Who was the mother of Richard Fitz Lewis?

[lancast...@gmail.com]

Dear List, Perhaps no-one has an answer to this one, but maybe someone will find something and remember to post it here.

We have discussed the 15th century Fitz Lewis family of London and Essex several times. One missing part of the story is the mother of Richard Fitz Lewis https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/fitzlewis-%28fitzlowys%29-sir-richard-1453-1528

I notice that the old edition of the History of Parliament biographies did give a mother, Margaret Stonor. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.210096/page/n397/and https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.210096/page/n569/ . So a decision was apparently made to remove that, presumably because they found no support for it?

One probable source for Wedgwood was the Essex antiquarian Morant, who treats the family in detail under West Horndon (Barstable hundred). It might also be that Wedgwood noticed somewhere in the Stonor Letters and Papers, which he very frequently cited, that the Stonors and fitz Lewises are close and possibly even related. (However I find nothing exclusively connecting the Stonors to the family of Richard.)

Can anyone add anything?

[lancast...@gmail.com]

It appears that the father of Richard FitzLewis, Lewis FitzLewis (to use the name form which got the following hit in Hertfordshire) had a wife named Mathilde. They jointly received the manors of Porters in Stebbing in Essex. I don't see any further hints about her identity in these records.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/afa5cdb1-de26-4686-825a-9cb9d6704905
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/d97cda2e-afd2-48a9-9ce8-dc6525db1560

[lancast...@gmail.com]

I think I can see where the idea came from that Richard's mother was Margaret Stonor, but the record involved implies that she might also be named Matilda/Maud. See:

Rev. H.L. Elliot (1898) "Fitz Lewes, of West Horndon, and the brasses at Ingrave" Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society vol.4 New Series. https://archive.org/details/transactionsess04socigoog/page/n63

He writes "Of the second wife of Sir Richard nothing is known, unless she were one of the ladies mentioned in the Will of Elizabeth Latimer, dated 28th September, 1480. Lady Latimer was the aunt, by marriage, of Sir Henry Fitz Lewes, and amongst other bequests she leaves small sums to Dame Maud Lewes, and Dame Margaret Lewes. The latter may have been the mother of Sir Richard, and Dame Maud this second wife. This however is merely conjectural."

Concerning the connection to the Stonors he says (on the previous page) concerning a transaction of Richard that: "The purchase of merchandise is probably a fiction, and the transaction, as I suppose, recorded the borrowing by Richard Fitz Lewes of £140 from George Stile, on the security of William Stonore, who was probably a near relation of his mother."

[lancast...@gmail.com]

An older 17th-century source for the proposal that the wife of the younger John Lewis (or Lewis John) was Margaret Stonor has been found, and this may have influenced Morant and others.

Succint genealogies of the noble and ancient houses of Alno or de Alneto, Broc of Stephale, Latimer of Duntish, Drayton of Drayton, Mauduit of Westminster, Green of Drayton, Vere of Addington, Fitz-Lewes of Westhornedon, Howard of Effingham and Mordaunt of Turvey https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A54500.0001.001/1:12?rgn=div1;view=fulltext</ref>

Unfortunately this text contains a large amount of obvious nonsense, especially for earlier generations. But this may have come from a real record:
"Lewis Fitz-Lewis, liv'd in his Brother's time in Marriage with a Lady called Margaret Stonore, of whose life and actions we are ignorant, but it is recorded He left Issue his Son and Heir Sir Richard Fitz-Lewis."