Alexander de Bunbury

• Preferred Name: Alexander de Bunbury^{[1] [2] [3]}
  
• Gender: M
  
• FSID: LX3K-61F
  
• Birth: 1200 in England
  
• Death: 1250 in Somme, Hauts-de-France, France at LATI: N9.9167 LONG: E0.5
  
• Notes:

  === Life Sketch ===
  lexander de Bonebury, lord of Bunbury, was part of the Norman elite in England during the reign of King Henry III. He had inherited his cousin Joan’s half in the lordship of Bunbury. According to Hanshall, his father Patrick Bunbury married Letitia Fitz-Hugh, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Robert FitzHugh, Baron of Malpas, and the lordship of Bunbury (or part of it, its complicated!) was thereafter vested in their descendents. Patrick was a great-grandson to David de Bonebury, or Bunbury, brother of the first-named Henry de Bonebury. (David's signature was, on escutcheon, a lion, passant).
  
  Alexander and Leititia had two sons - William, his heir; and Joseph ... although Joseph may have been called Henry.
  
  Joseph de Bonebury married Margery Beeston, sole daughter and heiress of William Beeston, and seems to have adopted the Beeston name. He had three sons – Joseph (age three, temps Edward I), Henry and Robert (27 Ed I) but there is some confusion about what happened to this line. By one account, the line died out and Beeston passed to their cousin Henry. Another suggests that Margery Beeston's husband was called Alexander de Bunbury and that Henry who succeeded to Beeston was their son. To add to the confusion, the 'Memoir and Literary Remains of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Edward Bunbury' (1868) says that Margery Beeston’s husband was actually called Henry! The latter author also observes that the Beeston family were nothing to do with Beeston Castle, which is a pity. However, there is some consolation that it was the aforementioned Urian de St Pierre who helped James de Audley regain control of Beeston Castle for Edward I after it had fallen to men loyal to Simon de Montfort.
  
  There is also a genetic connection to the great Admiral Beeston which reminds me of a morning in August 2018 when, while charging towards the Holyhead ferry, I obliged my dear family to make a whistlestop pilgrimage to the town of Bunbury, having never set foot in the place. We were there for all of five minutes but that gave me enough time to dash into the church where a clergyman and a clergywoman were plotting how best to choreograph an upcoming wedding. A nice woman from Belfast directed me to the front of the church where I found an effigy to Sir Hugh Calverley. However, a second effigy in the wall caught my attention and it was the aforesaid Sir George Beeston (1499-1601), an Admiral of the Fleet in Queen Elizabeth's reign who commanded the Dreadnought at the time of the Spanish Armada. His family were loosely linked to the Bunbury family. I gripped his arm with as much Tudor fervour as I could muster in the presence of others, before exiting the building. It seemed a charming village, replete with hanging baskets and friendly faces. I later noted how close it was to the Bruen strongholds of Tarvin and Stapleford although, in my daughters’ memory, it will forever be linked to Snugsbury’s Ice Cream where we paused for a quartet of cones (the price of bribery!) and viewed a giant straw sculpture of Peter Rabbit. We also managed to pose for a family photograph beneath a sign for Bunbury. I was confused that the pub in Bunbury village was called the Dysart Arms, not the Bunbury Arms, but it seems the Bunbury Arms is at Stoak, near Chester, just off both the M56 and the M53. The family arms on the pub wall, I believe. I guess this is all linked to the feudn between the Bunbury and Dysart families over the manorial rights! A return pilgrimage is called for.
  
  Bunbury was a village of some importance in medieval times. Its high number of 31 listed buildings include the Mill and The Dysart Arms. Or they even have of The Bunbury Arms. To contact the church, visit http://www.bunbury.org.uk/ while one recommended place to stay locally is The Wild Boar. With thanks to Victoria House.
  
  Beeston Castle was built by Ranulf, 6th Earl of Chester, in the 1220s, and incorporates the banks and ditches of an Iron Age hillfort.
  
  (NB: Either Alexander or his son Joseph also had sons Henry and Robert de Bunbury, all of whom were alive in the reign of Edward I.)
  
  A SOLDIER OF LONGSHANKS
  William de Bunbury, eldest son of Alexander, fought on behalf of Edward Longshanks against the Scots and the Welsh and died in about 1288 (16 Edward I). By his wife Matilda (or Maud), he left two sons – Hugh, his heir, and Henry. It is this second son Henry who is said to have succeeded his uncle Joseph and changed his name to become Henry, Lord de Beeston, and was ancestor to the Beeston family. (Henry bore for his signature, on an escutcheon, a lion, rampant). But just to keep things neat, another source - Hanshall's History of the County Palatine of Chester - says that, in 1248, Henry granted the lands in Beeston to William's son Richard de Bonebury.
  
  THE MALPAS CONNECTION
  Hugh de Bunbury succeeded his father as Lord of Bunbury in 1288, sixteen years into the reign of Edward I. The Bunburys were always very good at marrying the right type of people. Randle Le Meschin, the fabulously wealthy 3rd Earl of Chester, had a daughter called Beatrix. Her husband was Ralph ap Eynion, son of a chap called Griffith who, being Baron of Malpas, Lord of Flint, Broomfield and Moelore (in Denbighshire), was also fabulously wealthy. It seems that Beatrix and Ralph had a daughter, Beannan, who married William le Belward and their son ‘Dan David’, Baron of Malpas, sometimes called David Le Clerk, inherited much of this fabulously wealth, as well as a moiety of the barony of Malpas, in right of his wife. As well as being a lineal ancestor to the Egerton Baronets, David was also secretary to the then Earl of Chester (Ranulf de Blondeville, perhaps, or Simon de Montfort) and High Sheriff of Cheshire in 1251/52.
  
