(Unknown) de Greystoke

Notes:

The Wallop Family [citation details below] calls her Margaret de Greystoke.

Family/Spouse: Robert Hilton. Robert (son of William de Hilton and Maud de Lascelles) was born about 1290 in of Swine, Skirlaugh, Yorkshire, England; died after 7 Jul 1357. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Robert Hilton was born in of Swine, Skirlaugh, Yorkshire, England; died before 1364.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1277, of Greystoke, Cumberland, England
• Alternate birth: Bef 24 Mar 1280

Notes:

His mother was not Margery de Bolbec, as incorrectly asserted in AR8, but Ralph fitz William's first wife, whose name is unknown.

Robert married Elizabeth de Neville before 1299. Elizabeth (daughter of Robert de Neville and Ankaret ferch Gruffudd) died on 17 Nov 1346. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 25 Nov 1346

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 11 Feb 1317

Notes:

Keeper of the Marches in Northumberland. Governor of Berwick upon Tweed. Constable of Scarborough, 1297. Keeper of the county of Northumberland and of Carlisle, 1315. At the battle of Falkirk, 22 Jul 1298, and at the siege of Carlaverock, Jul 1300.

Summoned to Parliament by writs, 24 Jun 1295 to 16 Oct 1315.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 28 Nov 1293

Robert married Ankaret ferch Gruffudd after 10 Jun 1285. Ankaret (daughter of Gruffudd ap Madoc and Emma de Audley) was born about 1248; died after 22 Jun 1308. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also spelled Angharad.

William married Joan de Greystoke. Joan (daughter of Thomas fitz William and Christian de Vipont) was born in of Greystoke, Penrith, Cumberland, England; died after Jul 1269. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 19 Aug 1274
• Alternate death: Bef 29 Aug 1274

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 7 Dec 1269, Dinas Bran, Denbighshire, Wales

Notes:

Also spelled Gryffydd ap Madog. Called "Maelor." Lord of Bromfield.

Also spelled Gryffydd ap Madog. Called "Maelor." Lord of Bromfield and Dinas Bran; Prince of Powys Fadog (northern Powys). "In 1257, he switched his attachment to the English crown following the defeat of Henry III of England in a campaign against Llewelyn ap Gruffydd and promised his allegiance to Llewelyn. Thereupon he was obliged to confine himself to his castle of Dinas Bran." [The Ancestry of Dorothea Poyntz, citation details below.]

Gruffudd married Emma de Audley. Emma (daughter of Henry of Aldithley and Bertrade de Mainwaring) was born about 1218 in of Heleigh in Audley, Staffordshire, England; died after 22 Dec 1270. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1285

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1228

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1247

Notes:

Also called Thomas de Greystoke.

Thomas married Christian de Vipont. Christian (daughter of Robert de Vipont and Idoine de Builly) was born in of Appleby, Westmorland, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 22 Jan 1220
• Alternate death: Bef 22 Jan 1221

Robert married Eustache Trian about 1203. Eustache (daughter of William Trian and Joan) was born in of Oxenton, Gloucestershire, England; died after 1246. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Abt 1250

Notes:

Prince of Powys Fadog (Northern Wales), 1191-1236. "He was buried at his own foundation of Valle Crucis, the last Cistercian monastery to be founded in Wales." [Dictionary of Welsh Biography, citation details below.]

Madog married Gwladus ferch Ithel ap Rhys ab Ifor ap Hywel ap Morgan Fychan ap Morgan Hir. Gwladus (daughter of Ithel ap Rhys) was born in of Gwent, Wales. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 19 Nov 1246

Notes:

Also called Henry de Audley; Aldithlegh.

Sheriff of Shrophsire and Staffordshire 1227-8, 1229-32.

