Hugh Despenser the Younger's Letters to the Sheriff of Glamorgan

Between September 1319 and c. September/October 1322, Hugh Despenser the Younger sent a number of long, detailed letters to Sir John Inge, sheriff of Hugh's lordship of Glamorgan. For more information, see also my book Hugh Despenser the Younger and Edward II: Downfall of a King's Favourite and my article ''We Might be Prepared to Harm You': an Investigation into Some of the Extortions of Hugh Despenser the Younger' in the second volume of the Journal of the Mortimer History Society, 2018.

Some of Hugh's letters are printed in English translation in Calendar of Ancient Correspondence Concerning Wales, ed. J. G. Edwards (1935); one is in W. H. Stevenson's article 'A Letter of the Younger Despenser on the Eve of the Barons' Rebellion, 21 March 1321', English Historical Review, 12 (1897), in the original Anglo-Norman; and three are in Cartae et Alia Munimenta quae ad Dominium de Glamorgancia Pertinent, vol. 3 (1910), also in the original Anglo-Norman. The original handwritten letters are mostly now in the National Archives in Kew. Anyone interested in Hugh's correspondence also needs to get hold of the book The War of Saint-Sardos: Gascon Correspondence and Diplomatic Documents, edited by Pierre Chaplais in 1954, which contains dozens of Hugh's letters, in Anglo-Norman.

The start of one of Hugh's letters to Inge, dated March 1321. Hugh always called himself 'Hugh le Despenser the son' ('le fuiz') in his correspondence.

Hugh's letters to John Inge reveal a lot about him as a person, including that he was highly articulate. They also reveal that he micromanaged his affairs in the lordship of Glamorgan, which came to him in November 1317 as part of the inheritance of his wife Eleanor de Clare from her late brother the earl of Gloucester, and that he took a deep interest in the lordship. One of the letters, dated 18 January 1321, contains Hugh's famous order to Inge that the sheriff should act so that "we may be rich and achieve our aims", "qe nous puissoms estre riches et ateindre a nostre entente". Referring to oneself as 'we' in letters was standard at the time and was not Hugh using the royal plural, though his opinion of himself and his position as Edward II's 'favourite' is pretty obvious from his numerous references to "the king and ourselves" and "it seems to the king and to us that...".

The letters tend to be impatient, hectoring and often threatening, and stand in stark contrast to the few surviving letters of Hugh's wife Eleanor, which paint her as someone courteous, patient, and considerate. In Hugh's last, or at least the last that I'm aware of, letter to John Inge, dated c. September or October 1322, Hugh wrote, seemingly casually in the middle of the letter, before moving onto something else:

"And know that we trust you more the more you advise us, but we are very worried about having some reason for which we might be prepared to harm you in some way, or for which we might lose the good will which we have for you."

We might be prepared to harm you. I laughed out loud when I first translated that bit, but poor John Inge! He falls over himself for years trying to comply with Hugh's endless orders, then he has to read that. On another occasion, Hugh told Inge that he was keeping a copy of his own letter to bring it up against the sheriff later if necessary, if Inge made any error regarding Hugh's instructions. This letter also contained the sarcastic line "it seems a great marvel to us that you so rarely send us news of our affairs" and the impatient line "we have so often sent you our letters on this matter that we are entirely weary of it."

The first extant letter Hugh Despenser the Younger sent to Sir John Inge dates to 22 September 1319 and was written during Edward II's unsuccessful siege of the port of Berwick. This letter was a long one, and was as detailed as most of Hugh's letters to Inge were. One of the most fascinating parts of the letter reveals that Hugh was engaged in a vendetta against Geoffrey Fromond, abbot of Glastonbury in Somerset. He told Inge to continue behaving towards the abbot as Hugh had previously ordered him to do (presumably in a letter which no longer exists), so that "the said abbot may be aware that we have the power to harm him." Heh. Hugh also told Inge to "harm and harass" a knight named Sir Roger Seyntmor (or Seymour) as much as he possibly could, on the grounds that Seyntmor had always been an enemy of Hugh. The lord of Glamorgan revealed his disdain for his Welsh tenants: he told John Inge to keep an eye on the woodland in his jurisdiction in case dangers occurred there, "bearing in mind how the people of those parts are often of frivolous resolve and reckless character." This disdain was further made apparent in a letter of 1321 when Hugh told Inge to take Welsh hostages "subtly" - how one was meant to take hostages "subtly" was not explained - and added that he did not wish any of the men to be given horses, and that they would have to travel to him on foot.

I'll give Hugh one last word, and quote from a letter he sent in 1325. This one wasn't sent to John Inge, but to one of the men Hugh had sent to Gascony during the War of Saint-Sardos. Hugh stated "as a result of your good conduct, the king and ourselves might discuss continuing our good will towards you." No comment or interpretation required...

The Orebys

A post about a little-known family of the fourteenth century, the Orbys or Orebys or Orrebys, who owned lands and manors in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

Sir John Oreby married Isabel, sister and one of the three co-heirs of Robert Tateshale or Tatteshall; Isabel was either twenty-nine, thirty-eight or 'forty and more' in June 1306. [1] One-third of the sizeable Tatteshall inheritance thus passed to the Oreby family. John died shortly before 18 March 1329. [2] He and Isabel had a son, Philip Oreby, said to be the kinsman and co-heir of Robert Tateshale in October 1317. [3] Philip, however, died before John, sometime before 10 January 1327 when his widow Florence, daughter and heir of John de la Mare, was pardoned for marrying Nicholas Fraunceys without permission. Florence was aged thirty and more in August 1324. [4] Philip and Florence's heir was their son, John Oreby, whose marriage was granted to Geoffrey Scrope (chief justice of the King's Bench) on 3 February 1328. [5] This younger John was also heir to the elder John Oreby, his grandfather, and was a minor on 23 July 1330 when the custody of the older John's lands was given to Geoffrey Scrope. [6] John was still a minor on 15 July 1334 and 18 March 1336, and again on 6 May 1336 when he was named as a co-heir of Robert Tateshale and Geoffrey Scrope was mentioned as the custodian of his lands. [7] 

The proof of age of John Oreby or Orreby, 'kinsman and heir of Isabel, daughter [and sister] of Robert Tateshale', and son and heir of Philip Oreby and Florence de la Mare, was held on 19 February 1341. He was then twenty-two, and was born in West Witton, Yorkshire on Christmas Day 1318. [8] John received the lands of his recently-deceased mother Florence de la Mare, 'late the wife' of Nicholas Fraunceys, on 13 April 1344, and was knighted overseas sometime before 15 March 1340. By 23 April 1344, John had married a woman named Margaret. [9] I haven't been able to find her identity, but given that John's marriage rights were granted to Sir Geoffrey Scrope, I assume she was a relative of his. Two of Geoffrey's daughters married into the Luttrell family and another daughter married into the Hotham family, and perhaps he had a fourth daughter who married John Oreby; or perhaps Margaret was his niece or a cousin's daughter.

John Oreby died on 17 or 20 January 1354 in his mid-thirties, leaving his widow Margaret. He had held the manor of Isleham ('Iselham') in Cambridgeshire from the earl of Arundel by service of, rather brilliantly, "sending to Heryngesmare a gammon of bacon fixed on a lance, for the use of the said earl, when he shall pass through the said place to war." This manor had come to him from his mother Florence, and her IPM of 1344 also states that she held Isleham "by service of sending to the said earl a gammon of bacon on a lance and a pair of gilt spurs, price 40d., at a certain place in Isleham called Heryngesmere, if the said earl shall come there in person and there is war in England, and not otherwise." John also held a fourth part of the Norfolk manor of Buckenham ('Bokenham'), including land at 'Dikhous' and pasture land at 'Hommedewe'.

John's heir was his and Margaret's daughter Joan Oreby, said in his inquisition post mortem of late March 1354 to be either three, four or five years old at the last feast of Whitsun, or 'three years and more' or 'five years and more'. [10] This would place her date of birth around 12 May in either 1348, 1349 or 1350, but Joan may in fact have been rather younger than her father's IPM suggests. She was given seisin of all her lands on 19 May 1365 after she proved her age, and as she was already married, she came of age at fourteen. This strongly implies that in fact she was born in May 1351, and therefore was only two years old when her father died in January 1354. [11] Unfortunately, her proof of age no longer exists.

Sometime before May 1365, Joan had married Henry, Lord Percy, who was thirty years her senior, born sometime in the early 1320s; his date of birth isn't known, but his father was born in 1301 or 1302, and Henry's eldest child Henry Percy, created first earl of Northumberland in 1377, was born in 1341. His second son was Thomas Percy, born c. 1343/44, who was made earl of Worcester in 1397. Henry the elder (b. early 1320s) had married Mary of Lancaster, sixth and youngest daughter of Henry, earl of Lancaster and Leicester, in 1334, and she died in September 1362. Joan Oreby's marriage had been granted to Philippa of Hainault, Edward III's queen, on 14 April 1356, so perhaps she helped to arrange Joan's union with the widowed Lord Percy a few years later. [12]

Joan Oreby and Henry Percy had one child together, a daughter they named Mary, perhaps in honour of Henry's first, Lancastrian wife; if so, I think that's lovely. Mary Percy was born at Warkworth Castle, Northumberland on 12 March 1368, the feast of St Gregory. Her proof of age was taken in June 1382, and wrongly identifies her as daughter and heir of Sir John Oreby, who in fact was her grandfather and who had died in January 1354. [13] One of the jurors in 1382 was Adam Hikesman, "aged 38 years and more," whose testimony stated that "a fortnight before the birth a ruinous stable in which he was standing was blown down by a storm of wind, and a beam fell and broke his head almost to the brain. So a fortnight later he came to the leech at Werkworth to have his head cured, and saw the said Mary at the door of the church prepared to undergo the sacrament of baptism there."

Mary's father Henry Percy was about forty-seven when she was born, and was already a grandfather: Henry 'Hotspur' Percy, first son of Henry Percy born in 1341, was born in 1364. Mary Percy, therefore, was four years younger than her half-nephew. She was obviously more than young enough to be the daughter of her half-brothers Henry and Thomas Percy, who were both well over twenty years older than she, and her mother Joan Oreby was a decade younger than her stepson the future earl of Northumberland.

