Juliana (Leybourne) Clinton (abt. 1303 - 1367)

Born about 1303 in Leybourne, Kent, England

Ancestors

Wife of John Hastings — married about 1318 in England

Wife of Thomas Blount — married before Sep 1325 in England

Wife of William Clinton — married before 17 Oct 1328 in England

Descendants

Died 1 Nov 1367 at about age 64 in St Annes Chapel, Canterbury, Kent, England

Biography

Juliana Leybourne was a member of the aristocracy in England.

Juliana was the daughter of Thomas Leybourne and Alice Toeni.^[1][2][3]

"After the death of her grandfather, Juliana became the ward of Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke (d. 1324). She was married three times: before 4 May 1321 to her guardian's nephew, John Hastings, second Lord Hastings (d. 20 January 1325); in or before September 1325 to Sir Thomas Blount, later Baron Blount, steward of the king's household (d. 17 August 1328); and before 17 October 1328 to William Clinton, later earl of Huntingdon (d. 1354).

"By her first marriage she was mother to Laurence Hastings, earl of Pembroke (1320–1348). Although she had an heir in the latter's son, John, Juliana granted the reversion of almost all her extensive estates in Kent and Sussex to Edward III in 1362, retaining a life interest and reserving certain manors for pious benefactions. She died between 31 October and 2 November 1367 and was buried in St Anne's Chapel at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, where she had also founded a chantry." (Ref: ODNB)

Juliana de Leyburne from Kathryn Warner's Blogspot

Meanwhile, Alice's eldest daughter Juliana was embarking on her own marital adventures. Although her half-brother Thomas Beauchamp would inherit the de Toeni lands of their mother, Juliana was the Leyburne heir, and her marital prospects were excellent. Accordingly, she married, around 1318, John, Lord Hastings, who was seventeen or eighteen years her senior - he was born on 29 September 1286. He was the eldest (surviving) son of John, Lord Hastings (1262-1313) who put in a claim to the throne of Scotland in the early 1290s, and Isabel de Valence (died 1305), who was the sister of Aymer, earl of Pembroke. The younger John's stepmother was Isabel Despenser, daughter of Hugh the Elder; she was several years younger than he was. This has caused some confusion among historians, for example Natalie Fryde, who assumes that Isabel was the wife of the younger John and mother of his son. In fact, Isabel was the mother of John's much younger half-siblings, Margaret, Thomas and Hugh Hastings.^[4]

Juliana and John's son, Laurence Hastings, was born on 20 March 1320, at Allesley, Warwickshire. Juliana was about sixteen, John thirty-three. Despite Juliana's three marriages, Laurence would be her only child. John Hastings was the nephew of the earl of Pembroke, and one of his retainers. Pembroke was childless, and when he died in June 1324, John and his cousins Elizabeth and Joan Comyn (daughters of Joan de Valence, another of Pembroke's sisters) shared the de Valence inheritance. John was one of the men who attested the Treaty of Leake in August 1318 (a reconciliation between Edward II and his baronial opponents, Lancaster in particular). In the Despenser War and Marcher campaign of 1321/22, he at first opposed the king, but was reconciled to him, perhaps influenced by his uncle Pembroke. Apparently Edward trusted him, but in 1324 John fell out with Hugh Despenser the younger and was forced to make a recognisance - Despenser's usual method of binding men to him by force - for the huge sum of £4000.^[4]

John, Lord Hastings died on 27 January 1325, a year after his mother-in-law Alice, aged thirty-eight. His son Laurence was not yet five. Later that year, Laurence was betrothed to the younger Despenser's third daughter, Eleanor, who was about the same age or a little older. Custody of the Hastings lands passed, inevitably, to Despenser (whose sister Isabel was Laurence's step-grandmother, though she was only in her mid-thirties).^[4]

Juliana's feelings about the Despenser alliance, and about the political situation in England, are of course unknown. Apparently, though, she stood in favour with the king and Despenser, as she married Thomas le Blount in or around September 1325, a few months after John's death, still only in her early twenties. Thomas le Blount had succeeded Richard Damory as Steward of Edward II's Household in April or May 1325. In late 1326, however, le Blount abandoned Edward, and in January 1327 at Kenilworth Castle, he ceremoniously broke his staff of office to show that the king's reign was over.^[4]

