Thomasin Stapledon

Thomasin was born about 1353, the daughter of Richard Stapledon and Margaret. The place is not known.

Pedigree Chart (3 generations)

Thomasin Stapledon (c1353-1419)	Richard Stapledon (c1310-c1396)	Richard Stapledon (c1280-1326)
		Richard Stapledon (c1280-1326)
		Avice (c1310-?)
		Avice (c1310-?)
	Margaret (c1310-?)

Events

Notes

Note 1

!Source: Devon Wills Index, 1163-1999 https://www.findmypast.com/transcript?id=GBOR%2FOR%2FDEVWILLS%2F174541&tab=this

Additional information Inquisition Post Mortem; Died 27 Apr. 1419. Wife Thomasin; Richard, son and heir of said Richard and Thomasin, then aged 21 years and 40 weeks

!Source: LANDOWNERSHIP South West Heritage Trust https://swheritage.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Norton-Fitzwarren-Landownership.pdf

Norton may have been among the lands in Somerset granted in 882 by Alfred, king of the

Saxons, to his thegn Æthelstan.9 In 1066 Norton Fitzwarren was held by Osmund, and it paid

geld for 5 hides. By 1086 it was part of the estates of the Count of Mortain and was held by

Alvred.10 This Alvred was Aluredus Pincerna, Alured or Alfred the Butler, the wealthiest of

the Count of Mortain’s tenants, with most of his land being held in south-west England.11 His

estate at Chiselborough, and presumably that of Norton, descended through the family to his

1210 John held manors including those of Norton and Chiselborough of the king, the rent for

Norton being £7 4s. 1d.13 The manor of Norton was held by him in 1212 for one knight’s fee

settlement Norton should have passed to Henry, his son by Eleanor.46 Possibly taking

advantage of the situation Richard Stapeldon gained possession of the manor and in 1393

John le Veel, presumably brother of Thomas, with some companions entered the manor by

force and expelled Stapeldon’s men and servants.47 Enquiries into the case were still ongoing

in 1397–8.48 In 1401 another assault was made on the manor, thrusting out the servants of

Richard, son of Richard Stapeldon and fixing iron bars before the gates.49 However, the Veel

family were unsuccessful in their attempts to regain the manor. >>> The younger Richard

Stapeldon died c. 1396 leaving a widow Margaret50 and a daughter Thomasine who married

Sir Richard Hankeford of Annery in Devon, son of Sir William Hankeford , Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. <<<

lands in Norton, valued at £40.53 After the death of his wife Thomasine he held her estates for

life.54 On his death in 1419 his son, also Richard , inherited the Norton estate. By his

first wife Elizabeth, daughter of Fulk, Lord Fitzwarren, the younger Richard inherited further

estates, Lord Fitzwarren’s son Fulk having died a minor without issue. By Elizabeth’s

daughter Thomasine the manor of Norton and the title of Lord Fitzwarren would come by

Fitzwarren, after the death of Anne, his second wife, was to his daughters by Elizabeth.56

Anne died in 1457, having remarried twice.57 Thomasine , the only surviving child

of Richard by Elizabeth,58 married, before 3 August 1437, William Bourghchier, styled ‘de

inherited his mother’s lands upon his father’s death in 1469. He married Elizabeth ,

wife and her heirs.60 After Fulk Bourchier’s death in 1479 his widow Elizabeth married

died in 1516 her heir was her son John Bourchier, Lord Fitzwarren , created Earl of

Bath in 1536.62 The manor descended with the Earls of Bath like Huntspill until the

Sir Richard Stapledon was an English judge and politician, the elder brother of Walter Stapledon , Bishop of Exeter. His effigy and monument survive in Exeter Cathedral.

The Stapledons were minor gentry who had lands at Stapledon in the parish of Cookbury in Devon, his parents being William and Mabel Stapledon and his younger brother Walter Stapledon.[2]

Stapledon was a lawyer and a judge, a Justice of Assizes for the western circuit.[3] Few records have survived concerning his career. In August 1315 he entertained his brother the bishop at his manor house at Stapledon when he came to dedicate Cookbury church. He also was granted by his brother a licence to have a private chapel at Stapledon, a common request made by many of the medieval country gentry. The estate of Stapledon descended as Annery.[4]

Records of a lawsuit brought against "Richard de Stapledon, knight, of Devon" in 1341/5, thus after his death, or perhaps referring to a son then living, for recovery of a debt of £28 5 shillings owed to Master Robert Hereward, Archdeacon of Taunton, reveal that Stapledon held lands in Devon including one knight's fee in Huish, Fremington Hundred; parts of a fee in Stapledon, Cookbury, etc. in Black Torrington Hundred; in West Down, Braunton Hundred and in Broad Harford in South Molton Hundred.[5]

Stapledon was granted the demesnes of the manor of Milton Damerel by Hugh Courtenay, 2nd Earl of Devon ,[6] whose effigy also survives in Exeter Cathedral. Milton Damerel later passed with Annery to the Hankfords.[7] <<<<

In 1311 Stapledon received a grant of one acre in the parish of Drannack, near Gwinear in Cornwall, with the advowson of the Church of St Winneri, authorised by the overlord Gilbert de Clare, 8th Earl of Gloucester. In 1318 he conveyed the same to the Diocese of Exeter and the possessions, including the Gwinear great tithes, were then bestowed by his brother the bishop as part of the endowment of his foundation of Stapleton Hall, Oxford, later Exeter College.[8] The income from the tithes provided twelve scholarships, for "poor but sober boys", eight in Devon and four in Cornwall.

No records survive concerning the identity of Stapledon's wife. It was stated by Prince that Stapledon's progeny continued in the male line at Annery for a further two or three generations,[9] and then on the failure of the male line passed via a daughter and sole heiress, Thomasine Stapledon, to her husband Sir Richard I Hankford,[10] son of Sir William Hankford , KB, Lord Chief Justice of England.

On 14 October 1326, Stapledon was murdered in the City of London,[11] whilst trying to rescue his brother the bishop from an angry mob, which shortly afterwards murdered the latter also. The events were as follows. Bishop Stapledon was associated in the popular mind with the misdeeds of King Edward II. On fleeing London before the advancing troops of Queen Isabella, that king appointed Stapledon Custos or "Keeper" of the City of London, the population of which was mostly in favour of the Queen. Foreseeing her forced entry into the City, Stapledon demanded from the Lord Mayor of London the keys to the gates, in order to lock her out. However, when the population heard of this they "lay in wait to surprise the bishop", who fled for safety from this mob into St Paul's Cathedral. According to Prince ,[12] Sir Richard was with his brother at the time and attempted to save him from the mob. However, as they rode the Bishop of London and Bishop Stapledon had gathered together with a group of the Kings Justices) into the City towards St Paul's, through the gate called Cripplegate, a cripple took hold of one of the forelegs of Sir Richard's horse and by crossing it threw the horse and rider to the ground, whereupon Sir Richard was murdered by the mob. The bishop reached St Paul's, but found no safety there as the mob entered and dragged him out and proceeded to beat and wound him and dragged him to the Great Cross at Cheapside "where those sons of the devil most barborously murdered him"[14] on 15 October 1326.[15] The bishop was eventually given an honourable burial on the north side of the chancel of Exeter Cathedral, where his effigy and monument survive. The murder of Sir Richard Stapledon is described as part of a verse epitaph in Latin composed by John Hooker and formerly visible above the monument of his brother the bishop:[16]

Sir Richard was also buried in Exeter Cathedral, near his brother the bishop, against the north wall across the north ambulatory from the bishop's tomb. His tomb is marked by an elaborate monument comprising a recessed ogee shaped niche set into the wall, containing his recumbent effigy, in the form of a cross-legged knight, which style supposedly represents crusaders. At the effigy's head stands a small statue of a man and at the feet a horse with an even smaller statue of a man holding its reins. According to Prince [17] this last group refers to the tradition of the cripple who seised the foreleg of Sir Richard's horse at Cripplegate and thereby threw him off his horse into the hands of the murderous mob. It is however more likely that the figures are "a touching early fourteenth century visual representation of the Knight with his immediate following ... a knight is shown accompanied by his squire, page and horse".[18] The Devon historian Sir William Pole stated that the arms of Stapledon were displayed on the shield of the effigy,[19] but today no trace of colour remains. These arms are however still visible on the nearby monument to his brother the bishop.

Pole, Sir William , Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole , London, 1791, p.502

M. C. Buck . "Stapeldon, Walter". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26296. Retrieved 1 October 2023.

Report & Transactions of Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, 1876, pp. 450-2. [2]

Prince's source for the murder of Bishop Stapledon is William de Dene's history of the See of Rochester covering the period 1314-1348 and the reign of Bishop Haymo de Hethe. The manuscript in the Cottonian Library was published in Henry Wharton's Anglia Sacra, 1691 Edition, Vol.1. The passage relating to the murder of Bishop Stapledon is on page 366: ad Fratres Praedicatores tunc congregatos [4]

Prince, pp.725-6; also printed in Westcote, Thomas, "A View of Devonshire in MDCXXX: With a Pedigree of Most of Its Gentry", Book 2, pp.165-6 [5]

Prestwich, Michael, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience, London, 1996, p.49 [6]

Pole, Sir William , Collections Towards a Description of the County of Devon, Sir John-William de la Pole , London, 1791, p. 110.

Thomasin Stapledon

Personal and Family Information

Pedigree Chart (3 generations)

Events

Notes

Note 1