On Monday, October 7, 2019 at 11:40:04 PM UTC+2, Andrew Lancaster wrote:
> On Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 8:33:15 PM UTC+2, celticp...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 12:09:11 PM UTC-6, celticp...@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > < Joan de Bigbury, wife of Roger Prideaux, is presumably the daughter of the < William de Bigbury who was the minor named in 1332 lawsuit above.
> >
> > In my post just now, I suggested that Joan de Bigbury, wife of Roger Prideaux, was the daughter of William de Bigbury, which individual was a minor in 1332. Actually I think the chronology suggests that Joan de Bigbury was the sister of William de Bigbury, who was the minor in 1332. If so, it would mean that Joan and her brother William were both children of William de Bigbury who married Maud de Brewes in 1320.
> >
> > If Joan de Bigbury was Sir Lewis Clifford's maternal aunt, it would in turn mean that Sir Lewis' maternal grandparents would be William de Bigbury and Maud de Brewes.
> >
> > All hypothetical, of course.
> >
> > Best always, Douglas Richardson, Salt Lake City, Utah
> Yes it is indeed by no means proven. However if we could trust the Vivian pedigree of Prideaux, it would look very likely. Obviously the Maclean one disagrees.
>
> From some of the old secondary sources I have the impression that both the Bigburys and Trevardyns might have married both the Prideauxs and the Cliffords.
>
> At least we can say that some of these secondary sources look encouraging, as if there might be more medieval evidence out there.

I've been looking at this old topic again, and here are some notes:

With the help of Chris Phillips I looked at the wording of the fine which Sir John de Clifford and his wife Claricia made with Sir Roger de Pridias/Prideaux in 1332 concerning 3 Devonshire Clifford manors for their son and daughter, Roger and Elizabeth. A couple of interesting things about that. First, the fine says John and Clarice will hold of the chief lords for their lives. Scan: http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT7/CP25(1)/CP25_1_43_45-53/IMG_0192.htm

So I guess John and Clarice died very soon after. In the 1332 Devonshire Lay subsidy (not online except through paywalls etc) they are not listed as the tax payers. Instead, the 3 Clifford manors named in the fine are all apparently being held by Sir Roger de Prideaux already. If they did not die, then at least they were not registered as the ones paying taxes. It is worth noting then that either Clarice or Elizabeth could be expected to live at Columbjohn as a widow if they survived, because it was one of the manors involved in the fine. Columbjohn is exactly where an aunt of Sir Lewis de Clifford was living in 1373 according to the register of John of Gaunt. Obviously both women look like possible aunts to a Clifford, but we do not know when they died.

Do all records after 1332 indicate that the Prideaux family were holding Columbjohn? Strangely enough no, after a series of records showing the Prideaux family holding the manors, in 1361 when Henry de Grosmont died, and his vast estates were split between his daughters, Columbjohn and Eveleigh (a lost settlement in Broad Clyst) are said to be held by John de Clifford: 'Close Rolls, Edward III: July 1361', in Calendar of Close Rolls, Edward III: Volume 11, 1360-1364, ed. H C Maxwell Lyte (London, 1909), pp. 195-211. I have no good explanation for this. It kind of looks like someone dug up an out of date list. It is perhaps worth noting though that the Prideaux situation would have been hanging a bit in 1361 because that is when the heir seems to have reached age but then also died. Nevertheless it gives me some small amount of doubt that John and Clarice died in 1332.

A second interesting point about that fine is that if Elizabeth has no heirs, the next in line are the heirs of her husband Roger. This means for one thing that there is no need to assume that the later Prideaux generations who held the Clifford manors were actually descended from her. What's more that they were not seems confirmed by the fact that the widow of the last Roger de Prideaux, named Joan, pleaded to the Black Prince mentioning that the heir of Roger was also her heir. Black Prince's register: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.32000000339921&seq=130&q1=prideaux I guess this also implies that Elizabeth had no brothers or sisters, or otherwise why are they not mentioned anywhere given this deal which effectively moved the main manors of their family over to Elizabeth's in-laws?

