Isabel de Verdun, Lady Ferrers of Groby

Isabel de Verdun, Baroness Ferrers of Groby (21 March 1317 – 25 July 1349) was an English heiress, who was related to the English royal family as the eldest daughter of Elizabeth de Clare, herself a granddaughter of King Edward I of England. When she was a child, Isabel was imprisoned in Barking Abbey, along with her mother and half-sister, after her stepfather had joined the Earl of Lancaster's ill-fated rebellion against King Edward II. She is occasionally referred to as Heiress of Ludlow. Her husband was Henry Ferrers, 2nd Baron Ferrers of Groby.

Family and lineage Isabel was born at Amesbury Priory, Wiltshire, on 21 March 1317, the posthumous and only child of the marriage of Theobald de Verdun, 2nd Baron Verdun, Justiciar of Ireland and Lady Elizabeth de Clare. She was born eight months after her father died of typhoid on 27 July 1316.

Her mother Elizabeth was her father Theobald's second wife, his first wife having been Maud Mortimer (c.1289- 18 September 1312). Isabel had three half-sisters from her father's prior marriage, Joan de Verdun, Elizabeth de Verdun, and Margery de Verdun. Isabel, along with her three de Verdon half-sisters, was a co-heiress of her father.

Her father Theobald was her mother Elizabeth's second husband; her first husband, John de Burgh, had died in a minor skirmish in Galway in Ireland on 18 June 1313. She had a son by de Burgh, William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster (17 September 1312- 6 June 1333), who was Isabel's uterine half-brother. William would later marry Maud of Lancaster, by whom he had a daughter Elizabeth de Burgh, suo jure 4th Countess of Ulster (6 July 1332- 10 December 1363). Following the death of her brother Gilbert at Bannockburn in 1314 and he leaving no surviving issue, her mother Elizabeth, along with her mother's two sisters, Margaret and Eleanor, became the greatest heiresses in England. King Edward II of England, ordered Elizabeth to return to England, where he planned to select a husband for her from among his supporters. Theobald abducted Elizabeth from Bristol Castle in early 1316, and married her shortly afterwards on 4 February, She was eleven years old at the time of her marriage.

The marriage produced at least five children, four of whom survived infancy. Following the birth of her eldest child in February 1331, when Isabel was not quite 14 years of age, her mother sent her presents for her "churching". This was a special religious ceremony performed for the benefit of a woman shortly after childbirth. The child, whose sex was not recorded, died in early infancy.

Issue Infant (b. February 1331), whose name and sex is not known, died shortly after birth. William Ferrers, 3rd Baron Ferrers of Groby (28 February 1333 – 8 January 1371), Philippa de Ferrers (died 10 August 1384), married Guy de Beauchamp, son of Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick and Katherine Mortimer, by whom she had two daughters.

Death Isabel died on 25 July 1349 of the plague. Her husband had died on 15 September 1343 and was buried in Ulvescroft Priory.