Dear Peter ~
Thank you for your post. Much appreciated.
As you probably know, there is much confusion in the printed literature regarding the parentage of Maud Haunsard, 2nd wife of Sir Robert de Thweng. Maud and Sir Robert were the parents of the notorious Lucy de Thweng, born 1279, died 1346, wife successively of William le Latimer, Knt., 2nd Lord Latimer, Robert de Everingham, Knt., and Barthololomew de Fanacourt, Knt.
Some sources states Maud (Haunsard) de Thweng was the daughter of Robert Haunsard, and some say she was the daughter of Gilbert Haunsard. I puzzled over this matter for many years until I found the following statement in print:
"Robert [de Thweng]'s marriage is assumed rather than declared by Dugdale. From other sources, however, we know that his wife was Matilda [Maud], daughter of Gilbert (son of John) Haunsard; but as to the date of his marriage nothing perfectly definite seems to have been ascertained." Reference: Atkinson, Forty Years in a Moorland Parish (1891): 283-294.
Clearly Atkinson took a firm position that Maud Haunsard was the daughter of Gilbert Haunsard. Unfortunately Atkinson did not cite his sources (plural) for the parentage of Maud Haunsard, but he seems to have been well informed. In your post today, you cite Hunter-Blair who specifically refers to a surviving document which is a "grant by him [Gilbert Haunsard] on the marriage of his daughter Maud to Robert of Twenge."
If correct, it would appear that the marriage contract (or an attending document) of Sir Robert de Thweng and Maud Haunsard has survived in some archive and that Gilbert Haunsard is clearly named her father in that record. If so, this information would be an addition to Complete Peerage 12(1) (1953): 739 (sub Thweng).
Now as to which of Gilbert Haunsard's wives was the mother of Maud Haunsard, I tend to think that it was his first unknown wife who was Maud's mother. I say that because Gilbert's known child by that marriage, John Haunsard, was married or contracted to marry in 1270, whereas Maud herself was evidently married before 1275, at which date her husband Robert de Thweng had possession of Bozeat, Northamptonshire (a Haunsard fee). I presume Bozeat, Northamptonshire was Maud's maritagium.
In contrast, Gilbert Haunsard is not known to have married his 2nd wife, Joan de Columbers, until 1272, which date makes it too late for Joan to be considered to be the mother of either of Gilbert's older children, John or Maud.
This is probably not what you want to hear. But I can offer you one helpful clue as to the identity of Gilbert Haunsard's first wife. In the course of my lengthy research on Lucy de Thweng, I recently learned that on 22 Sept. 1304, Lucy de Thweng applied to Archbishop Thomas de Corbridge for a divorce from her husband, Sir William le Latimer, on grounds of consanguinity in the 4th degree, as well as cruelty. See, for example, Seabourne, Imprisoning Medieval Women (2011): 118.
This means, of course, that Lucy de Thweng and her 1st husband, Sir William le Latimer were 3rd cousins. My guess is the kinship between the parties came by route of Gilbert Haunsard's first wife, who was Lucy's grandmother. If so, this would mean that a parent of Gilbert Haunsard's unknown first wife was brother or sister to a great-grandparent of Sir William le Latimer. This doesn't tell you the identity of Gilbert Haunsard's wife but it might point you in the right direction.
Lastly I might add one other new record concerning the Haunsard family. Recently I located a lawsuit dated Michaelmas term 1296 by which Joan [de Columbers], widow of Gilbert Haunsard, sued Ralph Basset, of Sapcote, and Margaret his wife in the Court of Common Pleas regarding the third part of one messuage and lands in Walton, Derbyshire, which she claimed in dower [Reference: Court of Common Pleas, CP40/115, image 52f (available at
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/E1/CP40no115/aCP40no115fronts/IMG_0052.htm)].
Interestingly, the above lawsuit gives a better date for the marriage of Ralph Basset, of Sapcote (died 1322) and his 2nd wife, Margaret, widow of Urian de Saint Pierre, then what is found in Complete Peerage 2 (1912): 7 (sub Basset). So we have another addition to Complete Peerage to report.
Best always, Douglas Richardson, Salt Lake City, Utah