Sir Henry de Bruley of Aston Bruley, Worcestershire ¹

  General Notes:

Of Aston, Bruley and lord of Waterstoke, Oxfordshire, in right of his wife, M.P. for county Lincoln 1292-8 ; d. before 22 Edw. III. (Skelton's " Oxfordshire," vol. 10.) See "Memorial of the Danvers Family," by F. N. MacNamarra, M.D., p. 224. ¹

  Research Notes:

" d. before 22 Edw. III. (Skelton's " Oxfordshire," vol. 10.)" - [1348] does not make sense

  Events

• Manorial Estate, 1274-1275, Aston Bruley Manor, White Ladies Aston, Worcester, Worcestershire, WR7, GB. ³ Land at White Ladies Aston, afterwards known as the manor of ASTON BRULEY (Nether Aston, xvii cent.), was held under the Bishop of Worcester as of his manor of Northwick (fn. 44) by the Bruleys from very early times. In the Bishop of Worcester's Domesday (c. 1182), Richard de Bruley is entered as holding a hide at Aston, and Richard 'Brusle' is mentioned in the Pipe Roll of 1175\endash 6. In the early 13th century a descendant of Richard's bearing the same name held a hide at Aston for the service of a fifth part of a knight's fee. Milicent widow of Richard de Bruley sued Henry de Bruley in 1274\endash 5 for not keeping a covenant made between them as to 3 virgates of land at Aston under Oswaldslow. No further mention has been found of this manor until 1346, but it probably passed from Henry Bruley to his son Henry, and from him to his eldest son William. Henry Bruley son of William left a daughter Agnes, who married a cousin William Bruley, and William in 1346 held the land in Aston which Richard Bruley had formerly held. In 1413\endash 14 he and Agnes conveyed a toft and 2 virgates of land in Aston Bishop to John Lynton and John Bertelmewe. William and Agnes Bruley had a son John, whose daughter and heir Joan married John Danvers of Ipswell and Calthorpe, co. Oxon. John Danvers died about 1448, and Thomas, the eldest son of John and Joan Danvers, died in 1502 without issue, being succeeded by his brother Sir William Danvers. The manor passed in 1504 from Sir William to his son John, who died in 1508, leaving an infant son John. On his death while still a minor in 1517 this manor passed to his youngest sister Dorothy, who married Nicholas Hubaud or Hubold.

• Manorial Estate, 1276-1315, Waterstock Manor, Waterstock, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX33, GB. ² An estate, assessed at 5 hides, at Waterstock was held freely by the Saxon Alwi in the time of the Confessor. In 1086 it was held by Sawold 'of the fee of St. Mary of Lincoln'. This Sawold should perhaps be identified with the Sawold who was one of the bishop's knights and held 4 hides of the manor of Thame. As later evidence shows that Waterstock was a member of Thame manor throughout the Middle Ages the identification seems highly probable, and it must be supposed that the Domesday scribes duplicated the entry relating to Sawold. In the early 16th century the bishop still received a relief of 50s. on the death of the lord of Waterstock.

In the earliest list of the bishop's knights in 1166 the holder of the fee is not named. A Richard Foliot, however, had land in neighbouring Waterperry in about 1190, and the family had held land in Waterstock at an earlier date, for Richard's father, possibly Bartholomew Foliot, had granted it to Oseney Abbey. The Foliots' relatives, the Chesneys, were overlords of Albury, another neighbouring parish. As one of them was Robert de Chesney, Bishop of Lincoln (1148\endash 66), it is not unlikely that Bishop Robert enfeoffed the Foliots with Waterstock. Bartholomew Foliot, a knight, and known to have had a tenant there in 1218, was certainly in possession of the manor in 1235 or 1236, when he presented to the church, and perhaps as late as 1250. He had been succeeded by Sir William Foliot, probably by 1255 and at latest by 1268. The latter was dead by 1276 when his widow Agnes claimed a house and ½-virgate in Waterstock as her dower. William Foliot's heir was Katherine, his daughter apparently by his first wife, who carried the estate to the Bruley family through her marriage with Sir Henry Bruley, knight of the shire for Oxfordshire in 1297. It remained in the family for five generations. Sir Henry was returned in 1279 as lord of Waterstock and as the holder of a ½-fee in 1305. He was presumably dead by 1315, when Katherine settled the manor on her second son John, to be held of her during her lifetime at a rent of £50 and after her death for a rose. Her heir was her eldest son (or grandson) William, who inherited the family manor of Aston Bruley in White Ladies Aston (Worcs.)

John Bruley was lord of the manor in 1316 and 1327. The date of his death is uncertain and his heir according to the herald's pedigree was John. He appears to have been succeeded at Waterstock, however, by a Thomas Bruley: in 1346 John Bruley was returned as holding the manor, 'sometime held by Thomas Bruley'. It is likely that this Thomas was John Bruley's younger brother whom he had presented to the rectory, and that he acted as guardian to John II when he was a minor. John II, who was probably the husband of Bona Fitzellis and collector of the subsidy in Oxfordshire in 1350, may have been dead by 1361, when Thomas Bruley is said to have presented a certain Thomas atte Fortheye on the death of the rector Thomas Bruley, but it is more probable that John was still patron and that the appearance of 'Thomas' as patron is the result of a scribal error. By 1372 at all events John II was dead and his heir John III was a minor. The boy may never have succeeded, as in 1380 Waterstock was in the possession of William and Agnes Bruley. The suggestion that William Bruley was John's son is hardly possible and he was more probably a cousin, a descendant of Henry, the youngest brother of John (I) Bruley. There seems little doubt that his wife Agnes was his cousin and the descendant of William Bruley, John I's eldest brother or nephew. The fine made by Agnes and William in 1380 implies that Agnes had a claim to Waterstock in her own right: they settled the pro perty first on the heirs of their bodies; secondly on the heirs of Agnes by a second marriage; and thirdly on the collateral heirs of William.

William Bruley, knight of the shire for Oxfordshire in 1395, outlived his wife and their son John, who had married Maud Quatremain, sister and coheiress of Richard Quatremain of Rycote. Before 1423, however, he had enfeoffed his granddaughter Joan and her husband John Danvers, of Epwell in Swalcliffe and later of Colthorpe in Banbury, with Waterstock manor. Danvers, who represented the county in three parliaments, and built up a large landed estate, was returned as lord in 1428 and appears to have died shortly after 1448. His widow Joan married as her second husband Sir Walter Mauntell of Nether Heyford (Northants.) and they presented to Waterstock church in 1467 and 1469. Much of John Danvers's property went to his sons by his first wife, but Thomas, his eldest son by Joan Bruley, succeeded to his mother's lands. He married twice, first a daughter of James Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, and secondly Sybil Fowler, member of a family with whom the Danvers family was already connected by marriage. Danvers died in 1502, leaving the manor for life to his widow, who lived until 1511 and outlived both the next heir, her brother-in-law Sir William Danvers (d. 1504) of Thatcham (Berks.) and the latter's son John (d. 1508). The infant son of John Danvers, also called John, was his father's heir, but he died in 1517 and his heirs were his four sisters. One of these died, and by an arrangement presumably made between the three survivors, Waterstock passed to Elizabeth, the second eldest, and her husband Thomas Cave of Stanford (Northants.).

Henry married Katherine Foliot, daughter of Sir William Foliot of Waterstock, Oxfordshire and Unknown.¹ (Katherine Foliot died after 1315 ².)