Joan Audley

Chronicle of this board

The woman who carried the 1313 writ out of a dead male line

When Nicholas, 3rd Baron, died in 1391 without issue, the barony did not die. It slept in his sister Joan. She had married Sir John Tuchet. In 1408 the Crown called the writ out of abeyance in favour of her son, John Tuchet, 4th Baron.

This is the entire jurisprudence of 1997, written in a woman's body in the 1390s. Daughters carry. The surname on the writ may change. The dignity does not.

She was never styled Baroness Audley suo jure. She is more important than several men who were.

Writ-carrier. The gold fret walks in her blood into every Tuchet, Thicknesse, Jesson, MacNamee and Souter who later answers to Audley.

Wardrobe

Late-fourteenth-century houppelande in deep gules, gold fret embroidery, hair in a jeweled caul and silk veil, ermine lining, diamond-clasped belt, pointed shoes, a small gold circlet. The most important woman in the legal history of the barony before Mary, 22nd Baroness.

Weapons · animals · lands

Marriage to Sir John Tuchet. A son. The doctrine of heirs general.

Castle greyhounds at Heighley.

• The dignity in her blood, not yet in her style