Hello all!

When it comes to the inheritance of lands, aren't the children of the father the first ones to inherit lands in order or divided between them? For example, if the only son dies, would the eldest daughter then inherit the lands and then to her children, or would the younger daughter be the next one in line for inheritance upon the death of the eldest daughter? For sons it makes sense, but would daughters be different?

I am asking because I suspect that John de Lisle was married twice. Here is the inheritance, provided by A History of the County of Hampshire, vol. 4:

NICHOLAS AND HIS SON, JOHN, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "Sir John left a son, Sir Nicholas Lisle, whose will was proved in 1506. He was succeeded by his son Sir John, whose will, as well as that of his wife Mary, was proved in 1524. (fn. 40) This Sir John, who left no issue, entailed the majority of his estates on his cousin, Lancelot Lisle, but left Thruxton after the death of his wife to his right heirs."

ELEANOR, WHO MARRIED JOHN KINGSTON, AND DAUGHTER MARY KINGSTON, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "These were the children of his sister Eleanor wife of John Kingston. Mary Kingston, daughter of John and Eleanor, who by the death of her brothers John and Nicholas became heir general of the Lisles of Wootton, married a Sir Thomas Lisle and died in 1539 leaving no issue."

AGNES, WHO MARRIED JOHN PHILPOT, AND MARGARET, WHO MARRIED JOHN ROGERS: "On the death of her [Mary Kingston] husband, three years later, Thruxton reverted to the heirs of Agnes sister of the above-mentioned Sir Nicholas Lisle and wife of John Philpot of Compton, and co-heir of the Lisles of Wootton with her sister Margaret wife of John Rogers (vide infra)."

PHILPOT: "In this way the manor passed to the family of Philpot. Thomas Philpot, great-grandson of John and Elizabeth, (fn. 44) who was vouched at a recovery in 1556."

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol4/pp387-391

Thank you!

Darrell

On Sunday, January 22, 2023 at 2:07:15 AM UTC+1, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> When it comes to the inheritance of lands, aren't the children of the father the first ones to inherit lands in order or divided between them? For example, if the only son dies, would the eldest daughter then inherit the lands and then to her children, or would the younger daughter be the next one in line for inheritance upon the death of the eldest daughter? For sons it makes sense, but would daughters be different?
>
> I am asking because I suspect that John de Lisle was married twice. Here is the inheritance, provided by A History of the County of Hampshire, vol. 4:
>
> NICHOLAS AND HIS SON, JOHN, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "Sir John left a son, Sir Nicholas Lisle, whose will was proved in 1506. He was succeeded by his son Sir John, whose will, as well as that of his wife Mary, was proved in 1524. (fn. 40) This Sir John, who left no issue, entailed the majority of his estates on his cousin, Lancelot Lisle, but left Thruxton after the death of his wife to his right heirs."
>
> ELEANOR, WHO MARRIED JOHN KINGSTON, AND DAUGHTER MARY KINGSTON, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "These were the children of his sister Eleanor wife of John Kingston. Mary Kingston, daughter of John and Eleanor, who by the death of her brothers John and Nicholas became heir general of the Lisles of Wootton, married a Sir Thomas Lisle and died in 1539 leaving no issue."
>
> AGNES, WHO MARRIED JOHN PHILPOT, AND MARGARET, WHO MARRIED JOHN ROGERS: "On the death of her [Mary Kingston] husband, three years later, Thruxton reverted to the heirs of Agnes sister of the above-mentioned Sir Nicholas Lisle and wife of John Philpot of Compton, and co-heir of the Lisles of Wootton with her sister Margaret wife of John Rogers (vide infra)."
>
> PHILPOT: "In this way the manor passed to the family of Philpot. Thomas Philpot, great-grandson of John and Elizabeth, (fn. 44) who was vouched at a recovery in 1556."
>
> https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol4/pp387-391
>
> Thank you!
>
> Darrell

If there were several female heirs then the estate would typically be split up. If it was a large estate then the eldest daughter (or sister or niece or aunt or whatever) might for example get the most prestigious bit, for example the main manor of a barony.

A potential complication is that often not all those several female heirs were alive. They might have had living heirs, who might have been male. So you could see an inheritance being divided up between men, but this is because they are inheriting "via" female co-heirs.

Keep in mind that in cases which mention "entailing" there were specific written agreements in play and so these cases are not just a matter of letting normal inheritance rules do their thing.

