Our British Ancestors

THE MAGNA CARTA

In preface, I should mention that the reason for the gap in my little histories was caused by inconsistencies that came up in some of the lines of descent.  I am haunted of the admonition I received from a very respectable genealogist who regards most amateur family histories as exercises in wishful thinking.  Some of those lines fall into

grays area where I cannot say for certain that they would hold up.  So I digging elsewhere, and found a lineage with enough documentation to hold water.  It took awhile but here it is.

First, a little history review.  Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225.  The 1215 Charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary, for example by explicitly accepting that no "freeman" could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in existence today.

Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. It was preceded and directly influenced by the Charter of Liberties in 1100, in which King Henry I had specified particular areas wherein his powers would be limited.

Among the feudal barons there were 25 who were names as "Sureties."  Their job was to assure that King John abided by its terms.  Those barons included our direct ancestors, Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford (our 23rd Great Grandfather), and Saer de Quincy IV, 1st Earl of Winchester (also our 23rd Great Grandfather).

Following are biographical sketchs of Robert and Saer and their wives:

Robert de Vere (d. 1221) was the second surviving son of Aubrey de Vere III, first Earl of Oxford, and Agnes of Essex. Almost nothing of his life is known until he married in 1207 the widow Isabel de Bolbec, the aunt and co-heiress of his deceased sister-in-law. The couple had one child, a son, Hugh, later 4th earl of Oxford. When Robert's brother Aubrey de Vere IV, 2nd Earl of Oxford died in Oct. 1214, Robert succeeded to his brother's title, estates, castles, and hereditary office of master chamberlain of England. He swiftly joined the disaffected barons in opposition to King John; many among the rebels were his kinsmen. He was elected one of the barons who were to ensure the king's adherence to the terms of Magna Carta, and as such was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III in 1215.

King John besieged and took Castle Hedingham, Essex, from Robert in March 1216 and gave his lands to a loyal baron. While this prompted Robert to swear loyalty to the king soon thereafter, he nonetheless did homage to Prince Louis when the French prince arrived in Rochester later that year. He remained in the rebel camp until Oct. 1217, when he did homage to the boy-king Henry III, but he was not fully restored in his offices and lands until Feb. 1218.

Robert served as a king's justice in 1220-21, and died in Oct. 1221. He was buried at Hatfield Regis Priory, where his son Earl Hugh or grandson Earl Robert later had an effigy erected. Earl Robert is depicted in chain mail, cross-legged, pulling his sword from its scabbard and holding a shield with the arms of the Veres.

Isabel de Bolebec, Countess of Oxford (1165 – 3 February 1245) was eldest daughter and co-heiress of Hugh II de Bolebec, lord of Whitchurch, Buckinghamshire, England (d. c. 1166) and his wife Margaret de Montfichet. Isabel was a patroness of the Order of Friars Preacher (Dominicans) in England. She was always referred to as Isabel or Isabella de Bolebec after her second marriage to Robert de Vere in contemporary documents. She eventually inherited the entire Bolebec barony.

Isabel married first Henry of Nonant (Novaunt), Lord of Totnes, Devonshire who died childless in 1206. In 1207, she petitioned the Crown for the right to marry whom she wished. She received permission, and that same year she married Robert de Vere, later heir to the earldom of Oxford. Isabel's only known child, Hugh de Vere (later fourth earl of Oxford), was born within a year of her marriage to Robert de Vere and Isabel became countess of Oxford when Robert inherited the earldom from his brother in 1214.

Isabel was one of the chief benefactors of the Dominican Order when the friars came to England. She assisted the friars in 1221 to find quarters in the city of Oxford, contributing to the building of their oratory there c. 1227. When they needed a larger priory, she and the bishop of Carlisle bought land south of Oxford and contributed most of the funds and materials needed. She was buried in the new church there.

Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester (b: 1155 – d: 3 November 1219) was one of the leaders of the baronial rebellion against King John of England, and a major figure in both Scotland and England in the decades around the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

The family of de Quincy had arrived in England after the Norman Conquest, and took their name from Cuinchy in the Arrondissement of Béthune; the personal name "Saer" was used by them over several generations. Both names are variously spelled in primary sources and older modern works, the first name being sometimes rendered Saher or Seer, and the surname as Quency or Quenci.

The first recorded Saer de Quincy (known to historians as "Saer I") was lord of the manor of Long Buckby in Northamptonshire in the earlier twelfth century, and second husband of Matilda of St Liz, stepdaughter of King David I of Scotland by Maud of Northumbria. This marriage produced two sons, Saer II and Robert de Quincy. It was Robert, the younger son, who was the father of the Saer de Quincy who eventually became Earl of Winchester. By her first husband Robert Fitz Richard, Matilda was also the paternal grandmother of Earl Saer's close ally, Robert Fitzwalter.

Saer de Quincy's immediate background was in the Scottish kingdom: his father, Robert de Quincy, was a knight in the service of king William the Lion, and his mother, Orabilis, was the heiress of the lordship of Leuchars in Fife.  His rise to prominence in England came through his marriage to Margaret, the younger sister of Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester.  In 1204, Earl Robert died, leaving Margaret as co-heiress of the vast earldom along with her elder sister. The estate was split in half, and after the final division was ratified in 1207, de Quincy was made Earl of Winchester.

I have found little information about Margaret except that we are related to her in a lot of ways.  This connection is through the Phelps line, but she is also probably connected through the Holcomb line (see my last email).

Following his marriage, de Quincy became a prominent military and diplomatic figure in England. There is no evidence of any close alliance with King John, however, and his rise to importance was probably due to his newly-acquired magnate status and the family connections that underpinned it.

One man with whom he does seem to have developed a close personal relationship is his cousin, Robert Fitzwalter. They are first found together in 1203, as co-commanders of the garrison at the major fortress of Vaudreuil in Normandy; they were responsible for surrendering the castle without a fight to Philip II of France, fatally weakening the English position in northern France, but although popular opinion seems to have blamed them for the capitulation, a royal writ is states  that the castle was surrendered at King John's command, and both Saer and Fitzwalter had to endure personal humiliation and heavy ransoms at the hands of the French.

In 1215, when the baronial rebellion broke out, Robert Fitzwalter became the military commander, and the Earl of Winchester joined him, acting as one of the chief negotiators with John; both cousins were among the 25 guarantors of the Magna Carta. De Quincy fought against John in the troubles that followed the signing of the Charter, and, again with Fitzwalter, travelled to France to invite Prince Louis of France to take the English throne. He and Fitzwalter were subsequently among the most committed and prominent supporters of Louis' candidature for the kingship, against both John and the infant Henry III.

When military defeat cleared the way for Henry III to take the throne, de Quincy went on crusade, perhaps in fulfillment of an earlier vow, and in 1219 he left to join the Fifth Crusade, then besieging Damietta. While in the east, he fell sick and died. He was buried in Acre, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, rather than in Egypt, and his heart was brought back and interred at Garendon Abbey near Loughborough, a house endowed by his wife's family.

By his wife Margaret de Beaumont, Saer de Quincy had three sons and three daughters:

·         Lorette who married Sir William de Valognes

·         Arabella who married Sir Richard Harcourt

·         Robert (d. 1217), before 1206 he married Hawise of Chester, Countess of Lincoln, sister and co-heiress of Ranulf de Blundeville, Earl of Chester.

·         Roger, who succeeded his father as earl of Winchester (though he did not take formal possession of the earldom until after his mother's death), who married Helen (Elena) of Galloway and probably our 21st great grandparents along a different line than Hawise (see below).

·         Robert de Quincy (second son of that name; d. 1257) who married Helen, daughter of the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great;

·         Hawise, who married Hugh de Vere, 4th Earl of Oxford, and proven our 22nd great grandparents.

In the next installment I will connect the intervening generations and include some interesting stories about them.