Isabel DE BOLEBEC (1164-1245)

1.

Isabel DE BOLEBEC was born in 1164 in Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire, England. She died on 3 Feb 1245 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. She was buried aft 3 Feb 1245 in Church Of Preaching Friars, Oxfordshire, England. She married Robert DE VERE 3rd Earl of Oxford.

Isabel de Bolebec, Countess of Oxford (c. 1164 – 2 or 3 February 1245), was the eldest daughter and co-heiress of Hugh de Bolebec II, Lord of Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire, and his wife, Margaret de Montfichet. She married Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford, and was a benefactress of the Order of Friars Preacher (Dominicans) in England.

Isabel de Bolebec was the daughter and co-heiress of Hugh de Bolebec II (died c. 1165), Lord of Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire, and his wife, Margaret de Montfichet. She had a brother, Walter, and a sister, Constance, the wife of Ellis de Beauchamp. In 1206-07 she and Constance were co-heirs to their niece, Isabel de Bolebec, daughter of their brother, Walter, and wife of Aubrey de Vere, 2nd Earl of Oxford.

Isabel's first husband was Henry de Nonant (Novaunt), Lord of Totnes, Devon, who died childless in 1206. The widowed Isabel petitioned the Crown in 1207 for the right to marry whom she wished. That same year she married Robert de Vere, a younger brother of the earl of Oxford, by whom she had a son, Hugh de Vere. In the autumn of 1214 Robert inherited the earldom at the death of his brother, Aubrey de Vere, 2nd Earl of Oxford, without legitimate offspring, and Isabel became Countess of Oxford. The new earl joined barons and kinsmen whose dissatisfaction with King John prompted their rebellion. On 15 June 1215 the King agreed to Magna Carta, and Oxford was one of twenty-five barons elected to guarantee its observance, and was thus among those excommunicated by Pope Innocent III when he released the King from its terms. In 1216 King John besieged and took the Oxford's seat, Castle Hedingham, in Essex. Oxford made peace with the regents of John's son, Henry III the next year, and later served as a royal judge. He died before 25 October 1221.

Isabel inherited the barony of Bolebec, and from her death in 1245 until 1703 the Earls of Oxford adopted the style of "Baron de Bolebec" in addition to their title of earl, and from 1462-1625 that of "Viscount Bolebec".

On the death of Earl Robert, the widowed Countess purchased the wardship of her minor son from the crown for the substantial sum of 6000 marks. In 1237, she and Hugh traveled together on a pilgrimage "beyond the seas". In 1224-25 Isabel sued Woburn Abbey for the manor of Mendham.

Isabel was a benefactress of the Order of Friars Preacher (Dominicans) in England, helping them to find quarters at Oxford, and contributing to the building of their oratory there about 1227. When the friars needed a larger priory, she and the Bishop of Carlisle bought land south of Oxford and contributed most of the funds and materials. She was buried in the new church in the friary there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_de_Bolebec

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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

"Isabel was the eldest daughter of Hugh de Bolebec. She appears first in the records as the widow of Henry de Nonant (d. 1206), lord of Totnes, Devon, her first husband. In 1207 she petitioned the crown for the right to marry whom she wished. The first installment of her fine was paid by Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, her second husband, who had made his own fine to marry Isabel if she consented. At the time of her remarriage she was coheir of her niece Isabel de Bolebec, countess of Oxford and Robert de Vere's former sister-in-law (with whom she is frequently confused). By c.1225 Isabel had inherited all of the Bolebec honour of thirty knights' fees in Buckinghamshire.

"Isabel bore her only known child, Hugh de Vere, late in her reproductive years. She purchased his wardship and the guardianship of his inheritance upon her husband's death in 1221 for £2228 (6000 marks), and traveled with him on pilgrimage beyond the seas in 1237. A generally successful suitor at court, she engaged in a long-running dispute with Woburn Abbey.

"The countess was the chief benefactor of the Dominican order in Oxford. The friars sent to England in 1221 were assisted in their search for quarters in the Oxford Jewry by Isabel, who took a Dominican as her confessor and financed their oratory to the east of St Aldate's Street c.1227. When the friars decided to expand, she bought land to the south of Oxford for them. On her death on 3 February 1245 her body was temporarily entombed in their oratory, then transported to the newly consecrated Dominican priory church in St Ebbe's for burial. A monument proclaimed Isabel their foundress. Her other known charitable grants were to the hospital of St Mary Magdalene, Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire, and to Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire (a Bolebec foundation)."

Birth

c1164, from the citation to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in her Wikipedia article note that this differs from the birth year guessed for her "1176?" in the ODNB entry for her husband, Robert de Vere.

about 1160, based on "...in or just before 1207...Isabel, who was probably a maiden aunt, well over forty,1 was at once sought in marriage as 'daughter of Hugh and sister and heir of Walter de Bolebec,' by Robert de Ver, younger brother to the Earl.

