Primary Sources

Joan daughter and heir of Alice late wife of Edward de Monte Acuto, one of the daughters and heirs of Thomas Earl of Norfolk.

Writ to the escheator, at the instance of William de Ufford, knight, who has married the said Joan, to take proof of her age.

Joan was born in the town of Bungeye and baptized in the font of St. Margaret’s church there on Monday the feast of the Purification, 23 Edward III [2 Feb. 1349], and is 14 years of age and more.

Notes

Alice of Norfolk married, before 29 August 1338, William's uncle, Edward Montagu, 1st Baron Montagu (d. 14 July 1361), youngest son of William Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu (d. 18 October 1319), by Elizabeth Montfort (d. August 1354), daughter of Sir Piers Montfort of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, by whom she had a son and four daughters:

5. Joan Montagu (2 February 1349 – before 27 June 1376), who married, as his first wife, before 28 October 1362, William de Ufford, 2nd Earl of Suffolk (30 May 1338 – 15 February 1382), by whom she had four sons and a daughter.

Children (all died as children):

• 1. ROBERT de Ufford, son of WILLIAM de Ufford Earl of Suffolk & his first wife Joan Baroness Montagu (-[1 Aug 1375]). Married a)  ELEANOR (-1375).  m ([28 Oct 1371]) Daughter of Richard FitzAlan & Elizabeth de Bohun
•   2. Thomas de Ufford,   d. 1375
•   3. William de Ufford,   d. 1375
•   4. Edward|Edmund de Ufford,   d. 1375
•   5. Margaret de Ufford

From The National Archives - The Brotherton Inheritance

The Bigod lands and title were immediately earmarked for Thomas of Brotherton, a younger son of Edward I born in 1300. In 1310 Thomas's father granted to him the lands and in 1312 the title as well, but Thomas died in 1338 leaving only two daughters as his heirs, his son Edward having died without issue shortly before. The estate was then divided between his widow Mary (d. 1362), Edward's widow Beatrice (d. 1383), and the two daughters. [Edward had died and Beatrice was married to Thomas de Breouse by Sept. 1337: GEC ix. 599.] The younger, Alice, married Edward Montague (d. 1361) and had a son and four daughters of whom only two daughters survived their father: Maud entered Barking Abbey and Joan married William de Ufford, who succeeded his father as earl of Suffolk in 1369. Joan and all four of her sons died without surviving issue in 1375, and on William's death in 1382 her portion of the Brotherton inheritance passed to her aunt, Thomas of Brotherton's elder daughter Margaret.

From Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley ..., Volume 1 By Robert Edmond Chester Waters. Page 333:

William De Ufford 2nd Earl Of Suffolk, the eldest surviving son of Earl Robert by Margaret de Norwich, was 30 years old in 1369 when he succeeded his father, and was therefore at least 19 years younger than his eldest brother Robert de Ufford IV., who was summoned to Parliament in February 1341-2. William was still under age when, by his father's influence at Court, he married an heiress of royal lineage; for his first wife Joan was the younger of the two daughters of Edward Lord Montacute by his first wife Alice Plantagenet, the younger daughter and coheir of Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk and Marshal of England.

Joan de Montacute was born at Bungay Castle, in Norfolk, on 2d Feb. 1348-9, (167) and was found to be twelve years old and the wife of William de Ufford, when her father died on 14th July 1361. (168) Her mother Alice had. died in 1351, leaving two infant daughters, Maud and Joan, whose wardship and marriages were granted to their father as a special favour by letters patent, dated 15th Feb. 1351-2. (111) But Joan was virtually the sole heir of her mother, for her sister Maud de Montacute was professed from childhood a nun at Barking, and was abbess of that illustrious house of religion from 1376 until her death in 1394. (170) Accordingly when Mary Countess of Norfolk, the widow of Thomas of Brotherton, died in June 1362, the estates which she held in dower were apportioned between the Earl's daughter Margaret Lady Manny and his granddaughter Joan de Ufford, who was still under age. (171) Joan had for her share in the partition Framlingham Castle, in Suffolk, with eight manors appendent, of which the custody was granted to her husband during his wife's minority at a rent of 1000 marks j>er annum. (171) Joan attained her full age of fourteen in the next year, and on making formal proof of her majority, William de Ufford had livery of her estates. (167)

In the mean while Joan dc Ufford had become the senior coheir of her father s barony, for her half brother Edward de Montacute, the infant sou of her father's* second marriage, had died on 27th Sept. 1361, nine weeks after his father. (168) It must be presumed, therefore, that it was in right of his wife that William de Ufford was summoned to Parliament as a baron on 4th Dec. 1364.

Joan de Montacute, died in 1375, in her twenty-seventh year, and was buried at Campsey. It may be guessed that her death was caused by grief for her children, for she had issue four sons and a daughter, who all died young, shortly before their mother.

• http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00139282&tree=LEO
• Cahiers de Saint Louis , Dupont, Jacques and Saillot, Jacques. 960
• Plantagenet Ancestry page 626
• https://red1st.com/axholme/getperson.php?personID=I1750053751&tree=...
• http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ENGLISH%20NOBILITY%20MEDIEVAL1.htm#...
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_of_Norfolk