Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 6: Grey of Codnor (PROPOSED CORRECTIONS)


GREY (of Codnor)

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Volume 6, page 124:
He [Sir Henry de Grey (d. 1308)] is said to have m., 1stly, Eleanor, da. of Sir Hugh DE COURTENAY.(b)
Note b:
If this is correct, she was presumably da. of Sir Hugh de Courtenay, of Okehampton, by Eleanor, da. of Hugh le Despenser, Lord Le Despenser, and sister of Hugh de Courtenay, afterwards the 1st Earl of Devon of that name. Dugdale mentions a grant to Henry de Grey of a cottage in Sheringham, Norfolk, for the health of his soul and the soul of his wife Eleanor, to the monks of Notley.

The Hugh le Despenser suggested as Eleanor's maternal grandfather must be the man who was killed at the Battle of Evesham (d. 1265), and not the first Lord le Despenser, who was not born until 1260/1.

Even so, as pointed out by Robert Battle, in March 2002, this would lead to an extremely tight chronology between Eleanor's supposed maternal grandmother, Aline Basset (apparently born in the 1240s - Complete Peerage, vol. 4, p. 261, note i), and Eleanor's son, Richard de Grey (b. c. 1281 or 1282). Eleanor's supposed brother, Hugh de Courtenay, was born c. 1276 [Complete Peerage, vol. 4, p. 323].

[Jim Weber, in January 2003, pointed out the erroneous description of Eleanor's grandfather as Lord le Despenser.
Item last updated: 16 March 2003.]

Volume 6, page 131:
He [Sir Henry (Grey), Lord Grey (d. 1496)] m., 2ndly, in or before 1458-9, Margaret, one of the 3 das. of Sir Ralph Moton.
Note i:
... Hist. MSS. Comm., De L'Isle and Dudley MSS., vol. 1, p. 192. According to the Visitation of Leicestershire (Harl. Soc., vol. ii, p. 58), her sister Anne m., William Grymesby of Drakeboro, and her sister Elizabeth m. Rafe Pole of Radbourne, but no mention is made of Margaret or her marriage. Their father is there called Reginald Motton.

The evidence referred to is in accounts dated 1458-59 relating to the estates of Tattershall church and college, and is a reference to "Dominus le Gray de Codnor, --- Pole, et Grymesby, qui disponsaverunt filias Radulphi Moton, militis". However, not only is no daughter Margaret mentioned in the Leicestershire visitation pedigree cited, but the inquisition post mortem of Reginald (not Ralph) Moton in 1445 found that his daughters and next heirs were Anne and Elizabeth [Nichols, Leicestershire, vol. 4, pp. 995, 996]. So Margaret does not seem to have been a daughter of Reginald (or Ralph) Moton, and the deduction that the marriage took place before 1458-59 is incorrect.

Ormerod [Cheshire, vol. 2, p. 42] identifies Margaret instead as a daughter of Thomas Lord Stanley, who married 1stly Sir William Troutbeck, knight (d. 2 Edward IV), 2ndly Sir John Butler of Bewsey (d. 1453) and 3rdly, 2 October 1465, Lord Grey, of Codnor.

[Details of Ormerod's identification were given by Henry Sutliff in February 2000, and later discussed by Leo van de Pas and Kay Allen.]

Volume 6, page 133 (note):
He [Henry de Grey (d. 1219)] m. Iseude, da. of Hugh Bardolf (by his wife Isabel), and one of the 5 sisters and coheirs of Robert Bardolf, of Great Carlton, co. Lincoln, and Hoo, Kent, which Robert Bardolf (parson of 30 churches) succeeded his brother the said Hugh Bardolf. Richard de Grey, s. and h. of Henry de Grey, confirmed a grant of pasture made by Robert Bardolf to the Abbey of Barlings. "Dominus Robertus Bardolfus qui dedit nobis ... habuit quinque sorores quae successerunt ei in hereditate ... De secunda Dominus Ricardus de Grey, de quo Johannes, de quo Henricus ..." (B.M. Cott. MS., Faust., B 1, Cartulary of Barlings, fol. 106 and passim).

John P. Ravilious, in January 2003, posted a transcript of a record in which Robert Bardolf is described as the uncle (avunculus) of Jordan Foliot, Iseude de Gray and Ralph Paynel [citing Excerpta e Rotulis Finium, p. 129]. If this is correct, it implies that it was Iseude's mother who was a daughter of Hugh Bardolf and Isabel, and a sister of Robert Bardolf.

[The problem was also discussed by Cris Nash, Todd Farmerie, Roz Griston, Paul Reed and Rosie Bevan.
Item last updated: 2 March 2003.]