John Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville

John Grey was the second son of Sir Thomas Grey (1359– 26 November 1400), of Berwick and Chillingham Castle, by his wife Joan Mowbray (d. 1410), a daughter of John de Mowbray, 4th Baron Mowbray by Elizabeth de Segrave.[1]

Between 1408 and 1413 Henry V granted Grey three annuities, and on 8 August 1415 gave him the forfeited estates of his brother, Sir Thomas Grey, executed for his part in the Southampton Plot.[8]

Grey fought at Agincourt in 1415.[9] On 1 August 1417 Henry V launched his second invasion of Normandy,[10] and in that year Grey was Captain of Mortagne in October 1417,[9] and was with the King at the siege of Caen,[11] where his valiant conduct caused the King to name him a Knight of the Garter. Henry V granted the castle and seigneurie of Tilly in Normandy in November 1417, recently forfeited by Sir William Harcourt,[9] a supporter of the King's enemies.[11]

Grey was subsequently sent with a guard to Powys to bring the recently captured Lollard leader, Sir John Oldcastle, before Parliament.[11]

The 12th century Chateau de Tancarville, Normandy. In 1419 John Grey was granted the comté of Tancarville

In 1419 he was again in France as Captain of Mantes,[9] and on 31 January 1419 was granted the comté of Tancarville in Normandy[9] to hold by grand sergeanty of delivery of a bascinet helmet at the Castle of Roan on Saint George's Day each year.[11] Grey's continued service in the French wars earned him further grants, and he was made governor of the Castle of Tournay.[11] In 1418 or on 31 January 1419 he was created a Knight of the Garter.[11] In 1420 he was Captain of Harfleur,[9] and by that date was one of the leading landowners in Normandy.[8]

On 22 March 1420/1, while fording a river near the Chateau de Beaufort at the Battle of Baugé, Grey, Thomas of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Clarence, and many other of the English nobility were slain by a Franco-Scottish force, having incautiously engaged the enemy without proper preparation and with no archers in support.[12]

In 1418 Grey married Joan de Cherleton, 6th Lord of Powys (c. 1400 – 17 September 1425), daughter and co-heiress of Edward Charleton, 5th Baron Cherleton, by his wife Eleanor Holland, widow of Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March.[13] In his wife's right, Grey succeeded to the title of Lord Powis with its estates, including one moiety of Powis Castle, the other half having been inherited by his wife's sister Joyce de Cherleton, wife of John Tiptoft, 1st Baron Tiptoft. This arrangement remained in place until in the 1530s Joyce's great-grandson John Sutton, 3rd Baron Dudley sold the Tiptoft moiety of Powis Castle to his nephew, the 3rd and last Baron Grey of Powis.[14] Joan de Cherleton survived her husband and in her widowhood in 1425 became heiress to her step-brother, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March,[9] who had earlier been the focus of the Southampton Plot. By his wife he had a son and only child and heir:

• Henry Grey, 2nd Earl of Tankerville (c. 1418/19 – 13 January 1450),[9][15] Henry Grey was knighted in 1426 and married Antigone in France, the illegitimate daughter of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. During the 1430s and 1440s the French Kings Charles VI and the dauphin, Philip regained much of the territory lost to the Valois monarchy. Having lost his lands and fortune at Tancarville, the Count died on about 13 Jan 1449/50. His title became extinct.

• Burke, Bernard (1866). A genealogical history of the dormant, abeyant, forfeited, and extinct peerages of the British Empire. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Cokayne, George E.; Gibbs, Vicary; Doubleday, Harry A. (1949). The Complete Peerage of Great Britain and Ireland. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Milner, J.D. (October 2006). "The Battle of Baugé, March 1421: Impact and Memory". History. 91 (304): 484–507. doi:10.1111/j.1468-229x.2006.00375.x.
• Mosley, Charles (1999). Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Pugh, T.B. (1988). Henry V and the Southampton Plot of 1415. Alan Sutton. ISBN 0-86299-541-8
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. Vol. I (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) ISBN 1449966373
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. Vol. II (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) ISBN 1449966381
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. Vol. III (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) ISBN 144996639X

• Grey, Earl of Tankerville
• Milner, John D., 'The Battle of Baugé, March 1421: Impact and Memory', History, (October 2006), Vol. 91, Issue 304, pp. 484-507.