Sir Ralph Shirley ^{1 2 3}

  General Notes:

Sir Ralph de Shirley; JP 1298 (this seems too early; other sources refer to him as JP Warwicks c1310); Constable of Shrewsbury Castle c1300.

[Burke's Peerage]

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In the seventh year of Edward I. Ralph, son and and heir of Sir James Shirley, served the office of sheriff for the counties of Nottingham and Derby, In the ninth of the same reign, being presented before the Justices Itinerant because, being of full age and holding a whole knight's fee, he was not a knight, he procured the King's letters patent for the respiting thereof for five years. (App. xlviii.) According to Sir Thomas Shirley, Sir Ralph received the honour of knighthood at the famous batte of Falkirk, fought the twenty-second of July, 1298, "where he did wonders, to the admiration and astonishment of the beholders." He had served also, according to the same authority, in the Welsh expedition undertaken by Edward against Llewellyn in 1277, and "fought courageously at the battle of Boroughbridge," in the fifteenth of Edward II. 1322.

The tenth of Edward I. we find Sir Ralph performing military service due from Hugo de Brandeston (App. xlix.); the twenty-second of the same reign he was, with Thomas de Garshale, appointed assessor and collector within the county of Warwick of the subsidy granted in Parliament for the support of the wars (App. l.); two years afterwards he was returned as knight of the shire for Warwickshire, being, with John de Somerville, the first member for that county of whom there is any record (App. li. lii.); the next year he was summoned as holding lands to the value of 20l. within the counties of Nottingham and Derby, to perform military service in person with horses and arms against the Scots (App. liii.); the twenty-eighth of Edward I. he had the custody of the counties of Salop and Stafford, with the castle of Shrewsbury, committed to his charge (App. liv.); the following year he was again summoned to attend the King in person against the Scots (App. lv.); the next year (the thirtieth Edward I.) he was dispatched with the King's letters of credence, addressed to the knights, "probi homines," and commonalty of the counties of Nottingham and Derby, empowering him to declare certain matters relating to the affairs of the King and kingdom, and also to treat with them to aid the King with a supply of grain. (App. lvi.) In the third of Edward II. he was constituted one of the two justices in the county of Warwick, for the gaol delivery held at Warwick, and in the fifth of the same reign served as knight for that county in two parliaments, the one held at London, the other at Westminster. (App. lvii.)

Being one of the coroners of the county of Warwick, an office of great note in those days, as the learned Dugdale observes, he had through want of health a discharge from that employment in the sixth of Edward II. In the eighth of the same reign he was governor of Hoveston Castle in Derbyshire. He was afterwards (thirteenth Edward II.) one of the conservators of the peace in the county of Warwick (App. lviii.), and in the sixteenth of Edward II. one of the assessors or collectors in that county for the tenth and sixth granted in the parliament at York. (App. lix.) The next year he was returned as knight of the shire both for the counties of Suffolk and Warwick (App. lx.), and his name occurs in the list of those knights and men-at-arms whose names were certified in the chancery. The following year he was returned as a juror of the visne or venue of Sowey (Warwick) on the trial of Richard de Latoner and others. (App. lxi.) He died the twentieth and last year of Edward II. leaving, according to Dugdale, Ralph his son and heir, who, having been in commission for the assessing and collecting of a fifteenth and tenth granted in the parliament of the eleventh of Edward III. was the next year appointed to assess and collect the scutage then due to the King for the Scotch expedition, in the first year of his reign.

[para re his son. Ralph, omitted]

Some of the lands held by Sir Ralph Shirley in the twenty-fifth of Edward I. are noticed in the Appendix. (App. lxiv.) By the grant of his mother's uncle, Simon de Walton, Bishop of Norwich, he succeeded to the manor of Barnham, near Thetford, in Suffolk, with the patronage of the church of St. Gregory at that place (App. lxv.), of which Henry Shirley was rector in the fifteenth of Edward III. (App. lxvi.)

