I seem to have written a lot about abductions of noblewomen on the blog: Elizabeth de Burgh in 1316, her sister Eleanor Despenser in 1329, their niece Margaret Audley in 1336, and Margaret Multon in c. 1316. Another famous one was Alice de Lacy, countess of Lincoln, by Hugh Frene in late 1335 or early 1336; I'll write about this one sometime too. Sadly the abduction of heiresses was all too common in the fourteenth century, and here's yet another that I don't believe I've seen mentioned anywhere before: the abduction of Elizabeth Hertrigg by Hugh Despenser the Elder in 1312, though this one did not result in forced marriage. The unfortunate Elizabeth was put through another horrible experience as well in 1318.
Elizabeth was the daughter and heir of John Hertrigg (the modern spelling is Hartridge), a tenant in chief who held lands in Berkshire, Sussex and Dorset, and her mother was called Nichola. Elizabeth Hertrigg was born either on 2 February 1303 or 1304: her father's Inquisition Post Mortem stated that she had either turned five or six years old "on the feast of the Purification last" in November 1309. John Hertrigg died before 24 October 1309 when the writ for his IPM was issued, and on 19 December, Edward II granted the rights to Elizabeth's marriage to one George Percy, called "king's yeoman." Elizabeth's mother Nichola was given a "mandate for the delivery of the body of the heiress" to Percy (this rather dehumanising language is typical of the era), but in fact it seems as though little Elizabeth remained with her mother rather than going to live in the Percy household. In February 1312, Elizabeth was living in Wambrook, Dorset, a manor which had belonged to her late father. [CIPM 1307-17, no. 212; CFR 1307-19, p. 50; CPR 1307-13, p. 203] Her mother Nichola was still in possession of Wambrook in 1330. [See here] Sometime before 29 January 1310, Edward II granted custody of the late John Hertrigg's lands, until Elizabeth came of age, to Hugh Despenser the Elder. [CCR 1307-13, pp. 190, 323]
On 22 February 1312 Elizabeth Hertrigg had recently turned either eight or nine years old, and was living at her late father's manor of Wambrook, Dorset (the village of Wambrook is now in Somerset) presumably with her mother Nichola. Officially she was in the custody of George Percy, who planned to marry her to his son John when she was old enough. Percy stated that Elizabeth was at Wambrook "under guard" (almost certainly for her own safety rather than because she wasn't allowed to leave!), but this made no difference to what was about to happen to her. Hugh Despenser the Elder sent 100 or more men "with force and arms" to abduct Elizabeth Hertrigg from Wambrook, and succeeded. The reasons for the abduction are not clear, but presumably had something to do with Despenser's custody of the lands of Elizabeth's inheritance. The 100 or more men who abducted Elizabeth on 22 February 1312 on Despenser's orders included Thomas le Artellet, Reginald Seint Cler, Thomas Wynslade, John Jorge, Robert Pyron, Adam Fraunceis, and John Pecche and his brother Nicholas. [George Percy's petition is TNA SC 8/259/12929] What's interesting about all this is that Edward II was at this time skulking in the north of England with Piers Gaveston, returned from his third exile, and Despenser the Elder was usually his close adherent and ally and was at court more often than not - yet was busily abducting a young girl at the other end of the country. As far as I can tell from the evidence of charter witness lists, Despenser did not return to court until July 1312, several weeks after Piers Gaveston's murder, when he met the king in London. Given Despenser's loyal and devoted support of Edward II for the whole of his reign, it's hardly surprising to note that he does not seem to have suffered as much as a slap on the wrist for his illegal behaviour. That's the fourteenth century for you.