Marriages

Before 1206 to Henry de Nonent (about 1197)

Between 1206 and 1210 to Robert de Vere (fine to marry in 1208); "before Michaelmas 1207"

"Sometime before Michaelmas 1207 Robert had married Isabel de Bolebec, the aunt and namesake of Earl Aubrey’s wife, who had died childless in 1206 or 1207. Isabel the niece had been the heiress to the Bolebec estate, which was centred on Whitchurch (Bucks.), and her own heirs were her two aunts. Robert’s marriage can therefore be seen as part of a de Vere strategy to retain control over at least half of the Bolebec lands."

"Her two marriages are confirmed by the Testa de Nevill which includes a writ of King John dated 1212 recording that "Robertus de Ver" held "manerium de Cliston" in Devon "de dote cum Isabella uxore sua que fuit uxor Henrici de Nunant", adding that King Henry I had first granted the manor to "Rogero de Nunant antecessori suo".

Children with Robert de Vere

They had one son, Hugh (born about 1210), and one daughter, Eleanor.

"... order dated 20 Oct 1222 under which King Henry III granted custody of "Hugonis filii et heredis Roberti de Ver, quondam comitis Oxonie" to "Ysabelle de Bolebec comitisse Oxonie" dated 19 Jun 1222

Death

3 February 1245

Burial

February 1245, Church of the Black Friars, Oxford, England

bur Oxford, Church of the Preaching Friars

The Dominican priory church of the Black Friars (Friars Preachers), Oxford, Oxfordshire, was founded by her husband, Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford, in the early 13th century and was dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530s during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Research Notes

Fines Rolls show Isabel out-lived her husband:

6/23 (13 November 1221)

[No date]. Isabella de Bolbec, countess of Oxford, has made fine with the king, by £2228 2s. 9½d., for having custody of the land and her son, the heir of Robert de Vere, formerly earl of Oxford , her husband, so that, beyond that fine, she will answer the king at the Exchequer for £1778 11s. of the debt that the earl owed to the king for several debts. She is also to render 250 m. of the aforesaid monies at Hilary in the sixth year, 250 m. at Easter in the same year, 250 m. at the Nativity of St. John the Baptist in the same year, 250 m. at Michaelmas in the same year, and £400 in the following year at the terms aforesaid, and £400 from year to year by the same terms until the aforesaid fine and debt have been paid in full.

This Isabel was "co-heiress in 1206-7 to her niece, Isabel de Bolebec, wife of Robert's brother Aubrey de Vere."

J.H Round explained the confusing records about Isabel and her family:

Her land, we read, had been (like her father's) in the custody of Reginald de Curtenai, since 1175 or thereabout, but she herself was in that of Aubrey, Earl of Oxford. In 1190 (she was then about fifteen) he gave no less than 500 marcs for licence to marry her to his son, who must have secured the fief, for he paid the scutage due on it. Her name and the fact of the marriage (although ignored in works on the peerage) are proved by two charters—Harl. Chart., 57 C. 3 and Add. Chart. 6026—granted by "Albericus de Ver filius Alberici comitis et femina sua Isabel filia Walteri de Bolebech," of which the latter was granted to Woburn Abbey and was, I have found, the actual charter produced by the Abbot of Woburn in 1231.

(Bracton's Notebook, Case 633). This Isabel, it appears, died childless, so that her husband, then Earl, could not even claim tenure " by the curtesy." The Bolebec fief passed away to his wife's heirs.

This crisis in the Veres' fortunes must be dated in or just before 1207. It is evident that the heirs of the Countess were her father's sisters, Isabel and a younger sister. Isabel, who was probably a maiden aunt, well over forty,1 was at once sought in marriage as " daughter of Hugh and sister and heir of Walter de Bolebec," by Robert de Ver, younger brother to the Earl. She retorted, clearly, by offering £200 and three palfreys that she might not be " distrained " to marry by the King or any other lord (ibid.)." Robert, however, married her and was holding, in 1211, her moiety of the Bolebec barony. He succeeded to the earldom and was father by her of the next earl, Hugh. There were thus two successive earls, each of whom married an heiress, named Isabel de Bolebec. This singular fact has been hitherto unsuspected.

Marriage to Henry de Nonant:

Richardson states that Robert de Vere married the widow of Henry de Nonant (d 1206). This agrees with with conclusion given in Complete Peerage, in its "Oxford" article, which explains that the evidence is in the Curia Regis Rolls, vol. vii, p. 342, and also explains how the evidence has been misinterpreted.

Darryl Lundy states, incorrectly, that Isabel married Henry de Nonant after 1221, presumably based on Robert de Vere's death in 1221 - Richardson has that Robert de Vere died "before 25 October 1221".

Robert DE VERE 3rd Earl of Oxford 3rd Earl of Oxford, son of Aubrey III DE VERE First Earl of Oxford First Earl of Oxford (1115-1194) and Agnes OF ESSEX Countess of Oxford Countess of Oxford (1151-aft1212), was born aft 1164 in Hatfield, Essex, England. He died bef 25 Oct 1221 in Colne Engaine, Essex, England. He was buried in 1221 in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. He and Isabel DE BOLEBEC had the following children: