Alice FitzAlan (1378–1415)
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| Alice FitzAlan | |
|---|---|
| Lady Cherleton | |
| Spouse(s) | John Charleton, 4th Baron Cherleton |
| Issue
Jane Beaufort (allegedly by Cardinal Henry Beaufort
|
|
| Noble family | FitzAlan (by birth) Cherleton (by marriage) |
| Father | Richard Fitzalan, 11th Earl of Arundel |
| Mother | Elizabeth de Bohun |
| Born | 1378 Arundel Castle, Sussex, England |
| Died | 1415 (aged 36–37) |
Alice FitzAlan, Lady Cherleton (1378–1415) was an English noblewoman, being the daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel. She was the wife of John Charleton, 4th Baron Cherleton. She was also allegedly the mistress of Cardinal Henry Beaufort, by whom she had an illegitimate daughter, Jane Beaufort,[1] though there is no real evidence to support this.
Family
Lady Alice was born in Arundel Castle, Sussex in 1378, one of the seven children of Richard Fitzalan, 11th Earl of Arundel by his first wife Elizabeth de Bohun. She had two brothers, including Thomas Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, and four sisters, Lady Eleanor FitzAlan, Lady Elizabeth FitzAlan, Lady Joan FitzAlan, and Lady Margaret FitzAlan. Her paternal grandparents were Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancaster, and her maternal grandparents were William de Bohun, 1st Earl of Northampton and Elizabeth de Badlesmere.
On 21 September 1397, her father was executed at Tower Hill, Cheapside for high treason against King Richard II of England.
Marriage and love affair
Sometime before March 1392 Alice married John Cherleton, 4th Lord Cherleton (25 April 1362 – 19 October 1401).[2] According to popular belief, following her marriage she became the mistress of Cardinal Henry Beaufort, and bore him an illegitimate daughter, Jane Beaufort. In Philip Yorke's The Royal Tribes of Wales, he states that Cardinal Beaufort left an illegitimate daughter by Alice, daughter of Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel.[3] Genealogist Douglas Richardson also confirms the affair between Alice and the Cardinal. Beaufort did indeed father an illegitimate daughter, Jane Beaufort, possibly before Henry took holy orders on 7 April 1397, although the idea of Jane's mother being Alice Fitzalan is possibly a legend of Tudor-era descendants of Jane Beaufort and her husband Sir Edward Stradling. There is no late-14th/early-15th century documentation to support this affair at all, and the surviving documentation entirely discounts it. Jane and Sir Edward Stradling had three sons and a daughter, Katherine.
Alice's husband died on 19 October 1401, and she herself died before October 1415 at the age of about thirty-seven years.
References
- Philip Yorke, The Royal Tribes of Wales Google Books, accessed 30 August 2009
- Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Arundel