Juliana and Thomas had no children; Thomas had a son, William, by an unknown first wife. They were married less than three years, as Thomas died on 17 August 1328. Juliana, evidently not a woman given to long-term mourning, married her third husband William Clinton before 17 October 1328, less than two months after Thomas's death. I wonder if this means that their marriage was unhappy, and if Thomas's family were offended by the speed of her re-marriage. She was still only twenty-four or twenty-five, and would be married to William for twenty-six years. He was about the same age as Juliana, born around 1304, and was knighted by 1324. Edward II sent him to Gascony in 1325 during the War of Saint Sardos, but William evidently supported Isabella and Mortimer's invasion, as Isabella rewarded him with the castle and manor of Halton, Cheshire, in September 1327.^[4]

Around the time that Juliana married William, her half-brother Thomas Beauchamp and son Laurence Hastings also married. Half-uncle and nephew, though there was only six years between them, they both married daughters of Roger Mortimer. Roger had been granted Thomas's marriage back in July 1318, and although the upheaval of the 1320s meant that he lost the rights and Thomas Beauchamp was intended to marry one of the daughters of the earl of Arundel, the marriage never took place, and Thomas married Katherine Mortimer, probably in May 1328, when he was fourteen. Although Laurence Hastings was betrothed to Eleanor Despenser, Queen Isabella ignored the contract and forced the young girl to take vows at Sempringham Priory at the beginning of 1327; Eleanor was probably about nine at most. Instead, Laurence was married to Roger Mortimer's daughter Agnes, in 1328 or 1329.^[4]

Laurence was a great catch; he inherited his great-uncle's earldom of Pembroke, and was given livery of his lands in 1339, though still under age. In the meantime, his stepfather William Clinton was playing an important role in English political life. High in favour with Isabella and Mortimer, he accompanied Philippa of Hainault to England for her January 1328 marriage to Edward III, and was appointed Justiciar of Chester. However, it became apparent that his loyalties were to the young king, not the disreputable pair governing England in his name, and in October 1330 he was one of the men who took part in Edward III's coup at Nottingham Castle. For this action, he was rewarded with the earldom of Huntingdon in 1337. No longer only the stepdaughter and mother of earls, Juliana became a countess.^[4]

For the rest of his life, William Clinton remained a close friend and supporter of Edward III. He hosted a tournament at Dartford in 1331, at which the king himself fought under William's standard, a great honour which points to the close bond between the two men. Again, Juliana's feelings about her husband's choices are unknown; did she support his action against Mortimer and Isabella, or did she feel loyalty towards the queen? She must surely have been delighted at his favour with Edward III, however; the comital revenues the king bestowed on William, and the income from her own lands, enabled them to live in considerable state. They had no children.^[4]

William Clinton died on 25 August 1354, aged about fifty, and Juliana was a widow for the third time. Although she and her husband had mostly lived in Warwickshire, as a widow she preferred to live on her own estates in Kent, rather than on her dower lands from William.^[4]

Her son Laurence and Agnes Mortimer had a son, John, born 29 August 1347 - Juliana's only grandchild (unless Laurence fathered illegitimate children). A year and a day later, Laurence died, aged only twenty-eight.^[4]

Juliana de Leyburne de Hastings le Blount de Clinton, countess of Huntingdon, died between 30 October and 2 November 1367, aged about sixty-three or sixty-four. She was buried in St Anne's Chapel at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, where she had founded a chantry. She had outlived her son Laurence by nineteen years, her third husband by thirteen years.^[4]

Her daughter-in-law Agnes Mortimer, who had re-married John Hakelut, died in July of the following year.^[4]

Juliana's grandson John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, married Edward III's daughter Margaret, who died in 1361, then Anne Manny, the granddaughter of Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton. He died in April 1375, only twenty-seven; a year younger than his father at his own death.^[4]

