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- "Robert Marmion, son of Roger Marmion, which Roger at the time of the Lindsey Survey, circa 1115-18, held land in Lincolnshire, rendered an account of 176£ 13s. 4d. for relief on his father's lands, of which 60£ had been paid by Michaelmas 1130. He was granted by Henry I, circa 1129-33, free warren in Warwickshire as his father had it, especially at Tamworth. With his wife Milicent he granted the church of Polesworth and other property to the nuns there, and the vill of Buteyate to Bardney Abbey. In 1140 Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, besieged and destroyed his castle of Fontenay. A prominent figure in the anarchy of Stephen's reign, he evicted the monks of Coventry and profaned their church. [...] He died in 1143 or 1144, being slain in warfare with the Earl of Chester." [Complete Peerage]
From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
Marmion took King Stephen's part in the struggle with the Empress Matilda. In 1140 he appears as castellan of Falaise, where he successfully held out against Geoffrey, count of Anjou. His own castle at Fontenoy-le-Marmion was destroyed as a reprisal. In England he was in contention with William de Beauchamp over the castle and honour of Tamworth, where he had received a grant of free warren from Henry I.
Marmion faced a more formidable opponent, however, in Ranulf (II), earl of Chester. Here the struggle centred on the town of Coventry. Marmion was no mean figure himself militarily, being described as a warlike man, almost unequalled in his time for ferocity, adroitness, and daring, renowned for his many successes far and wide. At Coventry he expelled the monks and fortified the priory, using its stone buildings as a fortress from which to launch frequent attacks on the earl's castle. He also covered the field between the two with ditches to impede the enemy's forces. It was an act of desecration from which the chroniclers were soon able to draw a moral. The story is told in outline by Henry of Huntingdon, referred to by John of Salisbury, and given detail by the later twelfth-century chronicler, William of Newburgh. When the earl came with a considerable force to relieve the castle, Marmion's forces went out to engage him. During the action he was thrown from his horse into one of his own ditches. As he lay immobilized, with a broken thigh, he was decapitated, in full view of all, by a common soldier of the opposing army. He was apparently the only man killed in the action, 'crushed under the weight of divine judgement' (William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum ed. R. Howlett, Rolls Series, 1884, 1.71). This occurred about 16 September 1144. Marmion was buried at Polesworth, in unconsecrated ground as an excommunicate, and was succeeded by his son Robert. His widow, Milicent, married Richard de Camville.
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