26. WAKE

Sampson  Tree

ANDREW WAKE and JOAN (26)

 

ANDREW WAKE.  The family home of the Wakes was Dowlish Wake, a village in Somerset, two miles SE of Ilminster. The manor of Dowlish was granted to the Wake family in Norman times.[1] Around Andrew’s time it was split into two manors, East and West Dowlish, with East Dowlish becoming known as Dowlish Wake. It is probably here that Andrew grew up.

Andrew was born in the early 13^th century. He was the son and heir of Ralph Wake and his wife Hawise Cosyn.

His parents were wealthy landowners, who also held manors in neighbouring counties.

The family believed themselves to be descended from Hereward the Wake, who led resistance against the Normans from the East Anglian fens, though there is no evidence of this. The name means ‘watchful’. There were other branches of the family, such as the influential Wakes based at Blisworth in Northants and the Lords of Liddell in Cumbria

 

When his mother died around 1244, Andrew had livery of her lands in Dorset. Chief among these was Stoke Wake, formerly Stoke Cosyn, which his mother Hawise is thought to have brought to her marriage with Andrew’s father.

 

Andrew lived during the long reign of Henry III. In spite of King John signing Magna Carta in 1215, there was lingering unrest. This culminated in the Barons’ War of 1264, which ended when their leader, Simon de Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham the following year.

 

JOAN.  Their grandson John Wake also married a Joan. In his case, we have found only one document that mentions her name. In the case of Andrew’s wife we have multiple documentary evidence.

That said, we do not know her surname or where she came from.

There is a possible clue.

“In the middle of the 13^th century, Oliver de Punchardon detached Tangley, a little Hampshire village close to the Wiltshire border, from the manor of Faccombe, and granted it as a separate manor to Andrew Wake. In 1280 Andrew claimed to have part of the fines of the assize of bread and ale in Tangley.”

It may be that this was Joan’s marriage settlement and that she was the daughter of Oliver Punchardon, who was the last male of his line.

 

Andrew’s son and heir was Ralph, and there were two daughters, Joan and Gunnora/Gonore.

A number of online family trees have Andrew’s wife as Jane St John, daughter of either William St John and Goudehout Paynell/Toesni or Robert St John and Agnes de Canteloup, both of Basingstoke in Hampshire. None of them quotes a source for this.

They say that she was the mother of Gunnora/Gonore (or Eleanor). Some mention no other children. Others say that Gunnora was the half-sister of Ralph and Joan, whose mother is given as unknown.

The name Jane could be used interchangeably with Joan.

 

The daughter Joan married Alan de Plugenet. He died in 1299 and his Inquisition Post Mortem shows the extent of the property dealings between him and Andrew.

 

DORSET.	Inq. made at Schyreburn, 13 Feb. 27 Edw. I.
	Maugerston. A carucate of land (extent given with names of tenants) held of the heir of Robert Walrand in chief by knight’s service; and a carucate of land (extent given) held in free marriage with Joan his wife, of the gift of Andrew Wake, to hold of him and his heirs by service of a garland (unius garlandach) of roses yearly.
DORSET.	Inq. made at Schyreburn, 13 Feb. 27 Edw. I.
	Batecombe. The hamlet (extent given with names of tenants), held in chief of the heir of Ralph Wake, of the free marriage of Joan his wife, by the gift of Andrew Wake, by service of a garland of roses yearly; from which 13s. 4d. are paid yearly to the abbot of Middelton.
SOUTHAMPTON.	Inq. made at Winchester on Friday before the Conversion of St. Paul, 27 Edw. I.
	Tangeleygh manor. 100s. rent (extent given with names of tenants) which Andrew Wake gave to the said Alan with Joan his daughter in free marriage, to hold of the said Ralph (sic) and his heirs by service of rendering a rose yearly.

 

Another document tells us;

“ In the 13th century Andrew Wake, lord of the manor of Tangley, granted £5 rent in that vill in free marriage to Alan Plukenet, who married his daughter Joan. Alan claimed part of the fines of the assize of bread and beer in Tangley in 1280, and died seised of the rent in 1298.” [2]

 

In 12 74-5 we have a receipt by Alan de Plugenet to Sir Andrew Wake for the issues of eyre of Nicholas, son of Martin and his fellows.[4]

An eyre was a circuit court, to which judges travelled from county to county.

 

We have the following evidence for Gunnora, dated around 1290.

Petitioner: Gonore Bingham, daughter of Andrew Wake, and widow of Robert son of Robert de Bingham.

To: King and council.

Request: Bingham requests remedy as she has no legal remedy as following her husband’s death, by the procurement of her father-in-law she was ousted from land in Nether Melcombe by her son by an assize of novel disseisin. Basset has since seized the land, and it has come into the king’s hand by his forfeiture. The land was given to her and her late husband by her father.

