{49} Edward I Descents for Erasmus Paston (by 1508-1540)

Erasmus Paston, based on his
monument brass

Before I leave the Paston family, I want to highlight the two lines of descent from Edward I for Erasmus Paston, as both of the lines have only come to light in the last fifteen years, and neither is well-distributed yet among genealogy works. The first line (Line A below) is the result of research by Rosie Bevan and John P. Ravilious. They are both participants in the SocGenMed newsgroup, and are two of the most expert genealogists today working on medieval British families. Rosie first made SocGenMed aware of the Edward I descent of Margery Brewse, wife of Sir John Paston, in a post in May 2002. The other line of descent (Line B below) was researched by John Ravilious in the period 2001-2005. As the first six generations of Line A and the first three generations of Line B are well-covered by Complete Peerage, they are only presented in bare outline form.

Edward I had a dau
A1) Princess Joan 'of Acre' (1272-1307) m. twice and had a dau A2 and a son B2 (see below)
A2) Lady Eleanor de Clare, by 1st husband (1292-1337) m. 1) Hugh, 2nd Lord Despenser (c.1289-1326), and had
A3) Sir Edward Despenser of Essendine (c.1311-1342) m. Anne Ferrers (c.1315-1367), and had
A4) Edward, 4th Lord Despenser (1336-1375) m. Elizabeth Burghersh (1342-1409), and had
A5) Anne Despenser (c.1363-1426) m. 1) Sir Hugh Hastings of Elsing (by 1355-1386), and had
A6) Sir Edward Hastings of Elsing (1382-1438) m. 1) Muriel Dinham (see B5 below), and had
A7) MARGARET HASTINGS, b. by 1414 (assuming she was no younger than age 18 at her marriage), d. unknown; m. (settlement 1 June) 1432, GILBERT DEBENHAM of Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk, b. c.1405; d. 10 May 1481, M.P. Suffolk 1427, 1432, 1437, 1442, 1449, 1453-4, son and heir of Gilbert Debenham of Little Wenham Hall (d. 1449?) and Elizabeth Holbrook [*1], and had

4th Lord Despenser -
see Generation A4

A8) ELIZABETH DEBENHAM, b. c.1436 (assuming she was about age 20 at her marriage), will dated 5 December 1502, will proved 9 February 1503, bur. Chapel of the Field, Norwich; m. by 1456, as his 2nd wife, Sir THOMAS BREWSE of Stinton Hall, Norfolk and of Little Wenham Hall, b. c.1406, d. 17 June 1482, bur. Woodbridge Priory, Suffolk, M.P. Suffolk 1435, 1445-6, 1467-8, son and heir of Sir Robert Brewse of Stinton Hall (d. 1424) and Ela Stapleton (d. 1456) [*2], and had
A9) MARGERY BREWSE, b. c.1457 (assuming she was about age 20 at her marriage), d. 1495, bur. Carmelite (White) Friars Priory, Norwich, Norfolk; m. July 1477, as his 1st wife, Sir JOHN PASTON of Paston Hall, Norfolk, b. 1444, d. 28 August 1504, bur. Carmelite Friary, Norwich, M.P. Norwich 1485-86, son and heir of John Paston of Paston Hall (1421-1466) and Margaret Mautby (c.1420-1484) [*3], and had
A10) Sir WILLIAM PASTON of Paston Hall, b. c.1479, d. 20 September 1554 Paston Hall, bur. 26 September 1554 St Margaret Church, Paston; m. 1489 BRIDGET HEYDON, b. c.1480, bur. 17 January 1554 St Margaret Church, Paston, dau of Sir Henry Heydon of Baconsthorpe Castle (d. 1504) and Anne Boleyn (d. 1510) [*4], and had
A11) ERASMUS PASTON, Heir of Paston Hall, b. by 1508, bur. 6 November 1540 St Margaret Church, Paston.

