Margaret Blount's (d. 1531) parents

Question

While we are looking at Margaret, maybe we can have a look at her parents also. Her profile has no sources and seems to be confusing two sets of Blounts.

In this source (Transactions - Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Volume 17, p285) http://tinyurl.com/guypkkt she is specifically said to be the daughter of Margaret Seymour and that seems to be how she appears in all pedigrees I have seen except the one on wikitree.

According to her will, Margaret left money to Cirencester Abbey for orisons “to pray for the souls of Sir John Hungerford and Lady Margaret his wife, Thomas H. and Christiana his wife, Edmund Blount and Margaret his wife, with all the souls of their consanguinity.” http://tinyurl.com/jyy9pqs

This would suggest that Margaret’s parents were Edmund* Blount of Mangotsfield and his wife Margaret Seymour. The History of the Parish of Bitton says “The next owner of the estates [in Bitton after John Blount who died 1444] was Edmund Blount, his son who married Margaret, a daughter of Sir John Seymour  (their arms impaled were on the old church porch at Mangotsfield).” They had a son named Sir Simon, and a daughter Margaret is mentioned in one of the visitations of Essex (can't put my finger on it at the moment.)

Also, this would be consistent with the statement in History of Parliament that Sir John’s wife had “Seymour blood in her veins.”  http://tinyurl.com/zjfoemt

*sometimes his name is transcribed as Edward, but he was transcribed as Edmund in his ipm 1468, see History of the Parish of Bitton, p 300: “Edmundus Blount armiger…Edmundum et Margaretam uxorem ejus” He had several Edmunds in his ancestry, and as Margaret’s will also calls him Edmund it seems the better fit

At any rate, I don’t see any support for a Hall. I can't find anything on the Mangotsfield/Bitton side. The only Ellen Hall I have seen marrying a Blount is Ellen Hall, daughter of John Hall of Dovebridge who married John Blount of Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire. Perhaps they have been confused somehow? 

Comments

As there seems to be no support at all for Margaret's mother being an Ellen Hall (I can't even locate a tree it could have been copied from) can someone edit Margaret's profile to reflect the general consensus that exists in sites like geni.com and elsewhere, citing the sources above?

---

Added the pre-1700 tag to catch more attention :-)

---

Thanks, Julie!

Answer 1

There is something wrong here, and it is not easy to figure out.

According to Our Parish Mangotsfield, the Edmund Blount who married Margaret Seymour was apparently the son John Blount and Wilelma Abarle; he was aged 40 and more in the 1444 IPM of his father, so born before 1404.[1] What you are proposing is to make Margaret Blount d. 1531 his daughter. That is 127 years from birth of father to death of daughter – seems we are missing 1-2 generations. An analysis of the effigy of Edmond Blount who married Margaret Seymour dates it to 1455-1460, supporting the fact that this Edmond was born too early to be Margaret’s father. [3]

So trying to trace the Blount’s of Mangotsfield, 2 references state Edmund Blount died 1468, and that his son and heir was Simon Blount born 1472 (say what???? how can two print references say the son was born 4 years after the father’s death?) [1, 2] Could there be a missing Edmund in between Edmund b. 1404 and Simon b. 1472? This CPR entry suggests the 1472 date is wrong http://tinyurl.com/h8k8vcd At least 1 online tree went Edmund Blount (m. Seymour) to Edmund Blount (married Hall) to Margaret Blount (m. John Hungerford). OK maybe, but I can find absolutely no evidence of Ellen Hall.

Is Margaret Blount a daughter of Ellen Hall? I can find absolutely no evidence of this. But I also don’t think she could be a daughter of Edmund Blount by Margaret Seymour – the generations are too spread out. I think you need real proof before you give her any mother at all. And she may be a daughter of Edmund Blount, but I am not sure we really know which Edmund Blount.

1. Our Parish Mangotsfield, Including Downend: A Brief Account of Its Origin ...By Arthur Emlyn Jones http://tinyurl.com/guds5nq

2. The Herald and Genealogist, Volume 4 http://tinyurl.com/zylkkn6

3. Proceedings of the Clifton Antiquarian Club, Volume 4 By Clifton Antiquarian Club (Clifton, Eng.) http://tinyurl.com/hkrohv5

Comments

The will of margaret (Blount) Hungerford refers to the souls of Edmund Blount and Margaret his wife without stating how they are related.  Could an assumption have been made that 1. These were her parents and 2. Her mother was Margaret Seymour - perhaps they are an entirely different Edmund and Margaret Blount.

---

Much appreciated, Joe! Wish we had more data.

There were several Edmunds in this line and at least two of them were married to Margarets, so it would not surprise me to find another Edmund and even another Margaret given that neither were particularly uncommon names. I wonder if there is anything in the feet of fines?

The History of the Parish of Bitton (link below) is a good source for the ipms but I can't follow the Latin.

(I'm curious now about the connection, if any, with the Barres., given a recent look at Jane Croft Darrel. Joan (Rugge) Barre's ipm and will are next in line here--she would have been Jane's great aunt--and she mentions an Elizabeth Cornwall in her will, possibly the wife of Thomas, as his mother Elizabeth (Barre) Cornwall would have been dead by 1484. Maybe more can be found about Bitton and Mangotsfield in general to sort out the connections between these various related families.)

The assumption that the Blounts she mentions in her will would likely be her parents is not an unnatural one. Parents and spouses were the usual nominees. If they are not her parents, who are they? And why would they be preferred to her parents? It seems odd. Probably they are her parents, but may be a different Edmund and Margaret than the ones expected.

Perhaps the best thing to do for now is, as you suggest, drop Ellen (unless something can be found to place her here), keep Margaret's father as an Edmund, and add some research notes to the effect that some sources have Margaret as dau. of Sir Edmund & Margaret Seymour, but given that the dates are off, it is unclear where her father fits. He most likely connects somewhere with the line of Edmunds of Bitton (Edmund, Hugh, Edmund, John, Edmund, Simon) and possibly from Margaret Seymour also. More and more information is available all the time. Perhaps something will turn up that will help.

https://archive.org/stream/historyparishbi01ellagoog#page/n88/mode/2up

Best, Monica

---

Joe, I had a look at the ipm and it says "triginta annoi" or 30 years or more, not 40. So that would put him at born before 1414. So if he fathered Margaret at, say, 40, she would have been 86 when she died. Not completely out of the ball park. I think maybe we should not entirely rule them out yet.

---

Fair enough.  I still requires some assumptions of a child born later than usual and then an unusual (but not impossible) long life by the child.  I think we need to find some primary source to confirm the lineage before the connections are made.

---

While I was looking today, I stumbled upon something interesting. There is a quit claim for Sir John in 1521 for 3 messuages and a garden in "Smalestreate" in Bristol. This seemed odd to me as it is nowhere near the usual Hungerford haunts, so I had a closer look, and this whole area seems to have been owned by Mark Williams whose daughter Isabel (Williams) Seymour inherited it. Streets mentioned in connection with Williams and his daughter are: Corn Street, St Stephens, the Key, St. Thomas' St., Horestreet, Grope lane (slightly more explicit on map!), Frome bridge street, etc. If you look at the map on the extreme right side, you will see all of these, including Smalestreet. I can't think of any connection the Hungerfords had with Bristol unless it was through Margaret.

 

http://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/sites/historictownsatlas/files/atlas/town/maps/medieval_street_names_west_half.pdf