JOAN, PRINCESS OF WALES, DAUGHTER OP KING JOHN:
ANCESTRESS TO BULKELEY, JAMES, MELLOWES, WELBY,
WITTINGHAM, HAUGH, AND ST.JOHN WHITING FAMILIES
By Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., M.S., Havertown, Penna.
In the Bulkeley Genealogy (pages 2-12) Mr. Donald Lines Jacobus included a painstaking study of the English ancestry of the Rev. Peter Bulkeley and his sisters, several of whom had American descendants. This included a descent from William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury, illegitimate son of Henry II, through the Oharlton family. This descent, brought down through Ingoldsby and James to the Harris family of South Jersey, the present writer put in chart form in the Vineland Historical Magazine, vol. 35, facing p. 88. Subsequent1y the Rev. Frederick Lewis Weia printed this descent in tabular form in his Ancestral Roots of Sixty New England Colonists, line31 (pp. 46-47 of second Edtion, 1951).
Unfortunately, Dr. Weis, in his Additions and Corrections (1956), pp. 2-3, states that in this pedigree the wife of William Mainwaring of Ightfield (who was a Warenne) was a descendant of William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, son of Hameline Plantagenet, and cites Watson's Memoirs of the Earls of Warenne and Surrey as authority. The Watson book is based on Visitation pedigrees and unreliable, but it happens that both Farrer in his Honours and Knights Fees and Clay in his Early Yorkshire Charters have studied this line and shown that any connection of Warenne of Ightfield to Warenne of Surrey is considerably ante the Plantagenet time. There may well be a Carolingian descent here, but none from the house of Anjou.
Through the research of Mr. John G. Hunt of Arlington, VA., a hitherto unnoted royal line has Come to light, stemming from the Charlton family the marrige of Robert Charlton .(b. 1430,d. 1471) to Mary, daughter of Robert Corbet of Moreton Corbet, Shropshire. This line starts with Joan, Princess of Wales, daughter of King John.
Joan, born well before 1200, is probably the most famous of King John's Illegitimate children. The Tewkesbury Annals, written about 1236, identify her mother as "Queen Clemencia." Some have taken this to mean that she was John's daughter by his first Queen, whom he divorced, his cousin Isabel of Gloucester. But against this it should be noted that Joan never inherited any of the Gloucester estates and was never known as the Countess of Gloucester, and her issue never made claim to that title. David Powell, without citing authority, states that her mother was Agatha, daughter of Robert, Lord Ferrers, Earl of Derby. Joan is first seen in 1203 when a charge is recorded for conveying the King's daughter out of England. She was betrothed to Llewellyn ap Iorwerth, Prince of Wales, by 15 Oct. 1204, and part of her dowry, the Castle of Ellesmere (which Henry II had used to dower his half-sister Emma when he gave her to David ap Owain) was given to Llewellyn on 16 Apr. 1205. The marriage took place that year or the following. In April of 1226 she was legitimatized by Pope Honorius III.
Joan was well loved by the Welsh and apparently had her father's ear, being frequent peace-maker between England and Wales, a position she continued to hold after her brother of the half blood, Henry III, ascended the throne. Her reputation always stood high, though one black episode stands on the record when she seems to have acted as her husband s accomplice in the destruction of William de Braose who had plotted against Llewellyn. (William s father Reginald had married Gwladys Dhu, Joan's daughter, as his second wife.) William de Braose was hanged by Llewellyn on 2 May 1230 "having been caught in the chamber of the Prince with the Princess Janet, wife of the Prince."
Joan died either on 30 May 1236 (Tewkesbury Annals) or in February 1237 ( Welsh Chronicles) at the court of Aber and was buried in the cemetery on the south aide of the Strand.., with sore lamentations and great honour." Her husband founded a Franciscan monastery at her burial place Llanvaes in Anglesey. The grave was despoiled at the dissolution of the monastery, but the stone coffin, bearing her effigy, was later recovered and may be seen there. [Dictionary of National Biography; Sir John Edward Lloyd, History of Wales (1954 ed.), II:658, 766.]
Her daughter. Margaret was married about 1219 to Jobn de Braose. (First cousin of the William hung jn 1230 by Llewellyn), by whom she had a son William. John died in 1231-2, and she married second, after 1233, Walter de Clifford of Clifford Castle in Herefordshire, who died in 1263. Walter de Clifford had by Margaret only one child, a daughter and heiress Maud. [Lloyd, op. cit., II:658, 677, 766; New Complete Peerage, I:21; II:302; VI:45l-2, note g.]
Maud, daughter and heiress of Walter de Clifford and Margaret of Wales, married first, William Longespee III, Earl of Salisbury, died 1257, by whom she had a daughter Margaret, heiress of her father. She married second, Sir John Giffard of Brimsfield, 1st Baron Giffard, aged 16 in 1248, summoned as a Baron 1297, died 29 May 1299. Maud died between 1282 and 1285 leaving only daughters, and he married second, Margaret, widow of Sir John de Nevill, by whom he had a son and heir, John, 2nd Baron, who died without issue, the estate being divided between the heirs of his half-sisters. One of these was Aelinor. [New Complete Peerage, XI:384; V:639 et seq.]
Aelinor, daughter of John, 1st Lord Giffard, and Maud Clifford, married Fulk le Strange, born about 1267, summoned as Baron Strange of Blackmere 1309, died on or before 23 Jan. 1324/5. She had predeceased him. Baron Strange was a very important man, a field commander of the forces of Edward I and Edward II in Scotland and France, and Serving four years as seneschal of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Among their children was Elizabeth [Ibid., XII:part II:341.]Elizabeth le strange married Robert Corbet of Moreton Corbet, born 1304 and died 1375. Proof of her parentage and of the marriage is found in the Calendar of Papal Registers, Vol. II, p. 229, where under date Ides March 1323 we find: "To Robert Corbet, lord of the town of Morton in the Diocese of Litchfield and Elizabeth daughter of Fulke le Strange, seneschal of the Duchy of Acquitaine dispensation to remain in marriage which they contracted in ignorance that they were related in the 4th degree, and declaring their present and future offspring legitimate. 1 March, Avignon." The relationship between these two is not known to the writer. Robert and Elizabeth were the parents of Roger. [A. E. Corbett, The Family of Corbet (1917), ped. op. p. 368; Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, VII:47, 100- 107; X:18l-l9l; IX:323-325.]
Roger Corbet of Moreton Corbet, son of Robert and Elizabeth, died about 1394, married Margaret (died 1395) daughter of Sir Giles de Erdington [Eardiston in Eyton] of Shrewsbury. They had a son Robert. [Ibid.]
Robert Corbet of Morton Corbet, son of Roger and Margaret, Sheriff of Shropshire 1419, died 1440, mararet daughter of Sir William Malory, knt. They were the parents of Mary. [Ibid.)
Mary Corbet daughter of Robert and Margaret, married Robert Charlton of Apley, from whom the descent has already been published. [Ibid.] For the convenience of the reader, a quick summary of the descent from Robert Charlton and Mary Corbet is appended below; for further details, see the references in the first paragraph of this article.
Robert Charlton, b. by 1430, d. 1471; m. Mary Corbet as above. Their son:
Richard Charlton, b. 1450, d. 1522; m. Anne daughter William Manwaring of Ightfield [though her identity has been questioned]. Richard s daughter was:
Ann Charlton,, b. 1480; m. 1500 Randall Grosvenor, b. 1480, d. l559/60, of Bel1aport, Salop. They had: Elizabeth Grosvenor, b. ca. 1515; m. Thomas Bulkeley, b.ca. 1515, d. 1591, of Woore, Salop. Parents of:Rev. Edward Bulkeley, b. ca. 1540, bur. 5 Jan. 1620/1; m. Olive Irby, b. ca. 1547, bur. 10 Mar. 1614/15.
Of this last marriage, a son, Rev. Peter Bulkeley, came to America. A daughter, Dorcas, married Rev. Anthony Ingoldsby, and their daughter Olive Ingoldsby married Rev. Thomas James and came with him to America. Other daughters were Martha who married Abraham Mellowes; Frances who married Richard Welby (their daughter, Olive Welby married Henry Farwell, and they came to America); Elizabeth who married first, Richard Whittingham, and second, Atherton Haugh; and Sarah who married Oliver St. John (their daughter Elizabeth St. John married Rev. Samuel Whiting and came to America). The issue of all the above marriages lived in New England, and the American descendants are almost numberless.