Other deeds concerning Sir Ralph are preserved, which shall be here briefly noticed: viz. a release from John de Weston, Rector of the church of Shirley, of his claim in Bobyndon, without date; 2. a receipt dated the eighteenth of Edward II. from Oliver de Waleys, Sheriff of Warwickshire, to Sir Ralph Shirley for 8l. 6s. 8d. in part payment of 1,300 marcs due from Sir John de Langley, Sir Henry Herdington (Erdington), knts. and others (App. lxvii.); 3. a record of a trial at law in the thirty-first of Edward I. between Sir Ralph Shirley and Gerard de Camville, for the manor of Howne, co. Derby, (App. lxviii.)

Sir Ralph Shirley married Margaret, daughter and coheiress of Walter de Waldershef, valettus, i. e. a young heir, about to be knighted, in the court of Edward I. and II. by Joan his wife, daughter and heiress of John Basinge. This Walter de Waldershef was constituted in the fifth of Edward II. governor of the castle and honour of the High Peak in Derbyshire (App. lxix.), and acquired lands in Hope and Castleton (App. lxx.), which descended to the Shirleys and were finally alienated by Francis Shirley in the reign of Elizabeth. By his will he founded two chantries dedicated to St. Nicholas in Paternoster church in la Riole, London, which grant Sir Hugh Shirley many years afterwards confirmed.

By his marriage with Margaret Waldershef Sir Ralph had issue, besides Thomas before mentioned, Isabella, who as early as 1282 was betrothed to Geoffry de Burgylon of Weston Underwood, in the parish of Mugginton, in the county of Derby (App. lxxi.), to whom Sir Ralph Shirley in 1287 granted seventeen acres of land lying in the Hay of Shirley. (App. lxxii.)

Dugdale, in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, has given the seal of Sir Ralph Shirley from an impression no longer extant, attached to a deed of the fifth of Edward II. The coat which appears thereon (Paly of six and quarter erm.) is probably wrongly engraved, as all other authorities agree in ascribing the more ancient coat of Shirley (Paly of six or and sable) to Sir Ralph, particularly the roll of arms of knights of the reign of Edward II. printed by Sir Harris Nicolas from the original in the Cottonian collection, where the following is given among the Warwickshire knights: "Sire Rauf de Scirlee, palee de or e de sable," and the same coat is ascribed to him both on the authority of Camden, and from the very seal quoted by Dugdale, "hanging to a deed of the fifth of Edward II."

There are now remaining in Lower Eatington church two mutilated effigies of a knight and his lady, carved in red sandstone, on an altar-tomb at the south-east angle of the south transept of the church, which is still the sepulchral chapel of the Shirleys. These effigies are supposed to represent Sir Ralph Shirley and Margaret his wife.

The knight is clad in the shirt of mail and surcoat, and on his left arm he bears a shield of the small size in use in the reign of Edward II. He has round shoulder pieces, apparently of plate or leather, and wears the basinet in place of the helmet; some faint remains of red paint appear on the lower part of the surcoat, but no appearance of arms, either there or on the shield.

The effigy of the lady, much more perfect than that of the knight, has been once painted white; she is dressed in a flowing garment, gathered up on either side within the elbow, and her head is enveloped in the wimple, introduced into England about the end of the twelfth century; her feet rest on what appear to have been two dogs: this latter figure, judging from the shape of it, is more ancient than that of the knight, and perhaps was originally placed level with the pavement, forming the lid to the stone coffin beneath.

The altar-tomb, whereon the effigies at present lie, bears the following inscription:
EFFIGIES RADVLEI SHIRLEY DE ETINDON MILITIS,
QVI MORTEM OBIIT A.D. MCCCXXVII.
ET MARGARETS EJVSDEM VXORIS.
PROAVORVM S. MONVMENTA, EX SITV SVO ANTIQVO APVD ALAM
HVJVS ECCLESTzE AVSTRALEM, HEV DETVRBATA!
RVINIS VIX TANDEM DETRACTA,
REPONI CVRABAT E. P. S.
M DCCC XXXVI.