Henry, Lord Percy died on 18 May 1368, less than ten weeks after the birth of his daughter. On 29 July that year, Edward III gave the widowed Joan Percy née Oreby's marriage rights to Richard Stury. [14] Sadly, Joan Oreby died on 29 or 30 July 1369, and her mother Margaret, widow of Sir John Oreby, outlived her only by a few weeks and died on 28 August or 4 September 1369 (either 'the eve of the Decollation of St John last' or the Tuesday after it). [15] I wonder if they were victims of the third great outbreak of the Black Death that year? Joan was probably only eighteen years old when she passed away; what a shame, and poor Mary Percy lost both her parents and her grandmother when she was a year old. Her Oreby grandfather had died in 1354, and her Percy grandparents in 1352 and 1365. This breaks my heart a little bit. Looking on the bright side, though, Mary's will shows how close she was to her much older half-brother the first earl of Northumberland, and to other members of the Percy family. And although Mary was just a few weeks old when her father died, he cared enough about her to leave her a book, his 'green primer', which she mentioned in her will (meum primerium viride quod quondam fuit domini patris mei), and also in her will she mentioned the tomb of her grandmother Margaret Oreby in Boston, so although Mary lost all her close family when she was only a baby, obviously someone told her who they all were.

As the sole heir to the not insignificant Oreby estate in eight counties, Mary was in much demand as a wife. Edward III first gave custody of her lands and her marriage rights to Alan Buxhill on 12 December 1369, but Alan soon sold them on to the king's mistress Alice Perrers. Edward III confirmed this sale on 12 May 1370. [16] Alice used Mary Percy's marriage to benefit her illegitimate son by the king, John de Southeray, who was born in the early 1360s or thereabouts, and the two married on 7 January 1377. [17] Mary was not yet nine years old, John perhaps fourteen or so. John's father the king died less than six months later, which had an immediate and disastrous effect on the young man's fortunes.

 Mary rejected her husband, deeming him beneath her in birth and status, and with the support of her half-brother, now earl of Northumberland, managed to get her marriage annulled. I do see Mary's point, but can't help feeling sorry for John de Southeray as well; it wasn't his fault that he was born out of wedlock and that his mother Alice Perrers was notorious and unpopular. Mary married a second husband, John Ros or Roos, son and heir of Thomas, Lord Ros of Helmsley ('Hamelak', as it usually appears in fourteenth-century records) in Yorkshire. The date of their wedding isn't recorded, but took place before 22 June 1382. Via his mother Beatrice, John Ros was a grandson of Ralph Stafford, first earl of Stafford (1301-72) and the great heiress Margaret Audley, and was a descendant of Edward I. John was probably born on 10 August 1365 or thereabouts; he was "eighteen years of age at the feast of St Laurence last" on 8 July 1384, and was two and a half years older than Mary and also a teenager when they wed. His younger brother and heir Thomas Ros was said to be twenty-four in January 1394, so was born c. 1369/70. [18] Ivetta, the wife of Geoffrey Scrope (d. 1340), who was granted John Oreby's marriage rights in 1338, is believed to have been a member of the Ros family.

Mary and John Ros received her lands on 22 June 1382 after Mary proved her age and after John did homage. [19] They were to have no children. John died at the age of twenty-eight or almost in Paphos, Cyprus on 6 August 1393 while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, leaving his brother Thomas (wrongly called 'William' in his inquisition post mortem) as his heir. [20] John's body was returned to England and buried at Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. He had made a will on 24 January 1392 before his departure to Jerusalem, in which he requested burial at Rievaulx and he left bequests to his wife Mary, his mother Beatrice Stafford (d. 1415), his sister Elizabeth, Lady Clifford (d. 1424), and 'Lady Elizabeth Arondell my aunt, a nun of Haliwell' (I'm not sure who that is). John appointed his brother-in-law Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, as one of the four supervisors of the will, and the will reveals that he took four squires, four valets and an unspecified number of grooms with him on his pilgrimage. [21]

Mary Ros née Percy, Lady Ros and Oreby, died in York on 25 August 1394, aged just twenty-six. On 10 July 1394, called herself 'Maria, Domina de Roos et de Orrby', she had made a long will in Latin which reveals her huge affection for her natal family the Percys and for her husband's Ros family. [22] She referred to her 'dearest brother, the lord earl of Northumberland', and also left items to John Ros's mother Beatrice and sister Elizabeth Clifford and, as John had done, to their chamberlain William Dymmok. Interestingly, the will mentions 'a book in French of the duke of Lancaster', which must mean Henry of Grosmont's treatise Livre de Seyntz Medicines of 1354, and which Mary left to Isabella Percy, obviously a relative, though I'm not quite sure who she is. She requested burial next to John Ros at Rievaulx.

Mary, her mother Joan and her grandfather John Oreby had no siblings, therefore it was a matter of some difficulty for the jurors of her inquisition post mortem to work out her correct heir(s). Her heir by blood to some of her manors was her fourth cousin, John de la Mare, citizen of London, whose great-great-grandfather William de la Mare was the younger brother of Mary's great-great-grandfather John de la Mare. Her other heirs were Maud Cromwell, her fourth cousin once removed, and Constantine Clifton, her fifth cousin once removed, if I've worked that all out correctly; co-heirs of the Tateshale family. Blimey. Kudos to the Essex and Suffolk jurors for knowing Mary's family tree so well; the jurors of other counties all admitted that they had no idea who her heir(s) was/were. [23]

Sources

1) CIPM 1300-07, nos. 163, 391.
2) CIPM 1327-36, no. 255; CFR 1327-27, p. 122.
3) CCR 1313-18, p. 501.
4) CPR 1327-30, p. 347; CIPM 1317-27, no. 579.
5) CFR 1327-37, p. 78; CPR 1327-30, p. 234.
6) CPR 1327-30, p. 543; CFR 1327-37, p. 127.
7) CFR 1327-37, pp. 410, 476; CPR 1334-38, p. 256.
8) CIPM 1336-46, no. 338.
9) CFR 1337-47, p. 367; CPR 1338-40, pp. 440-41; CIPM 1336-46, no. 505; CPR 1343-45, p. 226.
10) CIPM 1352-60, no. 105; CIPM 1377-84, no. 571; CFR 1347-56, pp. 374, 393-94.
11) CCR 1364-68, pp. 107-8.
12) CPR 1354-58, p. 369.
13) CIPM 1377-84, no. 656.
14) CIPM 1365-69, no. 242; CPR 1367-70, p. 146.
15) CIPM 1365-69, nos. 402, 406; CIPM 1377-84, nos 571-75; CFR 1369-77, pp. 58-59.
16) CPR 1367-70, p. 437; CFR 1369-77, p. 48.
17) Laura Tompkins, 'Mary Percy and John de Southeray: Wardship, Marriage and Divorce in Fourteenth-Century England', Fourteenth Century England X, ed. Gwilym Dodd (2018), p. 141.
18) CIPM 1384-92, nos. 32-52; CIPM 1392-99, nos. 407-16.
19) CCR 1381-85, pp. 144-45.
20) CIPM 1392-99, nos. 407-16.
21) Early Lincoln Wills, ed. Alfred Gibbon, pp. 70-71.
22) Testamenta Eboracensia, vol. 1, ed. James Raine, pp. 201-2.
23) CIPM 1392-99, nos. 513-22.

More Proofs of Age

Following posts here, here, here, here and here, some more examples of my favourite thing ever: fourteenth-century proofs of age.

- John of Aylesbury, kinsman and heir of Philip of Aylesbury, was born in Weldon Basset, Northamptonshire on 6 May 1334. One of his godfathers was Sir Ralph Basset (d. 1341), lord of Weldon, who was asked by Richard Reve during John of Aylesbury's baptism why John was not named after him or after his other godfather Sir Warin Latimer. Ralph Basset became so angry at this entirely innocent-sounding question that he hit Richard Reve on the neck. At John's proof of age on Thursday in Whitsun week, 1355, Richard Reve, now aged fifty-six, recalled his assault at the hands of a nobleman. John Dyre, born c. 1305, was in the household of Sir Warin Latimer in 1334, and Warin had breakfast with Sir Ralph Basset of Weldon after the baptism. Once the two godfathers had eaten, Warin and his household set off for Braybrooke also in Northamptonshire, and, as John Dyre recalled at John of Aylesbury's proof of age in 1355, "there was a great tumult and assembly of people for a certain robber called William Ade, who was taken at the wood called ‘le Lound’ by Braybrok, and the said robber was killed there at that time." At the proof of age in 1355, Robert Botiller, then aged about fifty, remembered John of Aylesbury's year of birth because his (Robert's) uncle Robert Jacob "was digging in the quarry of Weldon and the earth fell on him, whereby he was overwhelmed." Guy Watervill, also aged about fifty in 1355, recalled John of Aylesbury's year of birth because around the time that John's mother was churched after giving birth to him, jousts were held in the village of Weldon.

- John, son and heir of John Burghersh, was born in Ewelme, Oxfordshire on 29 September 1343, and proved his age there on 14 November 1366 when he was twenty-three. John Beek, aged about sixty in 1366, stated at the proof of age that on the day of John Burghersh's birth in 1343, he went hunting with John Burghersh the father, and "at a certain leap he broke his leg and has ever since walked lame." "Eustace Roser, aged 50 years, William Wayte, aged 56 years, Philip Grenefeld, aged 53 years, Walter Fairman, aged 54 years, William Motte, aged 50 years, Richard Smyth, aged 56 years, and Henry Houstwey, aged 56 years, agree and say that on the day of the birth they started with other neighbours of the countryside for Santiago."

Interesting to see a few residents of an Oxfordshire village setting off on pilgrimage to northern Spain together in 1343!

- Thomas, son and heir of John Larcher, was born in Bolton, Yorkshire on 19 August 1345, and proved his age in Pocklington on 10 October 1366. Richard Veile, aged fifty-six in 1366, remembered Thomas Larcher's date of birth because in the same month "he had three sons born of his wife." Yowza, triplets! Unfortunately, Richard did not specify whether any of the three infants survived the birth. Ralph Mikelfeld, aged sixty in 1366, remembered the date because in the same month, he married his wife Eleanor (or rather, Alianore), and Adam Fenton, aged fifty-six in 1366, remembered because in the same month, William Cotum killed William Mikelfeld in Pocklington.

- Edmund Mortimer, third earl of March, was born in "Langoyt in the parish of Leeswen, which is in the march of Wales" on 1 February 1352, and was the son of Roger Mortimer (b. November 1328), second earl of March, and the earl of Salisbury's sister Philippa Montacute. He proved his age on 2 April 1373, which reveals that his godfathers were Sir Peter Grandison and Humphrey de Bohun, future earl of Hereford, Essex and Northampton, born on 24 March 1342 and not yet ten years old at the time, who was the younger half-brother of Edmund's father Roger Mortimer. Edmund's godmother was Elizabeth Badlesmere Mortimer de Bohun, countess of Northampton, who was the mother of Roger Mortimer and Humphrey de Bohun, and hence was Edmund's paternal grandmother. Baldwin Brugge, aged sixty in 1373, recalled the date because "he was at Langoyt on that day and gave to the lady Philippa, the earl's mother, a gold ring having in it a stone called 'dyamand'," i.e. a diamond.

- John, son and heir of William Mathewe, was born in 'Wynterborn Malruard', Dorset on 30 September 1361, and proved his age on 10 August 1384. "John Bromhull, aged 52 years, Robert Scot, aged 48 years, and John Stoke, aged 56 years, agree and say that towards nightfall on the said morrow of Michaelmas they met John Hobekyns, the child’s godfather, going towards the church, and asked him for news of the child’s mother, and he said that she had a son and that he was asked to be godfather, whereupon they went towards the house of the child’s father and met him, and he asked them to drink, and as they went towards his house the said Robert Scot fell on the highway and broke two of his right ribs. John Chipir, aged 64 years, John Coleman, aged 58 years, William Bridde, aged 54 years, and William Michel, aged 61 years, agree and say that on the morrow of the birth a tall tree called ‘Notebemtre’ growing on the highway there was blown down by a storm of wind on to a cottage of the said William Mathewe, so that the whole house was destroyed."

- Ivo Harleston, son of Margaret, daughter of Margaret, wife of Sir John de Wauton, was born in Cambridge on 11 April 1378, and was named after his godfather Ivo Zouch, chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Ivo's father was Roger Harleston, and Ivo proved his age on 27 January 1400 (and died in 1403). His cousin and co-heir Robert Pekenham was born in Dunton, Essex on 20 July 1378, and was the son of Margaret de Wauton's other daughter, Elizabeth. John Wattes, aged fifty-one in 1400, "heard on the Monday after Palm Sunday that Margaret was delivered of Ivo, and sent her a gallon of sweet wine...Thomas Caldecote, 59, and Thomas Skynnere, 70, were with Master Ivo Zouch, then chancellor of Cambridge University, in Trinity Hall, when Roger Harleston, the father, sent his servant John Dyne to ask Zouch to be godfather. John Broun, 48, ran in the afternoon to the house of Thomas Arwe, smith, to heat an iron rod with which the water in the font was heated for the baptism of Ivo in St. Clement’s church."

- Two sisters, the daughters and heirs of John Frechevyle and Beatrice Nettleworth, were Margaret Segrave and Isabel Ulkerthorp. Margaret was born on 12 May 1383 and Isabel on 20 January 1385, both in their grandfather William Nettleworth's manor of Nettleworth and both baptised in nearby Warsop, Nottinghamshire, and they jointly proved their age in Chesterfield, Derbyshire on 20 October 1403 when they were twenty and eighteen. Roger Somur, aged about sixty in 1403, remembered Margaret's birth because he "was in company with John their father at Pleasley Park, saw a sitting hare, shot it in the head with an arrow and sent it to Beatrice the mother of Margaret on the day of the birth; and on the day of Isabel’s birth William Netylworth, grandfather of Isabel, bought a black horse from him for 40s." Ralph Glapwell, aged forty-four in 1403, remembered because he "came to the house where Margaret was born on that day, and on the day that Isabel was born met a forester of Sherwood carrying on his shoulder a quantity of game, and he said that he was going to Beatrice who had borne Isabel on that day." William Chaumbur, forty-one, "was staying with the lady of Longford at Park Hall and bought a palfrey for her from a chaplain celebrating in the church of Warsop, and he was in the church and heard the parish chaplain baptising, and afterwards the chaplain told him that it was a daughter of John Frechevyle; and on the second occasion he heard Nicholas Goushyll, knight, saying at Chesterfield that Beatrice had given birth to Isabel and, John the father being dead, Margaret and Isabel were co-heirs." Ralph Cachehors, sixty, "on the first occasion was building a house at Woodthorpe when William de Netylworth, the grandfather, gave him a beam and told him of the birth; and he was at Nettleworth on the day of the baptism of Isabel and gave a hare to William the grandfather, who told him that his family had been increased because Beatrice his daughter had given birth to Isabel."

- Thomasia, one of the daughters and heirs of Sir Ralph Meynyll, was born in Derby on 6 January 1386, and proved her age on 19 February 1400. William Payne, aged forty-five in 1400, recalled the date because his wife Magote was one of the midwives at Thomasia's birth. Edmund Timley, aged fifty-five in 1400, remembered because he sold a grey horse to Ralph Meynyll on 6 January 1386, and Ralph told him that his wife (unnamed) had borne their daughter that day. Richard Hewstre, aged fifty in 1400, "rode to London to get various colours for his art on that day. Ralph asked him to buy various fowl for him, if they were for sale there, and told him that his wife had a daughter Thomasia on that day."

That last one is fascinating. In the middle of winter in 1386, a man rode all the way from Derby to London - about 130 miles - to buy 'various colours for his art'.

- John, brother and heir of Robert Derle, was born in Ashleyhay, Derbyshire on 7 February 1286, and proved his age on 18 August 1308. Sir Robert Dethek, aged about sixty in 1308, remembered the date because in January 1286 he and Henry Derle, father of Robert and John Derle, rode from Nottingham to Derle, and Henry "fell ill of the excessive cold" and died a fortnight later, shortly before his widow Alice gave birth to John. Simon Hopton, aged forty-eight in 1308, "says the same, and recollects it because Henry de Hopton his father was in company with the abovesaid Robert de Dethek and Henry de Derle on the journey from Nottingham to Derle."

- Edmund, son and heir of John Benstede, was born in 'Rosamunde' (?), Middlesex, on 2 July 1312, and proved his age on 15 July 1333. Roger Presthope, aged about fifty in 1333, knew the date because "in May of the said year he was injured in the head and right arm at the stone cross of Cherryngge [Charing Cross, London], by certain of his rivals, almost to death." Nicholas Beek, also aged about fifty in 1312, knew the date because "at the same time he was one of the household of Sir Louis of France and was sent into England to make provision against the coming of the said Sir Louis to Westminster, who was then coming to England and remaining there until the birth of the present king [Edward III], who was born on the feast of St. Brice the bishop then next coming [13 November 1312]."

The reference to 'Sir Louis of France' means Louis, count of Evreux (1276-1319), half-brother of Philip IV of France and the uncle of Edward II's queen Isabella, who was chosen as one of the infant Edward III's seven godfathers in November 1312. Louis arrived in England very early, months before Isabella gave birth, as his brother King Philip sent him to negotiate between Edward and the barons who had killed Piers Gaveston on 19 June 1312. I find it interesting to note that Nicholas Beek, a servant in Count Louis's household and presumably French (unless he was an Englishman who had settled in France) decided to stay in England and to make his home there, as he was still in England in 1333 when this proof of age took place.

- Henry, son and heir of Henry Whissh, was born in 'Brudenestret', Winchester, Hampshire, on 24 March 1334, and proved that he was now twenty-two years old in Southampton on 11 June 1356. John Url, aged forty in 1356, knew the date because he came to Winchester to work for the baker Robert Dymaund, and Robert's wife Agnes was Henry's godmother and told John Url about the boy's birth. John Marchaunt, aged fifty in 1356, married his wife Joan the year after Henry's birth, and "remembers the wedding well" (I should hope so!). The interestingly-named Valentine Hamond, aged thirty-five in 1356, "agrees and says that in the same year he submitted himself to be an apprentice of the art of a skinner." Richard Midhurst, aged forty in 1356, "agrees and says that in the same year he married a woman, Agnes by name, who was his wife for eighteen years and died four years ago." So here we see that Valentine became a skinner's apprentice at the age of thirteen (approximately) and that Richard married Agnes when he was about eighteen.

- Maud, daughter of John Stafford and the kinswoman and one of the heirs of Philip Somervill, was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire on 29 December 1340, and proved on 23 March 1356 that she was fifteen. Simon Wavere, aged fifty-six in 1356, knew the date because his wife Alice was buried in the churchyard in Banbury on the same day as Maud's baptism. John Lyndraper, aged sixty, stated that his sister Alice was hired as Maud's nurse, "altogether against his will" (he did not explain why).

- Katherine, wife of William Bermyngeham and one of the daughters and heirs of William atte Plaunke, was born in 'Berscote', Staffordshire on 6 January 1341, and proved on 3 July 1356 that she was fifteen. Thomas Morf, aged fifty-four in 1356, was in the household of Katherine's father William in 1341, and announced her birth to him. Philip Roo and William Emmesone ('Emma's son'), both about sixty, recalled Katherine's baptism because they saw her carried back from the church "to the manor of Berscote with singing and a great concourse of people praising God for her birth."

So there we have it, people rejoicing over the birth of a girl in 1341! Brilliant.

Edward II and Jousting

Most unusually for a medieval king, and most unlike his son Edward III who adored it and often participated, there's no direct evidence that Edward II ever jousted. He does, however, seem to have watched the sport on occasion, though perhaps this demonstrates more of an interest in Piers Gaveston, an excellent jouster, than it does in the sport itself. I do wonder why Edward never showed much of an interest in jousting, and perhaps it was because his father was not keen on him competing as he grew up. When Edward of Caernarfon was just two years old in 1286, an important young nobleman was killed while jousting: William de Warenne, son and heir of the earl of Surrey. (He left a baby son, John de Warenne, future earl of Surrey, and a posthumous daughter, Alice, future countess of Arundel.) Duke John I of Brabant, father-in-law of Edward of Caernarfon's sister Margaret (b. 1275), was also killed jousting in 1294 when Edward was eight.

Edward of Caernarfon was the only living son of Edward I for sixteen years, between 19 August 1284, when he was just four months old and his ten-year-old brother Alfonso of Bayonne died, and 1 June 1300, when his half-brother Thomas of Brotherton was born. Edward I had also lost his sons John (1266-71) and Henry (1268-74) in childhood, and it may be that he did not wish to tempt fate by allowing his only surviving son to compete in a sport that could be truly dangerous. I don't know this for sure and might be wrong, of course; Edward II was the most unconventional of medieval kings and loved digging ditches, thatching roofs, working with metal, swimming and rowing, and perhaps his lack of interest in jousting was part of his defiant unconventionality.

Edward II, as king, often banned jousting tournaments, as indeed other medieval kings sometimes did as well, though (to my knowledge) not nearly as often. This says far more about Edward's turbulent reign than it does about his dislike of jousting. Tournaments allowed large groups of armed men to gather, which could be dangerous, and were sometimes used as a cover for more nefarious activities, such as the tournament held in Dunstable in the spring of 1309 which some of Edward's disgruntled barons used as an opportunity to meet and discuss their grievances against him. The Vita Edwardi Secundi states that Thomas, earl of Lancaster used jousting tournaments in the spring of 1312 as a plausible excuse to move large groups of armed men to the north of England, where Edward and Piers Gaveston were skulking, so that he could capture Gaveston.

