Joan (Wydeville) Haute (abt. 1404 - bef. 1462)

Born about 1404 in Grafton, Northamptonshire, England

Ancestors

Wife of William Haute — married after 18 Jul 1429 in Calais, France

Descendants

Died before 1462 before about age 58 in Waltham, Kent, England

Biography

Joan was born about 1404. She was the aunt of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV, and the ggg grandmother of Queen Katherine Parr. She married Sir Wiliam Haute in Calais, France in 1429.

"Marriage Settlement of William Haute of Kent, Esq. with Joan daughter of Richard Wydeville of the said county, Esq. 18th July 1429.

As an example of a marriage settlement of persons of the rank of Esquires, in the fifteenth century, the following document would be deserving of publication; but its interest is increased by one of the contracting parties being nearly connected with the family, even if he was not the grandfather, of Queen Elizabeth Wydeville, consort of Edward the Fourth. Its chief value, however, is the illustration which it affords of the word "chamber," as applied to a bride. William Haute, the descendant of an ancient Kentish family, had, it seems, been previously married and had issue. It is a singular, as well as unjust stipulation, after settling lands of the value of 100 marks as a jointure on his intended wife, Joan Wydeville, with remainder to her heirs, that he should consent to defeat the settlement on his issue by his first wife in any manner that the counsel of his new father-in-law might devise; and the only good feeling which Haute evinced on the subject was, by insisting that he should not be obliged to force his daughter into a convent; a reservation which proves that it was a common practice to provide in that way for portionless girls. The bride's dower was 40£ per annum, and her marriage portion 400 marks. The ceremony was to take place at Calais; all the expenses attending it were to be defrayed by the lady's father; and Wydeville agreed to give to his son-in-law and daughter "her chamber," as a gentlewoman ought to have according to the situation in life of her father. "The chamber" was, properly speaking, the bride's personal ornaments, jewels, &c. though it sometimes meant the furniture of the apartment particularly assigned to a wife, or even to a man; but Roquefort defines it to be "ce que est accordé à la femme comme meubles après la mort du mari." ... As the marriage was to be solemnized at Calais, it might be inferred that Richard Wydeville was the person of those names who was lieutenant of that town 5th Hen. VI. were it not that Dugdale says that individual was knighted 4th Hen. VI. and that he was the father of Queen Elizabeth. The pedigree of the Wydeville family has never however been accurately traced; and there are, it is presumed, many errors and omissions in Dugdale's account of it." ^[1]

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Sources

1. ↑ Excerpta Historica, or, Illustrations of English History, Samuel Bentley, p. 249. See also settlement on p. 250