The only way to keep Elizabeth Clifford in the most obvious Prideaux family tree I can propose then, is to use the approach which Maclean used, of having a rapid sequence of 3 Roger de Prideaux's despite the lack of any evidence for more than 2. Maclean's Prideaux pedigree: https://archive.org/details/cu31924081264826/page/220/mode/2up (In other words Joan's husband Roger would then not be the widow of Elizabeth, but her son instead.) This possibility can't ruled out so far but I can't see any reason to believe in it either.

Continuing with this Prideaux widow named Joan, Maclean (and Douglas Richardson in the above old discussion, who I think was following him) say she was a Bigbury. I can't find any good evidence for this either. Maclean himself only calls it a tradition and cites a story told by Leland: https://archive.org/details/cu31924081264826/page/200/mode/2up . Leland did not actually say this Joan was a Bigbury, but only, in effect, that her son was kin of the Bigbury family: https://books.google.be/books?id=_E4VAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA47

In fact, Vivian proposed that this Joan was another Clifford, and more specifically that she was a daughter of Peter de Clifford who was clearly a close relative of John: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002002213917&seq=630 . (For more background about why I think Peter and John were closely related, for example brothers or first cousins, see the research notes I have posted on the Wikitree profile for their predecessor, and possible uncle, Sir Reginald de Clifford https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Clifford-2199
..) I can't find any reason to believe this either, but I suppose this is also not impossible. It would mean Joan (and not only Clarice and Elizabeth) could herself be an aunt of Lewis and Hugh de Clifford, if they were for example grandsons of Peter de Clifford.

Going through the 3 obvious options:
*possible widow aunt 1. Clarice de Clifford could be an aunt through marriage if Lewis and Hugh were sons (or perhaps also if they were grandsons) of a brother of Sir John de Clifford.
*possible widow aunt 2. Elizabeth de Clifford her daughter presumably had no siblings based on the above information. What's more unless there we accept Maclean's extra generation she must have died before her husband remarried to Joan, long before 1373, and had no sons, because Roger junior's widow Joan was the mother of his sons. If we do accept the extra generation, then she could be a widow in 1373, but the only way she can be an aunt in the normal sense is through sisters or sisters in law. Because Hugh and Lewis shared her surname, this scenario needs one of her Prideaux sisters-in-law to be married to a Clifford. Of course when two families are lining up alliances, such things can happen.
*possible widow aunt 3. Concerning Joan, the widow of the last Roger de Prideaux, as we have seen she may herself have been a Clifford by marriage or birth, and this would create some possibilities for her to be an aunt to Lewis and Hugh. This is not really strongly suggested by the records. But it is a set of scenarios which are difficult to disprove.

But Wait! The last two options don't look so good but there is more to report here. I found that Peter de Clifford of Netherton, the probable brother of John, had a widow named "Joan Prideaux" when, in 1355, she appealed to the Black Prince for her rights as a widow: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.32000000339921&seq=97&q1=prideaux She was clearly not Peter's first wife (see e.g. the 1346 feudal aids less than 10 years earlier, which name his wife as Isabel de Brand), but as men are able to have children later in life, she could have had Clifford children with Peter.

Having spent time on the Prideaux family I think this Joan is probably a member of the same Orcheton family we are discussing with all the Rogers. But was she born a Prideaux or had she remarried to a Prideaux by 1355? (This raises the possibility that she could even be the SAME Joan who was the widow of the last Roger de Prideaux!) Coming back to Elizabeth, and looking for a way, I suppose if Joan the widow of Peter de Clifford was her husband's sister then Peter's children might see her as an aunt? On the other hand if Joan the widow of Peter de Clifford was the same person as Joan the widow of the last Roger de Prideaux, then I suppose nephews and nieces of Peter de Clifford could call her an aunt (even if she had no "biological" Clifford children). At this point I am sure I am missing some things, and I think the above summary covers most of the research updates I wanted to cover. Concerning the speculations, I hope these notes are at least stimulating of further consideration.