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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2003-11 > 1070231381
From: (Brad Verity)
Subject: Cobham of Cobham Corrections - Part 2
Date: 30 Nov 2003 14:29:41 -0800
The focus on this post is Joan (de la Pole), Baroness Cobham, her five
husbands & her children.
CP: "At an early age she m., 1stly, before Nov. 1380"
Saul [p. 26]: "This Joan was a remarkable woman who lived into her
seventies."
This would place Joan's birth prior to 1363, which seems too early.
Her first child was born in 1386, so a birth of about 1370 for Joan,
Baroness Cobham, seems a good guess.
CP: "Sir Robert Hemenhale, of Norfolk, who d. 1391, and was bur. in
Westminster Abbey."
Saul [p. 26]: "Joan's first match had probably been arranged by her
parents. The husband chosen for her was a distinguished Norfolk
knight, Sir Robert Hemenhale of Polstead in Burnham Norton. Hemenhale
died in September 1391 ... For Robert's inquisition, see 'CIPM', xvii,
nos. 62-3 ... In his will Robert had requested burial in the choir of
the Carmelite friary at Burnham (PRO, PROB 11/1, fo.60), but his
wishes were overridden and he was buried at Westminster Abbey, in St.
John the Evangelist's chapel (B. Harvey, 'Westminster Abbey and its
Estates in the Middle Ages', Oxford, 1977, 378). It is unclear what
achievements or connections qualified him for this honour. The family
had a strong military tradition. For evidence of their performance of
military service, see PRO, C76/15m.20 (John Hemenhale, 1340);
C76/38m.17 (Ralph Hemenhale, 1359); C61/82m.7 (Sir William Hemenhale,
1369). Perhaps Robert had a distinguished soldiering record, although
there is no mention of him in the chronicles."
CP: "By him she had a s., William, who d.s.p., after 1391."
Saul [p. 26]: "[Hemenhale died] leaving as his heir a five-year-old
boy William described later as an 'idiot' ... Robert had made an
enfeoffment of his estates in 1389, the purpose of which was clearly
to avoid a wardship ('CCR 1389-92', 90). The ruse was uncovered after
William's death in 1402 ('CIPM', xix, nos. 154-5), and an inquiry
ordered in 1406 ('CPR 1405-8', 304)."
CP: "She m., 2ndly, Sir Reynold Braybrooke, who d.s.p.m.s., at
Middleburg on the Scheldt, 20 Sep. 1405, and was bur. in Cobham
Church."
Saul [pp. 26-7]: "His widow held Radwinter Hall (Essex) and five
Suffolk manors in dower. [footnote: Butler, 'Robert Braybrooke, Bishop
of London (1381-1404) and his Kinsmen', 94-5.] Immediately afterwards,
she married again. Her husband this time was Sir Reginald Braybrooke,
a junior member of an important east-midland family distantly related
to the princess of Wales." Later [p. 239]: "Joan was envisaged as a
sort of bridge between the old world and the new. By the end of the
1380s, after the deaths first of her parents and then of her first
husband, her grandfather [John, 3rd Lord Cobham] had taken her under
his wing. He brought her to live at Cobham. In 1391 he arranged for
her to be remarried to the courtier knight, Sir Reginald Braybrooke."
[p. 27]: "...and in the following year [1405] he [Sir Reginald
Braybrooke] accompanied Thomas of Lancaster to Flanders. On the
latter occasion, during the unsuccessful attack on Sluys, he sustained
a wound that was to prove fatal. Lingering for four months, he died
at Middleburg on 20 September."
Saul: "Her two boys by Braybrooke had both died in early youth ...
There is a definite poignancy in the boys' appearance on the brasses.
The boys' names are given: Reginald and Robert on Braybrooke's (the
elder boy being named after his father)."
CP: "She m., 3rdly, within a year of his death, as 2nd wife, Sir
Nicholas Hawberk, who d. (leaving by her a son, John, who d. an
infant) 9 Oct. 1407, and was bur. in Cobham Church."
