Dear Newsgroup ~
Complete Peerage C.P. 4 (1916): 42–45 (sub Damory) includes a good account of Sir Roger Damory, Lord Damory, who died in 1322. As the husband of Elizabeth de Clare (usually styled Elizabeth de Burgh), grand-daughter of King Edward I, Sir Roger and his wife are featured in most genealogical tables of the English royal family.
Complete Peerage 4 (1916): 45 gives the following information about their only known daughter, Elizabeth Damory:
"Elizabeth Damory, only daughter and heiress, born shortly before 23 May 1318."
Here is the documentation provided for this statement:
Nothing.
Complete Peerage 1 (1910): 418–419 (sub Bardolf) repeats the same information regarding Elizabeth Damory:
"She, who was born shortly before 23 May 1318, brought him large estates in Dorset, and was living 1360."
Once again, the source for the birth of Elizabeth Damory is not provided.
The medieval historian, Kathleen Warner, in The Unconventional King (2014) relates the following information regarding the birth of Elizabeth Damory:
"After Marguerite's funeral, Edward travelled via Bow, Thundersley and Cressing to Clare Castle in Suffolk, where he spent 23-27 March 1318 with Roger Damory and his wife, Edward's niece Elizabeth, who was about seven months pregnant. Shortly before 18 May, she gave birth to a daughter, also Elizabeth, who would be Damory's only legitimate child and therefore his heir. Edward gave Damory's valet the hugh sum of twenty pounds for bringing him news of the birth, an enormous increase on the price of the silver cup he had sent to little Elizabeth's half-sister Isabella Verdon the year before, although both girls were his great-nieces." END OF QUOTE.
Elsewhere Kathryn Warner's book, Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen (2016) states unequivocably that Elizabeth Damory was "certainly Roger Damory's only legitimate daughter," although she suggests that there may have been a second later daughter "who did not survive." I have added words in brackets for clarity.
"Elizabeth [de Clare] may have have been pregnant at this time [1322] or had recently given birth to a child who did not survive (as her daughter Elizabeth Damory was certainly Roger Damory's only living legitimate child): there are references in 1322/23 to a wet nurse serving her daughter, and Elizabeth Damory, born in May 1318, would then have been too old to need one." END OF QUOTE.
Complete Peerage and Kathryn Warner are certain that Elizabeth Damory was born in 1318. They are both certain that Elizabeth was Sir Roger Damory's only surviving child. But was she?
The alleged record of Elizabeth Damory's birth in 1318 is found in wardrobe accounts of the tenth, eleventh, and fourteenth years of King Edward the Second, abstracts of which were published many years ago in Archaeologia 26 (1836): 338. The desired entry reads as follows:
“To John de Pyrro, valet of Sir Roger Dammori, of the King's gift, for the news which he brought to our said Lord the King, of the delivery of the Lady de Burgo, wife of him the said Sir Roger. Westminster, 23d of May [1318]. 20l.”
We see here the name of Sir Roger Damory's child born in 1318 is not named in the record, although Complete Peerage and Kathryn Warner have both assumed it must be Elizabeth Damory. But is that correct?
Unfortunately no inquisition post mortem appears to have been taken following the death of Sir Roger Damory in 1322. As such, it is difficult to say exactly what Damory children might have been living at the time of Sir Roger's death.
As it turns out, Sir Roger Damory and his wife, Elizabeth de Clare, actually had two daughters, namely Margaret and Elizabeth. I will discuss below the evidence which proves the exist of a second Damory daughter named Margaret who survived her father.
VCH Gloucester 9 (2001): 187–208 states that in 1317 Richard Thork and Susanna his wife quitclaimed to Roger Damory the manor of Hampen (in Shipton Oliffe), Gloucestershire.
Some years after Sir Roger Damory's death in 1322, an assize was held on 26 July 1329 to determine if Roger Turk and Richard his brother, Elizabeth de Burgh [i.e., the widow of Sir Roger Damory], and others unjustly disseised Jordan de Ingham of his free tenement in Nether Hannepenne [Hampen in Shipton Oliffe], Gloucestershire. Reference: JUST1, no. 1403, Image 6495f, Year: 1329
(available at http://
aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/JUST1/Just1no1403/aJUST1no1403fronts/IMG_6495.htm).
The assize records states that Elizabeth de Clare (there called Elizabeth de Burgh) came into court and testified that her former husband, Sir Roger Damory, was survived by Margaret and Elizabeth, who she called his "daughters and heirs." The implication is that Margaret and Elizabeth Damory were both living in 1329.
As to which Damory child was born in 1318, Sir Roger and his wife, Elizabeth de Clare, were married in 1317. The child born in 1318 would have accordingly been their first and oldest child. This would appear to have been Margaret, as Margaret is listed first before the daughter Elizabeth in the 1329 assize record.
So when was Elizabeth Damory born? She must have been born no later than 1320, as contemporary records indicate that she was contracted to marry John Bardolf before 25 Dec. 1327, on which date his father, Thomas Bardolf, obtained a license to settle lands on the young couple [see Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1327–1330 (1891): 198]. In this period, a bride had to be at least seven for a marriage contract to be valid.
In summary, the evidence indicates that Sir Roger Damory and Elizabeth de Clare had at least two daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth. It appears that Margaret must have been the Damory child born in 1318, not her sister ELizabeth. The daughter Elizabeth was born say 1320, as she was contracted to marry John Bardolf sometime before 25 December 1327. Kathryn Warner suggest that there may been been a third daughter who had a wet nurse in 1322-23. This suggestion is quite plausble. If so, the third daughter was deceased before 1329.
Best always, Douglas Richardson, Salt Lake City, Utah