> If there were several female heirs then the estate would typically be split up. If it was a large estate then the eldest daughter (or sister or niece or aunt or whatever) might for example get the most prestigious bit, for example the main manor of a barony.
>
> A potential complication is that often not all those several female heirs were alive. They might have had living heirs, who might have been male. So you could see an inheritance being divided up between men, but this is because they are inheriting "via" female co-heirs.
>
> Keep in mind that in cases which mention "entailing" there were specific written agreements in play and so these cases are not just a matter of letting normal inheritance rules do their thing.

Thank you for responding!

In this situation, I suspect that both Agnes and Margaret were children from a second marriage, and so does that make a difference? It would explain why Eleanor's children were next in line rather than Agnes and Margaret because they were all alive at that time.

Darrell

On Sunday, January 22, 2023 at 3:10:11 PM UTC+1, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> > If there were several female heirs then the estate would typically be split up. If it was a large estate then the eldest daughter (or sister or niece or aunt or whatever) might for example get the most prestigious bit, for example the main manor of a barony.
> >
> > A potential complication is that often not all those several female heirs were alive. They might have had living heirs, who might have been male. So you could see an inheritance being divided up between men, but this is because they are inheriting "via" female co-heirs.
> >
> > Keep in mind that in cases which mention "entailing" there were specific written agreements in play and so these cases are not just a matter of letting normal inheritance rules do their thing.
> Thank you for responding!
>
> In this situation, I suspect that both Agnes and Margaret were children from a second marriage, and so does that make a difference? It would explain why Eleanor's children were next in line rather than Agnes and Margaret because they were all alive at that time.
>
> Darrell

Looking at the article you cite I think that Agnes and Margaret are aunts of Eleanor. They are sisters "of the above-mentioned Sir Nicholas Lisle". That would be "Sir Nicholas Lisle, whose will was proved in 1506." I suppose what is confusing is that "Mary Kingston, daughter of John [Kingston] and Eleanor" had a brother named Nicholas? Of course he would have been called Nicholas Kingston. The inheritance seems to go Sir Nicholas -> John -> Eleanor -> her Kingston sons -> her Kingston daughter
-> and then back to Sir Nicholas's daughters.

On Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 5:07:15 PM UTC-8, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> When it comes to the inheritance of lands, aren't the children of the father the first ones to inherit lands in order or divided between them? For example, if the only son dies, would the eldest daughter then inherit the lands and then to her children, or would the younger daughter be the next one in line for inheritance upon the death of the eldest daughter? For sons it makes sense, but would daughters be different?
>

In medieval England, with respect to land inheritance, it passed to 1) sons, individually, in order of birth; 2) daughters, jointly; 3) full brothers, individually, in order of birth; 4) full sisters, jointly; 5) full-uncles, in order of birth, 6) full, aunts, jointly, etc.

If any of the relevant individuals had issue, then the same rules would apply to their heirs, and inheritance would only pass to their siblings, etc., after their bloodline died out - a daughter would take precedence over a brother. If a jointly-holding female died with issue, the same applies, either a single son inheriting his jointly-held share, of all daughters jpintly holding their mother's jointly held share - it is not uncommon seeing something like someone holding a 12th of a manor, if they were the heir of one of two daughters of one of six daughters of the original holder. If a jointly holding sister or her heir(s) died without issue of her body, their share would be redistributed among the other coheiresses. This can get tricky. I tracked one case where a daughter sold her 4th, only to have her sister die without issue and she ended up recieving a 3rd of that sister's 4th, hence a 12th, which then passed to her heirs.

Also, important for your question, half-siblings were excluded - while it didn't matter who was parent of the deceased's children, if the inheritance instead went to a sibling or uncle/aunt, then only full siblings in the prior generations were considered. (Note, I have seen examples where this half-sibling exclusion was was ignored, and the law is always what you can get away with, so if it wasn't challenged by the next heir, then it didn't matter).

One should also bear in mind, though, that there were ways to bypass the standard inheritance, and sometimes when a line was long enough that the precise details could be obfuscated, nobody noticed that the legal pattern wasn't being followed. Also sometimes what looks like inheritance was an enfeoffment or partition, operating outside the rules of inheritance.