Saul [pp. 27-9]: "Joan's next husband was almost certainly found for
her by the king. Sir Nicholas Hawberk, a self-made man of apparently
limited means, had begun his career, like Braybrooke, in the royal
household. He first appears as a king's esquire around 1391, and he
was knighted shortly after. [footnote: 'CPR 1388-92', 487; '1391-6',
205. In Nov. 1390, as simply 'Nicholas Hawberk esquire' (not yet
'king's esquire'), he was pardoned at Baldwin Bereford's behest for a
murder ('CPR 1388-92', 319).] His origins and background are obscure.
He cannot have been related to the Leicestershire gentry family of
Hawberk, for his arms are different. [footnote: The Leicestershire
Hawberks bore 'argent on a bend sable three knots of rings or' (J.
Nichols, 'The History and Antiquities of Leicestershire', 4 vols.;
London, 1795-1811, ii, pt I, 350).] His name suggests that he was
probably of German descent. His coat-of-arms has close affinities
with some German blazons, and the triple mount and chapourny partition
are better accommodated in the context of Rhenish than English
heraldry. [footnote: As noted by Glover, on the evidence of Hawberk's
seal, his arms were 'checky argent and gules, a chief nebulee per fess
gules and or' (Nichols, 'Memorials of the Family of Cobham', 330).] A
reasonable hypothesis may be to see him as a member of the German and
Bohemian retinue that came to England in the wake of Richard II's
marriage to Anne of Bohemia, the emperor's daughter. If the case for
his foreign origin is to be accepted, then he is probably to be
identified with the 'Here Nikel Bergo' whom Richard retained in
December 1393. Whatever lands, grants and offices he picked up in
England, he owed to royal patronage. In 1396 Richard appointed him to
the important offices of sheriff and constable of Flint. [footnote:
'CPR 1396-9', 49.] Eight months later he was given the hand in
marriage of Maud, widow of John, Lord Le Strange of Knockin (Salop)--a
grant which strengthened his position in the Welsh marches. In 1399,
in common with many other of Richard's knights, he successfully
managed the transition to Lancastrian service. The esteem in which he
was held by the new king is indicated by the diplomatic tasks
entrusted to him. In 1401 he accompanied Richard's widow, Isabelle,
on her return to France, and in the following year, perhaps because of
his German origin, he was made one of the escorts for Blanche, the
king's daughter, on her journey to Germany to be married. [footnote:
Waller, 'The Lords of Cobham', 90.] A few years before this, in
September 1400, his wife had died. He was granted custody of her
heir, with the prospect of political and financial gains that this
offered. [footnote: 'CPR 1399-1401', 424.] But in 1405 he landed a
much richer prize: the hand of Reginald Braybrooke's widow, Joan. The
marriage was to be short-lived, however. Nicholas died only two years
later, in 1407." Later, Saul says: "her one son by Hawberk was
stillborn or had died in infancy."
CP: "She m., 4thly, as 3rd wife, before 18 July 1408, Sir John
Oldcastell"
Saul [p. 29]: "At the beginning of 1408 Joan married again. Her next
husband--her fourth--was a Herefordshire knight, Sir John Oldcastle of
Almeley. The match may well have been arranged by the Prince of
Wales."
CP: "She m., 5thly, Sir John Harpeden, who survived her for 24 years,
and d. 1458, being bur. in Westm. Abbey."
Saul [pp. 30-1]: "Joan's fifth and last husband was another soldier.
This was Sir John Harpedon, scion of a Poitevin noble family..."
Later, Saul says [p. 216]: "His family background is obscure. His
name suggests that he was descended from Sir John Harpedon, the
Poitevin knight who was seneschal of Saintongue in the 1370s.
[footnote: For his career, on which the Anonimalle chronicler was
well-informed, see 'The Anonimalle Chronicle 1333 to 1381', ed. V.H.
Galbraith (Manchester, 1927), 115,116,188.] This John Harpedon's son,
another John, acquired the lordship of Belleville and entered French
allegiance, rising to the office of chamberlain to Charles VI.
[footnote: The younger John's French allegiance was noted in his
father's inquisition in 1396: 'CIPM', xvii, no. 289. For the role of
the younger John in French politics, see J.B. henneman, 'Olivier de
Clisson and Political Society in France under Charles V and Charles
VI' (Philadelphia, 1996), 139,203, 312 n.49. He acquired the lordship
of Belleville by his father's marriage to Jeanne, Olivier de Clisson's
sister; for the Clisson genealogy, see ibid. 205.] Although it cannot
be proved, there is a fair likelihood that John Harpedon, Joan's
husband, was this second John's son. [footnote: In his inquisition
post mortem of 1438, his father was said to have been called 'John':
PRO, C139/86/28m.10.] It is conceivable that burial in [Westminster]
abbey was his reward for entering English allegiance."
Saul [p. 218]: "In his final years he [Harpedon] lived in England.
For the duration of his marriage to Joan he had control of the Cobham
and de la Pole inheritances jure uxoris. [footnote: It is not known
when he married Joan. A terminus ante quem of June 1428 is provided
by a reference in Glover's notes to an indenture which he possessed
containing evidences relating to the descent of the Cobham estates:
Nichols, 'Memorials of the Family of Cobham', 341.] But after Joan's
death, he had to live largely on his patrimonial estates, which were
less ample. [footnote: He was lord of Harpsden (Oxon.): 'Feudal Aids',
iv, 200. According to his inquisition, he also held Swinbrook in the
same county (PRO, C139/86/28). In an exchequer court case of 1434 he
was described as 'of Berkshire' (BL, Harley Roll C30); so presumably
he held lands there too. Again according to his inquisition, in
Huntingdonshire he held the former de la Pole manors of Everton and
Offord by life grant from his wife's daughter and her husband Sir
Thomas Brooke. There were no children by his marriage to Joan; his
heir was said to be Isabella, wife of Robert Olyver, esquire, the
daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of Gilbert, brother of Harpedon's
father John (PRO, C139/86/28).]"
Saul [p. 31]: "John survived his elderly wife by a little over four
years. The latter died on 13 January 1434, and her husband in May
1438. [footnote: PRO, C139/86/28: not 1458, as Waller, 'The Lords of
Cobham', 99.]
CP: "In this brass [Joan, Lady Cobham's] her 2nd husband only (by whom
only, apparently, she had surviving issue) is commemorated. On the
brass are no less than 6 sons and 4 daughters."
Saul [p. 31]: "Joan had numerous issue by her first three husbands,
among them a couple of sons by Braybrooke and another by Hawberk.
However, only one of the brood survived to adulthood: Joan, a daughter
by Braybrooke, who became her mother's heiress." Later, Saul says:
"Alongside the figure and above the inscription are two groups of
children--ten in all, six sons and four daughters ... The patron's
purpose in commissioning them is clear: to create the impression of
Joan the fecund mother, the begetter of a great brood. Yet the
reality of her experience was very different. Not only is it highly
unlikely that she ever bore ten children--the plates were presumably
stock issue--but not one of the boys she bore survived to manhood.
When she died in 1434 her heir was her daughter by Braybrooke: which
accounts for her identification as Braybrooke's wife on the epitaph
('uxor domini Reginaldi Braybrook militis'). So this remarkable
brass, with its intense interest in children and virtuoso display of
heraldry, is at one level a celebration of lineage, but another a
study in the concealment of failure."
CP: "Joan, apparently, suo jure Baroness Cobham, only surv. da. and h.
(by the 2nd husband, Sir Reynold Braybrooke), was, at her mother's
death, wife of Sir Thomas Brooke."
Saul [p. 31]: "The responsibility of finding a husband for her [Joan
Braybrooke] was undertaken by Oldcastle. By an agreement made on 20
February 1410 Joan was contracted to marry the son of a west-country
knight, Thomas Brooke. Thomas's father, another Thomas, gave an
undertaking to pay Oldcastle 1,300 marks on the day of the wedding,
which was to take place before Whit Sunday, and in return the Brookes
were assured that Joan Braybrooke, who was aged six, would inherit her
mother's possessions. [footnote: Nichols, 'Memorials of the Family of
Cobham', 392; 'House of Commons', ii, 375-6.]"
So Joan Braybrooke was born in 1403.
Cheers, ------Brad
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