156 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 198. 



1375 as one of the co-heirs, on his mother's side, 

 of his grandmother Mabilia, a sister of Otho de 

 Graunson, upon the death without issue of Thomas 

 de Graunson, son of the said Otho. {Rot. Pat, 

 p. 1., 7 Hen. IV., m. 6.) 



Was there in fact any real ground for the sug- 

 gestion of Lord Fauconberge's idiocy ? This is 

 one of the gravest imputations that can be cast 

 upon a family, and it is a most unpardonable pre- 

 sumption to make it lightly and without justice; 

 but it is somewhat singular that nearly fifty years 

 afterwards, his only daughter and heir, born at 

 the very period when this charge was being re- 

 futed, and when he himself was upwards of sixty 

 years of age, became the subject of a commission 

 issued to inquire of her alleged imbecility and 

 idiocy. The commissioners sat at Gisburn in 

 Cleveland in the county of York, on the 28th of 

 March, 1463, and it was then found by the in- 

 quest that " Johanna Fauconberge nuper comi- 

 tissa de Kent, fatua et ydeota est, et a nativitate 

 sua semper fuit, ita quod se terras et tenementa 

 sua neque alia bona sua regere scit, aut aliquo 

 tempore scivit:" the jury also returned that she 

 had not alienated any lands or tenements since 

 the death of William, late Earl of Kent, her late 

 husband. That .Toan, the wife of Sir Edward 

 Bethom, Kt., thirty years old and upwards, 

 Elizabeth, the wife of Richard Strangeways, Esq., 

 twenty-eight years old and upwards, and Alice, 

 wife of John Conyers, Esq., twenty-six years old 

 and upwards, were the daughters and heirs, as 

 well of the said William the late earl, as of the 

 said Joan the late countess. (Esc. 3 Edw. IV., 

 Jfo. 33.) 



Thomas Lord Fauconberge died on the 9th of 

 September, 1407, leaving the above-mentioned 

 Joan, or Johanna, his daughter and heir, an infant 

 of one year old. (Esc. 9 Hen. IV., No. 19. ; see 

 also Esc. 9 Hen. V., No. 42 ) His widow Joan 

 had assignment of dower after her husband's 

 death on 20th October, 1408, and she herself died 

 in the following year, on the 4th of March, 1409. 

 (Esc. 10 Hen. IV., No. 15.) A later inquisition, 

 however, taken on 1st of April, 1422 (Esc. 

 10 Hen. v., No.22».), states that the said Joan, 

 widow of Sir Thomas Fauconberge, Chivaler, died 

 on the 23rd of June, 1411. The first date is most 

 probably the correct one, as a fact would be more 

 likely to be accurately stated by a jury impan- 

 neled a few months only after the event recorded, 

 than by an inquest taken after an interval of 

 twelve or thirteen years. 



On the formal proof of age (Esc. 10 Hen. V., 

 No. 22''.) of Joan Fauconberge, daughter and heir 

 of Thomas Lord Fauconberge and Joan his wife, 

 taken at Northallerton, in the county of York, on 

 the 1st of May, 10 Henry V., 1422, she was de- 

 scribed as the wife of William Neville. She 

 appears to have been born at Skelton in the said 



county, and baptized in the church there on the 

 feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist (18th of Oc- 

 tober), 1406 ; and on the same feast in 1421, being 

 the 9th of Henry V., she had accomplished her 

 fifteenth year. Dugdale (tom. ii. p. 4.) has fallen 

 into a singular mistake in alluding to this event, 

 not to speak of the obvious inconsistency which 

 those writers who follow his account have intro- 

 duced in assigning the year of Lord Fauconberge's 

 decease to 1372, thus making the daughter's birth 

 to have occurred more than thirty years after her 

 father's death. It is this : — One of the witnesses,. 

 who speaks to the period of the baptism of Joan, 

 was named Thomas Blawefrount the elder, fifty 

 years of age and upwards, and the reason as- 

 signed by him for his remembrance of the event 

 is as follows : " Et hoc scit eo quod Isabella filia 

 praadicti Thomse desponsata fuit cuidam Johanni 

 Wilton, et idem Thomas fuit ad sponsalia eodem 

 die quo pra;fata Johanna baptizata fuit, propter 

 quod bene recolit quod prsefuta Johanna fuit 

 aetatis praedictfe." Dugdale has by a strange over- 

 sight made the Isabella here described to be the 

 daughter of Thomas Fauconberge, and sister of 

 Joan, instead of the witness' own daughter. 



It is not quite evident, from the language of the 

 document which records the imbecility of the 

 Countess of Kent in March 1463, whether she 

 was then actually dead. It appears, however, 

 clear that she survived her husband, who lived but 

 a few months to enjoy his newly acquired dignity. 



The account given by Dugdale of John, son of 

 Thomas Lord Fauconberge, is scarcely intelligible. 

 He says this lord " left issue John, his son and 

 heir," and subsequently adds, " which John died 

 without issue in the lifetime of his father." 



Lord Fauconberge may have had a son by his 

 former wife, but I have seen nothing to confirm 

 this supposition. By an inquisition taken after 

 the death of Sir Walter Fauconberge, Chivaler, at 

 Bedford, on the 18th of November, 1415, it was 

 found that Joan, widow of one Sir John Faucon- 

 berge, Chivaler, deceased, whom Thomas Broun- 

 flete, junior, afterwards married, was then living, 

 and that she granted to the said Sir Walter all the 

 estate which she had in certain rents payable by 

 Matilda Wake, formerly the wife of Sir Thomas 

 Wake, Chivaler; that the said Sir Walter died 

 on the 1st of September, 1415, but the jurors 

 knew not who was his heir. (Esc. 3 Hen. V., 

 No. 15.) Dugdale (vol. ii. p. 234.) cites a feoff- 

 ment dated 9 Hen. IV., 1407-8, which shows that 

 Thomas Brounflete, Esq., was then married to the 

 said Joan, and consequently that Sir John Fau- 

 conberge was dead at that time. 



I must close this, for I fear I have now ex- 

 ceeded the limits which your valuable paper may, 

 with justice to others, spare to subjects of this 

 nature. William IIabdt. 



