The New Murrey and Blue blog

Those le Despensers

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We all know that the principal protagonists of Edward II’s reign – the King himself and Roger Mortimer, later Earl of March – were among Richard III’s ancestors. However, this table shows that Anne Neville, his Queen Consort, was descended from Hugh le Despenser the Elder (and also from the Younger) through the Beauchamps of Warwick. As a Neville, she was also descended from Edward II, through John of Gaunt, but not from the Mortimers. Thus Edward of Middleham, their son, was descended from all three.

Thanks to Kathryn Warner for these photos of Hugh the Younger’s, subsequently vandalised tomb. Hugh the Elder’s has no effigy:leDespenser leDespenser2

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  1. Some more Despenser connections | murreyandblue

    […] year, we showed how Anne Neville (and thus Edward of Middleham) were descended from Hugh Despenser the Elder, Earl of […]

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  2. The many wonders of medieval Caversham – murreyandblue

    […] to the river, was at one time the home of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. It descended to the Despensers, and then (eventually) to Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick. It appears to have been in the […]

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  3. Medieval tombs weren’t commenced at the time of death…. – murreyandblue

    […] never got round to it. Even the kneeling knight chapel at Tewkesbury dates from the 1390s, though Edward Despenser d […]

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  4. The Ancestry of Sir Richard Pole. – murreyandblue

    […] Pembroke in a jousting accident, was Sheriff of Glamorgan for some years, and served as not only a Despenser retainer but also a royal one under Richard II, Henry IV and Henry […]

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  5. The Touchet/Audley Family in the Fifteenth Century. – murreyandblue

    […] in Tewkesbury Abbey, close to the Duke of Somerset, and not very far from some of his half-blood Despenser […]

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  6. Edward II’s nieces: The Clare Sisters – murreyandblue

    […] better relations with Edward II up to his official death and was conversely treated much worse, as Hugh Despenser the Younger‘s instantaneous widow, by the Isabella-Mortimer regime. She is the only one of the trio to be […]

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  7. The appointment of women to the Garter. (Medieval era). – murreyandblue

    […] a KG. An example is Blanche Bradeston (1399) whose second husband, Sir Andrew Hake, an obscure Despenser hanger-on and Scots-born, was about as likely to get a KG as I […]

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