Thomas Blount

Notes:

Knight of the shire for Derbyshire, 1420.

Sheriff of Staffordshire 6 Nov 1444 - 4 Nov 1445; 4 Nov 1446 - 9 Nov 1447.

"Treasurer of Normandy under Henry V." [Nathaniel L. Taylor, "Cassandra Elizabeth Taylor's royal descents."]

"[A]t first destined for church, entered minor holy orders; renounced the church after his brother's death [Sir John Blount, K.G., d. 1418] and only then m. Margaret Gresley." [Nathaniel L. Taylor, post to soc.genealogy.medieval]

"Sir Thomas [...] was Treasurer of Calais during Henry VI's wars in France (Stevenson's Letters, &c., illustrating the wars in France temp. Henry VI, Rolls Ser., ii. passim), and founded a chantry at Newark in 1422 (at the expense of the Duke of Exeter) in memory of his father and mother. Sir Thomas was the father (by Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Gresley of Gresley, Derbyshire) of Sir Walter Blount, 1st Baron Mountjoy." [Wikipedia entry on his father, Walter Blount]

Thomas Blount (1383-1456) = Margaret de Gresley
Walter Blount (d. 1474) = Ellen Byron
William Blount (d. 1471) = Margaret Etchingham (d. 1481)
Elizabeth Blount = Andrews Windsor (1467-1543)
Eleanor Windsor = Edward Nevill
Catherine Nevill = Clement Throckmorton (d. 1573)
Catherine Throgmorton = Thomas Harby (d. 1594)
Emma Harby (1590-1622) = Robert Charlton (d. 1670)
Emma Charlton = Henry Barnard (d. 1680)
Elizabeth Barnard (d. 1719) = James Brydges (1642-1714)
Mary Brydges (1666-1703) = Theophilus Leigh (1647-1725)
Thomas Leigh (1696-1764) = Jane Walker (1705-1768)
Cassandra Leigh (1739-1827) = George Austen (1731-1805)
Jane Austen (1775-1817)

Family/Spouse: Margaret de Gresley. Margaret (daughter of Thomas Gresley and Margaret Walsh) died after 1439. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Sanche Blount was born about 1418 in of Elvaston, Derbyshire, England.
2. Thomas Blount was born about 1420 in of Elwaston, Derbyshire, England; died before 11 Feb 1468.
3. Walter Blount was born about 1420; died on 1 Aug 1474.

Notes:

Knight of the shire for Derbyshire, 1399.

Died in the Battle of Shrewsbury. He is "Sir Walter Blunt" in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1.

For his place of burial, mentioned in Complete Peerage IX:331-33, see The College of the Annunciation of St. Mary in the Newarke, Leicester at British History Online.

Walter Blount and his Spanish wife Sancha de Ayala were ancestors to nine American presidents: George Washington, William Henry Harrison, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Sancha de Ayala's parents were great-great-great grandparents to Ferdinand I, first king of united Spain (1452-1516).

1885 DNB on Sir Walter Blount, by Sidney Lee:

BLOUNT, Sir WALTER (d. 1403), soldier and supporter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, was almost certainly the son of Sir John Blount of Sodington [...] In 1367 he accompanied the Black Prince and John of Gaunt in their expedition to Spain to restore Don Pedro the Cruel to the throne of Leon and Castile. After the return of the expedition, which was successfully terminated by the battle of Navarette (1367), Blount married Donna Sancha de Ayála, the daughter of Don Diego Gomez, who held high office in Toledo, by his wife (of very high family), Donna Inez de Ayála. Donna Sancha appears to have first come to England in attendance on Constantia, the elder daughter of King Pedro, whom John of Gaunt married in 1372. In 1374 John Blount, Sir Walter's half-brother, who had succeeded his mother, Isolda Mountjoy, in the Mountjoy property, made over to Walter the Mountjoy estates in Derbyshire, and to them Walter added by purchase, in 1381, the great estates of the Bakepuiz family in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Hertfordshire. Permission was granted Blount in 1377 to proceed with Duke John of Gaunt to Castile in order to assert the duke's right by virtue of his marriage to the throne of Leon and Castile; but the expedition did not start till 1386, when Blount probably accompanied it. On 17 April 1393 he, with Henry Bowet [q. v.] and another, was appointed to negotiate a permanent peace with the king of Castile. In 1398 Duke John granted to Blount and his wife, with the king's approval, an annuity of 100 marks in consideration of their labours in his service. Blount was an executor of John of Gaunt, who died early in 1399, and received a small legacy. He represented Derbyshire in Henry IV's first parliament, which met on 6 Oct. 1399. At the battle of Shrewsbury (23 July 1403) he was the king's standard-bearer, and was killed by Archibald, fourth earl of Douglas, one of the bravest followers of Henry Percy (Hotspur). Blount was dressed in armour resembling that worn by Henry IV, and was mistaken by Douglas for the king (Walsingham, Hist. Anglicana, ed. Riley, ii. 258; Annales Henrici Quarti, 367, 369). Shakespeare gives Blount, whom he calls Sir Walter Blunt, a prominent place in the first part of his 'Henry IV,' and represents both Hotspur and Henry IV as eulogising his military prowess and manly character. He was buried in the church St. Mary 'of Newark,' Leicester. His widow Donna Sancha lived till 1418. In 1406 she founded the hospital of St. Leonards, situate between Alkmonton and Hungry-Bentley, Derbyshire.

