Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_le_Despenser,_1st_Earl_of_Winchester

Sometimes referred to as "the Elder Despenser", he was for a time the chief adviser to King Edward II of England.

He was the son of Hugh le Despencer, 1st Baron le Despencer (or Despenser), and Aline Basset, only daughter and heiress of Philip Basset. His father was killed at the Battle of Evesham when Hugh was just a boy, but Hugh's inheritance was saved through the influence of his maternal grandfather (who had been loyal to the king). He married Isabella de Beauchamp, daughter of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick and Maud FitzJohn.

He served Edward I on numerous occasions in battle and in diplomacy and was created a baron by writ of summons to Parliament in 1295. His son, Hugh Despenser the Younger, became a favorite of Edward II, in what is believed to be a homosexual relationship. Hugh the Elder was loyal to his son and the King, which worried the barons. To that time, his highest office was justice of the forests.

He was one of the few barons to remain loyal to Edward during the controversy regarding Piers Gaveston. Despenser became Edward's loyal servant and chief administrator after Gaveston was executed in 1312, but the jealousy of other barons - and, more importantly, his own corruption and unjust behavior - led to his being exiled along with his son Hugh Despenser the younger in 1321.

Edward found it difficult to manage without them, and recalled them to England a year later, an action which enraged the queen, Isabella, the more so when Despenser was created Earl of Winchester in 1322. Although not as bad as his son, Despencer the Elder was accused by a significant number of people of widespread criminality during the next few years, often involving false accusations of trespass or theft and the extortion of money or land.

When Isabella, Queen of England, and her lover, Roger Mortimer, led a rebellion against her husband Edward, they captured both Despensers?first the elder, later the younger. Queen Isabella interceded for Hugh the elder, but his enemies, notably Roger Mortimer and Henry, Earl of Lancaster, insisted both father and son should face trial and execution.

The elder Despenser was hanged immediately in his armour at Bristol on 27 October 1326. He was then beheaded and his body cut into pieces for the dogs. His head was sent for display to Winchester, which had supported the king.

Pardons were issued to thousands of people who had been falsely accused by Despencer following his death.



Buried:
Grave location, biography, historical photo of death, annd photo of tomb:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=16441434

Hugh married Isabella de Beauchamp, Baroness Despenser. Isabella (daughter of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick and Maude Fitzjohn, Countess of Warwick) was born ca 1263, Warwickshire, England; died Bef 30 May 1306, Worcestershire, England; was buried , St Mary the Virgin Church, Elmley Castle, Worcestershire, England. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Despenser_the_Younger

He was the son and heir of Hugh le Despenser, Earl of Winchester (the elder Despenser), and Isabella daughter of William, 9th Earl of Warwick. He rose to national prominence as royal chamberlain and a favourite of Edward II of England. A series of subsequent controversies eventually led to him being hanged, drawn and quartered.

Hugh le Despenser the younger was knight of Hanley Castle, Worcestershire, King's Chamberlain, Constable of Odiham Castle, Keeper of the castle and town of Portchester, Keeper of the castle, town and barton of Bristol and, in Wales, Keeper of the castle and town of Dryslwyn, and the region of Cantref Mawr, Carmarthenshire. Also in Wales, he was Lord of Glamorgan which gave him possession of Cardiff Castle. In addition he was Keeper of the castles, manor, and lands of Brecknock, Hay, Cantref Selyf, etc., in County Brecon, and, in England of Huntington, Herefordshire. He was given Wallingford Castle although this had previously been given to Queen Isabella for life.

In May 1306 Hugh le Despenser the younger was knighted, and that summer he married Eleanor de Clare, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, 9th Lord of Clare and 7th Earl of Hertford and Joan of Acre.

Eleanor's grandfather, Edward I, owed the elder Despenser 2,000 marks (£1,000,000 at today's prices) and the marriage settled this debt, and was a reward for the elder Hugh's loyal service.

When Eleanor's brother, Gilbert, was killed in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn, she unexpectedly became one of the three co-heiresses to the rich Gloucester earldom, and in her right, Hugh inherited Glamorgan and other properties. In just a few years Hugh went from a landless knight to one of the wealthiest magnates in the kingdom.