"Henry of Aldithley, 2nd son of Adam of Aldithley, (who d. bet. 1203 and 1211) by Emma, daughter of Ralf fitz Orm, of Darlaston, Staffs; was b. about 1175; with his father, he was witness to a charter of Harvey Bagot in 1194. He bought large estates from Eleanor Malbank in 1214; in 1227 he acquired the manors of Edgmund and Newport, and in 1230 that of Ford, all in Salop, and all held by him direct from the Crown, though not by military or knight service. He was Under Sheriff of Salop and co. Stafford 1217-20, and Sheriff 1227-32; was in command of the Welsh Marches 1223-46. He built the castle of Heligh, co. Stafford; and Red Castle, Salop. In 1223 he founded Hulton Abbey. He was appointed Custodian of Chester and Beeston Castle, 22 June 1237, on the extinction of the the earldom of Chester. He m. in 1217, Bertred, daughter of Ralf Mainwaring, Seneschal of Chester. He d. in 1246, shortly bef. Nov. His widow was living in 1249. She was bur. in Hulton Abbey." [Complete Peerage I:337, as corrected in Volume XIV.]

From A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire:

"That this family of Alditheley, vulgarly called Audley," says Dugdale, "came to be great and eminent, the ensuing discourse will sufficiently manifest: but that the rise thereof was no higher than King John's time, and that the first who assumed this surname was a branch of that ancient and noble family of Verdon, whose chief seat was at Alton Castle in the northern part of Staffordshire, I am very inclined to believe; partly by reason that Henry had the inheritance of Alditheley given him by Nicholas de Verdon, who d. in the 16th Henry III [1232], or near that time; and partly for that he bore for his arms the same ordinary as Vernon did...so that probably the ancestor of this Henry first seated himself at Alditheley: for that there hath been an ancient mansion there, the large moat, northwards from the parish church there (somewhat less than a furlong, and upon the chief part of a fair ascent), do sufficiently manifest."

Henry de Alditheley, to whom Dugdale alludes above, being in great favour with Ranulph, Earl of Chester and Lincoln (the most powerful subject of England in his time), obtained from that nobleman a grant of Newhall in Cheshire with manors in Staffordshire and other parts--and for his adhesion to King John, in that monarch's struggle with the insurrectionary barons, a royal grant of the lordship o fStorton in Warwickshire, part of the possessions of Roger de Summerville. In the first four years of King Henry III [1216-1220], he executed the office of sheriff for the counties of Salop and Stafford as deputy for his patron, the great Earl Ranulph. In the 10th of Henry III [1226], this Henry de Alditheley was appointed governor of the castles of Carmarthen and Cardigan and made sheriff the next year of the counties of Salop and Stafford and constable of the castles of Salop and Bridgenorth, which sheriffalty he held for five years. Upon his retirement from office, he had a confirmation of all such lands whereof he was then possessed as well those granted to him by Ranulph, Earl of Chester, and Nicholas de Verdon, as those in Ireland given him by Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Ulster, whose constable he was in that province. He subsequently obtained divers other territorial grants from the crown, but, notwithstanding, when Richard Mareschall, Earl of Pembroke, rebelled and made an incursion into Wales, the king, Henry III, thought it prudent to secure the persons of this Henry and all the other barons-marchers. He was afterwards, however, constituted governor of Shrewsbury in place of John de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, and, on the death of John, Earl of Chester, governor of the castle of Chester, and also that of Beeston, then called the "Castle on the Rock," and soon after made governor of Newcastle-under-Lyne. This powerful feudal baron m. Bertred, dau. of Ralph de Meisnil-warin, of Cheshire, and had a son, James, and a dau., Emme, who m. Griffith ap Madoc, Lord of Bromefield, a person of great power in Wales. He d. in 1236, having founded and endowed the Abbey of Hilton near to his castle at Heleigh, in Staffordshire, for Cistercian monks, and was s. by his son, James de Alditheley.

Henry married Bertrade de Mainwaring in 1217. Bertrade (daughter of Ralph Mainwaring and Amicia de Meschines) died after 1248; was buried in Hulton Abbey, Staffordshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1249
• Alternate death: Aft 3 Nov 1249

William married Joan de Meinell. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1173, of Greystoke, Cumberland, England

Notes:

Also called William de Greystoke.

William married Helewise de Stuteville. Helewise (daughter of Robert de Stuteville and Helewise) was born in 1165; died in 1226. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1228

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1227

Notes:

Also called Robert de Veteriponte.

