Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney

Coat of arms of Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney

Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney KG (born June 1, 1451 or 1452, † May 21, 1508 ) was an English nobleman, military man and statesman.

origin

Giles Daubeney came from the Daubeney family , an old and respected gentry family . He was the eldest son and heir of Sir William Daubeney of South Petherton , Somerset and his wife Alice Stourton , the third eldest daughter of John Stourton of Preston Plucknett , Somerset. After the early death of his father in 1461, Daubeney became the ward of Sir Thomas Kyriell on January 10, 1461 .

Courtier of Edward IV, rebellion against Richard III. and exile

On August 25, 1473 Daubeney came of age and his father's possessions were awarded to him. He quickly made a career as a courtier at the court of King Edward IV . During the king's unsuccessful expedition to France in 1475, Daubeney led a company of four men-at-arms and 50 archers. As Esquire of the Body he was appointed administrator of the Petherton Forest on July 12, 1477 . On January 18, 1478 he was knighted by Edward IV and appointed Knight of the Body in 1480 . By the favor of the king he received from 1474 to 1475 and from 1480 to 1481 the office of sheriff of Somerset and Devon and from 1481 to 1482 that of sheriff only of Devon, in addition he was justice of the peace for Somerset from 1475 . Bishop Waynflete of Winchester appointed him constable of Taunton Castle in 1477 and Duchess Cecily of York appointed him constable of Bridgwater Castle in 1483 . In 1478 he was admitted to the bar at Lincoln's Inn . In the same year he was elected Knight of the Shire for Somerset and represented it in the House of Commons .

When Richard of Gloucester seized the throne in 1483 and became Richard III. became the new king, Daubeney belonged like many other members of the court of King Edward IV and like many of his relatives to the rebels who revolted against the new king in October. Presumably he was planning the rebellion as early as August 20, 1483, when, as a precaution, he made his wife co-owner of part of his estates. When his collection in Salisbury failed, he fled with six servants and together with John Cheyne and John Halwell in Brittany . His possessions were confiscated by the king, who granted his wife an annual pension of £ 40.

Close confidante of King Henry VII.

In 1484 Daubeney was condemned as a rebel by parliament, but in 1485 he returned to England with Henry Tudor and fought at the Battle of Bosworth . After this victory, Henry Tudor became Henry VII's new king and Daubeney served him as deputy chamberlain at the coronation. He quickly became one of the leading courtiers and served the king as advisor and troop commander. He held various court and administrative offices, including from March 7, 1486 that of Lieutenant von Calais and from November 24, 1493 that of the chief forest judge of the royal forests south of the River Trent . On March 12, 1486 he was raised to Baron Daubeney and in May 1487 accepted into the Order of the Garter. In 1495 he succeeded Sir William Stanley as Lord Chamberlain of the Household . In the first years he visited Calais regularly because of his office, where he negotiated with the ambassador of the Roman-German King Maximilian I in 1486 . In 1489 he was the commander of a small army of about 1,800 men, which Maximilian I supported in the fight against France and the Netherlands , which rebelled against Maximilian's rule . He attacked the Dutch siege ring of Diksmuide on June 13 , where he was able to capture numerous artillery pieces. In June 1492 he led negotiations with France together with Bishop Fox , which led to the Treaty of Étaples in November 1492 . Even before the peace agreement, Daubeney accompanied King Henry VII during the siege of Boulogne . King Maximilian later paid him a pension for his success at Diksmuide, the French King Charles VIII for his contribution to the Peace of Étaples.

For a campaign planned against Scotland in 1497, Daubeney was to be the commander of the 7,000-strong vanguard . The campaign was postponed due to the uprising in south-west England. Daubeney's involvement in starting the rebellion is controversial. The main cause of the rebellion was high taxation, but Daubeney's favoritism by the king and the other large landowners in south-west England had aroused the gentry's disapproval. Daubeney had received so many possessions and offices in Devon, Dorset , Hampshire and especially Somerset that the gentry became dissatisfied with this concentration of power in the hands of a favorite of King Henry VII and in some cases joined the rebels. Daubeney's forces defeated the rebels at the Battle of Deptford Bridge on June 17 , but since several of his neighbors, relatives and even his brother James were rebels, he is said to have treated them leniently. Allegedly, the rebels had also tried to win him over as a mediator between them and the king. Despite these rumors, in September the king placed him in command of the army that would put down the ensuing rebellion of Perkin Warbeck . Daubeney occupied Taunton , ended the siege of Exeter and was able to take Warbeck prisoner.

Daubeney was still one of the closest friends and confidante of King Henry VII. He leased the Hampton estate , which was near the royal palace Richmond Palace , and was able to visit the king frequently. In 1506, however, the king fined him a heavy £ 2,000 for allegedly overpaid payments for the Calais garrison. Daubeney died after a brief illness and, while still on his deathbed, protested his loyalty to the king. He was buried on May 26, 1508 in St Paul's Chapel at Westminster Abbey , where his grave with alabaster figures of him and his wife is still preserved.

Marriage and offspring

In 1476 Daubeney had married Elizabeth Arundel, a daughter of Sir John Arundel from Lanherne and his second wife Katherine Chidiock. He had several children with her, including:

• Cecil Daubeney ∞ John Bourchier, 1st Earl of Bath
• Henry Daubeney, 1st Earl of Bridgewater , 2nd Baron Daubeney (1493–1548)

Daubeney's widow, who had taken over the estates with an annual income of over £ 666 until his son came of age, died after November 1510.

Web links

• SJ Gunn: Daubeney, Giles, first Baron Daubeney (1451 / 2–1508). 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
• Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney on thepeerage.com , accessed September 3, 2015.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hampton Court Palace: A building history. Palace origins. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 10, 2015 ; Retrieved July 7, 2015 . 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.  
2. ^ Westminster Abbey: History. Giles Daubeney. Retrieved July 7, 2015 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baron Daubeney 1486-1508	Henry Daubeney
William Stanley	Lord Chamberlain of the Household 1494-1508	Charles Somerset