Eleanor Maltravers, 2nd Baroness Maltravers

Eleanor Maltravers, 2nd Baroness Maltravers
Remains of Lewes Priory, burial place of Eleanor Maltravers
Spouse(s)	John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel Reynold Cobham, 2nd Baron Cobham
Issue John FitzAlan, 2nd Baron Arundel Sir William FitzAlan Henry FitzAlan Edward FitzAlan Sir Richard FitzAlan Joan FitzAlan Margaret FitzAlan John Cobham Reynold Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham Thomas Cobham Elizabeth Cobham Margaret Cobham
Noble family	Maltravers
Father	Sir John Maltravers
Mother	Gwenthlian (surname unknown)
Born	c.1345
Died	12 January 1405
Buried	Lewes Priory, Sussex

Eleanor Maltravers or Mautravers, 2nd Baroness Maltravers suo jure (c. 1345 – 12 January 1405) was an English noblewoman and heiress.

Family

Eleanor Maltravers (c.1345 – 12 January 1405), was the younger daughter and coheir of Sir John Maltravers (d. 22 January 1349) and his wife Gwenthlian. She had a brother, Henry Maltravers, who died an infant before 8 February 1350, and a sister, Joan Maltravers, who married firstly Sir John de Keynes, and secondly Sir Robert Rous, but died without issue.^[1]

When Eleanor's grandfather, John Maltravers, 1st Baron Maltravers, died on 13 February 1364, the Maltravers barony fell into abeyance, according to modern doctrine, between his granddaughters and coheirs, Joan and Eleanor. At the death of her sister Joan in or after 1376,^[2] Eleanor succeeded as de jure Baroness Maltravers.^[3]

Marriages and issue

On 17 February 1359 Eleanor married John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel (d. 13 December 1379), by whom she had five sons and two daughters.^[4]

• John FitzAlan, 2nd Baron Arundel (30 November 1364 – 14 August 1390), who married Elizabeth le Despenser, daughter of Edward le Despencer, 4th Baron le Despencer (d.1336 – 11 November 1375), by whom he had three sons:^[5]
  • John FitzAlan, 13th Earl of Arundel.^[6]
  • Sir Edward FitzAlan.^[7]
  • Sir Thomas FitzAlan of West Betchworth (in Dorking), Surrey, who married Joan Moyne.^[8]
• Sir William FitzAlan, Knight of the Garter, second son, who married a wife named Agnes, but left no issue.^[9]
• Henry FitzAlan.
• Edward FitzAlan.
• Sir Richard FitzAlan (d. 3 June 1419), 5th son, who married Alice (d. 30 August 1436), the widow of Roger Burley, esquire, by whom he had a daughter, Joan Arundel, who married Sir Thomas Willoughby of Parham.^[10]
• Joan FitzAlan, who married firstly Sir William de Bryan, and secondly, Sir William Echingham.^[11] She is buried in the chancel at Etchingham.^[12]
• Margaret FitzAlan, who married William de Ros, 6th Baron de Ros.^[13]

Sir John Fitzalan died in the Irish Sea on 15 or 16 December 1379.

Eleanor married secondly, on 9 August 1380, as his second wife, Reynold Cobham, 2nd Baron Cobham of Sterborough (died 3 or 6 July 1403), by whom she had three sons and two daughters:^[14]

• John Cobham.
• Reynold Cobham, 3rd Baron Cobham, who married Eleanor Culpeper and was the father of Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Gloucester.
• Thomas Cobham.
• Elizabeth Cobham.
• Margaret Cobham, who married Sir Richard Curteys.

In 1384 Eleanor and her second husband were divorced on the ground that they were within the second and three degrees of consanguinity. They were subsequently allowed to remarry, with proper dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury, on 29 September 1384.^[15]

Eleanor died 12 January 1405,^[16] and was buried with her first husband at Lewes Priory, Sussex.^[17] Her will, dated 26 September 1404, was proved 16 January 1404/1405 at Maidstone, Kent.

Footnotes

1. Cokayne 1932, pp. 585–6; Richardson I 2011, pp. 29–30.
2. Richardson I 2011, p. 524.
3. Cokayne 1932, pp. 581–6.
4. Cokayne 1932, p. 586; Richardson I 2011, pp. 29–30; Richardson III 2011, pp. 455–7.
5. Richardson I 2011, p. 32; Richardson II 2011, pp. 75–6.
6. Richardson I 2011, p. 32.
7. Richardson I 2011, p. 30.
8. Richardson I 2011, pp. 32–3.
9. Richardson I 2011, p. 31.
10. Richardson I 2011, pp. 31–2.
11. Richardson I 2011, pp. 31–2.
12. Richardson, D. Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial And Medieval Families, 2nd Edition, 2011 (via books.google.com pg 676
13. Richardson I 2011, pp. 31–2.
14. Richardson I 2011, pp. 30, 523–5.
15. Richardson I 2011, p. 524.
16. Cokayne gives her date of death as 10 January 1405.
17. Richardson I 2011, p. 524.

References

• Cokayne, G.E. (1932). The Complete Peerage, edited by Vicary Gibbs VIII (2nd ed.). London: St Catherine Press.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham I (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1449966373
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham II (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1449966381
• Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 9–33, 21–32, 59–35, 212–34