Marmaduke Constable

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Between 19 Mar 1377 and 19 Jun 1378, Flamborough, Bridlington, Yorkshire, England
• Alternate death: 1 Jun 1378

Notes:

He was sheriff of Yorkshire in 1360-62 and 1366-67. He was also one of the executors of the will of William la Zouche, Archbishop of York, his father-in-law's brother.

He is called in error "William Constable" in The Visitation of Yorkshire in the Years 1563 and 1564.

"By 1351 Marmaduke had the resources to undertake rebuilding at Flamborough and obtained licence to crenellate the manor. Alongside this suggestion of growing prosperity Marmaduke was taking on a larger public role. In 1349 he was appointed an executor of Archbishop Zouche, he was added to the commission of the peace in 1351, and was sheriff of Yorkshire in 1360–62 and 1366–7. He was discharged as commissioner in May 1370, which seems to mark the end of his public career, although he did not die until 21 May 1378. His last months were overshadowed by the murder of his kinsman John at Holme-on-Spalding Moor in June 1377 by two men identified as the cousins of the parson. There had been trouble there in 1365, when a commission of oyer and terminer had been appointed to investigate Marmaduke's complaint that the residents had attacked his manor house, and John's death was perhaps linked with continuing local unrest." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

"It is not unlikely that his name of Marmaduke was due to a connexion with the family of Thweng, who may have derived it from the family of Darel. Marmaduke de Thweng, living early in the thirteenth century, was the son of Robert de Thweng and Emma Darel, a niece of Marmaduke Darel; and there were subsequently many members of the Thweng family named Marmaduke. Certainly there was a connexion between the Thwengs and the Constables. In 1312 Robert de Thweng was instituted to the church of Holme upon Spalding Moor on the presentation of Sir William Constable of Flamborough; in 1348 a chantry in Kirkleatham was founded by Thomas de Thweng, the rector and patron of the church, for the souls of many relatives including Robert, William, Marmaduke and Katherine Constable; and a William de Thweng received a legacy in the will of Sir Marmaduke in 1377. It is possible that Katherine, Sir Marmaduke’s mother, was a Thweng; but of this there is no corroborative evidence." [Early Yorkshire Charters: Volume 12, The Tison Fee, citation details below]

Family/Spouse: Joan la Zouche. Joan (daughter of Roger la Zouche and Felicia) was born in of Lubbesthorpe, Blaby, Leicestershire, England; died before 1376; was buried in All Saints, Holme upon Spalding Moor, Yorkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 8 Jan 1400
• Alternate death: Aft 8 Jan 1400
• Alternate death: Between Nov 1400 and 8 Jan 1401
• Alternate death: Between 29 Nov 1400 and 7 Jan 1401

Notes:

Knight of the shire for Yorkshire, Feb 1388 (the "Merciless Parliament").

Sheriff of Yorkshire, 20 Oct 1385 - 18 Nov 1386; 11 Nov 1394 - 9 Nov 1395.

"[H]e married Margaret, the widow of Alexander Surteys, who had died young in 1380 barely a few months after succeeding to family property in North Gosforth. Surteys had, however, by then produced an infant son, who became a ward of Margaret's father, William Skipwith. Since she herself had remarried without first obtaining the necessary royal licence, the Crown demanded a fine of 40s. before dower could be assigned, although in February 1384 Skipwith was ordered to be present when a suitable allocation of property was made to her out of the child's patrimony. Sir Robert was naturally anxious to gain control of the rest of these estates as well, and in October 1385 he finally obtained a lease of the town of North Gosforth at an annual rent of eight marks payable at the Exchequer." [Complete Peerage]

"His return to the Merciless Parliament of 1388, in which the Lords Appellant removed King Richard’s most unpopular favourites and asserted control over the government, does, however, underline the strength of his connexions in the upper ranks of the nobility, for both Thomas of Woodstock and Gaunt’s son, Henry of Bolingbroke, were active as Appellants, and clearly relied upon the support of friends like Constable among the shire knights." [History of Parliament]

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

Sir Robert [ii] Constable [...] continued the family's slow rise into a more than purely local prominence. During his father's lifetime he had begun a military career, campaigning in Brittany in 1373 with John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. This was the family's first known association with the house of Lancaster since 1321, and it is unclear whether the connection had been maintained in the intervening generations. It may have been for his service on that campaign that Robert was knighted. His military activity continued as head of the family (he served in Brittany under Thomas of Woodstock in 1380 and in Scotland under Gaunt in 1383) alongside involvement in local government. He was a justice of the peace for the East Riding and sheriff of Yorkshire in 1385-6 and 1394-5, and was returned to parliament in 1388. He acquired land in Butterwick in Ryedale, Yorkshire, in 1395, and it may also have been Robert who forged the links with the Percy family that were to be of such importance to the family in the next century. By 1405 (but not in 1378) the Constables held land of the earl of Northumberland in Nafferton, Yorkshire, and elsewhere.

Robert was unmarried at his father's death, but within three years had married Margaret Skipwith, the widow of Alexander Surtees (d. 1380) of North Gosforth, Northumberland. They were pardoned for marrying without licence in January 1384, but the marriage must have taken place earlier, since Robert's heir was old enough to inherit at his father's death, which occurred in late 1400 or early 1401.

Robert married Margaret Skipwith before 20 Jan 1384. Margaret (daughter of William Skipwith and Alice Hiltoft) was born about 1360; died after Jan 1401. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Catherine Cumberworth. Catherine (daughter of Robert Cumberworth and Sybil Ergham) was born in of Somerby, Lincolnshire, England; died about 1404. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Sheriff of Yorkshire.

Robert married Agnes Gascoigne about 1422. Agnes (daughter of William Gascoigne and Joan de Pickering) was born about 1401; died between 7 Jan 1466 and 5 Feb 1466. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]