Agnes Pelham

Agnes de Gensing

• Birth: ABT 1320
• Parents: Robert de Gensing
• Married: 1 Thomas II PELHAM b: ABT 1319
• Children: John I PELHAM b: ABT 1338 in Sussex,Eng

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PELHAM, John (d.1429), of Pevensey castle and Laughton, Suss.
Family and Education
s. and h. of Thomas Pelham of Warbleton by Agnes, da. and coh. of Robert Gensing of Gensing, Suss. m. (1) c. Sept. 1387, Margaret (25 Sept. 1363-90), er. da. and coh. of Sir Roger Grey (d.1371) of Cavendish, Suff. and Merton, Norf., wid. of Sir Thomas Shardelowe of Fulbourn, Cambs., s.p.; (2) bef. May 1400, Joan (d.1439), da. of John Bramshott of Bramshott, Hants by Elizabeth, sis. and h. of John Lisle of Gatcombe, I.o.W., wid. of Sir Hugh Zouche (d.1399) of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Leics. and Swavesey, Cambs. 1s. illegit. Kntd. 11 Oct. 1399.
etc.
Biography
Pelham, who through opportune service to the house of Lancaster became one of the leading figures in the government of Henry IV, came from comparatively humble origins, as the son of a sometime coroner of Sussex. His father’s smallholding at Warbleton and his mother’s part of the manor of Gensing were the only properties he inherited. Nor was his earliest recorded activity worthy of one destined to be a King’s friend: in 1376 he was brought to trial for an alleged trespass on the land of a royal clerk at Brede and for assaulting a carpenter. However, he had gained respectability by 1385 when the prior of Michelham asked him to act as his surety.8 Pelham’s family relations in Cambridgeshire had important connexions which he was able to put to his advantage: his namesake, the vicar of West Wickham, had long been closely attached to the de Vere earls of Oxford, and while acting as an executor and trustee of their estates had acquired an interest in the valuable Sussex manor at Laughton which, along with the hundred of Shiplake and the manor of West Dean, the Countess Maud was to offer to our Pelham after his rise to prominence on a lease worth as much as £70 a year.9 Men from Cambridgeshire also supported Pelham in September 1387 when he laid siege by night to the house of Sir John Shardelowe† at Fulbourn, gained entry by placing ladders against the walls, and abducted Shardelowe’s stepdaughter (and son’s widow) Margaret. He was able to obtain a royal pardon for his crime two years later, thanks to the intercession of Henry of Bolingbroke. He had in the meantime married his captive, who was the principal heir of the estates of her late father, Sir Roger Grey. The Pelhams transferred Margaret’s share in Merton, Norfolk, to her sister, Joan Pynchebeck, but retained the whole of ‘Greys’ in Cavendish, Suffolk, which, following Margaret’s death in 1390, Pelham conveyed to the duke of Gloucester.10 His second marriage, contracted in late 1399 or early 1400 was to the wealthy widow of yet another Cambridgeshire landowner, Sir Hugh Zouche: Joan retained for life Sir Hugh’s estates at Swavesey and elsewhere in the county as well as the manors of River, Nutbourn and Chiltington in Sussex, which altogether brought in annual profits of at least £122 13s.4d.11
etc.
https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/p...
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• Families of Sequoyah County,OK & Others Last updated 29 NOV 2010

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