Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 8: Lovel of Titchmarsh (PROPOSED CORRECTIONS)

LOVEL of Titchmarsh

Volume 8, page 217:
He [John (Lovel), Lord Lovel (d. 1310)] m., 1stly, about 1270, Isabel, sister and in her issue h. of William, and da. of Arnold DU BOIS, of Thorpe Arnold, co. Leicester.

The evidence suggests that William du Bois also had another sister, who was the wife of Thomas Corbet of Hadley, Shropshire, (d. c. 1300) and the mother of his son and heir Roger Corbet.

Parts of the Bois estates are known to have passed to the descendants of Isabel's daughter and heir Maud, the wife of William la Zouche. In February 1296 William du Bois had licence for moieties of nine manors in seven counties to be settled (through Millicent, the mother of William la Zouche) on himself for life and then on William la Zouche and his wife Maud and the heirs of their bodies, with remainder to the right heirs of Maud [Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1292-1301, p. 184]. It appears that this intention was not carried out, as four of these manors - Thorpe Arnold (Leicestershire), Little Houghton and Brafield-on-the-Green (Northamptonshire) and Weston-in-Arden (Warwickshire) - were among those settled by fine in 1301 on William du Bois for life and then on William la Zouche and his wife Maud and the heirs of their bodies, with successive remainders to the heirs of the body of Maud and the right heirs of William du Bois [CP 25/1/285/25, number 264]. These four manors passed to the Zouches [Nichols, Leicestershire, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 366-367; VCH Northamptonshire, vol. 4, pp. 266-70; VCH Warwickshire, vol. 6, pp. 48-57].

The other five manors mentioned in the licence of 1296 - Tubney (Berkshire), Ebrington and Farmcote (Gloucestershire), Standlake (Oxfordshire) and Assington (Suffolk) - passed to the Corbets of Hadley [VCH Berkshire, vol. 4, pp. 379-380; VCH Oxfordshire, vol. 13, pp. 180-183; Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward II, vol. 5, no 458 (p. 257); Calendar of Close Rolls, 1413-1419, pp. 401-404; Copinger, Manors of Suffolk, vol. 1, pp. 16-18]. By an undated deed William du Bois enfeoffed Roger Corbet - described as his 'nepos' - of the manors of Ebrington, Farmcote and Pebworth and the advowson of Ebrington [Devon Record Office, 1262M/TG/4]. In May 1313, soon after the death of William du Bois, Roger Corbet of Hadley had a pardon for acquiring in fee, without licence, from Master William de Bois a moiety of the manor of Assington [Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1307-1313, p. 574]. By 1316, Roger apparently held the whole manor [Feudal Aids, vol. 5, p. 43]. The manor of Tubney was also held by Roger Corbet as early as May 1316 [Feudal Aids, vol. 1, p. 53]. Roger Corbet's son and heir, John Corbet, was subsequently recorded on the Boroughbridge Roll as bearing the Bois arms with a label [Palgrave, Parliamentary Writs, vol. 2, div. 2, part 2, pp. 196-200].

Although the word 'nepos' in the deed might have meanings other than 'nephew,' the facts that the Corbets adopted the Bois arms, that the Bois manors were intended to be divided into moieties, and that a moiety of Assington was granted to Roger Corbet, strongly suggest that William had two sisters whose issue were his coheirs. As Roger Corbet was born in 1272 [Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, 1291-1300, no 582], on chronological grounds it seems likely that it was his father Thomas Corbet (d. c. 1300) who married a sister of William. (Copinger [Manors of Suffolk, vol. 1, p. 17] says that Roger himself married William's sister, citing an inquisition ad quod damnum that I have been unable to identify, but this seems chronologically unlikely, as well as being inconsistent with the relationship stated in the deed.)

[This information was provided by Bridget Wells-Furby in March 2011.
Item last updated: 22 May 2011.]