"[L]ord of Appleby, Westmorland; Sheriff of Caen in Normany and of many English counties, and for 24 years Sheriff of Westmorland; was entrusted with the education and custody of the King's son, Richard, afterwards Earl of Cornwall; had custody of the castles of Windsor, Bowes, Salisbury, and Carlisle." [The Wallop Family]

Robert married Idoine de Builly before 1165. Idoine (daughter of John de Builly and Cecily de Bussy) was born in of Tickhill, Yorkshire, England; died before 1 Nov 1241. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Kimberworth, Rotherham, Yorkshire, England
• Alternate death: 1235
• Alternate death: Sep 1241

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1212
• Alternate death: Aft 1212

Ralph married Drusiana d'Aubigny. Drusiana (daughter of Elias d'Aubigny and Hawise) was born before 1177. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1194

William married Joan. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Gryffydd married Angharad ferch Owain. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 1201 and 1211

Adam married Emma fitz Ralph about 1170. Emma (daughter of Ralph fitz Orm) was born in of Darlaston, Staffordshire, England; died before Nov 1246. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1201

Notes:

Also called Ralph Mesnilwarin; Ralph de Mednil War.

Justice of Chester. Seneschal of Chester.

Ralph married Amicia de Meschines about 1179. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called Amice of Chester. Her legitimacy was the subject of a lengthy seventeenth-century controversy which can be read, in all its magnificently florid language, here.

It seems to us entirely plausible that Amicia was Hugh's legitimate daughter by an unknown earlier wife. The Earl's behavior toward Amicia, and the attitude shown by all their contemporaries -- to say nothing of the illustrious guests recorded as having attended Amicia's wedding to Ralph Mainwairing -- are all consistent with Amicia being legitimate. It's far from impossible that history should have lost track of the identity of a twelfth-century magnate's short-lived first wife. We don't even have firm knowledge of the birth dates of some post-Conquest English kings.

A summary of the issues, from Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages:

The earl had another dau., whose legitimacy is questionable, namely Amicia,* m. to Ralph de Mesnilwarin, justice of Chester, "a person," says Dugdale, "of very ancient family," from which union the Mainwarings, of Over Peover, in the co. Chester, derive. Dugdale considers Amicia to be a dau. of the earl by a former wife. But Sir Peter Leicester, in his Antiquities of Chester, totally denies her legitimacy. "I cannot but mislike," says he, "the boldness and ignorance of that herald who gave to Mainwaring (late of Peover), the elder, the quartering of the Earl of Chester's arms; for if he ought of right to quarter that coat, then must he be descended from a co-heir to the Earl of Chester; but he was not; for the co-heirs of Earl Hugh married four of the greatest peers in the kingdom."

(*) Upon the question of this lady's legitimacy there was a long paper war between Sir Peter Leicester and Sir Thomas Mainwaring -- and eventually the matter was referred to the judges, of whose decision Wood says, "at an assize held at Chester, 1675, the controversy was decided by the justices itinerant, who, as I have heard, adjudged the right of the matter to Mainwaring."

The passage from Dugdale that evidently occasioned Sir Peter Leycester's astonishment and disbelief, from his Baronage of England, 1675, reprinted by Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim & New York, 1977; Earls of Chester, pp. 40-41:

[I]t is certain that [Sir Hugh] had another Daughter called Amicia, married to Raphe de Mesnilwarin (a person of a very ancient Family, and Justice of Chester, in those days) whose Legitimacy is doubted by some; the cheif reason they give for it, being, that they find no Memorial, that Earl Hugh her Father had a former Wife.

That she was his Daughter, sufficiently appeareth, not only from his Grant of two Knight Fees with her in Frank-marriage, unto Raphe de Mesnilwarin before mentioned, where he so termeth her. But by another Deed of Roger de Mesnilwarin her Son, wherein he calls Ranulph, Earl of Chester, (Son to this Earl) his Uncle.

As to her Legitimacy, therefore I do not well understand how there can be any question, it being known Maxim in Law, that nothing can be given in Frank-marriage to a Bastard.

