Research Notes:

The Annales Londonienses name "filium Radulphum qui mortuus erat ante patrem suum et quatuor filias, Margaretam, Johannam, Elizabetham et Matildam, Margareta nupsit Radulpho de Basset juniori, Johanna nupsit Johanni Lestrange, Elizabetha Waltero de Souli, Matillda Henrico de Erdyntoune" as the children of "Rogeri de Someri" and his wife "Nicholaa", adding that Joan married "Johanni Lestrange". A writ dated 26 Aug "1 Edw I", after the death of "Roger de Somery" records details of "the inheritance of Nicholaa de Albiniaco his first wife" and names "Margaret the wife of Ralph de Cromwelle, Joan the wife of John le Strange, Mabel the wife of Walter de Suyllye and Maud the wife of Henry de Erdinton" as her heirs. ¹

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Joan, the wife of John le Strange (IV) did not obtain her share of the Albini lands which she had inherited from her mother Nicola until after the death of her father, Roger de Somery, in 1273, as he held them for life by the courtesy of England; but Joan and her sisters appear to have made a claim two years before her father's death to some other lands inherited by them from their maternal grandmother, Mabel, one of the four sisters and co-heiresses of Ranulph le Meschin, Earl of Chester. The inquisitions post-mortem of Henry III contain a writ 'ad plenum certiorari,' dated January 26, 1271, on the petition of Ralph de Crumwell and Margaret his wife, John le Strange and Joan his wife, Walter de Suly and Mabel his wife, and Henry de Erdington and Maud his wife, concerning the lands (unspecified) which were of Clemence, sometime Countess of Chester, and were taken into the King's hands upon her death by reason of the minority of her heir, Ralph de Somery, lately deceased, of whom the said Margaret, Joan, Mabel, and Maud claim to be the heirs.... Clemence Countess of Chester was the second wife of Ranulph le Meschin, Earl of Chester, who died s.p. October 26, 1232; she was the daughter of William de Fougères by Agatha, sister of William de Humez, constable of Normandy, and survived her husband twenty years, dying in 1252. What lands she possessed his not apparent... but Burke says that Ranulph acquired with her, not only a large accession of lands in France, but also some extensive manors in England. These lands would have gone to their four daughters, the second of whom, Mabel, married William de Albini, Earl of Arundel, and was the mother of Nicola de Albini, the wife of Roger de Somery, whose daughter, Joan, married John le Strange (IV).

Roger de Somery died in 1273. The writ for the inquisition on his death is dated August 26, and shows that he held lands of his own inheritance in nine counties of England, and also, of the inheritance of his first wife, Nicola de Albini, the manor of Barrow-on-Soar, Leicestershire, and that of Campden in Gloucestershire. The lands of his own inheritance descended, of course, to his eldest son Roger, issue of his second wife, Amabel de Chaucombe, while those of Nicola de Albini were divided among her four daughters; her inheritance is expressly stated to be part of the 'barony of Chester,' which had come to her from her uncle, Earl Ranulph, 'de terra quam prædictus Rogerus tenuit tanquam partem baroniæ Cestriæ ipsum contingentem per Nicholaam de Albiniaco uxorem suam primam, unam de heredibus Hugonis de Albiniaco comitis Arundell', qui fuit unus de heredibus Ranulphi quondam comitis Cestriæ. The partition took some months to arrange, and it was not until April 12, 1274, that the escheator this side Trent was ordered to deliver to John le Strange the lands which the King had assigned as the purparty of Joan, sister and co-heiress of Nicola and Hugh and John's wife....

The manor of Olney, on the borders of Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, formed part of the inheritance of Hugh de Albini, Earl of Arundel, a fourth part of whose lands descended to his sister Nicola, the mother of Joan de Somery, wife of John le Strange (IV). Joan [as said] had three sisters, so a fourth part of the above fourth, i.e. one sixteenth of the whole manor, came to John (V) in right of his mother. This was not divisible until her death, which must have taken place in 1282, as on December 15 of that year the Sheriff of Northampton was directly to commit to the four parceners...the manor of Olney, so that they could till and sow the lands until Easter next. On September 12 of the next year (1283) the escheator was ordered to deliver to the parceners the said manor to hold for the same purposes until a month after Michaelmas. On December 1, 1283, the manor was finally divided among the four co-heirs. ²