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Birth:          ABT 1173 Wray Manor, Moteonhampstead, Devonshire, England
Death:          AFT 1227 North Wyke, South Tawton, Devonshire, England

Notes
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jweber&id=I21140
Copied from World Wykes Website, www.wykes.org/wykefam:

The following text is from 'The Ancient Family of Wyke of North Wyke, co. Devon, by 
Rev. W. Wykes-Finch, MA, JP, reprinted from the 'Transactions of the Devonshire 
Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art', 1903:

The antiquity of this family is unquestioned. Its origin, however, has been made 
somewhat difficult of proof through the uncertainty of names and conditions of State 
during the Norman times and the loss of the family records. Westcote describes it as 
“a generous family of great age”; Lysons as 'an ancient family'; and all the county 
historians testify to the fact that it flourished in Devon early in the thirteenth century. 
Pole says that Anno 27 Hen. III. William de Wray held fourth part of a knight’s fee in 
Wyke. This is on the authority of Testa de Nevill, the date of which is, I believe, now 
fixed at 1227; and Risdon says, North Wyke was the land of William de Wigornia, alias 
Chamberlain, in the reign of King Henry III. Apparently these two authorities differ; but 
if we bear in mind that at this
period of our national history surnames were uncommon; that a person was known by 
the estate or office he held, or by the title, office, estate, or occupation of the father, 
and that the manors of Chevereston in Kenton and Wray in Moretonhampstead were 
also held by him, we readily see that William de Wray, William de Chevereston, and 
William de Wigornia [Wig’] are one and the same person. In one place he would be 
known as William 'of
Chevereston', in another as William 'of Wray', and in another as William 'of Wig' or 
'Wik'.

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Copied from World Wykes Website, www.wykes.org/devonwil.html:

The following text is taken from Charles Worthy's Devonshire Wills, published in 1896.

In 1086, the manors of South Tawton with Ash, Wray, in Moreton Hampstead, and 
Cheverstone, in Kenton (I am adopting modern spelling), all of which save Ash, had 
belonged to the family of Harold, were alike held, in demesne, by King William. Wray 
and Cheverstone were subsequently owned by a family long known as de 
Cheverstone; whilst North Wyke, in South Tawton, said by Risdon, with an 
anachronism as to date, "to have been anciently the lande of William de Wigoren, 
alias Chamberlain," was for several generations, subsequently to 1242, held by the De 
Wrays of Northwyke, otherwise North Wigorn.

It appears to me as certain that this William de Wigornia, rather than "Wigoren," was 
not only the common ancestor of the Wrays, Cheverstones, and Wykes, but that he 
also gave name to the several properties in South Tawton, afterwards corrupted into 
West-wyke, Week-Town, or " Wiggaton," and Northwyke, neither of which seem to be 
identical with the Domesday manors known as " Wic," or " Wice," the Saxon 
equivalent for a hamlet, from the verb, vichian, which signifies to reside or dwell; 
hence we get Prancras-wick, Germans-wick, Wick Dabernon, Great Wick, and many 
other parishes, towns, and manors, in this and other parts of the country.

But in Devonshire there are only "Wykes," thus written, in the parishes of South 
Tawton and Axminster; and North Wyke, in the latter parish, is also not a Domesday 
manor, but takes name from an adjacent property, long known as Wigost.

There is every reason to assume that "William de Wigornia", gave his name to North 
and West Wyke, and to Wiggaton, in the parish of South Tawton. He was certainly 
the ancestor of the Wykes, and was also the owner of Wray, in Moreton Hampstead, 
and of Cheverstone, in Kenton, and seems to have been one of the younger sons of 
Robert de Bellomonte, Earl of Mellent, and dejure, Earl of Worcester, by his marriage 
with Maud, daughter and coheir of Reginald, Earl of Cornwall. Hence he was known 
as "de Wigornia," in English, William of Worcester. The whole of the South Tawton 
property I have mentioned came into the hands of Henry I upon the death of his 
brother, William Rufus, in the year 1100. King Henry, by Elizabeth, daughter of Robert 
de Bellomonte, Earl of Leicester, had with other left-handed issue, the aforesaid 
Reginald, Earl of Cornwall [Note: I have Sibyl Corbet as mother of Reginald], possibly, 
and a daughter, Constance, certainly, to whom he gave the whole of the manor of 
South Tawton, upon her marriage with Rosceline, Viscount de Bellomonte, and it is 
shown, by the Pipe Rolls, that she received the rents, etc., etc., in 1157.

Therefore, Elizabeth de Bellomonte was, in such case, not only the mother of the lady 
of the manor of South Tawton, but she was also the aunt of Robert of Worcester, Earl 
of Mellent, the husband of her granddaughter, Maud of Cornwall, and both the great-
grandmother and the great-aunt of "William de Wigornia," who doubtless obtained, 
primarily, the Royal manors of Wray and Cheverstone, through his frail relative's 
connection with royalty, and the Wyke estates, subsequently, by arrangement with his 
cousin, Richard de Bellomonte, who succeeded his mother at South Tawton after 
1157. This Richard had no male issue; his daughter and heir, Constance de 
Bellomonte, married Roger de Toni about the year 1162, and the ultimate heir of de 
Toni brought the Devonshire property to Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died 
in 1315. The latter was maternally descended from Henry de Bellomonte, alias de 
Newburgh, brother of the first Earl of Leicester, and therefore uncle of the first Earl of 
Mellent and Worcester, as well as of Elizabeth, King Henry's mistress; and it was in 
consequence of the minority of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who was only 
two years old in 1315, that the manor of South Tawton was sometimes in the hands of 
King Edward II - a fact worth mentioning because the county historians who have 
referred to the Warwicks, as owners of South Tawton, have never attempted to 
explain how the manor came into their possession.

As both Robert and William de Wigornia, who were equally related to the early lords of 
South Tawton, both before and after the separation of that manor from the Royal 
demesne, are sometimes called "Camerarius" or Chamberlayn, they probably held 
office, successively, under King Henry II, their kinsman. I may add that they were 
likewise the brothers-in-law, through the marriage of their sister Mabel, of William de 
Vernon, Earl of Devon, who died a very old man, in 1217. Her daughter Mary married 
Robert Courtenay, and hence it may have been that William de Wigornia's 
descendant, Sir John Cheverstone, some generations afterward, devised the whole of 
his property to the Courtenays, failing his issue by Jane, his wife, sister of his kinsman, 
Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham ; thus Cheverstone has descended in the 
Courtenay family since the reign of Richard II.

Parents
DE BEAUMONT Robert (ABT 1142 - Oct 1207)
DE DUNSTANVILLE Maud (ABT 1148 - )

Siblings
DE BEAUMONT Mabel (ABT 1162 - AFT 1 May 1204)
DE WIGNORIA William (ABT 1173 - AFT 1227)

Marriage To ----- ----- ()
    m.  

Notes


Children by ----- ----- 
DE WIGNORIA William (ABT 1215 - )

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