Sir Walter had two sons: 1. Sir John, who was at one time governor of Calais; was in 1482 besieged in a castle of Aquitaine by a great French army, which he defeated with a small force (Walsingham, Ypodigma Neustriæ, Rolls Ser., p. 437); was created knight of the Garter in 1413; and was present at the siege of Rouen in 1418: 2. Sir Thomas, who was treasurer of Calais during Henry VI's wars in France (Stevenson's Letters, &c., illustrating the wars in France temp. Henry VI, Rolls Ser., ii. passim), and founded a chantry at Newark in 1422 (at the expense of the Duke of Exeter) in memory of his father and mother. Sir John died without male issue. Sir Thomas was the father (by Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Gresley of Gresley, Derbyshire) of Sir Walter Blount, first Baron Mountjoy [q. v.]

Walter married Sancha de Ayala about 1373. Sancha (daughter of Diego Gomez de Toledo and Ines Alfonso de Ayala) was born in of Toledo, Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain; died in 1418 in England; was buried in Collegiate Church of the Annunciation of St. Mary, The Newarke, Leicester Castle, Leicester, Leicestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Her ancestry, proven and suppositional, is discussed in detail in "Notes on the Ancestry of Sancha de Ayala" by Todd A. Farmerie and Nathaniel L. Taylor, New England Historical and Genealogical Register 103 (1998), pp. 36-48.

More on Sancha de Ayala can be found on Nathaniel L. Taylor's Sancha de Ayala Page.

For her place of burial, mentioned in Complete Peerage IX:331-33, see The College of the Annunciation of St. Mary in the Newarke, Leicester at British History Online.

Notes:

From Complete Peerage IX: 331:

"John le Blount, 2nd s. of Walter and Joan abovenamed, was in 1324 a practised soldier belonging to Worcestershire. In 1337, being then a knight, he was found heir to his elder brother, William Blount [Lord Blount]. He was joint commissioner in Worcestershire in 1344, to inquire as to holders of land. He served in Gascony under Henry, Earl of Lancaster, and afterwards, 1347, under the King at the siege of Calais, till Edward's return to England. In Oct. 1350 he was undertaking a pilgrimage to Santiago. He m. Isoude.(*) He d. in 1358."

CP footnote attached to the asterisk in the above:

"(*) According to tradition, Isoude de Mountjoy. The mystery of her parentage has not been solved. The release by John le Blount in 1374 to his brother Walter of all his rights in lands in Gayton, Yeldersley, Brushfield, Wc. (Croke, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 171), which were Mountjoy manors in the 13th and 14th centuries (Jeayes, Derbyshire Charters, no. 1608 et seq), suggests that a portion of the Mountjoy estates had descended by inheritance to John, then eldest surviving son of John le Blount and Isoude. It was a portion only, because (i) Gayton and Yeldersley, &c, descended, through the marriage of Isoude (da. and h. of Serle de Mountjoy, s. and h. of Ralph de Mountjoy) to Robert de Ireland (Plac. de Quo Warranto, p. 155); the family of Ireland were still holding temp. Henry VII (Feudal Aids, vol. i, p. 250 et seq. ; Jeayes, op. cit., no. 2731); (ii) the receipt given by Madam Wake in 1359 for evidences belonging to Richard Blount, the young heir of John and Isoude, refers to vint oyt feetes en un boist del heritage la mere le dit Richard et ses parceners des tenements en le Pek, (Ac. (Harl. MS. 6709, fo. 119 d)."