> I am asking because I suspect that John de Lisle was married twice. Here is the inheritance, provided by A History of the County of Hampshire, vol. 4:
>
> NICHOLAS AND HIS SON, JOHN, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "Sir John left a son, Sir Nicholas Lisle, whose will was proved in 1506. He was succeeded by his son Sir John, whose will, as well as that of his wife Mary, was proved in 1524. (fn. 40) This Sir John, who left no issue, entailed the majority of his estates on his cousin, Lancelot Lisle, but left Thruxton after the death of his wife to his right heirs."
>

OK, right here we see a deviation. When it says that he 'entailed the majority of his estates on his cousin', that is stating that he legally changed the inheritance from the default. When someone did this, they could redefine the whole thing, and for example, favor one sister over another.

> ELEANOR, WHO MARRIED JOHN KINGSTON, AND DAUGHTER MARY KINGSTON, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "These were the children of his sister Eleanor wife of John Kingston. Mary Kingston, daughter of John and Eleanor, who by the death of her brothers John and Nicholas became heir general of the Lisles of Wootton, married a Sir Thomas Lisle and died in 1539 leaving no issue."
>
> AGNES, WHO MARRIED JOHN PHILPOT, AND MARGARET, WHO MARRIED JOHN ROGERS: "On the death of her [Mary Kingston] husband, three years later, Thruxton reverted to the heirs of Agnes sister of the above-mentioned Sir Nicholas Lisle and wife of John Philpot of Compton, and co-heir of the Lisles of Wootton with her sister Margaret wife of John Rogers (vide infra)."
>
> PHILPOT: "In this way the manor passed to the family of Philpot. Thomas Philpot, great-grandson of John and Elizabeth, (fn. 44) who was vouched at a recovery in 1556."
>
> https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol4/pp387-391

It looks to me like one of three things happened. Either 1) John entailed the inheritance to Lancelot, with remainder, were Lancelot to die without heirs, to his sister Mary, and in defult of her issue, to his sister Agnes and her heirs, or similarly, so that the sisters inherited individually in this order, or 2) John gifted the manor in question to Eleanor, as a marriage settlement or similar, so it passed to Eleanor by means other than inheritance, but then when she died it passed by inheritance to Agnes, or 3) the manor and others legally went jointly to Eleanor and Agnes, but they reached an agreement to partition their jointly-held manors, with Eleanor taking some, and Agnes others, so then you see the Kingstons holding alone, but then Eleanor's line died out and her partitioned share reverted to Agnes.

While there are deviations from what one would expect of default inheritance, they are not those associated with half-sibling relationships.

taf

On Sunday, January 22, 2023 at 6:10:11 AM UTC-8, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
> In this situation, I suspect that both Agnes and Margaret were children from a second marriage, and so does that make a difference? It would explain why Eleanor's children were next in line rather than Agnes and Margaret because they were all alive at that time.
>

No. Children always took precendence over any siblings, full or half. Were they half-siblings and were it to make a differece, they would not just have been given a precedence below full siblings, they would ahve been excluded entirely.

taf

On Sunday, January 22, 2023 at 12:47:41 PM UTC-8, taf wrote:
> It looks to me like one of three things happened. Either 1) John entailed the inheritance to Lancelot, with remainder, were Lancelot to die without heirs, to his sister Mary, and in defult of her issue, to his sister Agnes and her heirs, or similarly, so that the sisters inherited individually in this order, or 2) John gifted the manor in question to Eleanor, as a marriage settlement or similar, so it passed to Eleanor by means other than inheritance, but then when she died it passed by inheritance to Agnes, or 3) the manor and others legally went jointly to Eleanor and Agnes, but they reached an agreement to partition their jointly-held manors, with Eleanor taking some, and Agnes others, so then you see the Kingstons holding alone, but then Eleanor's line died out and her partitioned share reverted to Agnes.
>

Sorry, I misread the original post, did not notice Agnes had a sister who shared. Andrew has given you the right answer. It went from the last of the male line, John, to his full-aunt Eleanor, and on the extinction of Eleanor's line, to the families of Eleanor's two full-aunts jointly.

taf

Thank you both for your help with this... I finally found the answers I was looking for with additional sourcing. I DID misread the part with Eleanor and she was indeed the daughter of Nicholas, John's son.

Here is how I fleshed out the de Lisle inheritance in the end:

John de Lisle married (1) Anne Botreaux, daughter and heir of John Botreaux. They had children:

Nicholas de Lisle
Agnes de Lisle, married John Philpot of Compton.
Margaret de Lisle, married John Rogers of Freefolk.
Anne, a nun.

He married (2) Isabel, widow of Richard Horne of Kent, England. They had children:

William de Lisle
Joan de Lisle

This was mostly due to Cokayne, so he filled in the blanks and everything then aligned.

Thank you both again!

Darrell