The remarkably resilient Joan de Geneville

Ludlow Castle

Joan de Geneville was born at Ludlow Castle on February 2, 1286, the eldest surviving child of Piers de Geneville and Jeanne de Lusignan. As a 15 year old girl she made a desirable prospect in the marriage stakes and her grandfather, Geoffrey de Geneville, was anxious to secure an advantageous match for her. When he died Joan would inherit as suo jure Baroness Geneville with estates in England, Wales, Ireland and France.

On September 20, 1301 Joan was married to 14 year old Roger Mortimer at St. Mary’s Church, Pembridge. The young couple would make their home at Wigmore Castle in the Welsh Marches, an area on the borders of Wales and England. Peppered with castles, the wealthy Marcher lords protected their land and suppressed frequent uprisings from the Welsh population, ruling by their own law with the Mortimer family at the heart of many such conflicts.

History records Roger Mortimer as a firebrand, hot headed, ambitious and unscrupulous with his eye on the English throne. Yet, for the most part Joan and Roger’s marriage would appear to have been a happy one – at least in the early years – as they travelled between their estates – where Joan gave birth to 12 children, eight daughters and four sons, all of whom lived to adulthood.

However, England was ruled by an unpopular king, sometimes described as a ‘useless’ one, Edward II, who raised his ‘favourites’ to unparalleled levels of influence and wealth. Piers Gaveston (who was first exiled and then murdered by the English barons) and later the Despenser father and son duo, Hugh the Elder and Hugh the Younger. The final straw for Roger was when Edward II granted land to Hugh the Younger, which rightfully belonged to him. After this it was a no holds barred contest. The king’s response was brutal. Roger was captured and sentenced to await execution in the Tower of London. The Mortimer properties were seized and their possessions stolen.

Roger managed to make an audacious escape from the Tower, some sources say through a hole in the kitchen roof! He fled to France, returning three years later with an invading army and with Edward’s queen, Isabella as his mistress.

Edward II was deposed and later murdered at Berkeley Castle, some said on the instructions of Roger. The 14 year old heir Edward acceded to the throne and for three years Roger and Isabella ruled as Queen and Regent. But in 1330 Edward III sought revenge for his father’s murder and had Roger captured at Nottingham Castle. Roger was later hanged at Tyburn for treason, his naked corpse left to hang for several days as a warning to others.

Wigmore Castle

But what about Joan? What happened to her?

Following Roger’s incarceration in the Tower of London Joan was placed under house arrest with her young daughters in Wickham in Hampshire. Her elder girls were placed in convents while her other children were sent to Windsor Castle. After Roger’s execution she was imprisoned in Skipton Castle, Yorkshire where she struggled to maintain herself and her household on a meagre allowance allocated by the new King Edward III.

However, her lands were eventually restored to her in 1336 following a pardon issued by Edward III. Her husband’s body was returned to her and buried in Wigmore Abbey. Joan would survive her husband by more than 25 years. she died in 1356 aged 70 and was buried with him. You have to hope her later years were more peaceful.

So, I hear you ask, what does Joan de Geneville have to do with the St. John family?

Joan’s youngest daughter, Blanche Mortimer, married Peter de Grandison aged 14 (the son of William, 1st Lord Grandison and Sybil Tregoz – big clue here!). Some sources do not record any children of this marriage, but Anne O’Brien, acclaimed historical novelist and Mortimer expert, acknowledges seven children, the youngest of whom was Mabel who married Sir John de Pateshull. Next we arrive at a marriage between Sybil de Pateshull and Roger Beauchamp, 1st Lord Bletsoe (getting warmer?)

In 1409 John Beauchamp, 3rd Lord Bletsoe, took Edith Stourton as his second wife by whom he had two children, a son John who died young, and a daughter Margaret who became the matriarch of the St. John family at both Lydiard Tregoz and Bletsoe.

The resilient Joan de Geneville was the 6x great grandmother of Margaret Beauchamp.

Sadly, there is no known surviving portrait of Joan and even her tomb in Wigmore Abbey was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. There is, however, one known portrait of Margaret Beauchamp, which appears on the pediment of the St. John polypytych in St. Mary’s Church.