William Clinton's earldom of Huntingdon passed to the Poitevin Guichard d'Angle, who died in 1380, then to Richard II's half-brother John Holland. Juliana's half-brother Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, died of plague in November 1369; his wife Katherine Mortimer died around the same time. Another half-brother, Alan la Zouche, died in 1346 and was succeeded by his son Hugh. All Juliana's six half-sisters married, and most had children. Her half-brother John Beauchamp died childless in 1360.^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ Cokayne, George Edward, "The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom", London: St. Catherine Press, 1929, Ed. 2 Vol VII, Archive.org, p.638
2. ↑ Cokayne, George Edward, "The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom", London: St. Catherine Press, 1912, Ed. 2 Vol II, Archive.org, p. 195
3. ↑ Cokayne, George Edward, "The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom", London: Sutton, 1998, Ed. 2 Vol XIV, FamilySearch, p. 94
4. ↑ ^{4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13} Kathryn Warner, "Alice de Toeni and Juliana de Leyburne" Edward the Second Blogspot, 17 March, 2007

See also:

• ROYAL ANCESTRY by Douglas Richardson Vol. III, page 258

JOHN DE HASTINGS, 2nd Lord Hastings, son and heir, married JULIANE DE LEYBOURNE (or LEYBURNE), daughter and heiress of Thomas de Leybourne, Knt., of Leybourne, Kent, by Alice, daughter of Ralph de Tony, Knt. They had one son, Laurence, Knt. [Earl of Pembroke]. John De Hastings, by an unknown mistress, also had an illegitimate son, William. JOHN DE HASTINGS, 2nd Lord Hastings, died testate Jan. 1324/5. His widow, Juliane, married (2nd) before 20 Dec. 1326 (date of presentation) THOMAS LE BLOUNT, Knt., of Tibberton, Gloucestershire, and, in right of his wife, of Eltham and Ashford, Kent, and Fulbrook, Warwickshire, etc. They had no issue. SIR THOMAS LE BLOUNT died 17 August 1328. His widow, Juliane, married (3rd) before 17 October 1328 WILLIAM DE CLINTON, Knt., of Maxstoke, Warwickshire, and, in right of his wife, of Eltham and Ashford, Kent, etc., younger son of John de Clinton, Knt. by his Ida, daughter of William de Oddingseles, Knt. They had no issue. On 10 March 1336/7, he was created Earl of Huntingdon. SIR WILLIAM DE CLINTON, Earl of Huntingdon, died testate 24 (or 25) August 1354, and was buried at Maxstoke, Warwickshire. Juliane, Countess of Huntingdon, died testate 31 October, 1 or 2 Nov. 1367, and was buried in St. Anne's Chapel in St. Augustine's, Canterbury, Kent.

• ROYAL ANCESTRY by Douglas Richardson Vol. V, Page 178 9.ii,a

JULIANE DE LEYBOURNE, married (1st) JOHN DE HASTINGS, 2nd Lord Hastings, lord of Abergavenny; (2nd) THOMAS LE BLOUNT, Knt., of Tibberton, Gloucestershire; (3rd) WILLIAM DE CLINTON, Knt., Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Clinton.

• ROYAL ANCESTRY by Douglas Richardson Vol. II, Page 261 9,ii

Children of Ida de Oddingseles, by John de Clinton, Knt.:

ii. WILLIAM DE CLINTON, Knt., of Maxstoke, Warwickshire, and, in right of his wife, of Eltham and Ashford, Kent, etc., married before 17 October 1328 JULIANE DE LEYBOURNE, (or LEYBURNE), widow successively of John De Hastings, 2nd Lord Hastings (died 20 Jan. 1324/5), and Thomas le Blount, Knt. of Tibberton, Gloucestershire, Steward of the King's Household (died 17 August 1328), and daughter and heiress of Thomas de Leybourne, Knt., of Leybourne, Kent, by Alice, daughter of Ralph de Tony, Knt.. They had no surviving issue. SIR WILLIAM DE CLINTON, Earl of Huntingdon, died testate 24 (or 25) August 1354, and was buried at Maxstoke, Warwickshire. Juliane, Countess of Huntingdon, died testate 31 October, 1 or 2 Nov. 1367, and was buried in St. Anne's Chapel in St. Augustine's, Canterbury, Kent.

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB)