Richard de Montfort

Richard married Rose de Brandeston before 14 Sep 1363. Rose (daughter of Hugh de Brandeston) died after 5 Dec 1420. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. William de Montfort was born in of Tamworth, Warwickshire, England; died between 1390 and 1420.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: 1370

Peter married Lora de Ullenhall. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Summoned to Parliament by writ dated 24 Jun 1295.

John married Alice de la Plaunche before 28 Mar 1287. Alice (daughter of William de la Plaunche and Ælide) died after 1302. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1303
• Alternate death: Aft 1308
• Alternate death: Aft 1309

Notes:

From Chris Phillips, Some Corrections and Additions to The Complete Peerage:

Alice was a kinswoman of Queen Eleanor, presumably through a descent of her father from the queen's Fiennes cousins [J. C. Parsons, The Court and Household of Eleanor of Castile in 1290 (Toronto, 1977), pp. 48-50]. John and Alice were married by 28 March 1287 [ibid., p. 50, citing P.R.O. SC 1/45/46], and Alice was still living in Easter Term 1309 [M. S. Arnold, ed., Select Cases of Trespass from the King's Court, 1307-1399, vol. 1 (Selden Society 100, 1985), pp. 126, 127].

Alice is one of a group of four "damsels" of the chamber who appear frequently throughout Queen Eleanor's wardrobe account book for 1289-90 and in one entry are described as kinswomen of the queen. That Alice's kinship came through her father is indicated by a reference in 1286 to the lord (dominus) de la Plaunche as a kinsman of the queen [Parsons, loc. cit., p. 50, citing P.R.O. E 101/352/4, m. 4]. A descent from the queen's Fiennes cousins is suggested by the later presence of a family known as "de Fiennes de la Plaunche" in the Boulonnais, bearing arms similar to those of the Fiennes family.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 4 Mar 1287

Notes:

"He was wounded and captured at the battle of Evesham 4 Aug 1265. He was pardoned for all trespasses 28 Jun 1277, and recovered part of his father's lands." [Royal Ancestry]

"Peter de Montfort participated in his father's treasons and was taken prisoner at the battle of Evesham, but being allowed the benefit of the Dictum of Kenilworth, he was restored to his paternal inheritance -- and afterwards enjoyed the favour of King Edward I, in whose Welsh wars he took a very active part." [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, 1883]

Peter married Maud de la Mare about 1260. Maud (daughter of Henry de la Mare and Joan de Neville) was born about 1242. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Aft 1209
• Alternate birth: Aft Oct 1210, of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, England

Notes:

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

A leading supporter of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester (but no relation), [Peter de] Montfort was technically not a baron, for he held little directly from the king. He was, however, a substantial magnate. His chief seat was at Beaudesert, a low hill above Henley in Arden in Warwickshire, where extensive earthworks of the family castle still remain. Another important base was at Preston in Rutland.

In 1166 Montfort's great-grandfather, another Thurstin de Montfort, had held ten fees from the earl of Warwick, which made him the second greatest of his tenants. The connection with the earls of Warwick, however, played no discernible part in Peter's career, partly because the earldom was held from 1242 until 1263, in right of his wife, by a Poitevin favourite of the king, John de Plessis, who established few local roots. Much more important for Montfort was the family of his grandfather William (I) de Cantilupe (d. 1239), whose principal residence was at Aston Cantlow, only 4 miles from Beaudesert. His father died in 1216 and Montfort spent many years as Cantilupe's ward, developing what was to be a lifelong friendship with his son Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester from 1238 to 1266. The fleurs-de-lis of the Cantilupe coat of arms were incorporated into Montfort's seal.

It was probably ties of neighbourhood that drew both Montfort and Walter de Cantilupe into the circle of Simon de Montfort, for Beaudesert and Aston Cantlow are respectively 9 and 12 miles distant from Kenilworth, after 1244 Earl Simon's great base in England. In 1248 Montfort was in Earl Simon's retinue when the latter went out to Gascony as seneschal and thereafter there are numerous instances of the close connection between the two men. Peter de Montfort attested many of the earl's charters and was probably often in his company; in 1259 he was named as an executor of Simon de Montfort's will. His faithful service was rewarded with a grant of the manor of Ilmington in Warwickshire. Part of that service was doubtless to help Earl Simon build up his following of midlands knights, for Montfort was well connected locally -- in 1260-62 six knights of Warwickshire and Leicestershire acted as his pledges.

