Primary Sources

Inquisitions Post Mortem for Maud widow of John de Monte Acuto, Earl of Salisbury, Writ. 5 August 1424.

She died on 30 July last [1424]. Alan de Boxhull, chevalier, son of Alan de Boxhull, chevalier, senior, and Maud is her next heir, aged 30 years and more.

Notes

Maud Francis was born before 1372. She died circa 1424. She was also known as Maud Buxhall, Maud Montacute, Countess of Salisbury and as Lady Margaret Montague. [fn2]

She was the daughter and, at length, heir of Sir Adam Francis of London, MP, and Mayor of London 1352-54; and widow of both 1st, John Aubrey of that city and 2nd, Sir Alan Buxhull.

Married:

• as her third husband and before 4 May 1383 to John de Montagu, also known as John de Montacute, who was born ca. 1350-died 5 January 1400. He was the 3rd Earl of Salisbury and the son of John Montagu and Margaret Monthermer.[1]

Children of Maud Francis and John de Montagu:

1. Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury, eldest son. b. 13 Jun 1388, d. 3 Nov 1428. He married, firstly, Eleanor de Holand and secondly, Alice Chaucer, and died without male issue. His daughter with Eleanor de Holand was Alice Montagu, Countess of Salisbury, suo jure (1407-1462); and she married Richard de Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury.
2. Richard de Montacute, younger son, died without issue.[1][fn1]
3. Lady Anne Montacute. d. 28 Nov 1457. She married, firstly, Sir Richard Hankford, secondly, Sir John FitzLewis, and, thirdly, John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon & Duke of Exeter, and had issue by all three husbands.
4. Lady Margaret Montacute married William, Lord Ferrers of Groby as his first wife and had issue.
5. Lady Elizabeth Montacute married Robert, Lord Willoughby of Eresby as his second wife.

Brief Biography

Info contributed by Daniel B Williams, March 10, 2010:

Following the death of Mary de Bohun, her son, Henry of Monmouth, was given into the care of the Earl and Countess of Salisbury by his father, Henry Bolingbroke, the future King Henry IV of England. They cared for him at the manor of Courtfield in Herefordshire. [fn2] [fn3]

In 1400, the Earl of Salisbury was executed for treason by King Henry IV. Most of his remains were deposited in Cirencester Abbey, while his head is said to have been sent to London. However, upon the petition of his widow, to King Henry V in 1420, they were permitted to be removed to Bisham Priory in Berkshire, the foundation of his ancestor adjoining the family home. [fn4]

An effigy in the church at Welsh Bicknor is believed to be that of the countess.

Sources

1. http://www.thepeerage.com/p350.htm Last Edited=21 Aug 2005
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_Montacute,_Countess_of_Salisbury
3. http://www.berkshirehistory.com/bios/jmontacute_3eofs.html
4. http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/online/content/Salisbury1337.htm

Citations

1. [S125] Richard Glanville-Brown, online <e-mail address>, Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.

Footnotes

• [fn1] The Peerage website has Edward Montague b. 1429 as son of Richard de Montagu, as per their citation. However other sources, including #3 above, show him as dying without issue.
• [fn2] from: The Gatehouse website record for Welsh Bicknor Courtfield. Welsh Bicknor Courtfield has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House. In the civil parish of Welsh Bicknor; the historic county of Herefordshire ... There are masonry ruins/remnants remains. Henry V was said to have been nursed here, possibly by Lady Margaret Montague. A church was built in C19 which destroyed part of the earlier buildings." This is in a naturally strongly defended loop of the River Wye and is almost certainly the site meant by Moore. It is clearly a high status medieval site and, therefore, probably had some fortification.
• [fn3] from: Vaughn of Courtfield Welsh Bicknor, across the river from Ruardean was once a detached parish in Monmouthshire, but was transferred to Herefordshire by two acts of Parliament passed respectively in the reigns of William IV and Victoria (1844). Welsh Bicknor parish records are now held by Hereford Record Office. It is said that the prince who would become King Henry was brought up at Courtfield when it was known as Greenfield, it subsequently being renamed in his honour.
• [fn4] from: Berkshire History: Biographies: John Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. Walsingharn relates, with acrimony, that the Earl had been a chief patron of the sect of Wycliffe, known as the Lollards, having carried his iconoclastic zeal so far as to destroy all the images of saints which had been set up in his Chapel at Shenley (Herts) by Aubrey and Buxhull, his wife's former husbands, excepting that of St. Catherine, which, being an object of particular veneration to his household, he allowed to remain in his bake-house. The chronicler adds, that he became contrite just before his execution and expressed an ardent desire to be shriven according to the rites of the mother church.