Eleanor was also the niece of the new king, Edward II of England, and this connection brought Despenser closer to the English royal court. He joined the baronial opposition to Piers Gaveston, the king's favorite (and Hugh's brother-in-law, as Gaveston was married to Eleanor's sister Margaret).

Eager for power and wealth, Despenser seized Tonbridge Castle in 1315, after his brother-in-law's death under the misapprehension that it belonged to his mother-in-law (he relinquished it on discovering that the rightful owner was the Archbishop of Canterbury).

Hugh le Despenser the younger became royal chamberlain in 1318. As a royal courtier, Despenser maneuvered into the affections of King Edward, displacing the previous favorite, Roger d'Amory. This was much to the dismay of the baronage as they saw him both taking their rightful places at court and being a worse version of Gaveston. By 1320 his greed was running free. He also supposedly vowed to be revenged on Roger Mortimer because Mortimer's grandfather had killed Hugh's grandfather, and once stated (though probably in jest) that he regretted he could not control the wind. By 1321 he had earned many enemies in every stratum of society, from Queen Isabella to the barons to the common people. There was even a plot to kill Despenser by sticking his wax likeness with pins.

Finally the barons prevailed upon King Edward and forced Despenser and his father into exile in August 1321. Following the exile of the Despensers, the barons who opposed them fell out among themselves, and the King summoned the two men back to England. Early in the following year, King Edward took advantage of these divisions to secure the surrender of Marcher Lord Roger Mortimer, and the defeat and execution of the Earl of Lancaster, the Despensers' chief opponents. The pair returned and King Edward quickly reinstated Despenser as royal favourite. The time from the Despensers' return from exile until the end of Edward II's reign was a time of uncertainty in England. With the main baronial opposition leaderless and weak, having been defeated at the Battle of Boroughbridge, and Edward willing to let them do as they pleased, the Despensers were left unchecked. This maladministration caused hostile feeling for them and, by proxy, Edward II. Despenser repeatedly pressed King Edward to execute Mortimer, who had been held prisoner in the Tower of London, following his surrender. However, Mortimer escaped from the Tower and fled to France.

Like his father, Hugh Despencer the Elder, was accused by a significant number of people of widespread criminality. Despenser seized the Welsh lands of his wife's inheritance, ignoring the claims of his two brothers-in-law and cheated his sister-in-law Elizabeth de Clare out of Gower and Usk. During his exile he became a pirate in the English Channel, "a sea monster, lying in wait for merchants as they crossed the sea". In 1318 he murdered Llywelyn Bren, a Welsh hostage in his custody. He imprisoned Sir William Cokerell in the Tower of London where he was forced to pay to save his life, and he forced Alice de Lacy, Countess of Lincoln, to give up her lands.

Queen Isabella had a special dislike for Hugh le Despenser the younger. (Froissart wrote that "he was a sodomite.")[homosexual] Alison Weir, in her 2005 book Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England, speculates that he had raped Isabella and that was the source of her hatred. While Isabella was in France to negotiate between her husband and the French king, she formed a liaison with Roger Mortimer and began planning an invasion. Despenser supposedly tried to bribe French courtiers to assassinate Isabella, sending barrels of silver as payment.

Roger Mortimer and the Queen invaded England in October 1326. Their forces numbered only about 1,500 mercenaries to begin with, but the majority of the nobility rallied to them throughout October and November. By contrast, very few people were prepared to fight for Edward II, mainly because of the hatred that the Despensers had aroused. The Despensers fled West with the King, with a sizeable sum from the treasury. The escape was unsuccessful. Separated from the elder Despenser, the King and the younger Despenser were deserted by most of their followers, and were captured near Neath in mid-November. King Edward was placed in captivity and later forced to abdicate in favour of his son. The elder Despenser (the father) was hanged at Bristol on 27 October 1326, and younger Despenser (the son) was brought to trial.

Hugh le Despenser the younger tried to starve himself before his trial, but he did face trial on 24 November 1326, in Hereford, before Mortimer and the Queen. In Froissart's account of the execution, Despenser was then tied firmly to a ladder, and ?in full view of the crowd? had his genitals sliced off and burned in his still-conscious sight, then his entrails slowly pulled out, and, finally, his heart cut out and thrown into the fire. Froissart (or rather Jean le Bel's chronicle, on which he relied) is the only source to describe castration, where all other contemporary accounts have Despenser hanged, drawn and quartered (which usually involved castration). Finally, his corpse was beheaded, his body cut into four pieces, and his head mounted on the gates of London.

Four years later, in December 1330, his widow was given permission to gather and bury his remains at the family's Gloucestershire estate, but only the head, a thigh bone and a few vertebrae were returned to her.

Eleanor and Hugh had nine children to survive infancy:

1. Hugh le Despencer, 2nd Baron le Despencer (1308-1349), 2nd Baron Le Despencer, who was restored to his grandfather's title of Baron le Despencer in 1338. He had no surviving children.

2. Gilbert le Despencer

3. Edward le Despenser, (1310-1342), soldier, killed at the siege of Vannes; father of Edward II le Despenser, Knight of the Garter, who became Baron Le Despencer in a new creation of 1357.

4. Isabel le Despenser, Countess of Arundel (1312-1356), married Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel.

5. John le Despenser, (1311-June 1366).

6.Eleanor le Despenser, (c. 1315-1351), nun at Sempringham Priory

7. Joan le Despenser, (c. 1317-1384), nun at Shaftesbury Abbey

8.Margaret le Despenser, (c. 1319-1337), nun at Whatton Priory

Elizabeth le Despenser, born 1325, died 13 July 1389, married Maurice de Berkeley, 4th Baron Berkeley.


Buried:
Grave location, photo of tomb, and biography:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=84236536

Hugh married Eleanor de la Clare, Lady of Glamorgan. Eleanor (daughter of Gilbert (The Red) de la Clare, 7th Earl of Hertford and 3rd Earl of Gloucester and Princess Joan of Acre) was born 03 Oct 1292, Caerphilly, Wales; died 30 Jun 1337, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England; was buried , Tewkesbury Abbey, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_le_Despenser,_Countess_of_Arundel

She was the eldest daughter of Hugh Despenser the Younger and Eleanor de Clare. She was descended from Edward I of England through her mother, while her father is famous for being the favorite of Edward II of England.

Though he had stood against Edward II in the past, Edmund FitzAlan, 9th Earl of Arundel had loyally supported him since the 1320s. Thus it must have seemed to be politically prudent to Edmund to marry his heir Richard to the eldest daughter of the King's closest friend and adviser Hugh le Despenser. For Hugh's part, a large incentive for him must have been that he could expect his daughter Isabel would one day become Countess of Arundel.

On 9 February 1321 at the royal manor Havering-atte-Bower, Isabel was duly married to Richard FitzAlan, the heir to the earldom of Arundel. Isabel was only eight at the time, while Richard was fifteen (not seven as has been claimed). Their respective ages would come up later when Richard would try to seek an annulment.

Richard and Isabel had one son, Edmund Fitzalan, born in 1327, and in 1331 Isabel's husband became earl of Arundel. However, in December 1344 Richard Fitzalan had their marriage annulled on the grounds that he had never freely consented to marry Isabel and that they both had renounced their vows at puberty but had been "forced by blows to cohabit, so that a son was born". Isabel retired to several manors in Essex that were given to her by her ex-husband. After receiving a papal dispensation, Richard married Isabel's first cousin Eleanor of Lancaster, with whom he had apparently been having an affair.

Richard and Isabel's only child, Edmund Fitzalan, was rendered illegitimate by this annulment and so was unable to inherit his father's earldom. When his father died in 1376 Edmund quarreled with his half-siblings, the children of his father's second marriage, over inheritance rights. Edmund was imprisoned in the Tower of London until he was released in 1377 by request of his brothers-in-law.

After their father was executed for treason in 1326, Isabel and her youngest sister Elizabeth were the only daughters of Hugh the Younger to escape being confined in nunneries, Isabel because she was already married and Elizabeth because of her youth.

Buried:
Grave location, portrait and abbey photo:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=62397103

There is an inscription on the chapel where she rests. It runs along the outside and inside walls as follows:
"Mementote dne Isabelle le Despenser Comitisse de Warrewick Que hanc capellam fundavit in honore bte Marie Magdalene Et obiit Londiniis apud Minres A° Dni MCCCCXXXIX Die Scti Jhis Evngste Et sepulta e i choro i dextra patris sui cuj. Ame parcet Deus. Amen."