From 1254 onwards, while Montfort remained close to Earl Simon, his career developed independently. He was employed by Henry III on diplomatic missions, was given an important command in the Welsh marches, and by 1257 was on the royal council. He was also closely connected with Edward, the king's son, whom he had accompanied to Spain for his marriage to Eleanor of Castile in 1254. Fear of being ousted from Edward's entourage by the king's Poitevin half-brothers perhaps gave him a personal interest in the political upheaval of 1258, which began with the half-brothers' expulsion from England. In that upheaval Peter de Montfort played a leading part. He was one of the seven magnates whose confederation in April 1258 began the revolution; he was one of the baronial twelve who were to draw up the plans of reform; and he was one of the council of fifteen set up by the provisions of Oxford to govern England in the king's name. In all these capacities Earl Simon was a colleague. However, unlike the earl (who withdrew to France), Peter de Montfort accepted the king's recovery of power in 1261, and in the following year served the king and Edward as custodian of Abergavenny, which he tried in vain to protect from the attacks of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. None the less, when Earl Simon returned to England in April 1263 and raised once more the standard of the provisions of Oxford, Peter de Montfort joined him. This time he was to remain with him to the end. When the civil war commenced in March 1264, he was in command of the Montfortians in Northampton and was captured when the town fell to the king on 5 April. Released after Earl Simon's great victory at Lewes (14 May), Peter de Montfort was one of the council of nine imposed on the king (June 1264) and thenceforth played a major part in the direction of central government. In September he was one of those appointed to negotiate with the king of France and the papal legate in the abortive hope of finding some political settlement. His rewards during this period of power included a grant from the king of the manor of Garthorpe in Leicestershire. Montfort accompanied Earl Simon throughout his final campaign and died with him at the battle of Evesham on 4 August 1265. [...]

The support Peter de Montfort gave Earl Simon was of the first importance. While a close personal friend and follower, he also enjoyed his own power base in the midlands and an independent career in the service of the king and his son Edward. He possessed considerable abilities as a soldier, diplomat, and councillor. It is highly significant that Earl Simon retained the loyalty of such a man to the last.

Peter married Alice de Audley before 1229. Alice (daughter of Henry of Aldithley and Bertrade de Mainwaring) died after Aug 1265. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 23 Feb 1267

Notes:

"He [Piers de Montfort] married, in or before 1228, Alice, daughter of Henry de Audley. He died as stated above, 4 August 1265. Alice survived him." [Complete Peerage IX:123-6]

Notes:

Royal Justice; Seneschal of William Longespee, Earl of Salisbury; Constable of Strogursey Castle.

Henry married Joan de Neville. Joan (daughter of John de Neville and Hawise de Courtenay) died before 1280. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1184, of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, England
• Alternate death: Bef 23 Jul 1216
• Alternate death: Bef 21 Nov 1216
• Alternate death: Bef 24 Nov 1216

Notes:

"Thurstan de Montfort, son and heir, was a minor when he succeeded his father in or before 1199. In 1205 the King took his homage and gave him his land on condition that he demised it for two years to William de Cauntelo. In the summer of 1206 he was abroad in the King's service. In 1210 he was serving the King in Ireland; and in 1214 he was excused the scutage of Poitou, because he fought himself. He appears to have joined in the rebellion against John, and in March 1215/6 had letters of safe conduct on coming to the King." [Complete Peerage]

Thurstan married (Unknown) de Cantelowe. [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

Notes:

Deputy sheriff of Surrey and Sussex 1217-1226.

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

Notes:

Chief Forester and Justice of the King's Forests throughout England. Notable for having achieved the distinction of being excessively tyrannical and oppressive even by the standards of the early thirteenth century.

Complete Peerage: "On 21 October 1235 he was appointed Chief Forester and justice of the whole of the King's Forest through England. He was one of the English notables who sailed with Richard, Earl of Cornwall, for Palestine from Marseilles in 1240. After his return to England he was so rapacious and oppressive in the execution of his office that, upon evidence obtained by commission, he escaped prison only by a very heavy fine. He retired in disgrace to Wethersfield, where he died soon afterwards."

John married Hawise de Courtenay before 15 Feb 1230. Hawise (daughter of Robert de Courtenay and Mary de Revières) was born in of Okehampton, Devon, England; died before 8 Apr 1269. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]