Edward le Despenser, 1st Baron le Despenser

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Fresco in the Cappellone degli Spagnoli of the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, in the center of the picture, standing in a white robe and with the Order of the Garter, presumably Edward le Despenser

Edward le Despenser, 1st Baron le Despenser KG (born March 24, 1336 in Essendine , Rutland , † November 11, 1375 in Llanblethian , Glamorgan ) was an English nobleman and military man.

Origin and family

Edward was a son of Edward le Despenser († 1342) and Anne de Ferrers, a daughter of William Ferrers, 1st Baron Ferrers of Groby . His younger brothers included Henry Despenser , who became Bishop of Norwich. His father was the second son of Hugh le Despenser , the favorite of King Edward II who was overthrown and executed in 1326. He died during the War of the Breton Succession in 1342 at the siege of Vannes . Edward inherited his extensive estates, including nine mainly in the Midlands . When he was a minor, most of his property was administered by relatives and officials. Presumably in 1346 the lucrative marriage to Elizabeth Burghersh († 1409), the only daughter and heiress of Bartholomew Burgersh, 2nd Baron Burgersh and Cecily Weyland, was agreed for him. His fiancée was the granddaughter of Bartholomew Burghersh the Elder († 1355), who was a wealthy magnate and King's Chamberlain . The marriage took place before August 2, 1354. In 1349, after the childless death of his uncle Hugh le Despenser, 1st Baron le Despenser , Edward became the heir of his estates, including Glamorgan in South East Wales. After Elizabeth, his uncle's widow, received her widow , on February 8, 1350, the management of the other estates was given to Bartholomew Burghersh the Elder for only £ 1000 a year. After his death in 1355 she fell to Despenser's mother Lady Anne on the same terms until Edward came of age in March 1357. After the death of Elizabeth, his uncle's widow, in 1359 he inherited her widow. After the death of his father-in-law in 1369, Despenser inherited ten estates in Suffolk and half of Ewias Lacy's reign in the Welsh Marches .

Military career

Despensers military career began in 1355, when he during the Hundred Years' War in the wake of his father in the campaign of the Black Prince in Gascony and on 19 September 1356 onwards the Battle of Poitiers participated. He presumably stayed in south-west France until March 1357 and returned to London with the Black Prince the following month. On 15 December 1357 he was appointed as Baron by writ in the parliament appointed and the Baron le Despenser levied. When King Edward III. On his last campaign in France in October 1359, Despenser was part of the royal army and he stayed in France at least until 1361. In 1361 he was accepted into the Order of the Garter.

He was in London on November 13, 1362 when Lionel of Antwerp , the king's third son, was made Duke of Clarence, and he later became part of Clarence's entourage. In May 1368 he was the highest-ranking nobleman in Clarence's entourage when he left for Milan to marry Violante Visconti, the daughter of Galeazzo II Visconti . Clarence died unexpectedly shortly after the wedding on October 17, 1368 in Italy, and Despenser was convinced that he had been poisoned. In retaliation, he entered the service of Pope Urban V and fought for him and for Venice against the Visconti of Milan. On March 10, 1370, in a letter to John of Gaunt , the Pope praised Despenser's bravery in the fighting in Lombardy. Despenser stayed in Italy for four years until he returned to England in the summer of 1372 at the request of John of Gaunt. He served as constable in the army of John of Gaunt when he moved in 1373 in a large, but loss-making Chevauchée from Calais to Bordeaux . In the spring of 1375 Despenser took part in the campaign of Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge and Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March in Brittany and the attack on Quimperlé . After the campaign was ended by the Armistice of Bruges, Despenser returned to England and visited his estates in Wales. In September 1375 he was in Cardiff , a few weeks later he died on one of his Welsh estates at the age of 39. He was buried at Tewkesbury Abbey , where his funerary memorial showing him praying in full armor is still preserved.

progeny

From his marriage to Elizabeth Burgersh, he had several children including:

  1. ∞ John Arundel, 2nd Baron Arundel (1364-1390)
  2. ∞ William Zouche, 3rd Baron Zouche of Haryngworth
  • Anne le Despenser († October 1426)
  1. ∞ Sir Hugh Hastings
  2. ∞ Thomas de Morley, 4th Baron Morley

His heir became his two-year-old son Thomas, but until he came of age in 1394, Glamorgan and the other estates were administered by the crown. His widow Elizabeth received Caerphilly Castle with some lands in Glamorgan as Wittum.

Aftermath

Despenser was considered a war hero in his time. His long presence and bravery in Italy were probably recognized by a fresco by Andrea da Firenze in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, on which he is shown near Emperor Charles IV with the Order of the Garter. This picture is, after a representation by Thomas Becket , the second oldest portrait by an Italian artist of an Englishman. Despenser's bravery was also described by the chronicler Jean Froissart , who called him the most honorable English knight of his time.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ RG Davies: Despenser, Henry (d. 1406). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
  2. ↑ Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan: III - Part 1b: Medieval Secular Monuments, the Later Castles from 1217 to the present , Her Maj. Stat. Office, London 2000, ISBN 978-1-871184-22-8 , p. 72
  3. ^ George B. Parks: The English traveler to Italy, Vol. 1: The Middle Ages (to 1525) . Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, Rome 1954, p. 280
personal data
SURNAME Le Despenser, Edward, 1st Baron le Despenser
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Despenser, Edward le, 1st Baron le Despenser
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and military
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1336
PLACE OF BIRTH Essendine , Rutland
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1375
Place of death Llanblethian , Glamorgan