Endorsement: Let it be ordered to the sheriff and escheator that they examine the matter, and if it is found so, then they are to give dower to her.[5]

A further petition from Gonore naming Ralph Wake confirms that this is the same family. [6]

Nether Melcombe is in Dorset. After Gunnora’s marriage it became known as Bingham’s Melcombe

 

The Somerset Record Office has another late 13^th century grant[7]:

By Andrew Wake, Knt. to Richard Pinkene son of Ralph Pinkene of a house etc. in his manor of Bechenestok [Beauchamp-Stoke] Co. Wilts which Geoffrey le Rauff held, and 20 acres of arable land of-his demesne. Rent, a silver halfpenny at Midsummer, the said Andrew to retain rights in the common pasture of Bechenestok.

The deed is said to bear a “fine seal of arms of A. Wake”.

 

Andrew Wake was Sheriff of Somerset in 1267 and of Dorset in 1268.

 

In 54 Hen III [Oct 1269-Oct 1270] there was the following conveyance which showed that they also had property interests in Devon :[8]

“Andrew Wake and Joan his wife to Joan de Bryane, wife of William de Kaunvile: Conveyance, by fine, of one-third of the manor of Torbryan with which William de Brian, son and heir of Guy de Briane, late husband of the said Joan, endowed her.”

 

Andrew was witnessing documents in the reign of Edward I (1272-1307).

In the late 13^th century we have another grant, showing that Andrew held land in Wiltshire:[9]

“By Andrew Wake, Knt. to Richard Pinkene son of Ralph Pinkene of a house etc. in his manor of Bechenestok [Beechingstoke] Co. Wilts which Geoffrey le Rauff held, and 20 acres of arable land of-his demesne. Rent, a silver halfpenny at Midsummer, the said Andrew to retain rights in the common pasture of Bechenestok.

Witn. Richard le Bernir, William le Carpynter, Henry Knyght, Roger Milverlegh, Ralph Okeburne, etc.

Fine seal of arms of A. Wake.”

He had inherited this manor from his mother.

 

The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire tells us:[10]

“ 1242 Hawise Cusin (d. 1243) was tenant in socage and was succeeded in turn by her son Andrew Wake (d. 1285) and grandson Ralph Wake, who held the manor of BEECHINGSTOKE in 1297. By 1303 land at Beechingstoke was held by Andrew Wake, presumably Ralph’s son, and Andrew’s wife Joan.  In 1357 Joan, wife of Richard Monck and possibly daughter and heir of Andrew Wake, conveyed land at Beechingstoke to John Wroth. “

 

Andrew was elected to the grand assize in 1280.

He died in 1285.

Joan survived him.

After Andrew’s death, there was a dispute in 1287-8 over a messuage, land and a mill in Stoke Cosyn that Joan had warranted to the plaintiff, William Cosin. The defendant was her son Ralph.[11]

Andrew’s mother had been Hawise Cosyn, so this was evidently a family dispute.

“At Shireburn, in the octaves of Holy Trinity, between William son of Thomas Cosin, plaintiff, and Ralph Wake, whom Joan who was the wife of Andrew Wake called to warrant and who warranted to her a messuage and land in Stoke Cosin and Westwode. And between the same plaintiff, and the same Ralph whom the same Joan called to warrant and who warranted to her a mill in the said vill, which mill Joan previously in the same Court warranted to Walter le Jouene and Margaret his wife. Assize of mort ancestor was summoned. Ralph acknowledged the whole tenement to be the right of William. To have and to hold to William and his heirs of Ralph and his heirs for ever, rendering therefor yearly eight shillings at the terms of St John the Baptist, Michaelmas, Nativity of our Lord and Easter, for all service, etc. And Ralph and his heirs will warrant the whole tenement to William and his heirs by the said service against all men, for ever. For this William gave to Ralph one sore sparrow hawk.”

A sore sparrowhawk was less than one year old.

 

In 1297 Joan held 20 or more librates of land, and in 1300 40 or more.[12]

 

We do not have a death date for her.

 

[1] http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0115%2FRCMS%2022%2F30
[2] ‘Parishes: Tangley’, A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 4 (1911), pp. 326-328. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56821.
[3] © Copyright Edmund Shaw and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
[4] National Archives. C 146/9496
[5] National Archives. SC 8/152/7589
[6] National Archives. SC 8/1/13
[7] Somerset Archive and Record office, ref. DD\WHb/736; www.a2a.org.uk
[8] National Archives. E 210/7751
[9] National Archives: DD\WHb/736
[10] A P Baggs, D A Crowley, Ralph B Pugh, Janet H Stevenson and Margaret Tomlinson, ‘Parishes: Beechingstoke’, in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 10, ed. Elizabeth Crittall (London, 1975), pp. 14-19. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol10/pp14-19 [accessed 27 June 2022].
[11] Edward Alex. Fry and George S. Fry, Dorset Records. 1896.
[12] A R J Junica, The Knights of Edward I. Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham,