Baron Zouche - Genealogy

Genealogy

The de la Zouche family descended from Alan de la Zouche, sometimes called Alan de Porhoët and Alan la Coche (c. 1093-1150), a Breton who settled in England during the reign of Henry II. He was the son of Vicomte Geoffrey I de Porhoët and Hawisa of Brittany. He married Adeline (Alice) de Belmeis, daughter of Phillip de Belmeis and Maud la Meschine and died at North Molton in North Devon. He obtained Ashby in Leicestershire (called after him Ashby-de-la-Zouch) by his marriage. His son was Roger la Zouche (c. 1175 – bef. 14 May 1238). Roger La Zouche became the father of Alan la Zouche (1205–1270) and Eudo La Zouche. Alan was justice of Chester and justice of Ireland under Henry III of England. He was loyal to the king during the struggle with the barons, fought at the Battle of Lewes and helped to arrange the peace of Kenilworth. As the result of a quarrel over some lands with John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, he was seriously injured in Westminster Hall by the earl and his retainers, and died on August 10, 1270.

Eudo La Zouche married Millicent de Cantilupe. Alan's grandson, Alan la Zouche, was summoned to Parliament on 6 February 1299 as Baron la Zouche of Ashby. He was governor of Rockingham Castle and steward of Rockingham Forest. However, this barony fell into abeyance on his death in 1314. Another grandson of Alan de la Zouche was William la Zouche, Lord of Haryngworth, who was summoned to Parliament as Baron Zouche, of Haryngworth, on 16 August 1308. His great-great-great-grandson, the fifth Baron, married Alice Seymour, 6th Baroness St Maur, and assumed this peerage in her right. Their son succeeded to both titles; his stepmother, Elizabeth St. John, was an aunt of the future Henry VII, a connection which proved useful to later members of the family. The seventh Baron was attainted in 1485 for loyalty to Richard III but was eventually restored to his title and a portion of his lands. On the death in 1625 of the eleventh and twelfth Baron, the peerages fell into abeyance between the latter's daughters Hon. Elizabeth and Hon. Mary. However, in 1815 the Barony of Zouche was called out of abeyance in favour of Sir Cecil Bishopp, 8th Baronet, of Parham (see Bishopp baronets of Parham), who became the twelfth Baron Zouche. Through his mother he was a descendant of the aforementioned Hon. Elizabeth. The Barony of St Maur, however, remains in abeyance to this day. On his death in 1828 he was succeeded in the Baronetcy by a cousin, while the Barony of Zouche once again fell into abeyance, this time between his two daughters Hon. Harriet Anne Curzon and Lady Katherine Annabella Brooke-Pechell. The abeyance was terminated the following year in favour of Hon. Harriet Anne, who became the thirteenth Baroness. Known as Baroness de la Zouch, she was the wife of Hon. Robert Curzon, younger son of Assheton Curzon, 1st Viscount Curzon. Her son was the fourteenth Baron. On his death the title passed to his son, the fifteenth Baron, and then to the latter's sister, the sixteenth Baroness. She never married and was succeeded by her cousin, the seventeenth Baroness, the granddaughter of a younger son of the thirteenth Baroness. She was succeeded by her grandson, the eighteenth and (As of 2010) present Baron, who had already succeeded his father as 12th Baronet in 1944.

Another grandchild of the original Alan de la Zouche, Joyce la Zouche, married Robert Mortimer of Richard's Castle; one of their younger sons, William la Zouche, took the name of la Zouche and bought Ashby-de-la-Zouch from Alan in 1304, the latter to hold it until his death (1314). On December 26, 1323, he was created, by writ, Baron Zouche of Mortimer. This peerage became abeyant in 1406.