton- Harold, in Leicestershire, derived from the heiresses of Basset and Staunton, succeeded, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as the usual residences of the chiefs of the house. In the sixteenth century, Astwell, in Northamptonshire, was brought into the family by the heiress of Lovett; and in 1615, by the marriage of Sir Henry Shirley with the co-heiress of Devereux, a moiety of the possessions of the Earls of Essex, after the extinction of that title in 1646, centered in Sir Robert Shirley, father of the first Earl Ferrers; on whose death, in 1717, the family estates were divided, the Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire estates descending with the earldom to the issue of his first marriage, and the Warwickshire property, the original seat of the Shirleys, eventually to the great-grandfather of the present possessor, the eldest surviving son of the second marriage of the first Earl Ferrers.
• Younger Branches (extinct). Shirley, of Wiston, Preston, West-Grinstead, and Ote-Hall, all in Sussex, and all descended from the second marriage of Ralph Shirley, Esq., and Elizabeth Blount; which Ralph died in 1466. All these families are presumed to be extinct on the death of Sir William Warden Shirley, Baronet, in 1815* ________________________________
• Links
• http://www.shirleyassociation.com/NewShirleySite/NonMembers/England...

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