Debenham Coat of Arms

[*1] Rosie Bevan, in her SocGenMed post of May 2002, had Margaret as the daughter of Sir Edward Hastings by his second wife Margery Clifton (d. 1456). But per his entry in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Sir Edward Hastings and his first wife Muriel Dinham "had a son John and other children." Sir Edward's son John Hastings was born in 1412, and given her date of marriage, Margaret was close in age to her brother. The genealogy of the Debenhams is easily confused by the existence of five successive Gilbert Debenhams. What seems to have happened is that Walter Copinger in his account of Wenham Parva in The Manors of Suffolk Volume 6 (1905), has reversed the order of the wives of two successive Gilbert Debenhams: he made Margaret Hastings the wife of Gilbert III Debenham (d. 1449?) and Elizabeth Holbrook the wife of Gilbert IV Debenham (d. 1481), when it should be the reverse. Winifred I. Haward wrote an article about Gilbert V Debenham (d. 1500) entitled 'Gilbert Debenham: A Medieval Rascal in Real Life', History Volume 13 (1929). She has this to say about Gilbert III and his son Gilbert IV, "It is possible that Gilbert the father lived until 1449 ... I am inclined to think that the father died some time before. Copinger gives no reference, and no such date is given in Add. 19126. The exploits performed before 1449 are so much like the later ones that it is difficult to believe that they were not those of the same person ... and until that date we cannot be sure which of the two is referred to". She does follow Copinger in making Elizabeth Holbrook the wife of Gilbert IV Debenham (d. 1481). Josiah C. Wedgwood, in his entries for Gilbert IV Debenham (d. 1481) and Gilbert V Debenham (d. 1500), in his 1936 History of Parliament, also follows Copinger and Haward, and makes Margaret Hastings the wife of Gilbert III and mother of Gilbert IV, and Elizabeth Holbrook the wife of Gilbert IV and mother of Gilbert V. This, however, is impossible chronologically. We know from the Paston Letters (see footnote 2 below) that both Gilbert V Debenham and his sister Elizabeth were nephew and niece of John Hastings of Gressenhall (1412-1477). There is no room chronologically for an extra generation between Margaret Hastings and the two Debenham siblings - she had to have been their mother, not their grandmother. Moving Elizabeth Holbrook back a generation as the wife of Gilbert III Debenham (d. 1449?), and mother of Gilbert IV (d. 1481) also makes more sense given that the Holbrooks were a fourteenth-century, not a fifteenth-century family, as historian James Ross mentions on pp. 54-55 of his 2011 book John de Vere, Thirteenth Earl of Oxford (1442-1513): 'the Foremost Man of the Kingdom'. It seems that at least two Suffolk manors, Little Wenham and Tattingstone, came to Gilbert IV Debenham through his inheritance from his mother (not his wife) Elizabeth Holbrook. By his wife (not his mother) Margaret Hastings, Gilbert IV Debenham had, in addition to his one daughter Elizabeth (see above), one son Sir Gilbert Debenham, born c.1440 (he was returned as age 40 in his father's 1481 IPM), died s.p. 1500 ("He was executed or died in prison in 1500, when £1 was paid to Sir William Tyler M.P. (who had his lands), for burying of Sir Gilbert Debenham (Privy Purse Exp. of Henry VII. Excerpta Hist. 124)” [Wedgwood, HOP, p. 266]; married 1468 Katherine (Plumpton) Zouche (c.1435-1470), daughter of Sir William Plumpton of Plumpton Hall and his 1st wife Elizabeth Stapleton, and widow of William, 6th Lord Zouche of Harringworth.

Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk

[*2] The first wife of Sir Thomas Brewse was Joan, daughter of Sir John Calthorpe of Burnham Thorpe (d. by 1417) and Amy Wythe. Wedgwood, in his HOP entry on Sir Thomas Brewse, has him married to second wife Elizabeth Debenham by 1440, but this is impossible chronologically. Complete Peerage Volume 2 (1912), sub Brewes, has them married by 16 October 1456, when Sir Thomas's mother Ela (Stapleton) Brewse made her will and mentioned her son Thomas and Elizabeth his wife. Elizabeth (Debenham) Brewse was heavily involved in the 1477 negotiations for the marriage of her eldest daughter to John Paston, during which she stressed her own advantageous family connection to "my nowncle Hastynges" [i.e., John Hastings of Gressenhall (1412-1477)]. Elizabeth was also instrumental in reversing the attainder of her childless brother Sir Gilbert Debenham. She paid £500 in 1501, which helped her eldest son and heir Robert Brewse recover some of the Debenham lands in 1504 and 1507. By Sir Thomas Brewse, Elizabeth Debenham had four sons: 1) Robert Brewse of Little Wenham Hall (c.1460-1513), ancestor of the subsequent Brewses of Little Wenham; 2) John Brewse of Whittingham Hall in Fressingfield, Suffolk, who had issue; 3) William Brewse (died young after 1479); 4) Edward Brewse, died s.p. before his mother made her will in December 1502; and four daughters: 1) Margery Brewse, the eldest (see above); 2) Muriel Brewse, born c.1465, living December 1502 ("my daughter Audley the wife of John Audley knight" receives one of her mother's best gowns in her mother's will), died by 1507 (her husband re-married in January 1508), married by 1479 (when her father mentions "John Awdeley, son of Umphrey Awdeley, knight, and Meryll his wife" in his will), as his 1st wife, Sir John Audley of Swaffham Market (c.1465-1530, descended from Edward III); 3) Ela Brewse, left 100 marks toward her marriage in her father's July 1479 will, living December 1502 ("my daughter Willoughby" is left one of her mother's best gowns in her mother's will), married Robert Willoughby (whom I cannot identify further); 4) Margaret Brewse, left 100 marks toward her marriage in her father's July 1479 will, died before December 1502 (or she would have received one of her mother's best gowns, like her two sisters above), married, as his 1st wife, Sir Philip Tilney of Shelley Hall (d. 1533), the brother of Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk, and had issue. The most comprehensive pedigree to date of the Brewse family of Little Wenham Hall remains the 1902 one in Frederick Arthur Crisp's Fragmenta Genealogica Volume 8.

Paston impaling Brewse,
from the 1573 Paston pedigree

[*3] By Sir John Paston, Margery Brewse had three sons: 1) Christopher Paston, b. August 1478, d. young before 1482; 2) Sir William Paston of Paston Hall (see above); 3) Philip Paston of Runham, d.s.p. before 1519 (when his wife was re-married to Sir Thomas Clere of Stokesby); m. (settlement 29 November 1516), Anne Giggs (bur. 4 November 1570 St Andrew Church, Stokesby, Norfolk), dau of Robert Giggs of Sparham (d. 1534) and Alice Topps (d. 1535), and widow of John Blakeney; and three daughters: 1) Elizabeth Paston, d. 1539; m. 1st William Clere (d.s.p. 17 March 1501), eldest son and heir of Sir Robert Clere of Ormesby House (c.1445-1529) and his 1st wife Anne Hopton; m. 2nd, as his 2nd wife, Sir John Fyneux of Herne, Kent (c.1441-1525), Chief Justice of the King's Bench 1495-1525, son of William Fyneux of Swingfield and Alice Monyns, and had issue by her 2nd husband (they are ancestors of the Viscounts Strangford, Katherine Neville, wife of Sir Thomas Lunsford of Lancaster County, Virginia, and Diana, Princess of Wales, among countless others); 2) Philippa Paston, m. Andrew Ogard of Emneth (c.1487-1526), son and heir of Sir Henry Ogard of Emneth (1451-1511), and d.s.p.; 3) Dorothy Paston, d.s.p. 6 September 1533, bur. St Peter & St Paul Church, Upper Hardres, Kent, m., as his 1st wife, Thomas Hardres of Hardres Court (d. 1556), son and heir of James Hardres of Hardres Court and Alice Hill.

