Notes
Note N1490
Index
John de Lacy (c. 1192 - 1240) was the 2nd Earl of Lincoln, of the fourth creation.
Background
He was the eldest son and heir of Roger de Lacy and his wife, Maud or Matilda de Clere (not of the de Clare family).[1]
Public life
He was hereditary constable of Chester and, in the 15th year of King John, undertook the payment of 7,000 marks to the crown, in the space of four years, for livery of the lands of his inheritance, and to be discharged of all his father's debts due to the exchequer, further obligating himself by oath, that in case he should ever swerve from his allegiance, and adhere to the king's enemies, all of his possessions should devolve upon the crown, promising also, that he would not marry without the king's license. By this agreement it was arranged that the king should retain the castles of Pontefract and Dunnington, still in his own hands; and that he, the said John, should allow 40 pounds per year, for the custody of those fortresses. But the next year he had Dunnington restored to him, upon hostages.
John de Lacy, 7th Baron of Halton Castle, 5th Lord of Bowland and hereditary constable of Chester, was one of the earliest who took up arms at the time of the Magna Charta, and was appointed to see that the new statutes were properly carried into effect and observed in the counties of York and Nottingham. He was one of twenty-five barons charged with overseeing the observance of Magna Carta in 1215.[2]
He was excommunicated by the Pope. Upon the accession of King Henry III. he joined a party of noblemen and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and did good service at the siege of Damietta. In 1232 he was made Earl of Lincoln and in 1240, governor of Chester and Beeston Castles. In 1237, his lordship was one of those appointed to prohibit Oto, the pope's prelate, from establishing anything derogatory to the king's crown and dignity, in the council of prelates then assembled; and the same year he was appointed High Sheriff of Cheshire, being likewise constituted Governor of the castle of Chester.
Private life
He married firstly Alice in 1214 in Pontefract, daughter of Gilbert de Aquila, who gave him one daughter Joan[3]. Alice died in 1216 in Pontefract and, after his marked gallantry at the siege of Damietta, he married secondly in 1221 Margaret de Quincy, only daughter and heiress of Robert de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, by Hawyse, 4th sister and co-heir of Ranulph de Mechines, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, which Ranulph, by a formal charter under his seal, granted the Earldom of Lincoln, that is, so much as he could grant thereof, to the said Hawyse, "to the end that she might be countess, and that her heirs might also enjoy the earldom;" which grant was confirmed by the king, and at the especial request of the countess, this John de Lacy, constable of Chester, through his marriage was allowed to succeed de Blondeville and was created by charter, dated Northampton, 23 November 1232, Earl of Lincoln, with remainder to the heirs of his body, by his wife, the above-mentioned Margaret.[1] In the contest which occurred during the same year, between the king and Richard Marshal, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Earl Marshal, Matthew Paris states that the Earl of Lincoln was brought over to the king's party, with John of Scotland, 7th Earl of Chester, by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, for a bribe of 1,000 marks.
Later life
He died on 22 July 1240 and was buried at the Cisterian Abbey of Stanlaw, in County Chester. The monk Matthew Paris, records: "On the 22nd day of July, in the year 1240, which was St. Magdalen's Day, John, Earl of Lincoln, after suffering from a long illness went the way of all flesh". Margaret, his wife, survived him and remarried Walter Marshal, 5th Earl of Pembroke.
Notes
^ a b Nicholas Vincent (2005-10). "Lacy, John de, third earl of Lincoln (c.1192-1240)"
. Oxford DNB. Retrieved 2008-01-29.
^ Holt, J.C. (1992). The Northerners: A Study in the Reign of King John. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. xxix. ISBN 0198203098.
^ Wightman, W. E., The Lacy Family in England and Normandy, 1066-1194 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966.), p. 261, Family History Library, 929.242 L119w.
Notes
Note N1491
Index
Margaret de Quincy, 2nd Countess of Lincoln suo jure (c. 1206 - March 1266) was a wealthy English noblewoman and heiress having inherited in her own right the Earldom of Lincoln and honours of Bolingbroke from her mother Hawise of Chester, received a dower from the estates of her first husband, and acquired a dower third from the extensive earldom of Pembroke following the death of her second husband, Walter Marshal, 5th Earl of Pembroke. Her first husband was John de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln, by whom she had two children. He was created 2nd Earl of Lincoln by right of his marriage to Margaret. Margaret has been described as "one of the two towering female figures of the mid-13th century".[1]
Family
Margaret was born in about 1206, the daughter and only child of Robert de Quincy and Hawise of Chester, herself the co-heiress of her uncle Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester. Hawise became suo jure Countess of Chester in April 1231 when her brother resigned the title in her favour.