The chancery rolls of Edward II's reign are full of proclamations forbidding tournaments, though there are also quite a few pardons to knights who had taken part in them "contrary to the king's proclamation," so they were certainly held on occasion. On 1 January 1319, for example, Edward (then in Yorkshire) sent two of his sergeants-at-arms "to arrest all persons attempting to hold a tournament" in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, and a few months later pardoned Sir Francis Aldham, Sir William Baud and Sir Ralph Cobham for taking part in a tournament, perhaps this one. In the autumn of 1323, Edward II permitted the holding of a tournament in Northampton at the request of his half-brothers Thomas and Edmund, then in their early twenties and evidently keen to prove their mettle as jousters. The king subsequently, however, changed his mind and forbade the tournament. No doubt there was much grumbling and gnashing of teeth.

The de Clare Sisters

To mark International Women's Day and the publication of my joint biography of the three de Clare sisters, here's a post about them. See also my recent article about them on the History Hit website.

Joan of Acre was born in the port of Acre in the Holy Land sometime in the spring of 1272, and was the second eldest surviving daughter, after Eleanor born in June 1269, of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile. In 1278, Joan was betrothed to Hartmann von Habsburg, second son of the German king Rudolf I, but in late 1281 eighteen-year-old Hartmann drowned, and by then his father seemed to have lost interest in the English alliance anyway; he didn't bother to inform Edward I of his son's demise until the following August. On 30 April 1290, aged eighteen or almost, Joan married Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford, who was born on 2 September 1243 and was thus forty-six at the time of the wedding, just four years younger than his father-in-law Edward I. He had previously been married to Edward I's cousin Alice de Lusignan, and had two daughters: Isabella, Lady Berkeley, born 1262, and Joan, countess of Fife, born c. 1264. Both women were a few years older than their new stepmother, and Countess Joan of Fife had borne a son, Duncan MacDuff, in 1289. Gilbert 'the Red' was therefore already a grandfather when he married the teenage Joan of Acre.

Joan became pregnant within about three months of her wedding, and sometime between 23 April and 11 May 1291 gave birth to a son, Gilbert, who immediately became heir to his father's earldoms and vast landholdings in England, Wales and Ireland. Around 14 October 1292, Joan gave birth to her second child and first daughter in Caerphilly Castle, and named her Eleanor (Alianore in contemporary spelling) after her mother Eleanor of Castile (d. November 1290) and grandmother Eleanor of Provence (d. June 1291). Eleanor de Clare's date of birth is based on a comment by a chronicler that Joan of Acre was churched or purified on 23 November 1292.

Joan and Gilbert the Red's third child was a second daughter, named Margaret either after Gilbert's maternal grandmother Margaret de Quincy (d. 1266), countess of Lincoln, his sister Margaret (d. 1312), countess of Cornwall, or Joan's sister Margaret (b. 1275), the king and queen's third surviving daughter, who became duchess of Brabant in 1294. Margaret is the only de Clare sibling for whom we have no recorded date of birth, but in my opinion she was probably born in the spring of 1294, perhaps in Ireland, where Joan and Gilbert spent a few months in 1293/94. Around Christmas 1294 Joan became pregnant again and gave birth to her fourth child and third daughter, Elizabeth, in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire on 14 September 1295. Elizabeth's date and place of birth are given in the Complete Peerage, on an Addenda and Corrigenda page, though frustratingly no source is cited. Elizabeth was just a few weeks old when her father died on 7 December 1295, aged fifty-two, leaving his four-year-old son Gilbert as his sole heir.

Not much is known about the childhoods of the de Clare sisters; they were mere toddlers when their mother scandalously married her second husband, the squire Ralph de Monthermer, without her father's permission in early 1297. Joan of Acre gave birth to the sisters' four half-siblings between c. late 1297 and 1304. Most confusingly, Marie de Monthermer, eldest of the four, married Duncan MacDuff, earl of Fife, a grandson of Gilbert 'the Red' from his first marriage to Alice de Lusignan; for the de Clare siblings, this meant that their half-sister married their half-nephew.

Eleanor de Clare's grandfather Edward I arranged her marriage to the young nobleman Hugh Despenser the Younger (b. late 1280s), and attended the wedding in the palace of Westminster on 26 May 1306, four days after Hugh was knighted with Eleanor's uncle Edward of Caernarfon, prince of Wales, and several hundred others. Eleanor was aged thirteen and seven months, Hugh about seventeen or eighteen, and Eleanor gave birth to their first child in 1308 or the first half of 1309. This was Hugh 'Huchon' Despenser, Edward I's eldest great-grandchild, and Eleanor bore at least another nine Despenser children between 1310 and 1325. A little over a year after Eleanor's wedding, the de Clare sisters' grandfather died and was succeeded by their uncle Edward II, their mother's much younger brother; the four de Clare siblings were all closer in age to their uncle than his sister Joan of Acre was. Joan had passed away in April 1307, a few weeks before her father, leaving her widower Ralph de Monthermer (d. 1325) and her eight children.

Edward II made his beloved Piers Gaveston earl of Cornwall on 6 August 1307, and on 1 November that year arranged his wedding to Margaret de Clare, probably aged thirteen and a half, the oldest unmarried female member of Edward's family. Piers was much older than his new wife, at least in his mid-twenties, and they were to have only one child or at least one surviving child, Joan, named after Margaret's late mother. Joan Gaveston was most probably the child known to have been born to Margaret in York at the beginning of 1312, and the little girl was only five months old when her father was killed on 19 June 1312.

The de Clare sisters' only brother Gilbert married Maud de Burgh, one of the many daughters of the Anglo-Irish nobleman the earl of Ulster, on 29 September 1308, and the day after, his sister Elizabeth married Ulster's son and heir John de Burgh. Like her older sisters, Elizabeth married at thirteen, though did not move to Ireland until she was fourteen. She gave birth to her son William de Burgh the day after her seventeenth birthday in September 1312, and nine months later was widowed. Her son succeeded his grandfather as earl of Ulster in July 1326, married Maud of Lancaster in 1328, and their daughter Elizabeth, born July 1332, was a great heiress and married Edward III's son Lionel of Antwerp. The elder Elizabeth, born 1295, returned to England in early February 1316, and on the day of her return was abducted and married to Theobald de Verdon, born in September 1278 and the widower of Maud Mortimer, with whom he had three daughters. Their marriage lasted for less than six months as Verdon died in July 1316, but he left Elizabeth a month pregnant, and she gave birth to his daughter Isabella in March 1317.

The de Clare sisters' fortunes changed forever on 24 June 1314, when their elder brother Gilbert was killed at the battle of Bannockburn. His widow Maud claimed to be pregnant - for years! - but ultimately Edward II had to admit that his nephew had died without heirs of his body and that Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth were his joint heirs, in line with contemporary English inheritance law. They all inherited lands across England and Wales, and came into more when the dowager countess Maud died in 1320 and her third of her late husband's lands was divided among her three sisters. Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth each had an income of over £2,000 a year and were wealthier than any other woman in England except Queen Isabella.

In late April and early May 1317, Edward II arranged the marriages of his widowed nieces Margaret and Elizabeth to his two current favourites, or infatuations, Sir Hugh Audley and Sir Roger Damory. Elizabeth had only given birth to her second husband's posthumous daughter a few weeks earlier. Sir Hugh Audley was the second son of Sir Hugh Audley Senior (d. 1326) of Stratton Audley, Oxfordshire, and was born around 1291/93; Sir Roger Damory was the second son of Sir Robert Damory (d. 1285) of Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire, and was born perhaps in the early 1280s, though that's just my best guess. Neither man was their father's heir, and they both did astonishingly well to marry two women who were granddaughters of a king and wealthy heiresses.

The Audley marriage resulted in one daughter, Margaret Audley, born probably in the early 1320s and her mother's sole heir after her half-sister Joan Gaveston died in January 1325. Margaret married Ralph Stafford, later the first earl of Stafford, after he abducted her in 1336, and was an ancestor of the Stafford dukes of Buckingham. The Damory marriage resulted in one surviving daughter, Elizabeth, probably also born in the early 1320s, who married John, Lord Bardolf and was an ancestor of the later Lords Bardolf.

Eleanor de Clare's husband Hugh Despenser the Younger began his meteoric rise in his uncle-in-law the king's affections after he was appointed royal chamberlain in 1318. Whatever the nature of Hugh and Edward II's relationship, it was an extraordinarily close one that was only severed by Hugh's execution in November 1326, and there is no doubt that Eleanor was one of her husband and her uncle's closest supporters during their despotic, greedy regime in the 1320s. Her brothers-in-law Hugh Audley and Roger Damory, formerly the king's great favourites but shunted aside by Hugh Despenser, joined the Contrariant rebellion of 1321/22. Audley fought against the king at the battle of Boroughbridge on 16 March 1322, and was imprisoned until he escaped sometime in 1326; Roger Damory died of his wounds after fighting against the royal army a few days before Boroughbridge.

Elizabeth de Clare, still only twenty-six, had been widowed for the third time, and never married again in the remaining almost four decades of her life. Her uncle temporarily imprisoned her at Barking Abbey, though released her in November 1322 and restored her to her lands - though some quasi-legal manoeuvres by her brother-in-law Despenser deprived her of some of them, to her utter fury. Margaret, meanwhile, was sent to captivity in Sempringham Priory in Lincolnshire, and was to remain there for the rest of her uncle's reign.

Win a FREE Signed Book!

I'm offering two FREE, signed hardback copies of my new joint biography of Edward II's nieces the three Clare sisters! It doesn't matter where you live in the world; the competition is open to all, as long as you have a postal address where I can send the book!

All you have to do to win is leave a comment with your email address (so I know how to contact you) here on the blog, or send me a message on my Edward Facebook page, or if you prefer, you can send me an email at edwardofcaernarfon(at)yahoo(dot)com. If we're connected on Twitter or via my private Facebook page, you can send me a private message there instead, if you like.

The closing date is Wednesday 11 March, midnight Greenwich Mean Time. The following day, I will randomly select the winners and notify you both via email, at which point you can give me your postal address and any special dedication you'd like me to write in the book.

The Clare sisters, Eleanor, Margaret and Elizabeth were born between 1292 and 1295 as the granddaughters of the reigning king, Edward I, and came to adulthood in the reign of their uncle Edward II. The sisters were married to a total of seven men, four of whom were involved in intense and perhaps sexual relationships with their uncle the king, and all three sisters were imprisoned either by Edward II or by his queen, Isabella of France. Elizabeth was widowed for the third time at the age of twenty-six; Eleanor was said by one chronicler to be the mistress of her uncle Edward II, a statement given some credence by Edward's accounts of 1324/26; and Margaret was married to two men who were her uncle's 'favourites' and spent over four and a half years in captivity at Sempringham Priory on Edward's orders. The three sisters' lives could hardly be more dramatic!

The Siege Of Caerphilly Castle, 1326/27 (2)

A while ago, I wrote a blog post about the siege of Caerphilly Castle in South Wales from November 1326 to March 1327, the only hold-out against the new regime. Here's a post about the men who remained in the castle with Hugh 'Huchon' Despenser, teenage son and heir of Hugh Despenser the Younger. Huchon was about seventeen or eighteen in 1326/27; according to his mother Eleanor's inqusition post mortem, he was either twenty-eight or twenty-nine in July 1337, so he was born sometime before July 1309 and perhaps in 1308. In December 1325, Huchon was old enough to own weapons which required repair, and that month and again in July 1326, his great-uncle Edward II had aketons (padded or quilted jerkins worn under armour) and coat-armour (jackets embroidered with heraldic devices) made for him in the colours of the Despenser arms and bought matching caparisons for his horses, as revealed by Edward's chamber account of 1325/26. So by late 1326, Huchon was a young man with years of military training behind him.

The list of the men inside Caerphilly with Huchon Despenser very usefully appears on the Patent Roll on 20 March 1327, when they were all pardoned for holding the castle against Queen Isabella. There were about 135 of them. [Calendar of Patent Rolls 1327-30, pp. 37-39] There's also, incidentally, a very long and useful inventory of all the items found inside Caerphilly when it finally surrendered, printed in English translation in William Rees' Caerphilly Castle and Its Place in the Annals of Glamorgan. The inventory reveals that the castle still contained vast quantities of food and drink even after nearly 150 men had lived there for four months. Starving them out would have taken an exceedingly long time.

Only two of the garrison were knights, Sir John Felton and Sir Thomas Lovel. Felton was a household knight of Hugh Despenser the Younger, and their correspondence to each other while Felton was in Gascony in 1324/25 during the War of Saint-Sardos still exists and was printed by the late, great, much-missed Professor Pierre Chaplais. At one point, Hugh told John that Edward II "has greatly given you his heart" because the king was so pleased with Felton's service, and on another occasion told John how much he personally appreciated his diligence, loyalty and good conduct. John Felton was not officially in charge of Caerphilly Castle in 1326, yet repaid Hugh's praise of him by saving the life of his teenage son and heir, who would have been executed if the Caerphilly garrison had decided to give Huchon up to Isabella.

A number of the men inside Caerphilly were valets of Edward II's chamber who appear frequently in his extant accounts of 1324-26: Peter Plummer, Henry Hustret, Simon Hod, John Pope, Walter 'Watte' Cowherd, Richard Gobet, John Edriche, Gilbert 'Gibon' Apse, Alexander 'Sandre' Rede, Hugh 'Huchon' Smale, John Traghs or Trasshe, and William 'Wille' Wallere. There may be others, as Edward's clerks tended to refer to some of the king's servants by nicknames rather than their real names, such as 'Grete Hobbe' or 'Big Rob', which makes them impossible to identify. Two sergeant-at-arms inside Caerphilly were named as Rodrigo de Medyne and William Beaucair or Beaukaire. Rodrigo had been in Edward II's household for a while and later joined Edward III's; William, oddly, guarded Edward II's body at Berkeley Castle for a month after the former king was supposedly murdered there on 21 September 1327. See here. William's first name is given as 'Gills', which I suspect is a nickname for Guillaume. He must have been French or at the very least of French parentage, as Beaucaire is a town near Avignon.

Edward II had a personal bodyguard of eight archers in 1326, and five of them were in the castle: John Horewode, Adam Bullok, Robert Pakynton, Roger Wight and Wille Draycot. In 1326, Hugh Despenser the Younger had bodyguards said in Edward's chamber account to have "followed Sir Hugh at all times wherever he went." The bodyguards were hobelars, armed men on horseback, and six are mentioned in January 1326 and eight that July. Five of the hobelars were also in Caerphilly: Roger atte Watre, a Londoner who had served Edward II since at least the early 1310s (and see also below), the Palington brothers John, Henry and Thomas, and John Grey.

Also in the castle: Hugh Despenser the Younger's blacksmith Will of Denbigh and two of Edward II's blacksmiths, John Cole and Robert Brakenhale. Robert le Ferrour and John le Ferrour were also blacksmiths, as evidenced by their name. Other men's job titles appear as their names, in medieval French: Eustace le Ceu and Richard le Keu ('cook'), David le Surigien ('surgeon'), Roger le Taillour, John le Taillour, Walter le Taillour, William le Taillour and Richard le Teghlour ('tailor'), William le Barber, Nicholas le Sarrour and Walter le Sarrour ('sawyer'), William le Pestour ('fisherman'), and Walter de la Panetrie ('of the pantry' or 'bakery'). The word maceon or 'mason' appears after Richard Ule's name.

Simon 'Simkyn' Simeon came from Lincolnshire and was a long-term Lancastrian adherent; he seems the odd one out among the men inside Caerphilly, though perhaps his decades of loyal service to the Lancasters only began in and after 1327. He was one of the men who went overseas with Edward II's cousin Henry, earl of Lancaster in 1329, served Henry's son Duke Henry for many years, and became the steward of Duke Henry's son-in-law John of Gaunt in Bolingbroke. Simon lived an extremely long life: he wrote his will in March 1386 and died shortly before 23 December 1387, when the will was proved. [Early Lincoln Wills 1280-1547, ed. Alfred Gibbons, p. 78] He was still actively serving John of Gaunt at Bolingbroke Castle in his native Lincolnshire as late as 1383, and John's letters and orders to him often appear in his (John's) register of 1379 to 1383. Assuming Simon was at least fourteen or sixteen in 1326/27 and wasn't a young child, which doesn't seem very likely, he can't have been born later than 1310/12 (which would make him exactly the same age as Duke Henry of Lancaster), hence was still active when he was past seventy and must have been at least seventy-five when he died.

Two men who joined the earl of Kent's plot to free the supposedly dead Edward II in 1329/30 and who were inside Caerphilly were Giles of Spain and Benet or Benedict Braham. Giles had been a squire of Edward II's household since at least 1317, and was the man sent by Edward III to the south of Europe to pursue Sir Thomas Gurney, supposedly one of Edward II's murderers, in the early 1330s. A man whose name appears as 'Stephen Dun' I suspect may mean Stephen Dunheved, co-leader with his brother Thomas, a Dominican friar, of the successful attempt to free the former Edward II from Berkeley Castle in the summer of 1327. See here, here, here, here and here. The hobelar Roger atte Watre was in Caerphilly and joined the Dunheveds in 1327. Although his brother Thomas might have been dead by 1330, Stephen also joined the earl of Kent's plot in 1329/30.

In 1326, Edward II employed half a dozen or more trumpeters, and three appear in the record of 20 March 1327 when they were pardoned for holding out at Caerphilly: Ferandus le Trompur, Henry le Trompur and Bernard le Trompur. Ferand or Ferandus was Spanish. Another man was 'Senchet Garcie'. I presume this means Sancho Garcia, a Castilian sailor who also often appears in Edward II's chamber account in 1326. That January, Sancho rode from Winchelsea in Sussex to Exning in Suffolk, where Edward was then staying, to ask if Edward wished to buy his wrecked ship the Seinte Katherine in Winchelsea harbour. Edward, as it turned out, did, and Sancho stayed at court until early May and returned three weeks later. Interestingly, there were four Spanish men inside Caerphilly: Giles of Spain, Rodrigo de Medyne, Ferand the trumpeter, and Sancho.

'William Hurle[y], carpenter' is the most famous name on the list: he was Edward II and Edward III's master carpenter, and died in 1354 having worked on Ely Cathedral, Windsor Castle and other places. Hugh Despenser the Younger had sent William Hurley to work on the great hall of Caerphilly Castle in February 1326, and some of the men named on the list, such as the two sawyers, were probably William's workmen. There are dozens of other men named among the Caerphilly garrison whom I can't as yet identify. Apart from the Spanish men above, the blacksmith Will of Denbigh, Henry of Cardiff and William of Monmouth, all the names are English rather than Welsh, and include Gilbert of Newcastle-on-Tyne and Robert of Alnwick, who were both very far from home, Adam of Pershore in Worcestershire, and Benedict of Nailsworth in Gloucestershire. Some of the men were almost certainly members of Hugh Despenser the Younger's household, but unless they appear in Edward II's accounts or the chancery rolls and are specifically named as Hugh's servants (as the hobelars and Will of Denbigh are), there's no way of identifying them as such as none of Hugh's accounts survive, with the exception of payments he made into and out of his accounts with Italian bankers in London.

Edward II and Hugh the Younger left Caerphilly on c. 1 or 2 November 1326. By the time they were captured two weeks later, they only had a tiny number of men still with them, and it's usually stated that Edward had been abandoned by his entire household. Given that the Caerphilly garrison held out against the new regime for four months and were clearly loyal to Edward and Hugh (with the likely exception of William Hurley and his men, who may simply have been caught up there by accident), and given that many of them were former members of Edward's or Hugh's households and that others would become involved in plots to free Edward after his deposition in 1327 and even after his official death in 1329/30, the picture was in fact a bit more complicated than the usual 'everyone abandoned Edward' narrative. Edward's chamber account was last kept at Caerphilly on 31 October 1326 and records payments to some of the king's chamber staff who were still with him then, a few of whom appear, as noted here, in the list of the garrison on 20 March 1327. The others apparently left the castle sometime between Edward's departure and the start of the siege some weeks later, and I don't know what happened to them as none of them appear in the extant list of the members of Edward III's household made on 24 June 1328, so apparently they all left royal service and perhaps returned to their homes and families (some of them had young children). On 31 October 1326, there were still twenty-nine chamber valets with Edward II, though it's impossible to say how many squires, sergeants-at-arms, ushers, clerks and knights remained with the king then, as their wages weren't paid out of the chamber like the valets' were and hence their names weren't recorded in his extant chamber account, now in the library of the Society of Antiquaries in London.

Henry Percy (1273-1314)

As anyone with an interest in English history will know, there were an awful lot of generations of English noblemen called Henry Percy down the centuries. Here's the first part of a post about the Percys (Percies?), a great noble family who became earls of Northumberland in 1377, in the fourteenth century, beginning with the Henry Percy who besieged Piers Gaveston at Scarborough Castle in May 1312.

This Henry Percy was born on 25 March 1273 at Petworth in Sussex, and was the son of another Henry Percy (well, obviously). Henry was born posthumously, seven months after his father died on 29 August 1272. [1] His mother was Eleanor de Warenne, daughter of John de Warenne, earl of Surrey (b. 1231) and Alice de Lusignan, a half-sister of Henry III. According to the Complete Peerage, Henry Percy (d. 1272) and Eleanor de Warenne married in York on 8 September 1268. [2] Their first son was named John after Eleanor's father the earl of Surrey, and was probably born in 1270; he was said to be eleven years old on 30 November 1281. [3] John Percy was his father's heir in 1272, and was still alive on 16 June 1285, but died childless before 29 July 1293 leaving his younger brother Henry as his heir. [4] 

John Percy evidently died before he would have turned twenty-one in c. 1291, and there is no inquisition post mortem for him; there is a reference in 1315 to "John de Percy, who died a minor in the late king's [Edward I's] custody." If John ever married I haven't found a reference to it, though Edward I gave his wardship and marriage rights to Queen Eleanor (d. November 1290) in or before late 1281. [5] John's younger brother and heir Henry Percy proved his age and was given their late father's lands on 11 June 1294. [6] The jurors at Henry's proof of age held in Petworth in 1294 were all very aware that his father Henry Percy Senior passed away in Henry III's reign, and that Henry Junior was born after the deaths of both his father and of King Henry (in November 1272); eleven of them stated some version of "he knows it [Henry Percy's date of birth] by the death of King Henry." This is an example of how the death of a king was a major event that was vividly remembered decades later, especially, perhaps, because Henry III's reign was such a long one and there can't have been too many people still alive who remembered the death of the last king, Henry's father John, in 1216.

Henry Percy went on campaign to Scotland with his long-lived maternal grandfather the earl of Surrey in 1295, and took part in Edward I's siege of Caerlaverock Castle with him in 1300. The Roll of Arms of Caerlaverock states "John, the good earl of Warenne...had in his company his nephew [sic], Henri de Percy, who seemed to have made a vow to rout the Scots." [7] Henry's aunt Isabel de Warenne, Surrey's other daughter, had in fact married John Baliol, king of Scotland from 1292 to 1296, and was the mother of Edward Baliol, who a few decades later claimed the throne of Scotland from Robert Bruce's son David II. Henry Percy was also an older first cousin of John de Warenne, born in June 1286 and their grandfather's heir as earl of Surrey on his death in 1304 in his seventies, the earl's only son William de Warenne having been killed jousting in late 1286.

Around 1300, Henry married a woman called Eleanor, whom I've written about here. Most probably, she was the daughter of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (1267-1302), though this identification is not 100% certain. Richard, earl of Arundel acknowledged a debt of 2,000 marks to Henry Percy on 7 August 1300 - while they were both taking part in the siege of Caerlaverock, as it happens - which presumably was Eleanor's dowry (Richard paid the same amount to Bishop Robert Burnell for his sister Maud's marriage to the bishop's nephew and heir Philip Burnell in 1283), and Henry Percy acknowledged in November 1313 that he had received full payment of all debts from Richard's son and heir Edmund, earl of Arundel. In 1315, Eleanor was called "late the wife of Henry de Percy, executrix of the will of Richard de Arundell, her brother," who presumably was a younger son of Earl Richard. As I've pointed out before, it seems most improbable that an important and high-ranking nobleman such as Henry Percy, who was a grandson of the earl of Surrey and a great-nephew of King Henry III, would have married a woman from a cadet branch of the Fitzalans/Arundels, and Edward II acknowledged Eleanor as "the king's kinswoman" on several occasions, which is in itself evidence of her high rank. [8]

Eleanor therefore seems highly likely to have been a daughter of Earl Richard, and a sister of Earl Edmund, who was born on either 1 May 1284, 21 December 1284, 1 May 1285 or 3 July 1285. [9] Given that Eleanor gave birth in February 1301 or possibly February 1302, she was seemingly older than her brother Edmund (unless she was his twin), as she would have been a painfully young mother if she was born in 1286 or later. This would mean that Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, became a father at sixteen or seventeen, but that's not terribly unlikely given that his much younger first cousin Roger Mortimer, later the first earl of March (b. 1287), was also a very young father. Richard, born 3 February 1267, was only six years older than his son-in-law Henry Percy, born 25 March 1273. [10]

Eleanor gave birth to a son named Henry Percy at Leconfield in Yorkshire, either on 6 February 1301 or on 6 February 1302. It's hard to say for sure, because the jurors at young Henry's proof of age stated that he was born on 6 February in Edward I's twenty-ninth regnal year, which ran from 20 November 1300 to 19 November 1301, thus giving a date of birth of 6 February 1301. However, the proof of age was taken in Leconfield on 26 February 1323 (in Edward II's sixteenth regnal year) and states that Henry "was 21 years of age on 6 February last," which indicates that he was born on 6 February 1302. [11] The jurors thus contradicted themselves. To add to the confusion, Henry the father's (b. 1273) inquisition post mortem in November 1314 states that his son and heir was either "sixteen at the Purification [2 February] next," which would give a date of birth in early February 1299; "aged fifteen at Whitsunday last," which gives May 1299; "aged thirteen and nine months," which gives February 1301; or "aged thirteen and nine months at the feast of the Purification, 7 Edward II." The feast of the Purification in the seventh year of Edward II's reign was 2 February 1314, so this seems to be a rather garbled attempt to state that Henry was thirteen and nine months at the time of the inquisition in November 1314 and hence was born around the Purification in 1301. [12] 

Henry Percy the son was said to be still a minor on 18 and 22 February, 27 April and 28 June 1320, so cannot have been born on 6 February 1299. [13] There's an entry on the Patent Roll dated 9 July 1322 which calls him a "minor in the king's custody" and on 21 July 1322 Edward II talked of his "custody of the lands and heir of Henry de Percy [b. 1273], tenant in chief", which would seem to indicate that Henry was in fact born on 6 February 1302, not 1301, so was still only twenty in 1322. Edward allowed Henry seisin of his lands on 26 December 1321, pointing out that he was still underage, so he was definitely born after 26 December 1300. [14] Anyway, whether Henry Percy was born in 1301 or 1302, his father (b. 1273) was so delighted at the birth of his son that he rode the twelve miles to his manor of Nafferton on the same day to tell his tenants there in person. A woman named Joan Danyel was one of the women assisting Eleanor Percy at little Henry's birth, and he was baptised in the church of All Saints in Leconfield the day after he was born. Young Henry was born either in the lifetime of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, probably his maternal grandfather, or shortly after Richard died a little before 15 January 1302, at the young age of thirty-four. (Richard would have turned thirty-five on 3 February 1302, and his inquisition post mortem makes it obvious that he didn't die on 9 March 1302, as often stated.) Henry was also born in the lifetime of his great-grandfather John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, who lived until 1304.

The Percy family are strongly associated with the castle of Alnwick (pronounced 'annick') in Northumberland. The castle and manor of Alnwick were given to Henry Percy (b. 1273) by Anthony Bek, bishop of Durham, on 19 November 1309. [15] Bek was remarkably generous: he gave the palace and manor of Eltham in Kent to Edward of Caernarfon in 1305 and gave Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire to him four years later.

Early in Edward II's reign, Henry Percy the father seems to have been a close ally of the king and Piers Gaveston; on 16 June 1308, he, with Edward's cousin John of Brittany, earl of Richmond, Hugh Despenser the Elder, and William Melton, future archbishop of York (who were certainly all very close to the king), witnessed Piers' appointment as lieutenant of Ireland. [16] However, Henry must have grown discontented with Edward's excessive favouritism towards the earl of Cornwall, and besieged Piers inside Scarborough Castle in May 1312 with his cousin John de Warenne the younger, earl of Surrey (Henry's great-grandson Henry Percy, first earl of Northumberland, would be born in Scarborough Castle in 1341, as a matter of interest). Henry was appointed custodian of Scarborough Castle in October 1311, though Edward II replaced him with William Latimer in early 1312; Henry refused to hand the castle over to Latimer, and on 20 February 1312 Edward ordered Henry to come to him and explain himself. The king also removed Henry as custodian of Bamburgh Castle, and gave it back to Isabella Beaumont, Lady Vescy, on 28 January 1312; Henry had held the position for only six weeks. [17]

In the aftermath of Piers Gaveston's death, Henry Percy was one of the chief noblemen, with Robert Clifford and the earls of Lancaster, Hereford and Warwick, often named as being given a safe-conduct to meet the king or to take part in the endless negotiations which tried to reconcile the men to Edward. Edward had seized Henry's lands and goods on 28 July 1312, but restored them on 18 December that year. He had also ordered Henry's arrest on 31 July on the grounds that Henry had stood as a guarantor to ensure Piers' safety, but that Piers had been killed while Henry was still liable for his welfare. [18]

Henry Percy died shortly before 10 October 1314 at the age of forty-one, leaving his son Henry, who was either twelve or thirteen, as his heir. His wife Eleanor also outlived him, and received her dower on 6 November 1314. [19] Weirdly, there's a reference to "Eustachia, daughter and heiress of Henry de Percy, tenant in chief, a minor in the king's custody" on 26 February 1321, when Edward II gave her marriage to the chief justice Geoffrey Scrope. [20] I think the name Henry here must be a clerical error for Peter, as there's a reference to Eustachia, daughter and heir of Peter Percy and wife of Walter Heslarton, aged "22 and more", in November 1334. [21]

Plenty more on the fourteenth-century Henry Percys coming soon!

Sources

1) Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem 1291-1300, no. 214.
2) Complete Peerage, vol. 10, p. 456.
3) CIPM 1272-91, no. 434.
4) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1281-92, p. 175; Calendar of Close Rolls 1288-96, p. 295.
5) CIPM 1272-91, no. 434; CPR 1281-92, pp. 175, 468; CCR 1313-18, p. 148.
6) CIPM 1291-1300, no. 214; CCR 1288-96, pp. 350, 388.
7) Thomas Wright, ed., The Roll of Arms of Caerlaverock (1864), p. 6.
8) Calendar of Close Rolls 1296-1302, p. 404; CCR 1313-18, pp. 79, 223; CPR 1313-17, p. 638; Calendar of Fine Rolls 1319-27, p. 16.
9) CIPM 1300-07, no. 90.
10) CIPM 1216-72, no. 812.
11) CIPM 1317-27, no. 435.
12) CIPM 1307-17, no. 536.
13) CFR 1319-27, pp. 17, 21; CCR 1318-23, pp. 178, 201.
14) CPR 1321-24, pp. 174, 181, 411, 633.
15) CPR 1307-13, pp. 197, 205.
16) CPR 1307-13, p. 83.
17) CPR 1307-13, pp. 391, 413, 427, 429-31, 441; CFR 1307-19, pp. 121, 127.
18) CFR 1307-19, pp. 141, 156; CPR 1307-13, p. 486.
19) CFR 1307-19, p. 214; CIPM 1307-17, no. 536; CCR 1313-18, p. 125.
20) CPR 1317-21, p. 568.
21) CIPM 1327-36, no. 622.

Heirs to the English Throne, 1272-1330

When Henry III died on 16 November 1272 and was succeeded by his son Edward I, the heir to the English throne became Edward's four-year-old son Henry of Windsor, born in May 1268. He was Edward's second son; Henry's elder brother John, born in July 1266, died in August 1271 in his grandfather Henry III's lifetime, so was never heir to the throne. Edward I and Queen Eleanor had another son on 24 November 1273, Alfonso of Bayonne, named after his maternal uncle and godfather Alfonso X of Castile. Little Henry died around 14 October 1274 at the age of six, and Alfonso, not yet eleven months old, became heir to his father's throne. He was to hold that position for just under a decade.

Edward I and Eleanor of Castile's fourth and youngest son Edward of Caernarfon was born on 25 April 1284, and on 19 August 1284, his ten-year-old brother Alfonso of Bayonne died. For ten years the people of England had grown accustomed to the idea that one day they would have a King Alfonso, but sadly it was not to be. Unlike his three older brothers, Edward of Caernarfon was a healthy, sturdy child who, though not actually born as his father's heir, ultimately succeeded his father as king, having spent twenty-three years as heir to the throne. It's interesting to look at who was next in succession after young Edward. On 17 April 1290, Edward I, with only one living son, confronted the possibility that Edward of Caernarfon, not quite six years old, might die young as his older brothers had, and before he fathered any male heirs. The king therefore decided that, in that case, the English throne should pass to his and Eleanor of Castile's eldest surviving daughter Eleanor of Windsor, born on 17 or 18 June 1269. I find it fascinating that Edward I considered the possibility of his throne passing to a woman, and that he favoured his daughters - he specified that if Eleanor died or had no children, the throne would go to his next eldest daughter Joan of Acre (b. 1272), and so on - over his brother Edmund, earl of Lancaster and Leicester (1245-96), and Edmund's sons Thomas (b. c. 1277/78) and Henry (b. c. 1280/81).

Eleanor of Windsor married Henri III, count of Bar in eastern France, on 20 September 1293, gave birth to her son Edouard and her daughter Jeanne sometime between 1294 and 1298, and died on 29 September 1298 at the age of twenty-nine. From 29 September 1298 until 1 June 1300, therefore, the heir to the English throne behind his uncle Edward of Caernarfon was Edouard of Bar, future count of Bar. On 1 June 1300, Edward I's second queen Marguerite of France gave birth to a son, Thomas of Brotherton, later earl of Norfolk. She bore a second son, Edmund of Woodstock, later earl of Kent, on 5 August 1301. For sixteen years between August 1284 and June 1300, Edward I only had one living son; now he had three.

Edward I died on 7 July 1307 and was succeeded by Edward of Caernarfon as King Edward II. Seven-year-old Thomas of Brotherton became heir to the throne on the death of his father and the accession of his half-brother, and held the position until 13 November 1312, when Edward II and Isabella of France's son Edward of Windsor was born. The royal couple produced the 'spare' part of 'the heir and the spare' when their second son John of Eltham was born on 15 August 1316. Edward of Windsor was born as heir to the English throne and succeeded his deposed and disgraced father as king on 25 January 1327, aged fourteen.

John of Eltham, just ten years old when his father was deposed and his brother became king, was heir to the throne from 25 January 1327 until 15 June 1330, when Edward III's queen Philippa of Hainault gave birth to their first son Edward of Woodstock, later prince of Wales. Although Edward III and Queen Philippa were to have seven sons, of whom five survived infancy, there was a long period in the 1330s when the king still only had one son and heir. Philippa gave birth to her daughters Isabella in June 1332 and Joan probably in January 1334, then had a three-year break from childbearing. Her second son William of Hatfield was born at the beginning of 1337, but sadly died soon after his birth. Her fifth child and third son was Lionel of Antwerp, born on 29 November 1338. With the exception of the few days or weeks in early 1337 when William of Hatfield was alive, there was a period of eight and a half years, 15 June 1330 to 29 November 1338, when Edward III only had one son. The king and queen's fourth but third surviving son John of Gaunt was born on 6 March 1340, and their fifth but fourth surviving, Edmund of Langley, was born on or just before 5 June 1341. The middle three sons of Edward III were very close in age, and their three births in two and a half years well and truly secured the succession to the throne. Queen Philippa's sixth son William of Windsor was born in May 1348 but also died in infancy, and her seventh and youngest, but fifth surviving, was Thomas of Woodstock, who was not born until January 1355.

As well as John of Eltham, the heir to the throne from January 1327 to June 1330, there were other royal males who took their places in the line of succession in the late 1320s. Edward II's half-brother Thomas of Brotherton came next after John of Eltham, until Edward of Woodstock's birth in June 1330. Thomas had a son, Edward of Norfolk, who was probably born in the mid-1320s or thereabouts (as far as I can figure out, his sisters Margaret and Alice were older and were born c. 1322 and c. 1324). Edward of Norfolk died as a child sometime in the early 1330s - young though he was, he had already been married to Roger Mortimer's daughter Beatrice - and Thomas's heirs were his two daughters.

Behind Thomas of Brotherton and his son Edward of Norfolk came Thomas's younger brother Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, who was beheaded at the age of twenty-eight on 19 March 1330. Edmund had a son, Edmund of Kent, probably born in 1328 or 1329, who died in 1331. Earl Edmund also left a posthumous son John, later earl of Kent, born on 7 April 1330, as well as his daughter Joan, born 1326 or 1327, later princess of Wales and Richard II's mother.

As well as Edward I's sons and grandsons, there was his nephew Henry of Lancaster, second son and ultimate heir of Edward's brother Edmund of Lancaster, Edmund's first son Thomas having died (or having been executed by his cousin Edward II, rather) childless in 1322. Henry's only son was Henry of Grosmont, later the first duke of Lancaster, born c. 1310/12. The two Lancastrians came after Edward I's sons and grandsons in the line of succession, and of course the births of Edward III's sons in the 1330s and 1340s pushed them further and further away from the throne.

The Fourteenth-Century Mowbrays

A (long!) post about the influential English noble family who became dukes of Norfolk at the end of the fourteenth century.

Roger, first Lord Mowbray, was probably born not too long before 7 November 1257 (as Edward I took his homage and allowed him to enter his late father Roger's lands on 7 November 1278), and died shortly before 21 November 1297. [1] He had made an excellent marriage to Rohese de Clare, one of the daughters of Richard de Clare (1222-62), earl of Gloucester and Hertford, and Maud de Lacy (1223-89), daughter of Margaret de Quincy (d. 1266), countess of Lincoln. Rohese's siblings included Edward I's son-in-law Gilbert 'the Red' de Clare (1243-95), earl of Gloucester and Hertford, Margaret (d. 1312), countess of Cornwall, and Isabel, who married the Italian marquis of Montferrat. Roger Mowbray and Rohese de Clare's marriage was arranged in July 1270 by their mothers, Maud, dowager countess of Gloucester, and Maud, Lady Mowbray and Lestrange. Rohese's brother Earl Gilbert 'the Red' was one of the witnesses to the bond. [2]

Roger and Rohese's son and heir was John Mowbray. When Roger's inquisition post mortem was held in January 1298, John was said to be "aged 11 on the day of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist, 25 Edward I"; "aged 12 and more at the feast of the Assumption, 25 Edward I"; "aged 13 at the feast of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist, 25 Edward I"; "aged 11 at the feast of St. Cuthbert last"; "aged 12 and more." [3] These give possible dates of birth of 29 August 1284, 15 August 1285, 20 March 1286, or 29 August 1286. John Mowbray was "not yet of full age" on 1 June 1306 when Edward I allowed him full seisin of his father's lands, "for the good service he will do for the king in the present army of Scotland." [4] Therefore John didn't have to prove his age when he turned twenty-one, and we don't know his exact date of birth. From the grant by Edward I, we know he was certainly born after 1 June 1285, and he was probably born sometime in the second half of August 1285 or in the second half of August 1286, perhaps on the Beheading of St John the Baptist (29 August) as stated in some of his father's inquisitions, which might his explain his being given the name John. John Mowbray was one of the hundreds of men knighted with Edward of Caernarfon, prince of Wales, duke of Aquitaine, earl of Chester and count of Ponthieu, at Westminster on 22 May 1306, and was just a year or two younger than Edward.

On 29 November 1298 a year after the death of John's father Roger, Edward I made a "[g]rant to William de Brewosa, staying with the king in Flanders, of the marriage of John son and heir of Roger de Moubray, tenant in chief, so that he cause the said John to be married to Alina his daughter. Mandate to Roesia, late the wife of the said Roger, to deliver the said John to be married." [5] William de Brewosa's name is usually spelt 'Braose' nowadays, and he was lord of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales and of Bramber in Sussex. William's heirs were his two daughters, Alina or Aline, and Joan, who married Sir James de Bohun of Midhurst.

This statement by Edward I implies that John Mowbray and Aline de Braose married fairly soon after 29 November 1298, and the Complete Peerage says they married in Swansea in 1298. [6] John was then twelve or thirteen, and I have no idea how old Aline was. Her sister Joan was old enough to give birth in 1300, and was most probably older than Aline. John Mowbray and Aline had a son and heir, John the younger, born in Hovingham, Yorkshire on 29 November 1310. John the father was ill at the time and because of the worry over her husband's condition, Aline gave birth a few days prematurely, according to her son's proof of age taken in August 1329 (like his father, he was allowed to come into his lands before he turned twenty-one). Edward II's cousin Thomas, earl of Lancaster paid a messenger twenty shillings for bringing him the news of the birth, and as it happened, John Mowbray the son later married Thomas's niece Joan of Lancaster. [7]

John Mowbray the father joined the Contrariant rebellion against Edward II and Hugh Despenser the Younger - who was married to John's first cousin Eleanor de Clare - and was executed in York on 23 March 1322, alongside Roger, Lord Clifford. He was about thirty-five at the time. Cruelly, Edward II imprisoned John's widow Aline and their son John in the Tower of London, even though young John was only eleven when his father was executed. During his despotic period as the king's untouchable favourite in the 1320s, Hugh Despenser the Younger took the Gower Peninsula from Aline's father William de Braose, and after Hugh's downfall Aline made her feelings about him perfectly clear, calling him "the evil traitor" (le malveis tretre). [8]

A petition from Aline, c. 1327, referring to 'le malveis tretre Hugh le Despencier le fyz'

Young John Mowbray besieged the castle of Tickhill in early 1326, still only fifteen years old, with Robert Clifford, the twenty-year-old brother and heir of the executed Roger, Lord Clifford. John's maternal grandfather William de Braose died shortly before 1 May 1326, and his heirs were his daughter Aline and her nephew John de Bohun (b. 1300), son of her late sister Joan (d. 1316). William's much younger widow Isabel, Aline's stepmother, was given permission to marry the Gascon Simon de Montbreton, a close ally of Edward II and the Despensers, on 13 May 1326. [9] Aline herself married a second husband, Sir Richard Peshale, and died shortly before 20 July 1331. [10]

John Mowbray's marriage was granted to Henry, earl of Lancaster and Leicester, on 28 February 1327 the month after Edward II's forced abdication, and he married Joan, fourth of Henry's six daughters, before 4 June 1328. [11] Joan was probably born around 1313/15. Their only son, inevitably also named John, was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire around Midsummer 1340. [12] They also had two daughters, probably older than John: Eleanor, Lady Warr and Blanche, Lady Poynings. Their father arranged his daughters' future marriages in 1342/43. [13] Although Joan of Lancaster was not an heiress as she had a brother, and hence brought the Mowbrays no lands, the Lancaster connection meant that the Mowbrays were closely related to a lot of important people: the Arundels, the Percys, the de Burghs, the Uffords, etc. John Mowbray (b. 1340) was a nephew of Henry of Grosmont, first duke of Lancaster, and a first cousin of Blanche, duchess of Lancaster (1342-68), Edward III's daughter-in-law and Henry IV's mother.

Joan of Lancaster, Lady Mowbray, died on 7 July 1349 when her son was nine. Her widower John Mowbray (b. November 1310) married his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of John de Vere (b. c. 1312), earl of Oxford, and widow of the earl of Devon's son Sir Hugh Courtenay, in or before March 1351. Elizabeth was pregnant in May 1351, though she and John Mowbray did not have any surviving children that I know of. [14] Mowbray was slightly older than his new father-in-law, and he and the earl of Oxford really did not get along well; in 1353 Mowbray's brother-in-law from his first marriage, the duke of Lancaster, had to mediate between them and managed to settle their dispute. Rather startlingly, John Mowbray was claiming that he did not need to provide any food, drink or clothing for Elizabeth and her attendants or even for any children the couple might have. Her father Oxford, not surprisingly, objected to this strenuously. [15]

John Mowbray the son (b. June 1340) received a papal dispensation to marry Elizabeth Segrave on 25 March 1349, a few months before his mother Joan of Lancaster died. John's uncle Henry, earl and later first duke of Lancaster, requested the dispensation "to make peace between the lords John de Mowbray and John de Segrave and their successors, between whom, they being near neighbours, quarrels and scandals may arise." The couple were married by 10 August 1349, although John was still only nine years old. [16] Elizabeth was born in Croxton Abbey, Leicestershire on 25 October 1338 so was twenty months her husband's senior, and was the sole heir of her father John, Lord Segrave (1315-53). [17] She was also a co-heir, with her much younger half-sister Anne Manny (1354-84), to their mother Margaret, countess of Norfolk (c. 1322-99), Edward I's granddaughter, though ultimately Margaret outlived both her daughters and Anne's only child John Hastings, earl of Pembroke (1372-89), leaving her Mowbray/Segrave descendants as her sole heirs. Elizabeth Segrave was born just a few weeks after the death of her maternal grandfather Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, the elder of Edward II's half-brothers.

John Mowbray the father (b. November 1310) died on 4 October 1361, aged fifty, leaving his son John, who had turned twenty-one around Midsummer that year, as his heir. Mowbray's widow Elizabeth de Vere (d. 1375) and her third husband Sir William Cosynton later surrendered themselves to debtors' prison in London after Elizabeth's stepson John (b. 1340) sued them for wasting his estates given to her in dower. [18] John Mowbray the son and Elizabeth Segrave had a daughter and two sons: Eleanor, born on or just before 25 March 1364; John, born either on 1 June or 1 August 1365; and Thomas, probably born on or about 22 March 1367. [19] Thomas's IPM says he was thirty-three years and twenty-six weeks old when he died on 22 September 1399, which would place his date of birth around 22 March 1366. If his brother John was born in August 1365, this is impossible, and even if John was born on 1 June 1365 it is unlikely (albeit perhaps not impossible), given that women were "off limits" to their husbands until their purification forty days after childbirth, that Thomas was born only nine months and some weeks after his brother. To add to the confusion, two sets of jurors at their father's IPM stated that John was born in 1364, either at Whitsun or the feast of St Peter in Chains, but this is also impossible as his older sister Eleanor was born in March 1364. I imagine Thomas Mowbray was probably born in March 1367, not March 1366.

John Mowbray (b. 1340) left England shortly after 10 October 1367, and was "slain by Saracens" on his way to the Holy Land sometime between 17 June and 9 October 1368, aged only twenty-eight, leaving his three small children. As he died "in parts beyond seas", the jurors at his inquisition post mortem gave wildly varying dates for his death, and added disclaimers that they only 'thought' or 'understood' that he died on such and such a date "according to reports which came to England." [20] I can't find a date of death for his wife Elizabeth Segrave, Lady Mowbray, but she must have died before John, as his IPM records that he held several manors "by the courtesy of England of the inheritance of Elizabeth his wife, daughter and heir of John de Segrave," and that can only have been the case if she was dead. Perhaps she died after giving birth to Thomas. On 18 April 1372, John and Elizabeth's orphaned sons John and Thomas Mowbray were put in the care of their great-aunt Blanche of Lancaster, Lady Wake (d. 1380), Joan of Lancaster's eldest sister. [21] Elizabeth Segrave Mowbray's mother Margaret, countess and later duchess of Norfolk, outlived her by many years, but then, Margaret outlived just about everyone.

John Mowbray, born in 1365 and the heir of the Mowbrays, was made earl of Nottingham at Richard II's coronation in July 1377, but died on 8 or 10 February 1383 at the age of seventeen, unmarried. The jurors at his IPM estimated his brother and heir Thomas's death as anywhere between fifteen and nineteen, this latter age obviously being impossible as that would have made him older than John. [22] A few days later on 20 February 1383, Richard II promised to give Thomas Mowbray all his possessions in the king's hands if he married the heiress Elizabeth Lestrange of Blackmere, born c. 6 December 1373. Elizabeth, however, died on 23 August 1383, and Thomas married the earl of Arundel's daughter, also Elizabeth, widow of the earl of Salisbury's son William Montacute (d. August 1382). Richard II pardoned Thomas Mowbray a few years later for marrying without royal licence, and made him first duke of Norfolk in September 1397. [23] Thomas Mowbray is well-known to anyone who's read Shakespeare's play about Richard II as Henry of Lancaster's adversary in 1398, and the king exiled him from England for life in October that year.

When Margaret, formerly countess and now duchess of Norfolk in her own right, finally died on 24 March 1399, her rightful heir was her grandson Thomas Mowbray, who had also inherited the Segrave lands of his grandfather, Margaret's long-dead first husband John Segrave. Thomas Mowbray only outlived his grandmother by six months and died in exile in Venice on 22 September 1399, probably aged thirty-two (or thirty-three, according to his IPM). His heir was his and Elizabeth Arundel's elder son Thomas Mowbray, born 17 September 1385, who was executed by his uncle-in-law Henry IV in June 1405 leaving no children. [24] The Mowbray heir therefore was Thomas's (b. March 1366/67) younger son John, born in Calais on 3 August 1390, who married Katherine, daughter of Ralph Neville and Joan Beaufort, earl and countess of Westmorland. Thomas Mowbray, earl of Nottingham, was keeper of the port of Calais, and had gone back to England at the time of his second son's birth; evidently Elizabeth was too pregnant to be able to accompany him. She sent a servant named John Kendale over the Channel to inform Thomas of their son's birth and to ask what he wished the boy to be named, and John Mowbray's baptism took place six days after he was born, after Kendale returned to Calais with Thomas's instructions. Robert Gousell, one of Earl Thomas's squires, "carried a sword erect to the [Mowbrays'] house" after the baptism. [25] Probably in 1401, Robert married Thomas's widow Elizabeth, dowager duchess of Norfolk and countess of Nottingham, sister of the earl of Arundel, and was the father of two of her daughters. 

Sources

1) Calendar of Close Rolls 1288-96, p. 22; Calendar of Fine Rolls 1272-1307, p. 392; Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem 1291-1300, no. 472.
2) Catalogue of Ancient Deeds, C.6087.
3) CIPM 1291-1300, no. 472.
4) CCR 1302-07, pp. 390, 422.
5) Calendar of Patent Rolls 1292-1301, p. 323.
6) Complete Peerage, vol. 9, p. 379.
7) CIPM 1327-36, no. 250.
8) The National Archives SC 8/173/8631.
9) CPR 1324-27, p. 267; CIPM 1317-27, no. 53 (Joan), no. 433 (John de Bohun), no. 701 (William de Braose).
10) Calendar of Fine Rolls 1327-37, p. 267.
11) CPR 1327-30, p. 26; Kenneth Fowler, The King's Lieutenant: Henry of Grosmont, First Duke of Lancaster 1310-1361 (1969), p. 256 note 16.
12) CIPM 1361-65, no. 144.
13) The National Archives BCM /D/1/1/9 and 10.
14) Calendar of Papal Letters 1342-62, pp. 375, 385.
15) TNA BCM/D/1/1/5.
16) CPL 1342-62, p. 305; Petitions to the Pope 1342-1419, p. 151; CPR 1348-50, p. 373; CCR 1349-54, p. 51; TNA BCM/D/1/1/13 and 14.
17) CIPM 1352-60, nos. 116, 121.
18) CIPM 1361-65, no. 144; CPR 1367-70, p. 244.
19) CPR 1367-70, p. 237 (Eleanor); CIPM 1365-69, no. 397 (John); CIPM 1399-1405, no. 268 (Thomas).
20) CPR 1367-70, pp. 22, 158; Complete Peerage, vol. 9, p. 384; CIPM 1365-69, no. 397.
21) CCR 1369-74, p. 370.
22) CIPM 1377-84, nos. 819-29.
23) CPR 1381-85, pp. 229, 236; CPR 1389-92, p. 16; CIPM 1374-77, no. 105; CIPM 1377-84, nos. 1022-27; Calendar of Charter Rolls 1341-1417, p. 369.
24) CIPM 1399-1405, nos. 264, 268.
25) CIPM 1405-13, no. 336.