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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2002-04 > 1019605188


From: "Chris Phillips" <>
Subject: Re: Margery Pecche or Clifford, wife of Nicholas de Criol
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2002 00:39:48 +0100


A few more points on the problem of Nicholas de Criol and Margery
"Clifford".

Mardi Carter has kindly sent me details of a pedigree from Beds Rec. Society
(vol.14, after p.132,
pedigree 2), which gives Nicholas de Criol (d.1273), the father of Nicholas
(d.1303), a second wife (after Joan d'Auberville) Margery, the mother of
Elizabeth Pabenham and Margaret Hereward. Margery is described as
"testatrix", which suggests this may be based on the evidence of a will.

On the same lines, Doug Smith has mentioned a GEDCOM at www.penrose.org,
based on Louis Sorley, "The Sorley Pedigrees", pp.39-45, which also has a
Margery Clifford marrying the elder Nicholas de Criol and having by him a
daughter who married John de Pabenham. We haven't been able to locate "The
Sorley Pedigrees" on online library catalogues.

Looking again at the Complete Peerage, it does refer to Joan d'Auberville as
Nicholas's _first_ wife, but doesn't say who his second wife was.

Chronologically, the Margery Clifford who appears in 1254, and who married
(i) Peter de St Martin and (ii)before 1260 Peter Dansey (living 1266), could
have married Nicholas de Criol (d.1273), and could have been the mother of
Elizabeth the wife of John Pabenham. This would explain why she occurs
simply as Margery de Criol in 1298. As the wife of the elder Sir Nicholas,
Margery could have been granted dower in Cherry Hinton, and could also have
figured in a transaction in 1300 as the widow, rather than the wife, of Sir
Nicholas (as Baker's History of Northamptonshire describes her).

However, we should have to assume that references to her in feudal surveys
as late as 1361 are anachronisms copied from earlier records.

More puzzling is the interpretation of the Victoria County Histories of
Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, that Margery was a coheir with
Elizabeth Pabenham and Margery Hereward, not their mother. It's starting to
look as though that may be a mistaken interpretation after all.

Chris Phillips





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