Her paternal grandfather, Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester was one of the 25 sureties of the Magna Carta; as a result he was excommunicated by the Church in December 1215. Two years later her father died after having been accidentally poisoned through medicine prepared by a Cisterian monk.[2]
Life
On 23 November 1232, Margaret and her husband John de Lacy, Baron of Pontefract were formally invested by King Henry III as Countess and Earl of Lincoln. In April 1231 her maternal uncle Ranulf de Blondeville, 1st Earl of Lincoln had made an inter vivos gift, after receiving dispensation from the crown, of the Earldom of Lincoln to her mother Hawise. Her uncle granted her mother the title by a formal charter under his seal which was confirmed by King Henry III. Her mother was formally invested as suo jure 1st Countess of Lincoln on 27 October 1232 the day after her uncle's death. Likewise her mother Hawise of Chester received permission from King Henry III to grant the Earldom of Lincoln jointly to Margaret and her husband John, and less than a month later a second formal investiture took place, but this time for Margaret and her husband John de Lacy. Margaret became 2nd Countess of Lincoln suo jure (in her own right) and John de Lacy became 2nd Earl of Lincoln by right of his wife. (John de Lacy is mistakenly called the 1st Earl of Lincoln in many references.)
In 1238, Margaret and her husband paid King Henry the large sum of 5,000 pounds to obtain his agreement to the marriage of their daughter Maud to Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, 2nd Earl of Gloucester.
On 22 July 1240 her first husband John de Lacy died. Although he was nominally succeeded by their only son Edmund de Lacy (c.1227-1258) for titles and lands that included Baron of Pontefract, Baron of Halton, and Constable of Chester, Margaret at first controlled the estates in lieu of her son who was still in his minority and being brought up at the court of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence. Edmund was allowed to succeed to his titles and estates at the age of 18. Edmund was also Margaret's heir to the Earldom of Lincoln and also her other extensive estates that included the third of the Earldom of Pembroke that she had inherited from her second husband in 1845. Edmund was never able to become Earl of Lincoln, however, as he predeceased his mother by eight years.
As the widowed Countess of Lincoln suo jure, Margaret was brought into contact with some of the most important people in the county of Lincolnshire. Among these included Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, the most significant intellectual in England at the time who recognised Margaret's position as Countess of Lincoln to be legitimate and important, and he viewed Margaret as both patron and peer. He dedicated Les Reules Seynt Robert, his treatise on estate and household management, to her.[3]
Marriages and issue
Sometime before 21 June 1221, Margaret married as his second wife, her first husband John de Lacy of Pontefract. The purpose of the alliance was to bring the rich Lincoln and Bolingbroke inheritance of her mother to the de Lacy family.[4] John's first marriage to Alice de l'Aigle had not produced issue; although John and Margaret together had two children:
Maud de Lacy (25 January 1223- 1287/10 March 1289), married in 1238 Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, 2nd Earl of Gloucester, by whom she had seven children.
Edmund de Lacy, Baron of Pontefract (died 2 June 1258), married in 1247 Alasia of Saluzzo, daughter of Manfredo III of Saluzzo, by whom he had three children, including Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln.
She married secondly on 6 January 1242, Walter Marshal, 5th Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Striguil, Lord of Leinster, Earl Marshal of England, one of the ten children of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke. This marriage, like those of his four brothers, did not produce any children; therefore when he died at Goodrich Castle on 24 November 1245, Margaret inherited a third of the Earldom of Pembroke as well as the properties and lordship of Kildare. Her dower third outweighed any of the individual holdings of the 13 different co-heirs of the five Marshal sisters which meant she would end up controlling more of the earldom of Pembroke and lordship of Leinster than any of the other co-heirs; this brought her into direct conflict with her own daughter, Maud whose husband was by virtue of his mother Isabel Marshal one of the co-heirs of the Pembroke earldom.[5] As a result of her quarrels with her daughter, Margaret preferred her grandson Henry de Lacy who would became the 3rd Earl of Lincoln on reaching majority (21) in 1272. She and her Italian daughter-in-law Alasia of Saluzzo shared in the wardship of Henry who was Margaret's heir, and the relationship between the two women appeared to have been cordial.[6]
Death and legacy
Margaret was a careful overseer of her property and tenants, and gracious in her dealings with her son's children, neighbours and tenants.[7] She received two papal dispensations in 1251, the first to erect a portable altar; the other so that she could hear mass in the Cisterian monastery.[8] Margaret died in March 1266[9] at Hampstead. Her death was recorded in the Annals of Worcester and in the Annals of Winchester.[10] She was buried in the Church of the Hospitallers in Clerkenwell.[11]
Margaret was described as "one of the two towering female figures of the mid-13th century"; the other being Ela, Countess of Salisbury.[12]
References
1. ^ Linda Elizabeth Mitchell, Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Politics in England 1225-1350, p.42, Google Books accessed 28 September 2009
2. ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Chester
3. ^ Mitchell, p.32
4. ^ David A. Carpenter, The Struggle For Mastery in Britain, 1066-1284, p.421, Google Books, accessed 28 September 2009
5. ^ Mitchell, p.33
6. ^ Mitchell, p.34-35
7. ^ Mitchell, p.39
8. ^ Mitchell, p.40
9. ^ Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Lincoln
10. ^ Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Lincoln
11. ^ Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Lincoln
12. ^ Mitchell, p.42
Linda Elizabeth Mitchell, Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Politics in England 1225-1350, Google Books accessed 28 September 2009
Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Earls of Lincoln
David A. Carpenter The Struggle For Mastery: Britain 1066-1284, Google Books accessed 28 September 2009