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Notes for Ralph de Arundel and Juliane

Research Notes:

In a discussion of the arms of Ralph de Arundel, Montagu states, [1]

In the manuscript6 from which the foregoing arms are taken, there occurs (amongst the illegitimates, and after the Beauforts) a shield, inscribed, "Radulphus de Arundel." On this shield the arms of the Fitz-Alans, earls of Arundel, are placed upon what appear to be two flanches, the space between being white. It is impossible to identify this person, but in a manuscript in the Cottonian Collection7 there is the following note:—"The base sonne of a noblewoman, if he doe geve armes must geve upon the same a surcote but unless you doe well marke such coate (you) may take it for a coate flanched." Now this gives us reason to suspect that the relationship of this "Radulphus" to the noble house of Arundel was through a female, and it is not unlikely that he was a son of Cardinal Beaufort by the Lady Alice, daughter of Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, though historians mention a daughter only as the issue of that connexion.
6 Lansdowne MS. 872, compiled by the celebrated Glover, Somerset Herald.
7 Marked Tiberius E. VIII. There are further valuable remarks on this subject in this MS. but it has been so injured by fire as to be nearly illegible.

Douglas Ricardson states that Ralph de Arundel was a "probable illegitimate son" of Richard de Arundell, Knight, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, by an unknown mistress. Richardson explains his reasoning in a footnote, [2]

The coat of arms of Ralph de Arundel is found in a volume of Robert Glover's collections (Brit. Lib. MS Lans. 872) The coat of arms appears to have been taken from a window which was formerly found in the chapelry of the prebendal church of Towersey, Buckinghamshire, where Ralph de Arundel was buried. These arms are those of the Earls of Arundel, they being Arundel and Warenne quarterly, placed on two flanches. According to various heraldic experts, the flances are an indication of illegitimacy, the person so designated being the illegitimate son of a member of the house of Arundel. These same distinctive arms are also included among the quarterings claimed by Ralph de Arundel's descendants, the Dormer family in the 1634 Vis. of Buckinhamshire.

In assigning Ralph de Arundel as a son of Earl Richard de Arundel, Richardson states, [3]

The arms in question (Arundel and Warenne quarterly) were brought into being in 1347, when Richard de Arundel, Earl of Arundel (died 1376), became heir to his uncle, John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey.

From the date of the origin of the arms, Arundel and Warenne quarterly, Richardson concludes that Ralph de Arundel can only have been a child of Earl Richard de Arundel or of one of Earl Richard's siblings. Richardson quotes Montagu's discussion, but notes that the earl is known to have had an unhappy first marriage and to have fathered at least one other illegitimate child. Richardson also suggests that the fact that Ralph bore the surname Arundel is "evidence that his father was an Arundel, not his mother, as bastard sons in this time period usually bore the surname of their father." [4]

Richardson states that Ralph de Arundel "married Juliane ____, presumably daughter of William de Grenville, by his wife, Christian. They had one daughter, Alice. Ralph de Arundel was buied with his wife, Juliane, in the church of Towersey, Buckinghamshire, a chapelry of the prebendal church of Thame, Oxfordshire." [5]


Footnotes:

[1] James Augustus Montagu, A Guide to the Study of Heraldry (London: William Pickering, 1840), 43, [GoogleBooks].

[2] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, 2nd edition, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Douglas Richardson, 2011), 1:278, [GoogleBooks].

[3] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, 2nd edition, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Douglas Richardson, 2011), 1:279, [GoogleBooks].

[4] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, 2nd edition, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Douglas Richardson, 2011), 1:279, [GoogleBooks].

[5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, 2nd edition, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Douglas Richardson, 2011), 1:278-279, [GoogleBooks].