The Point being then thus briefly cleared, I shall not need to raise further Arguments from Probabilities to back it, then to desire it may be observed, that Bertra (whom I conclude to have been his second Wife) was married to him, when he was in years, and she, herself, very young, as is evident from what I have before instanced. So that he having been Earl no less then twenty eight years, it must necessarily follow, that this Bertra was not born, till four years after he came to the Earldom. Nor is it any marvel he should then take such a young Wife, having at that time no Issue-male to succeed him in this he great Inheritance."

From Palatine Anthology: A Collection of Ancient Poems and Ballads Relating to Lancashire and Chester ed. James Orchard Halliwell (London: 1850):

The following old ballad relates to a famous dispute between two Cheshire knights, Sir Peter Leycester and Sir Thomas Mainwaring, about the legitimacy of Amicia, daughter of Hugh Lupus. The worthy knights were related by marriage, and the controversy agitated the county for many years, and was hardly settled by the death of one of the principal controversialists. Communicated to me by Mr. W. H. BLACK.

A new Ballad, made of a high and mighty Controversy between two Cheshire Knights, 1673.

(From the ASHMOLEAN MSS. No. 860, iii, art. 1, and No. 836, art. 183.)

Two famous wights, both Cheshire Knights,
Thomas yclep'd and Petre,
A quarrel had, which was too bad
As bad as is my metre.

Neere kinsmen were they, yet had a great fray,
Concerning things done quondam;
I think as long since as Will Rufus was Prince,
E'en about their Great-great-grandame.

Sir Peter (good man) this quarell began:
Whilst he tumbles ore ancient deedes,
Old women can't have quiet rest in their graves,
So loud he proclaims what he reades.

When in reading he found (as he thought) good ground
To judge his Grannam a bastard;
Though he blemisht her name, yet it to proclaim
He resolv'd hee'd be no dastard.

But boldly durst say, that AMICIA
Daughter of Hugh Earle of Chester
For certaine was bore to him . . . .
As sure as his name was Leycester.

To this good intent he us'd much argument
The which all such as are willing
Fully to know, let them quickly bestow
Upon his Booke sixteene shilling.

His Grannam's his friend; yet truth hee'l defend
And little dirt he throws on her,
For as now, so then, among your great men,
A bastard is small dishonour.

Another grandchild, hearing this was stark wild,
The affront he could not digest;
But takes pen in hand, the same to withstand,
As scorning to fowl his own nest.

His Grannam hee'l right, against the erring Knight,
That slander'd her without warrant:
Who does not his best, to free ladies opprest,
Is not a true Knight Errant.

Hist'ry and lawes he cites for his cause,
With Judges and Heraldes; what more?
With these hee'l defy the scandalous lye
That made him . . . . .

They us'd not their swords, but their pens and fowl words,
Which noyse with other folks laughter,
Could not chuse to awake (to clere this mistake)
The jolly old Earl and his daughter.

Then up start[s] Earl Hughe, and sayes "Is it true--
That I, brave Chester's Earle,
Am summon'd to appear before Justices here,
As charg'd with a by-blow girle?"

Not another word, but clapt hand on his sword;
While she (gentle AMICIA)
For feare of some slaughter that might come after,
Besought him in patience to stay.

But she told her Grandson, "'Twas uncivilly done
Such a hideous pudder to keep:
Whilst he dreams that folks soules do snort in dark holes
To awake us out of our sleep.

"Should it have been true, that's suspected by you,
Its father was able to nourish
The barne he had got, and sure I should not
Have been any charge to the parish.

"But you, dear Sir Thomas, (much honor to your domus)
That my cause you have so well defended;
Henceforth leave AMICIA, both keepe Amicitia;
And so let the quarell be ended."

All this said, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography also notes that "[t]he feud, however, was not merely a dispute over genealogical and legal niceties, but reflected the division on the Cheshire bench between those like Leycester who sought a rigorous enforcement of the Act of Uniformity and the Conventicle Acts and those such as Mainwaring who opposed this policy."