Another illegitimate child of King John?
I know. Knock me over with a feather.
So I did a post a couple years back about the twelve known illegitimate children of our very busy Plantagenet bad boy, King John. It would appear that John had at least one additional illegitimate child, probably a daughter, who was the mother of Roger de Meulan, bishop of Lichfield, the king's "dear nephew" (delecto nepote nostro; this king is Henry III) elected to the bishopric on January 30, 1257.
Most likely, Roger's mother was a daughter of King John. We know that he was apparently close to his uncle, Richard of Cornwall, who helped him get elected (procurante comite insuper Ricardo, ipsius Rogeri avunculo according to Matthew Paris); and that he was of age to be elected to a bishopric (no mention of a dispensation was made in the letter the chapter of Lichfield wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury regarding Roger's election) so he was aged about 30, with a birthdate at the latest in about 1227. Roger also seems to have had an unnamed sister who married Sir William de Seacourt and had two children of her own named William (a clerk living as late as 1297) and Denise.
It's sort of confusing working out the rest of Roger's family, since there's several Meulans running around who might've been his father. It's really too bad that his own register during his time as bishop has been lost, as that might've provided more clues about his family. But it seems certain, based on Henry III and Richard of Cornwall's testimony, that he was a nephew of theirs, almost certainly through his mother.
This, btw, brings to mind something that I've mentioned before. Out of King John's 12 identified illegitimate children, only 3 are female (Joan, who married Llywelyn Fawr; Isabel who married the lord of Degembris; and Maud, abbess of Barking). I thought that was a bit odd, and it's been my suspicion for some time now that John had more daughters who simply kept a low profile and/or married too far down the food chain for chroniclers to take any notice of them. The mother of Roger de Meulan is likely to have been one of these daughters. Another option was proposed by genealogist Douglas Richardson, that Roger's mother may have been John's illegitimate daughter Isabel, from a second marriage after her first husband died in 1211. This is possible but there's no real evidence for it.
So I did a post a couple years back about the twelve known illegitimate children of our very busy Plantagenet bad boy, King John. It would appear that John had at least one additional illegitimate child, probably a daughter, who was the mother of Roger de Meulan, bishop of Lichfield, the king's "dear nephew" (delecto nepote nostro; this king is Henry III) elected to the bishopric on January 30, 1257.
Most likely, Roger's mother was a daughter of King John. We know that he was apparently close to his uncle, Richard of Cornwall, who helped him get elected (procurante comite insuper Ricardo, ipsius Rogeri avunculo according to Matthew Paris); and that he was of age to be elected to a bishopric (no mention of a dispensation was made in the letter the chapter of Lichfield wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury regarding Roger's election) so he was aged about 30, with a birthdate at the latest in about 1227. Roger also seems to have had an unnamed sister who married Sir William de Seacourt and had two children of her own named William (a clerk living as late as 1297) and Denise.
It's sort of confusing working out the rest of Roger's family, since there's several Meulans running around who might've been his father. It's really too bad that his own register during his time as bishop has been lost, as that might've provided more clues about his family. But it seems certain, based on Henry III and Richard of Cornwall's testimony, that he was a nephew of theirs, almost certainly through his mother.
This, btw, brings to mind something that I've mentioned before. Out of King John's 12 identified illegitimate children, only 3 are female (Joan, who married Llywelyn Fawr; Isabel who married the lord of Degembris; and Maud, abbess of Barking). I thought that was a bit odd, and it's been my suspicion for some time now that John had more daughters who simply kept a low profile and/or married too far down the food chain for chroniclers to take any notice of them. The mother of Roger de Meulan is likely to have been one of these daughters. Another option was proposed by genealogist Douglas Richardson, that Roger's mother may have been John's illegitimate daughter Isabel, from a second marriage after her first husband died in 1211. This is possible but there's no real evidence for it.