Gilbert de Umfraville, 9th Earl of Angus

Gilbert de Umfraville, 3rd Baron Umfraville, 3rd Baron Kyme (* 1309 or 1310; † January 6, 1381 ) was an English nobleman, as well as a pretender to the Scottish title 9th Earl of Angus .

Origin and heritage

Gilbert de Umfraville came from the Anglo-Scottish Umfraville family . He was the eldest son of Robert de Umfraville, 8th Earl of Angus and his first wife, Lucy Kyme . His father had supported the English King Edward II during the First Scottish War of Independence . Therefore, the Scottish King Robert I had confiscated the property of the Umfraville family in Scotland and declared the title of Earl of Angus forfeited. When his father died in early 1325, Gilbert was still a minor when he became the heir to the family's extensive northern English estates. After he came of age, he was invited to the English parliaments as Baron Umfraville from 1332 and, for the sake of courtesy, was referred to as the Earl of Angus. The Scottish King reassigned the title of Earl of Angus to John Stewart in 1329 .

Role in the Second Scottish War of Independence

Umfraville was considered one of the disinherited due to his claims to his Scottish heritage . In 1331 he was one of the disinherited who escorted Edward Balliol , the son of the Scottish King John Balliol , who had been deposed in 1296, from exile in France to England. Balliol now became the leader of the disinherited plotting to invade Scotland. To finance his participation in the campaign, Umfraville sold or mortgaged his holdings in Northumberland. He was a member of the small army of the disinherited that landed in Scotland in August 1332, starting the Second Scottish War of Independence . Shortly after landing, the disinherited were able to defeat a Scottish army at the Battle of Dupplin Moor . Balliol was then crowned King of Scotland, but in December 1332 he and the disinherited had to flee back to England before a Scottish uprising. The English King Edward III. now openly supported Balliol's claims, whereupon Umfraville and others of the disinherited were financially supported by him. In the spring of 1333 Umfraville belonged to the army with which Balliol besieged the border town of Berwick . In the winter of 1334-1335 he took part in the campaign of Edward III. to Roxburgh , where he led a contingent of thirty men-at-arms and eighty mounted archers. In the summer of 1335 he was a member of the army with which Edward Balliol advanced along the east coast of Scotland to Perth . Still, the disinherited and the English king could not break the Scottish resistance, and by 1338 Balliol and his supporters had been driven from almost all of Scotland.

Nevertheless, the war continued. In 1338 Umfraville had inherited the English title Baron Kyme and his possessions in Lincolnshire from his maternal uncle William Kyme, 2nd Baron Kyme . He was a member of the English army, which was able to repel a Scottish invasion of England in the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346 . After this victory he accepted the surrender of Roxburgh Castle by the Scottish occupation. Umfraville used forged documents in which the underage Scottish King David II supposedly agreed that Scotland was a fiefdom of the English king. In these documents, Umfraville was referred to not only as the Earl of Angus and Lord of Prudhoe , but even as the Marshal of Scotland . In his endeavors in Scotland, Umfraville worked closely with Sir Henry Percy , the English nobleman charged with defending against Scotland. In 1346, in a letter to the English Chancellor John Offord , Percy complained that Umfraville was no longer named as the defender of the Eastern Scottish Marches . It is not known whether this was an oversight or whether Umfraville fell out of favor with King Edward III. Little is known of his further life. He was invited to the English parliaments until 1380.

Marriages and inheritance

Umfraville was married twice. In his first marriage he had married Joan, a daughter of Robert de Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby de Eresby . He had three sons with her, but they all died prematurely, including:

• Robert Umfraville († before 1368) ⚭ Margaret de Percy

In his second marriage he married Matilda de Lucy, 5th Baroness Lucy , a daughter of Thomas de Lucy, 2nd Baron Lucy, before October 1368 . As her brother's heir, she brought the Cockermouth lordship and lands in Cumberland into the marriage. However, the marriage remained childless. With no surviving descendants, Umfraville was persuaded in 1375 by Henry Percy, 4th Baron Percy , to hand over or sell a large part of his possessions, including Prudhoe Castle, to him. In an agreement in 1375 he bequeathed the freedom of Redesdale to his two half-brothers Robert and Thomas . His niece Eleanor Tailboys , who had married Sir Gilbert Burowden, inherited his remaining property after his death . They also inherited the right to the title of Baron Kyme, which they did not use. Umfraville's widow, Matilda, kept her own Cockermouth inheritance and in 1381 married Henry Percy, who had acquired Umfraville's estates. Umfraville's half-brother Robert had died before him, so the other half-brother Thomas now inherited Redesdale. The title Baron Umfraville had expired with Umfraville's death.

literature

• James Balfour Paul (Ed.): The Scots Peerage . tape 1 . David Douglas, Edinburgh 1904, Umfraville, Earl of Angus , p. 167 f . ( online at www.archive.org [accessed September 1, 2014]).

Web links

• Earl of Angus. fmg.ac, accessed September 1, 2014 . 
• Fiona Watson: Umfraville, Gilbert, ninth earl of Angus (1309 / 10-1381). 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

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 66.
2. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 73.
3. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 78.
4. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 108.
5. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 128.
6. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 246.
7. ^ Ranald Nicholson: Edward III and the Scots. The formative Years of a Military Career . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, p. 201.
8. ^ Kyme, Baron (E, 1295– abeyant 1577). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 13, 2012 ; accessed on July 12, 2019 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ^ Nicholas Harris Nicolas: A Synopsis of the Peerage of England. Volume 2, London 1825, p. 655.
10. ^ English Nobility: Lucy. fmg.ac, accessed September 1, 2014 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Robert de Umfraville	Baron Umfraville 1325-1381	Title expired
William Kyme	Baron Kyme 1338-1381	Eleanor Tailboys