Nathaniel Lane Taylor, post to SGM, 17 Feb 2008:

"As CP shows, Sir John Blount (d. 1358) can only be shown to have had one wife, Isolda de Mountjoy. Older sources assign him a second wife, Eleanor Beauchamp (of Hache) who is made to be the mother of his younger sons (including the one whose descendants took the peerage title 'Mountjoy'). On the alleged Blount-Beauchamp marriage, an article by Cecil R. Humphery-Smith, "The Blount Quarters," The Coat of Arms 4 (1957), 224-27, is corrected by G. D. Squibb, "The Heirs of Beauchamp of Hatch," ibid., pp. 275-77, showing that the particular claimed marriage cannot have happened.

"More importantly, Isolda is documented as still wife of Sir John Blount in 1352, well after the apparent birth year of Walter, ancestor of the lords Mountjoy. Croke (in his Blount work back in 1823) quoted the 1352 charter but didn't realize the chronological implication, repeating the two-wife fallacy."

John married Isouda. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

CP says "According to tradition, Isoude de Mountjoy. The mystery of her parentage has not been solved."

Notes:

Also called Diego Gomez de Guzman. Notorio mayor and alcade mayor of Toledo.

Diego Gomez de Toledo (or de Guzman), Lord of Casarrubios = Ines Alfonso de Ayala
Pedro Suarez de Toledo (or de Guzman) = Juana de Orozco
Inés de Toledo (or de Guzman) = Diego Fernandez de Cordoba
María Fernandez de Cordoba = Fadrique Henriquez, Count of Melbar
Juana Henriquez = Juan II, King of Aragon
Ferdinand I, King of Spain = Isabella of Castile

Diego married Ines Alfonso de Ayala. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"Walter le Blount, 3rd son of William and Isabel, was in 1313 of the Lancastrian party against Gaveston. In 1318 and 1321 he was Knight of the shire for Worcester, and in 1322 was summoned for personal service against the Scots." [Complete Peerage IX:330-1]

Walter married Joan de Sodington before Feb 1294. Joan was born in of Sodington, Worcestershire, England; died after 1330. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Richardson's Royal Ancestry V:248 gives Joan, wife of Walter le Blount of Rock, as daughter of Ralph de Sodington. This presumably comes from the same sources as CP II:196, which describes Walter le Blount's 2nd wife Joan as "sister and coh. of William Sodington, and dau. of Ralph S., both of Sodington." But CP IX:331 amends CP II, calling Joan "sister and coheir of William de Sodington, who had been heir of his brother Ralph" and further says in footnote (b), on the same page, "See BLOUNT, where, however, the statement that Joan was da. of Ralph Stonington needs correction, she being sister of the Ralph referred to, as stated in text above."

Genealogics gives Joan/Joanna de Sodington as a daughter of "Sir William Sodington, of Sodington," but gives no source for this claim.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 2 Dec 1378
• Alternate death: 1385

Notes:

Ricohombre of Castile; Señor of Ayala.

"Adelante mayor [governor] of Murcia; Merino mayor [prefect] of the Basque province of Guipúzcoa in Asturias, listed among the caballeros [knights] at the coronation of Alfonso XI in 1332, served that king and his son, pedro I, but later joined Enrique of Trastámara, and was in his army at the battle of Nájera in 1367." [The Ancestry of Charles II, citation details below.]

Fernan Perez de Ayala (1305-1375) =
Elvira Álvarez de Ceballos (d. <1372)

Pedro López, Señor de Ayala y Salvtierra =
Leonor de Guzman

María de Ayala =
Pedro Ponce de León V (d. 1448)

Juan Ponce de León (d. 1469) =
Catalina González de Oviedo

Eutropio Ponce de León =
[prob.] Catalina de Vera Zurita

Violante Ponce de León =
Roy Diaz de Guzmán y Riquelme

Alonso Riquelme de Guzmán of Asunción, Paraguay =
Ursula de Irala

Catalina de Guzmán of Buenos Aires, Argentina =
Jerónimo López de Alanis

Rodrigo [Ponce de León] López de Alanis =
Isabel Naharro de Humanes

Mariá Ponce de León y Navarro =
Augustin de Labayen

Juana de Labayen =
Gaspar de Avellaneda

Maria Rosa de Avallaneda =
Juan de San Martín

Francisca Javiera se San Martin =
Marcos José de Riglos

María Jacinta de Riglos y San Martin =
Mariano José de Zavaleta Aramburu (1762-1837)

María Isabel Zavaleta Riglos (1779-1883) =
Patricio Julián José Lynch Roo (1779-1881)

Francisco de Paula Eustaquio Lynch Zavaleta, sometime of San Francisco, California (1817-1886) =
Mrs. Eloïsa Ortíz Alfaro Eldridge (1834-1913)

Ana Isabel Lynch Ortíz (San Francisco, 1861-<1949) =
Robert Guevera Castro (b. California, 1855)

Ernesto Rafael Guevara Lynch (b. 1900) =
Celia de la Serna Llosa

Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna (Argentina, 1928-Bolivia, 1967)

Fernan married Elvira Alvarez de Ceballos. Elvira (daughter of Diego Gutierrez de Ceballos and Juana Garcia Carillo) died before 1372. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1372

Notes:

Founded the monastery at Quijana in Alava.

Notes:

Also called William le Blund.

"The first Lord Mountjoy descended, through younger sons in several generations, from William le Blund (Blundus-fair-haired), who married Isabel, widow of Henry Lovet, of Elmley Lovet and Hampton Lovet, co. Worcester which Henry died under age about 1256. William le Blund and his brother Walter were accused in August 1265, before the commissioners appointed under the Dictum of Kenilworth, of unlawful violence at Quinton, Northants. Tradition says that the abovesaid Isabel was a Beauchamp. The record of the assizes held at Worcester, 1275, contains several references to William le Blund. He was there pledge for [his stepson] John Lovet, and (since there is no differentiating description of either) is presumably the William le Blund who, was son and heir of John le Blund, son and heir of Walter le Blund, was found to be heir to lands in Doverdale (a parish adjoining Hampton Lovet) which had belonged to Amice, daughter of the said Walter. The above said William and Isabel, in addition to their Worcestershire property, held the manor of Belton in Rutland, and there seems to have been a close connection between this family and the family of the same name in Hanslope, Bucks. William le Blund appears to have died in the Spring of 1280. His widow was living in February 1322/3." [Complete Peerage IX:329-30]

William married Isabel de Beauchamp. Isabel died in 1306. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft Feb 1333

Notes:

Possibly a daughter of John de Beauchamp (d. 1283) and Cecily de Vivonne (d. 1320). Alternately, as shown on Genealogics, possibly a daughter of William de Beauchamp of Elmley and Isabel Mauduit (both d. 1268).

"This assumes the identity of Isabel, wife of William le Blount, as the widow of Henry Lovet [...] CP only states it as a possibility, but Croke provides other support for this identification, including the use of Beauchamp arms by Isabel's son Piers le Blount." [Nathaniel L. Taylor, "Cassandra Elizabeth Taylor's royal descents."]

Fernan married Teresa Vasquez. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Pedro married Sancha Fernandez Barroso. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Diego married Juana Garcia Carillo. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Todd A. Farmerie and Nathaniel L. Taylor's "Notes on the Ancestry of Sancha de Ayala" (New England Historical and Genealogical Register 103, 1998) presents a reconstruction of her ancestry which they describe as "possible but problematic," placing her father García Gómez Carillo, lord of Mazuela and Ormaza, as son of another García Gómez Carillo, alcade of the city of Jerez de la Frontera in 1264, whose wife was an Urraca Alfonso, natural daughter of Alfonso de Molina (1203-1272), son of Alfonso IX, King of Leon and Galicia, by his wife Berenguela, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile, granddaughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

On his own website, in Cassandra Elizabeth Taylor's royal descents, Taylor subsequently noted that "[t]he ancestry of Juana García Carrillo is disputed in secondary sources, though her grandson, Pero López de Ayala, asserts that his grandmother's grandfather was García Gómez Carrillo, 'él de los garfios', who is known to have had Urraca, illegitimate daughter of the infante Alfonso de Molina, as wife. [...] [T]his reconstruction of the Carrillo family disagrees with other available modern reconstructions, which however are not trustworthy in themselves." And on 23 Feb 2017, Farmerie noted that while the Osorio descent for Sancha de Ayala presented in his and Taylor's 1998 article has subsequently been accepted by three independent Iberian historians, "[t]he Carrillo descent, on the other hand, has received no attention at all, and I have come to view it with skepticism. The reasoning remains sound, but I am not sure the conclusion was."

Robert married Isabel de Odingsells. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Alguacil Mayor of Toledo.

Notes:

Called by Szabolcs de Vajay Gómez García Carillo. Lord of Mazuelo; Lord of Ormaza; alcalde mayor de los hijosdalgo de Castilla; ancestor of the lords, later counts, of Priego. Genealogist Nathaniel L. Taylor's personal website shows his parents as another García Gómez Carillo and Urraca Alfonso, herself an illegitimate daughter of Alfonso de Molina, son of Alfonso IX, King of Léon. Todd Farmerie has recently expressed significant doubt over these linkages.

García married Elvira Alvarez Osorio. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]