I don't know what happened to Elizabeth Hertrigg after her abduction by Hugh Despenser the Elder, but she married her guardian George Percy's son John sometime before July 1318, so evidently Despenser restored her to her guardian or to her mother at some point. That month or a little before, John Percy issued a complaint "touching the persons who had seized (rapuerunt) Elizabeth his wife at Shaldefeld Parva [nowadays Great Chalfield], co. Wilts, abducted her, and carried away her goods." [CPR 1317-21, p. 278] The translators of the Patent Roll used the word 'seized' for rapuerunt, and indeed it can mean that, or 'ravished.' The real meaning in this case, however, is made clear in an entry on the Close Roll in July 1319. Edward II ordered the sheriff of Wiltshire to "supersede until further orders the putting in exigent to be outlawed of John son of Ingelram Berenger, who was put in exigent because he was lately indicted in the sheriff's county court of the rape and abduction of Elizabeth wife of John Percy...John has surrendered himself to the king's peace and prison to stand to right concerning the above, and the king has meanwhile committed him to a certain keeper for safe-keeping." [CCR 1318-23, pp. 150-51; bold mine]
Sir Ingelram Berenger was said to be seven years old when his father John died in 1272, hence born c. 1265. His mother Christina, daughter and heir of Sir Matthew Wake, was born c. 1232. [CIPM 1216-72, nos. 128, 177, 794] Ingelram was a long-term adherent of Hugh Despenser the Elder (b. 1 March 1261) and served in his retinue for decades. And now his son had raped Elizabeth Percy née Hertrigg, six years after Despenser the Elder had sent 100 men to abduct her. Apparently the unfortunate Elizabeth was abducted from her home both in 1312 and in 1318, firstly in Dorset and secondly in Wiltshire. George Percy, Elizabeth's father-in-law and former guardian, complained also in July 1318 that ten men had stolen his goods at Great Chalfield, and evidently Elizabeth and her husband were living with his father in 1318. [CPR 1317-21, p. 278] I don't recognise most of the names of the ten men he accused of theft, but one was John son of Ingelram Berenger, and another was our old friend Malcolm Musard, certainly a Despenser adherent. It would seem that the feud, or quarrel, or whatever it was, that Hugh Despenser the Elder had begun against George Percy and his son and daughter-in-law in 1312 was continuing six years later, on the part of Despenser's adherents at least. It would also seem that some of the ten men who stole George Percy's goods in his Wiltshire home had decided to abduct and rape his daughter-in-law while they were at it. How unspeakably vile. Elizabeth was born in 1303 or 1304, so was still only fourteen or fifteen in 1318. She had been a young child when Despenser the Elder's men took her from her home, and was still only a teenager when this second hideous ordeal happened to her. John Berenger the perpetrator might have been the same age: at his father Ingelram's IPM in June 1336, John was said to be either 24 (clearly impossible as this would make him six years old in 1318) or 32 years old. [CIPM 1336-46, no. 27] If this is correct, he was also born about 1304 and was about fourteen in 1318. Edward II's statement that he had committed John to a keeper in 1319 probably also indicates that John was then underage.
John Berenger was released from prison at some point, I don't know when, and succeeded to his father's lands in 1336. His first wife Alice Stonor, daughter of Sir John Stonor (chief justice of the court of common pleas), died childless sometime after May 1332, and John married secondly a woman called Emma before January 1334. With her he had a son named Ingelram after his father, who was born around 19 June 1341 ("aged two years on Thursday next before the Nativity of St John the Baptist, 17 Edward III"). John died on 26 September 1343. Little Ingelram Berenger died soon after his father, and his IPM was held on 8 October 1344. This left the boy's sister Christina Berenger, John and Emma's daughter, as the Berenger heir, but she also died underage on 12 September 1349. [Hampshire Feet of Fines, CP/25/1/205/22, nos. 14, 50; CIPM 1336-46, nos. 467, 468; CIPM 1347-52, no. 297. Christina's heir was her cousin Nicholas Berenger, son of Nicholas, younger son of Ingelram the elder and brother of John.] John Berenger's widow Emma married secondly Sir Edmund Hakelut, had a son Leonard Hakelut around 1352, and lived until January 1380. [CIPM 1377-84, no. 241]
As for John Berenger's victim Elizabeth Percy née Hertrigg, she had a son from her marriage to John Percy called William Percy, who was probably born in 1337 (he was said to be two years old in late 1339). That's quite a late birth for a couple who married in or before 1318; perhaps they had fertility issues. John Percy died before 6 May 1339 when the writ for his IPM was issued, and in early March 1340 Elizabeth née Hertrigg was given permission to marry a second husband of the king's allegiance. By August 1343, she was married to William Burton. [CIPM 1336-46, no. 225; CPR 1338-40, p. 434; CCR 1343-6, p. 170; CFR 1337-47, p. 128] I haven't been able to find the date of her death, though she was still alive in October 1351. [CPR 1350-4, p. 173] According to this, Elizabeth and John Percy had two other children called John and Margaret, and an entry on the Patent Roll confirms that she had a daughter Margaret. Her second husband William Burton had a son called Thomas, and by June 1346 Thomas had married Elizabeth's daughter Margaret, i.e. his stepsister. [CPR 1345-8, p. 128]
Both George and John Percy had joined the household of Edward II's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, future earl of Kent, by February 1320. [CPR 1317-21, pp. 419, 435] One very interesting postscript to this whole situation is that George and John Percy, and Ingelram Berenger, were all deeply involved in the earl of Kent's plot to free the supposedly dead Edward II from captivity in 1329/30. Another man involved was Sir John Pecche, presumably the same man who had helped the elder Despenser abduct Elizabeth Hertrigg from Wambrook in February 1312. George Percy, Ingelram Berenger, John Pecche and a fourth man, Fulk FitzWarin, lord of Whittington in Shropshire, were linked together in the chancery rolls as some of the earl of Kent's most important adherents. [CPR 1327-30, pp. 557, 565, CCR 1330-3, p. 95, and see my English Historical Review article from 2011 on Kent's adherents] Rebellion sometimes made strange bedfellows. I wonder what Elizabeth made of it all.
Elizabeth was the daughter and heir of John Hertrigg (the modern spelling is Hartridge), a tenant in chief who held lands in Berkshire, Sussex and Dorset, and her mother was called Nichola. Elizabeth Hertrigg was born either on 2 February 1303 or 1304: her father's Inquisition Post Mortem stated that she had either turned five or six years old "on the feast of the Purification last" in November 1309. John Hertrigg died before 24 October 1309 when the writ for his IPM was issued, and on 19 December, Edward II granted the rights to Elizabeth's marriage to one George Percy, called "king's yeoman." Elizabeth's mother Nichola was given a "mandate for the delivery of the body of the heiress" to Percy (this rather dehumanising language is typical of the era), but in fact it seems as though little Elizabeth remained with her mother rather than going to live in the Percy household. In February 1312, Elizabeth was living in Wambrook, Dorset, a manor which had belonged to her late father. [CIPM 1307-17, no. 212; CFR 1307-19, p. 50; CPR 1307-13, p. 203] Her mother Nichola was still in possession of Wambrook in 1330. [See here] Sometime before 29 January 1310, Edward II granted custody of the late John Hertrigg's lands, until Elizabeth came of age, to Hugh Despenser the Elder. [CCR 1307-13, pp. 190, 323]
On 22 February 1312 Elizabeth Hertrigg had recently turned either eight or nine years old, and was living at her late father's manor of Wambrook, Dorset (the village of Wambrook is now in Somerset) presumably with her mother Nichola. Officially she was in the custody of George Percy, who planned to marry her to his son John when she was old enough. Percy stated that Elizabeth was at Wambrook "under guard" (almost certainly for her own safety rather than because she wasn't allowed to leave!), but this made no difference to what was about to happen to her. Hugh Despenser the Elder sent 100 or more men "with force and arms" to abduct Elizabeth Hertrigg from Wambrook, and succeeded. The reasons for the abduction are not clear, but presumably had something to do with Despenser's custody of the lands of Elizabeth's inheritance. The 100 or more men who abducted Elizabeth on 22 February 1312 on Despenser's orders included Thomas le Artellet, Reginald Seint Cler, Thomas Wynslade, John Jorge, Robert Pyron, Adam Fraunceis, and John Pecche and his brother Nicholas. [George Percy's petition is TNA SC 8/259/12929] What's interesting about all this is that Edward II was at this time skulking in the north of England with Piers Gaveston, returned from his third exile, and Despenser the Elder was usually his close adherent and ally and was at court more often than not - yet was busily abducting a young girl at the other end of the country. As far as I can tell from the evidence of charter witness lists, Despenser did not return to court until July 1312, several weeks after Piers Gaveston's murder, when he met the king in London. Given Despenser's loyal and devoted support of Edward II for the whole of his reign, it's hardly surprising to note that he does not seem to have suffered as much as a slap on the wrist for his illegal behaviour. That's the fourteenth century for you.
I don't know what happened to Elizabeth Hertrigg after her abduction by Hugh Despenser the Elder, but she married her guardian George Percy's son John sometime before July 1318, so evidently Despenser restored her to her guardian or to her mother at some point. That month or a little before, John Percy issued a complaint "touching the persons who had seized (rapuerunt) Elizabeth his wife at Shaldefeld Parva [nowadays Great Chalfield], co. Wilts, abducted her, and carried away her goods." [CPR 1317-21, p. 278] The translators of the Patent Roll used the word 'seized' for rapuerunt, and indeed it can mean that, or 'ravished.' The real meaning in this case, however, is made clear in an entry on the Close Roll in July 1319. Edward II ordered the sheriff of Wiltshire to "supersede until further orders the putting in exigent to be outlawed of John son of Ingelram Berenger, who was put in exigent because he was lately indicted in the sheriff's county court of the rape and abduction of Elizabeth wife of John Percy...John has surrendered himself to the king's peace and prison to stand to right concerning the above, and the king has meanwhile committed him to a certain keeper for safe-keeping." [CCR 1318-23, pp. 150-51; bold mine]
Sir Ingelram Berenger was said to be seven years old when his father John died in 1272, hence born c. 1265. His mother Christina, daughter and heir of Sir Matthew Wake, was born c. 1232. [CIPM 1216-72, nos. 128, 177, 794] Ingelram was a long-term adherent of Hugh Despenser the Elder (b. 1 March 1261) and served in his retinue for decades. And now his son had raped Elizabeth Percy née Hertrigg, six years after Despenser the Elder had sent 100 men to abduct her. Apparently the unfortunate Elizabeth was abducted from her home both in 1312 and in 1318, firstly in Dorset and secondly in Wiltshire. George Percy, Elizabeth's father-in-law and former guardian, complained also in July 1318 that ten men had stolen his goods at Great Chalfield, and evidently Elizabeth and her husband were living with his father in 1318. [CPR 1317-21, p. 278] I don't recognise most of the names of the ten men he accused of theft, but one was John son of Ingelram Berenger, and another was our old friend Malcolm Musard, certainly a Despenser adherent. It would seem that the feud, or quarrel, or whatever it was, that Hugh Despenser the Elder had begun against George Percy and his son and daughter-in-law in 1312 was continuing six years later, on the part of Despenser's adherents at least. It would also seem that some of the ten men who stole George Percy's goods in his Wiltshire home had decided to abduct and rape his daughter-in-law while they were at it. How unspeakably vile. Elizabeth was born in 1303 or 1304, so was still only fourteen or fifteen in 1318. She had been a young child when Despenser the Elder's men took her from her home, and was still only a teenager when this second hideous ordeal happened to her. John Berenger the perpetrator might have been the same age: at his father Ingelram's IPM in June 1336, John was said to be either 24 (clearly impossible as this would make him six years old in 1318) or 32 years old. [CIPM 1336-46, no. 27] If this is correct, he was also born about 1304 and was about fourteen in 1318. Edward II's statement that he had committed John to a keeper in 1319 probably also indicates that John was then underage.
John Berenger was released from prison at some point, I don't know when, and succeeded to his father's lands in 1336. His first wife Alice Stonor, daughter of Sir John Stonor (chief justice of the court of common pleas), died childless sometime after May 1332, and John married secondly a woman called Emma before January 1334. With her he had a son named Ingelram after his father, who was born around 19 June 1341 ("aged two years on Thursday next before the Nativity of St John the Baptist, 17 Edward III"). John died on 26 September 1343. Little Ingelram Berenger died soon after his father, and his IPM was held on 8 October 1344. This left the boy's sister Christina Berenger, John and Emma's daughter, as the Berenger heir, but she also died underage on 12 September 1349. [Hampshire Feet of Fines, CP/25/1/205/22, nos. 14, 50; CIPM 1336-46, nos. 467, 468; CIPM 1347-52, no. 297. Christina's heir was her cousin Nicholas Berenger, son of Nicholas, younger son of Ingelram the elder and brother of John.] John Berenger's widow Emma married secondly Sir Edmund Hakelut, had a son Leonard Hakelut around 1352, and lived until January 1380. [CIPM 1377-84, no. 241]
As for John Berenger's victim Elizabeth Percy née Hertrigg, she had a son from her marriage to John Percy called William Percy, who was probably born in 1337 (he was said to be two years old in late 1339). That's quite a late birth for a couple who married in or before 1318; perhaps they had fertility issues. John Percy died before 6 May 1339 when the writ for his IPM was issued, and in early March 1340 Elizabeth née Hertrigg was given permission to marry a second husband of the king's allegiance. By August 1343, she was married to William Burton. [CIPM 1336-46, no. 225; CPR 1338-40, p. 434; CCR 1343-6, p. 170; CFR 1337-47, p. 128] I haven't been able to find the date of her death, though she was still alive in October 1351. [CPR 1350-4, p. 173] According to this, Elizabeth and John Percy had two other children called John and Margaret, and an entry on the Patent Roll confirms that she had a daughter Margaret. Her second husband William Burton had a son called Thomas, and by June 1346 Thomas had married Elizabeth's daughter Margaret, i.e. his stepsister. [CPR 1345-8, p. 128]
Both George and John Percy had joined the household of Edward II's half-brother Edmund of Woodstock, future earl of Kent, by February 1320. [CPR 1317-21, pp. 419, 435] One very interesting postscript to this whole situation is that George and John Percy, and Ingelram Berenger, were all deeply involved in the earl of Kent's plot to free the supposedly dead Edward II from captivity in 1329/30. Another man involved was Sir John Pecche, presumably the same man who had helped the elder Despenser abduct Elizabeth Hertrigg from Wambrook in February 1312. George Percy, Ingelram Berenger, John Pecche and a fourth man, Fulk FitzWarin, lord of Whittington in Shropshire, were linked together in the chancery rolls as some of the earl of Kent's most important adherents. [CPR 1327-30, pp. 557, 565, CCR 1330-3, p. 95, and see my English Historical Review article from 2011 on Kent's adherents] Rebellion sometimes made strange bedfellows. I wonder what Elizabeth made of it all.
What a horrible couple of episodes for Elizabeth to endure. Poor woman/girl. I didn't know Ingelram had a son called John, probably because he's never cropped up in any of my research. So I'm really pleased you've found out this detail, awful though it is.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jules! I'm pleased to have been able to tell Elizabeth's story at last. And to have illuminated the Berengers somewhat. Ingelram's younger son Nicholas had a son Nicholas who died about 1382, IIRC, leaving two daughters as his heirs. One had the unusual name Anstice, or Anastasia.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if poor Elizabeth was a pawn in some dispute over lands and wealth in 1312 and later on. And it looks like in 1318 things got out of hand when the worst happened to her.
ReplyDeleteThis story shows the brutal reality of the 1300's where knights and noble men could and did behave like the laws of the land did not apply to them. No wonder as they were supposed to up hold the law for the king and their own estates. The harsh reality was that they left it to the sheriffs and others who had their hands full with the commoners committing crimes as well.
Some of the most notorious criminal gangs of the era were composed of knights and/or lead by a knight who again had a superior noble man protecting him. Some gangs worked for powerful abbeys too so the problem of the law enforcement was a really acute.