Nielsen Hayden genealogy

William de Valence

Male Bef 1225 - 1296  (> 71 years)


Personal Information    |    Notes    |    Sources    |    All

  • Name William de Valence  [1, 2, 3, 4, 5
    Birth Bef 1225  [6
    Gender Male 
    Alternate birth Abt 1226  [6
    Alternate birth Aft 1225  Valence, Couhé-Vérac, Vienne, Poitou, France Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 7, 8, 9
    Death 16 May 1296  Brabourne, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [7, 10
    Alternate death Bef 18 May 1296  [1, 6, 8, 9
    Burial Westminster Abbey, Westminster, Middlesex, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 7, 9, 11
    Siblings 2 siblings 
    Person ID I4334  Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
    Last Modified 2 Feb 2024 

    Father Hugh X de Lusignan,   b. Abt 1183   d. Aft 15 Jan 1249 (Age ~ 66 years) 
    Mother Isabel of Angoulême, Queen Consort of England   d. 31 May 1246 
    Marriage Between 10 Mar 1220 and 22 Apr 1220  Angoulême, Aquitaine, France Find all individuals with events at this location  [9
    Family ID F1132  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Joan de Munchensy   d. Bef 30 Sep 1307 
    Marriage 13 Aug 1247  [1, 6, 7, 8
    Children 
     1. Isabel de Valence   d. 3 Oct 1305
     2. Joan de Valence
    Family ID F2905  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 30 Dec 2015 

  • Notes 
    • Also called Guillaume de Lusignan; Guillaume de Valence.

      Seigneur of Valence; Constable of Goodrich and Pembroke Castles 1247; Warden of the Town and the Castle of Hertford 1247, 1251; Steward of the Manors of Stamford and Grantham, Lincolnshire 1258; Privy Councillor; Constable of Kilgarren Castle 1275; Seneschal of the Agenois 1279; Constable and Keeper of Bergevenny Castle 1281; Constable of Kilgaren Castle 1282; Guardian and Lieutenant of England 1285; and, in right of his wife, Lord (sometimes styled Earl) of Pembroke, and Lord of the Towns of Ross, Carnbothe, and Clumene, co. Wexford, Ireland.

      From Wikipedia:

      "William de Valence (died 18 May 1296), born Guillaume de Lusignan, was a French nobleman and knight who became important in English politics due to his relationship to Henry III. He was heavily involved in the Second Barons' War, supporting the King and Prince Edward against the rebels led by Simon de Montfort. [...]

      "He was the fourth son of Isabella of Angoulême, widow of king John of England, and her second husband, Hugh X of Lusignan, Count of La Marche, and was thus a half-brother to Henry III of England, and uncle to Edward I. William was born in the Cistercian abbey in Valence, Couhé-Vérac, Vienne, Poitou, near Lusignan, sometime in the late 1220s (his elder sister Alice was born in 1224).

      "The French conquest of Poitou in 1246 created great difficulties for William's family, and so he and his brothers, Guy de Lusignan and Aymer, accepted Henry III's invitation to come to England in 1247. The king found important positions for all of them; William was soon married to a great heiress, Joan de Munchensi or Munchensy [...]

      "This favouritism to royal relatives was unpopular with many of the English nobility, a discontent which would culminate in the Second Barons' War. It did not take long for William to make enemies in England. From his new lands in South Wales, he tried to regain the palatine rights which had been attached to the Earldom of Pembroke, but his energies were not confined to this. The King heaped lands and honours upon him, and he was soon thoroughly hated as one of the most prominent of the rapacious foreigners. Moreover, some trouble in Wales led to a quarrel between him and Simon de Montfort, who was to become the figurehead for the rebels. He refused to comply with the provisions imposed on the King at Oxford in 1258, and took refuge in Wolvesey Castle at Winchester, where he was besieged and compelled to surrender and leave the country.

      "However, in 1259 William and de Montfort were formally reconciled in Paris, and in 1261 Valence was again in England and once more enjoying the royal favour. He fought for Henry at the disastrous Battle of Lewes, and after the defeat again fled to France, while de Montfort ruled England. However, by 1265 he was back, landing in Pembrokeshire, and taking part in the Siege of Gloucester and the final royalist victory at Evesham. After the battle he was restored to his estates and accompanied Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I, to Palestine.

      "From his base in Pembrokeshire he was a mainstay of the English campaigns against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and later Dafydd ap Gruffudd; in the war of 1282-3 that led to the conquest of Wales he negotiated the surrender of one of Dafydd's last remaining castles, Castell-y-Bere, with its custodian, Cynfrig ap Madog. He also went several times to France on public business and he was one of Edward's representatives in the famous suit over the succession to the crown of Scotland in 1291 and 1292."

  • Sources 
    1. [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.

    2. [S317] The Bulkeley Genealogy by Donald Lines Jacobus. New Haven, Connecticut: 1933.

    3. [S789] The Wallop Family and Their Ancestry by Vernon James Watney. Oxford, 1928.

    4. [S1016] Medieval English Ancestors of Robert Abell by Carl Boyer III. Santa Clarita, California, 2001.

    5. [S4342] Norfolk Families by Walter Rye. Two volumes, 1911-13.

    6. [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.

    7. [S142] Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson. Salt Lake City, 2013.

    8. [S53] The Magna Charta Sureties, 1215: The Barons Named in the Magna Charta, 1215, and Some of Their Descendants Who Settled in America During the Early Colonial Years by Frederick Lewis Weis. Fifth edition, with additions and corrections by Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr. and William R. Beal. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1999.

    9. [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.

    10. [S7287] Women in Thirteenth-Century Lincolnshire by Louise J. Wilkinson. Woodbridge, Suffolk: A Royal Historical Society Publication, published by the Boydell Press, 2007., year only.

    11. [S160] Wikipedia.