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From: "Todd A. Farmerie" <>
Subject: Re: King's Kinsfolk: Richard II's kinsman, Edmund Staffiord
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:59:42 -0600
References: <1125165184.529728.320180@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1125427805.243922.161610@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> <4314b5ea@news.ColoState.EDU> <1125434597.788287.176580@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <1125434597.788287.176580@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>


Douglas Richardson wrote:
> Dear Todd ~
>
> Thank you for your good post. Much appreciated.
>
> I don't have a problem with the tight chronology you have set forth,
> especially since we know that the person in the middle generation,
> Richard de Vernon, was married as a minor to Eleanor de Fiennes in
> 1290, and that Richard and Eleanor were both still minors in 1292.

What ever happened to your rule of thumb? You certainly aren't going to
make it fit with this chronology. If a rule of thumb only applies when
convenient to one's argument, and is freely set aside when inconvenient,
it isn't of much use. Yes, you can shoehorn three generations into 51
years, but should you? What basis do you have for prefering this to a
solution with just 2 generations in that time.

> Assuming that Richard and Eleanor consummated their marriage in or
> after 1292, it is perfectably acceptable for them to have had a son and
> heir, Richard de Vernon, born say 1295. It would also perfectly
> acceptable for Richard de Vernon, born say 1295, to have married Maud
> de Camville, by whom he had his own son and heir, William, born about
> 1313.

And it would be equally acceptable for that Richard never to have
consumated his marriage to Eleanor, and to have remarried to Maud.

> I show that Maud de Camville's own father, William de Camville, was
> born about 1268 (aged 40 in 1308). As such, a birthdate for Maud de
> Camville of 1295 would also be quite acceptable.

Given that (presumably) your "aged 40 in 1308" is an example of "aged 40
and more" from an ipm (where older people were frequently aged in terms
of decade brackets), how does his age differ appreciably from the 1262
birthdate of Richard le Fraunceys de Vernon? It looks to me like
Richard and William were of the same generation, with Richard a little
older, which would be fitting if his son married William's daughter as a
second wife. All we know is that William was born in 1313, but Richard
could have married Maud a decade or more earlier. Would not 1288 be an
equally acceptable birthdate, and couldn't someone born in 1288 marry a
man born 1278 or 1280 as his second wife?

You have also ignored two important points. First, Pitchcott reverted
from Giles de Fines to Richard le Fraunceys de Vernon by 1302. Second,
William de Vernon's grandmother was Isabella.

> We know for a fact that King Richard II of England was extremely well
> informed as to his Fiennes cousins. My research shows that King
> Richard II referred to the following Fiennes cousins as his kinsfolk:
>
> Thomas Beauchamp, William Beauchamp, Joan de Burghersh, Elizabeth
> Mohun, Elizabeth Burghersh, Edward Cherleton, Thomas Clifford, and
> Edmund de Mortimer.
>
> Bishop Edmund Stafford would be just one more Fiennes kinsman to add to
> the list.

And here the argument becomes circular. The Edmund Stafford was related
via the Vernons because the Vernons descended from Eleanor Fines. We
know the Vernons descended from Eleanor Fines because the of the
relationship.

Do you have any actual evidence that there were progeny of the
Vernon/Fines marriage, other than that a descendant generations later
was called kinsman of the king, which could have applied to this or some
other connection? Were the later Vernons holding Fines land? Is a
later Vernon called a kinsman of some other Fines descendant?

taf

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