[Stemmata Shirleiana] ⁴

  Events

• Manorial Estate, 1276, Lower Ettington Manor, Ettington, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV35, GB. ⁵ The overlordship of the manor of LOWER ETTINGTON was held in 1086 by Henry de Ferrers. This manor was rated at 17 hides, its annual value being £20. The former owner is not recorded in Domesday Book. The Earls of Derby, descendants of Henry de Ferrers, subsequently held the overlordship, until that earldom was absorbed in the earldom of Lancaster, Ettington constituting 2/3 of a knight's fee in 1235 and a whole fee in 1242. In 1279 it is said to be held of Edmund of Langley, Earl of Lancaster, in 1403, 1466, and 1520 of the Duchy of Lancaster.

At the time of the Domesday Survey 'Saswalo' held the manor of Henry de Ferrers. He died about the time of the Survey, and was succeeded by his only son Fulcher, who died c. 1105. Fulcher's second son, another Sewallis, succeeded to the manor of Ettington; he later moved to Shirley, Derbyshire, whence he assumed the surname of Shirley. He died c. 1129, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry, who died c. 1165, when his son, a third Sewallis, inherited the manor. In 1242 this third Sewallis held one knight's fee here of Lord Ferrers. In 1247 he settled the manor of Shirley on his son James, on his marriage with Agnes de Wauton, and undertook not to sell any part of that of Ettington. James had a grant of free warren in his demesnes here in 1255. He seems to have got into financial difficulties in 1276, and made over this manor to his son Ralph, who, instead of regranting it to him for life, as he had arranged, kept it and sold the stock and movables found there. Sir James probably died in 1278, as in 1279 Ralph de Shirley was lord of Ettington, which he held of Edmund of Langley as 2 knight's fees, having there 2 ploughlands in demesne and 12 serfs. In 1316 the manor was settled on Ralph for life with remainder to Ralph son of James de Shirley and Margaret daughter of Walter Waldeshef and their issue. Two years later lands in Oxhill, Fullready, and Tysoe were settled on Ralph and Isabel de Etindon, with similar remainder. It seems probable that Isabel was Ralph's intended second wife and that the second Ralph was his grandson, son of an otherwise unrecorded James who had most likely died before attaining his majority. The elder Sir Ralph died in 1326 and the younger in 1342, when he was succeeded by his son, Sir Thomas, who died in 1362. His son Hugh was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. Hugh's son Ralph, then aged 12, married Joan Basset and had a son Ralph, who held the manor until his death on 26 December 1466. His son John succeeded at the age of 40, and died on 18 May 1485.

• Manorial Estate, 1286-1298, Titchmarsh Manor, Titchmarsh, Kettering, Northamptonshire, NN14, GB. ⁶ In the time of Edward the Confessor, Bundi held freely 10 hides and a portion of a hide in TITCHMARSH. In 1086 the land was held by Henry de Ferrers, ancestor of the Earls of Derby, and the overlordship of it continued in the possession of the Earls of Derby as of their Honour of Tutbury until the forfeiture of Earl Robert in 1266. The overlordship passed with the Honour to Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and later, with the Duchy of Lancaster, to the Crown.

The Domesday under-tenant was named Saswalo, who held other lands of the Ferrers. This holding appears as forming first one and a half knights' fees, and then as two knights' fees, throughout the 11th and 12th centuries. Sewal, son of Henry, held it in 1233, and from him it passed to James Shirley, said to be his son. Shirley granted the mesne lordship to Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, but presumably only for a term of years, as his son, Ralph Shirley, had recovered the lordship by 1286. Between 1298 and 1302 Ralph granted it to Bishop Walter de Langton, the Royal Treasurer.

Ralph married.

Ralph next married Margaret de Waldeshef, daughter of Walter de Waldeshef and Joan de Basing.¹