  During the early years of Edward I’s reign, Hugh de Bunbury married Dame Christiana Malpas, daughter of Dan David and Margaret Malpas, which gave the Bunbury family serious financial clout. Hugh and Dame Christiana had issue at least five sons – Richard (their heir), Adam de Bunbury (a clerk, presented as Chaplain to the Rood Chapel in Tarporley, circa Feb 1301), Henry (a possible son and vicar of Neston in 1307), David and Robert, and a daughter Mabel (wife of Matthew de Hulgreve).[i]
  
  This was the era of the Black Death. Between 1347 and 1351 the world's temperature was the lowest recorded in 1000 years, coinciding with the plague, leading to a series of four failed harvests as the price of fuel and salt rocketed. It may have been started by rodents, and carried by them initially, but humans quickly proved to be expert transmitters of the disease. Adults were taken out in disproportionate number during the first plague, especially the over 50s, but the same plague returns in 1361 and this time it was the Plague of Children because it targeted the young, who suffered disproportionately. The plague would hit Europe five times, if not more, during the 14th century so have pity on the generation born in the 1340s who had to deal with all of that. Plague continued to ravage England in 1603 and then the last big one in 1665.
  
  RICHARD DE BUNBURY & THE MANOR OF BUNBURY
  Hugh was succeeded by his eldest son Richard de Bunbury who lived during the reign of Edward II and Edward III. According to Ormerod's History, Richard de Bunbury, levied fine of the manor of Bunbury in 1365. [ii] Richard was married to Alice, who was a widow by 1579 (5 Richard II). He had issue David, Richard and Matilda.
  
  LORD OF STANNICH (STANNEY) & HOOLE HALL
  As well as being Lord of Bunbury, Richard’s son, David de Bunbury was also Lord of Stannich, or Stanny, in Wirral, a 'fair lordship near the city of Chester.’ He came into this via his marriage in the 1320s to the sole daughter and heiress of David de Stannich (or Stanny), near the city of Chester. That said, Hanshall says there is evidence that the family had property in the locality since the reign of Richard I.
  
  David and his wife had two sons, William and David. According to Hanshall, David 'settled the advowson of the Church of Bunbury, and the manor of Stanney, by fine, on his son William de Bunbury.’ His other son David was Prior of Bunbury circa 1311, as was his son, also David, afterwards, so no problems with Priors having sons there … The Lordship of Stannich remains with Sir Michael Bunbury, the present head of the family.
  
  The family appears to have moved their seat from Bunbury to Stanney during the long reign of Edward III (1327-1377). They also acquired additional lands in the area, particularly in the parish of Hoole, just north-east of Chester, which they bought off the Calvaley family. In Hoole, they built a fine mansion house known as 'The Hall’, which Hanshall (p. 614) describes as being 'built chiefly of timber and encompassed with a moat.’
  
  (NB: Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury (1740-1821) still had an estate in the parish of Bunbury in the 1820s).
  
  ROGER DE BUNBURY, MARSHALL OF THE ENGLISH ARMY
  David was succeeded by his eldest son William de Bunbury, of Stanny on the Wirral, who had issue, Roger and Henry. William was succeeded by his son Roger de Bunbury of Stanny who lived during the reign (ie: 1327-1377) of Edward III, a successful era that saw vital developments in legislature and government—in particular the evolution of the English parliament— as well as the horrors of the Black Death.
  
  Family tradition holds that William’s son Roger was given the right to add chess rooks to his armorial coat of arms ‘for his great skill in martialing the troops of that warlike and victorious prince, Edward III.’ (Wooton). As the date upon which Roger is deemed to have been ‘living’ is ‘36 Ed. III’, or 1341, we can for now assume that any such marshalling was in response to growing conflict with France in the lead up to the Hundred Years War. According to Hanshall, he ‘added the chess rooks to his paternal armorial coat, in compliment to his skill in military tactics’. [iii] Sir Henry Edward Bunbury, 7th Bart, speculates that Roger de Bunbury
  
  === !Son and heir, also heir of Joan de Bun ===
  !Son and heir, also heir of Joan de Bunbury, of the elder branch of the family, living 15 H 3.
  
  !Son and heir, also heir of Joan de Bunbury, of the elder branch of the family, living 15 H 3.

1. William de Bunbury, b. 1225 in Nantwich, Cheshire, England     d. 1310 in Wales

1. Title: Legacy NFS Source: Alexander De Bonbury - Published information: death: ; England, United Kingdom
   Note: Published information: death: ; England, United Kingdom Published information: male Published information: birth-name: Alexander de Bunbury Published information: birth: about 1200; Bunbury, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom
   Page: Migrated from user-supplied source citation: urn:familysearch:source:2036922561
   
2. Title: Legacy NFS Source: Alexander De Bonbury -
   Author: The History of Cheshire, Ormerod, George Esq., LL.D., F.S.A., 2nd Edition by Thomas Helsby, Esq, London: George Routledge & Sons, 1882, Brigham Young University, Harold B. Lee Library, Provo, UT 84604, Page number: vol. 2, p. 395
   Page: Migrated from user-supplied source citation: urn:familysearch:source:2332820711
   
3. Title: Legacy NFS Source: Alexander De Bonbury -
   Author: International Genealogical Index (R), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Copyright (c) 1980, 2002, data as of August 25, 2004, Family History Library, 35 N West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150 USA
   Page: Migrated from user-supplied source citation: urn:familysearch:source:2036380302