[*4] "His [Sir John Paston's] financial embarrassment was doubtless eased by the marriage of his son and heir, William, to Sir Henry Heydon’s daughter Bridget, whose marriage portion was probably 500 marks. The wedding was already in sight when Sir Henry informed John Paston of the conclusion of the dispute with William Paston: ‘How yee and myn ladie, and in what sylk or clooth yee will have these tweyn yong innocentes maried jnne, iff it shuld be purveyed at London to send me word, or ellys at Norwich, as it shall please you and myn ladie ther-affter I shall applie me; for it must bee ordyrd be you in the yong husbondes name.’ 1489 seems the year in which to place the end of the controversy and the marriage, as on 10 February 1489 Margery, in writing to John, refers to ‘my brodyre Heydon’” [Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: The First Phase (1990)]. By Bridget Heydon, Sir William Paston had five sons and six daughters, and of these, eight had issue.

B2) Thomas, 2nd Lord Monthermer, by 2nd husband (1301-1340) m. Margaret de Braose (c.1303-1349), and had
B3) Margaret, 3rd Lady Monthermer (1329-1395) m. John, 1st Lord Montagu (c.1329-1390), and had

5th Lord Dinham -
see Generation B4

B4) ELEANOR MONTAGU, b. c.1364 (assuming she was about age 16 at her marriage), d. 1394, bur. St Mary Church, Kingskerswell, Devon; m. by 3 Feb. 1380, as his 1st wife, JOHN, 5TH LORD DINHAM, b. 1359, d. 25 Dec. 1428, bur. St Mary Church, Kingskerswell, son and heir of John, 4th Lord Dinham (1319-1383) and Muriel Courtenay (d. by 1369), and had [*5]
B5) MURIEL DINHAM, b. c.1385 (assuming she was about age 20 at her marriage), d. by 1420 ("Hastings was twice married, first to Muriel (who died before 1420), daughter of Sir John Dinham" [Maurice H. Keen, ODNB bio of Sir Edward Hastings]); m. (settlement 20 February 1406) Sir EDWARD HASTINGS of Elsing (see A6 above) [*6]

[*5] The evidence that Muriel Dinham, first wife of Sir Edward Hastings, was not the daughter of the 4th Lord Dinham and Muriel Courtenay, as had previously been thought, but was instead the daughter of the 5th Lord Dinham and his first wife Eleanor, was presented by John P. Ravilious in a SocGenMed post made in June 2001. The evidence that the first wife of the 5th Lord Dinham was Eleanor, daughter of John, 1st Lord Montagu and Margaret Monthermer, was presented by John P. Ravilious in a SocGenMed post made in February 2004.

[*6] "Pre-nuptial settlement dated 7 Hen IV [20 Feb 1405/06] at 'Notewill', Devon, between Edward Lord of Hastyngges (1) and John de Dynham, knight (2): Agreement between (1) and (2), that (1) shall marry Muriel (2)'s daughter, and shall enfeoff certain persons at their choice (a lour adieux ellection) with certain lands and tenements, to the value of 100 marks yearly, in 'which Muriel shall be jointured (iungne) during her life, and that she shall be dowered in lands and tenements to the yearly value of 300 marks along with that jointure. For the marriage and jointure, (2) shall pay to (1) 400 marks (100 marks on the day of the marriage, 100 marks the following Michaelmas, and 100 marks yearly at Michaelmas until fully paid), provided that she is so jointured; if not, the payments shall not be made. - A2A, Cornwall Record Office: Arundell of Lanherne and Trerice, AR/37/24" John P. Ravilious in a December 2005 post to SocGenMed.

Since Erasmus Paston is an ancestor to many, including Charles, Prince of Wales, it's good to have his two lines of descent from Edward I sorted out.

Cheers,                                       --------Brad