Robert Marmion

1095 - 1144  (~ 53 years)

• Name	Robert Marmion  [1]
  Birth	Between 1090 and 1095	Normandy, France   [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Alternate birth	Abt 1095  [4]
  Alternate death	1143  [5]
  Death	Between 1143 and 1144	Coventry, Warwickshire, England   [3]
  Alternate death	Abt 16 Sep 1144	Coventry, Warwickshire, England   [6, 7]
  Burial	Polesworth, Warwickshire, England   [6]
  Person ID	I5144	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of AP, Ancestor of DDB, Ancestor of DGH, Ancestor of DK, Ancestor of JDM, Ancestor of JMF, Ancestor of JTS, Ancestor of LD, Ancestor of LDN, Ancestor of TNH, Ancestor of TSW, Ancestor of TWK, Ancestor of UKL
  Last Modified	28 May 2021

  
  

  Father	Roger Marmion,   b. Between 1060 and 1070, Normandy, France d. Bef 29 Sep 1129 (Age ~ 69 years)
  Mother	(Unknown) de Abetot
  Family ID	F6303	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Milicent of Réthel,   b. Between 1105 and 1115
  Children	+ 1. Robert Marmion,   b. Bef 1133   d. Abt Oct 1181 (Age > 48 years)
  Family ID	F1873	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	18 Dec 2015

  
  

• Notes

  "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.

  
  

• Sources

  [S991] Early Yorkshire Families ed. Charles Travis Clay and Diana E. Greenway. Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1973. [S145] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis and Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr. 8th edition, William R. Beall & Kaleen E. Beall, eds. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2004, 2006, 2008. [S5861] The Ancestry of Thomas Bradbury (1611-1695) and His Wife Mary (Perkins) Bradbury (1615-1700) of Salisbury, Massachusetts by John Brooks Threlfall. 2nd edition. Madison, Wisconsin, 1995. [S1187] John P. Ravilious, 22 May 2006, post to soc.genealogy.medieval. [S1335] Feudal England: Historical Studies on the XIth and XIIth Centuries by John Horace Round. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1895. [S76] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004-ongoing. [S1187] John P. Ravilious, 22 May 2006, post to soc.genealogy.medieval., year and place only.