page_title: Maurice Russell, knight
section_title: First marriage to Isabel Childrey
hierarchical_section_title: Maurice Russell, knight / First marriage to Isabel Childrey
caption_attribution_description: English: Arms of Sir Maurice Russell (2 February 1356 – 27 June 1416), from his monumental brass in St. Peter's Church, Dyrham, South Gloucestershire, England. Impaling arms of Childrey, for his wife Isabel Childrey: Quarterly 1st &amp; 4th: On a bend a riband wavy (otherwise stated perhaps as: A bendlet wavy couped cottised 2nd &amp; 3rd: Three annulets one within the other, possibly the arms of Gorges (ancient)
context_page_description: Sir Maurice Russell of Kingston Russell, Dorset and Dyrham, Glos. was an English nobleman and knight. He was a prominent member of the Gloucestershire gentry. He was the third but eldest surviving son and heir of Sir Ralph Russell and his wife Alice. He was knighted between June and December 1385 and served twice as Knight of the Shire for Gloucestershire in 1402 and 1404. He held the post of Sheriff of Gloucestershire four times, and was Coroner and Justice of the Peace, Tax Collector and Commissioner of Enquiry. His land holdings were extensive in Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. He was descended from an ancient line which can be traced back to 1210, which ended on the death of his son Thomas, from his second marriage, as a young man without male issue. Most of his estates, despite having been entailed, passed at his death into the families of his two daughters from his first marriage.
context_section_description: Maurice Russell, aged just 13, was married firstly in June 1369, to Isabel Childrey, daughter of Sir Edmund Childrey (died 1372)(or Chelrey) of Frethornes Manor in the parish of Childrey, Berkshire. Frethornes was a manor anciently held from the Newmarch family, and its tenant prior to Edmund was the “de Frethorne” family, which held other Newmarch lands in Gloucestershire and Somerset. Certainly Frethornes was part of the Newmarch moiety which had gone to the husband of Hawise, since the Bottreaux family, eventual heirs of Nicholas de Moels, were the overlords to Edmund. Sir Edmund was from a relatively new gentry family, though long resident within the parish of Childrey, which rose rapidly in his own person, from his profession as a lawyer. His armorials in 1368, even at the height of his career, were stated in contemporary documents to be “unknown”, pointing to his family's lowly origins. These armorials can be seen on the funerary brass in Dyrham church, above Isabel's figure (see illustration). He began his public career in 1343. In 1348, he was a Commissioner of the Peace for Berkshire. In 1362, he was appointed a King's Serjeant-at-Law, rising to Justice of King's Bench in 1371, whereupon he was knighted. In 1355, he had begun to acquire property in Berkshire, at Watlingtons manor in West Hagbourne, Frethornes manor in Childrey Parish, South Fawley, Letcomb Bassett (Berks.) and Balsdon. On the marriage of Maurice Russell and Isabel, his father, Ralph Russell, settled upon them the manor of Dyrham. His lands in the Isle of Wight, comprising three manors, apparently were settled on the two elder brothers of Maurice who died without male issue, but do not appear to have descended to Maurice. Edmund Childrey's connection with Gloucestershire, and thus with Maurice Russell's father, may have developed as a result of his having been granted, in 1362, the wardship of the lands of William FitzWarin at Whityngton, Glos. In 1388, Sir Maurice Russell sold his ex-Newmarch Berkshire manor of Upton “Russell” to John Latton, who sold it in 1401 to Thomas Childrey (c. 1350-1407), MP for Berkshire in 1390 and 1406, brother-in-law to Maurice Russell and steward of the estates of Bishop William of Wykeham of Winchester .
caption: Arms of Russell impaling Childrey, detail from monumental brass of Sir Maurice Russell, Dyrham Church
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