Geoffrey de Langley

Abt 1200 - Bef 1274  (~ 74 years)

• Name	Geoffrey de Langley  [1]
  Birth	Abt 1200	of Pinley, Warwickshire, England   [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Death	Bef 22 Sep 1274  [2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
  Burial	Grey Friars, Coventry, Warwickshire, England   [2]
  Person ID	I3307	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of AP, Ancestor of DDB, Ancestor of DGH, Ancestor of DK, Ancestor of JTS, Ancestor of LD, Ancestor of LDN, Ancestor of LMW, Ancestor of TNH
  Last Modified	20 Dec 2021

  
  

  Father	Walter de Langley,   b. of Siddington, Gloucestershire, England
  Mother	Emma de Lacy   d. Bef 1223
  Family ID	F3650	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Matilda de Brightwell   bur. Grey Friars, Coventry, Warwickshire, England
  Marriage	Bef 25 Sep 1236  [9]
  Children	+ 1. (Unknown) de Langley   d. Bef 1287
  Family ID	F2383	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	16 Jun 2017

  
  

• Notes

  From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: He was probably of age by 1222, which suggests a date of birth about 1200, and first appears in royal service in 1233-4 as constable of St Briavels, Gloucestershire. He joined the royal curia, and was appointed knight-deputy to the earl marshal and marshal of the household. The Gascon campaign of 1242–3 proved a turning point in Langley's career. On his return he was given custody of the honour of Arundel. From late 1244 to early 1250 he was associated with the general forest eyre conducted under the headship of Robert Passelewe (d. 1252). On 4 March 1250 he was made chief justice of the forest on both sides of the Trent, an office which he exercised for two and a half years until 25 October 1252. As a forest justice he earned some notoriety. According to Matthew Paris, Langley had gained a reputation for parsimony while marshal of the household. Now he was to be particularly zealous in the interests of the king. Langley's northern eyre was a very lucrative one, and undoubtedly caused murmurings. By 1252 Langley was at the height of his power and high in royal esteem, being a particular favourite of the queen. A member of the council, he functioned as a guardian of the king's young daughter, Margaret, queen of Scots, during 1252–3, but made himself unpopular in Scotland and was removed. Then in March 1254 he took responsibility for the English and Welsh lands of the young Prince Edward. This proved to be a disaster, however, for he provoked the Welsh rising of November 1256. Paris says that he conducted himself here in a typically high-handed manner, while the Dunstable annalist writes of him as trying to bring Wales under English law, and ordering the introduction into that country of shires and hundreds, while boasting before the king and queen that he had the Welsh in the palm of his hand. Out of favour with the king, he was eventually pardoned on 14 February 1258. In 1262 he was one of the auditors investigating the accounts of Prince Edward's bailiffs. He was unpopular, however, with the opposition baronage, and was among those royalists whose lands were pillaged in the spring of 1263.

  
  

• Sources

  [S1768] Pedigrees from the Plea Rolls, Collected from Pleadings in Various Courts of Law, A.D. 1200 to 1500, from the Original Rolls in the Public Record Office by George Wrottesley. 1905. [S76] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004-ongoing. [S1491] John P. Ravilious, 12 Oct 2004, post to soc.genealogy.medieval., place only. [S128] The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant ed. Vicary Gibbs, H. A. Doubleday, Duncan Warrand, Howard de Walden, Geoffrey H. White and R. S. Lea. 2nd edition. 14 volumes (1-13, but volume 12 spanned two books), London, The St. Catherine Press, 1910-1959. Volume 14, "Addenda & Corrigenda," ed. Peter W. Hammond, Gloucestershire, Sutton Publishing, 1998., year only. [S1016] Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell by Carl Boyer III. Santa Clarita, California, 2001., year only. [S1491] John P. Ravilious, 12 Oct 2004, post to soc.genealogy.medieval., year only. [S1492] John P. Ravilious, 4 Dec 2004, post to soc.genealogy.medieval., year only. [S1526] The Ancestry of Dorothea Poyntz, Wife of Reverend John Owsley, Generations 1-15, Fourth Preliminary Edition, by Ronny O. Bodine and Bro. Thomas Spalding, Jr. 2013., year only. [S1492] John P. Ravilious, 4 Dec 2004, post to soc.genealogy.medieval.