Translation:
"Remember the Lady Isabelle le Despencer, Countess of Warwick, who founded this chapel to the honour of the blessed Mary Magdalene, and died in London in the Minories AD 1439 on the day of Saint John the Evangelist [27th December], and was buried in the Choir on the right hand of her father, on whose soul may God have pity. Amen."

Isabel married Richard (Cropped Hat) Fitz Alan, 10th Earl of Arundel and 8th Earl of Surrey 09 Feb 1321, Havering-atte-Bower, London Borough of Havering, England. Richard (son of Edmund FITZALAN, Lord of Arundel and Alice DE WARREN) was born 1306, Arundel, Sussex, England; died 24 Jan 1376, Sussex, England; was buried , Chichester Cathedral, Chichester, West Sussex, England. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_FitzAlan,_10th_Earl_of_Arundel

Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and 8th Earl of Surrey married twice:

Firstly, on 9 February 1321 at Havering-atte-Bower, to Isabel le Despenser (born 1312, living 1356, and may have died circa 1376-7). At that time, the future earl was either eight or fifteen, and his bride nine years old. Later he repudiated this bride, and was granted an annulment by Pope Clement VI in December 1344 on the grounds that he had been underage and unwilling. By this marriage, Richard and Isabel had one son (when Richard was either fourteen or twenty-one, and Isabel fifteen), who was bastardized by the annulment:

Sir Edmund de Arundel, knt (b ca 1327; d 1376-1382), bastardized by the annulment. Edmund was nevertheless knighted, married at the age of twenty, in the summer of 1347 Sybil de Montacute, a younger daughter of William Montacute, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Catherine Grandison, whose elder sister Elizabeth was married to his maternal uncle, of whom it was said he arranged.

Edmund protested his bastardization bitterly in 1347, but was apparently ignored. After his father's death in 1376, Edmund disputed his half-brother Richard's inheritance of the earldom and associated lands and titles in 1376 and apparently tried to claim the six manors allotted to his deceased mother.

He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1377, and finally freed through the intervention of two of his brothers-in-law (his wife's brother John de Montacute and the second husband of Elizabeth de Montacute, Lady Le Despencer). They had three daughters who were his co-heiresses and who brought a failed suit in 1382 against their half-uncle the Earl:

1. Elizabeth (or Alice) de Arundel, who married Sir Leonard Carew (1343-1369) of Mohuns Ottery in Devon, feudal lord of Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire and lord of the manor of Moulsford in Berkshire. From Alice are descended all the members of the prominent and widespread Carew family, except Carew of Beddington in Surrey, descended from one of Sir Leonard's great-uncles.

2. Philippa de Arundel (died 18 May 1452), who married (as his 2nd wife) Sir Richard Sergeaux, Knt, of Colquite, Cornwall. A Victorian historical novel ascribes the following five children to her: a) Richard, born 21 December 1376, and died childless, 24 June 1396; b) Elizabeth, born 1379, wife of Sir William Marny; c) Philippa, born 1381, wife of Robert Passele; d) Alice, born at Kilquyt, 1 September 1384, wife of Guy de Saint Albino; e) Joan, born 1393, died 21 February 1400. "Philippa became a widow, 30 September 1393, and died 13 September 1399."

3. Alice Sergeaux, later Countess of Oxford (c. 1386-18 May 1452), who married 1stly Guy de St Aubyn of St. Erme, Cornwall, and 2ndly about 1406-7 (as his 2nd wife) the 11th Earl of Oxford and widower of Alice de Holand (dsp. 1406, niece of Henry IV), and was the mother of two sons by him
a)John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford b)Robert de Vere, whose grandson, John, became the 15th Earl of Oxford.

4. Katherine de Arundel, who married Robert Deincourt.


Birth:
Source:
Aileen Lewers Langston and J. Orton Buck, Jr., Pedigrees of Some of the Emperor Charlemagne's Descendants, Vol. II (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1974), 170, 334.

Died:
Source:
Frederick Lewis Weis, The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215, 5th ed. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999).

Edmund married Sybill de Montagu. Sybill (daughter of William de Montagu and Catherine de Grandison) was born ca 1330. [Group Sheet]