Hugh de Cressingham

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
De Cressingham's coat of arms

Hugh de Cressingham (also Hugh Cressingham ) (* 13th century; † September 11, 1297 near Stirling ) was an English clergyman, civil servant and military.

Promotion to Treasurer of Scotland

Hugh de Cressingham was born out of wedlock. He became a clergyman and entered the service of the Crown as an official, where he rose rapidly. He was considered smooth, ready to serve and ambitious. As a reward for his services, he received several spiritual benefices , and he was able to buy a small estate in Hendon and Finchley . Before 1296 he worked with William Ormsby as a traveling judge in the northern English counties. When Scotland was occupied by England after a war in 1296 , King Edward I appointed Earl Warenne as governor and on September 6, 1296 Cressingham as Treasurer of Scotland . William Ormsby was appointed Chief Justice for Scotland. Warenne, however, had a strong dislike of Scotland and preferred to stay on his estates in Yorkshire . This resulted in Cressingham taking over the actual management of the administration in Scotland. Its tasks included the collection of taxes and duties, the supervision of the administration and the maintenance of the peace . Only a few documents have survived from his tenure, but he has become a hated symbol of English occupation and rule. Among other things, he ordered that the entire wool production, apparently without compensation, should be brought to the nearest ports. From there it was exported, with the crown keeping the profit.

Role during the uprising from 1297

When there was an all-out uprising against English rule in Scotland in the summer of 1296, Cressingham was staying in Bolton in Northumberland . In a letter to the government in London, he admitted that English rule had apparently completely collapsed and that no one knew what the situation was like in northern Scotland. With the Crown unable to expect income from Scotland, he asked for £ 2,000 for the cost of putting down the insurrection. Reluctantly, Warenne and Cressingham finally advanced with an army to the strategically important crossing over the Forth near Stirling . Despite his clergy, Cressingham was one of the commanders and wore armor himself. On the north bank of the Forth there was a Scottish army under William Wallace . Previously, Cressingham had sent back reinforcements to save costs, but now he pushed for battle. He himself belonged to that part of the English army that had already crossed the bridge over the Forth when the Scots attacked. The following battle was a heavy defeat for the English. Cressingham fell in battle. The Scots desecrated his body, skinned it and displayed it as a symbol of their victory in several Scottish cities. According to the Lanercost Chronicle , Wallace had a piece of skin made into a sword belt. The dead Cressingham served the English as a scapegoat for the defeat of Stirling Bridge. His inability as a military leader and his thrift, because of which he had refused the reinforcements offered, served as reasons for the heavy defeat against the Scots.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 110.
  2. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 110.
  3. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 106n.
  4. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 110.
  5. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 120.
  6. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 124.
  7. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 130n.
  8. ↑ Richard W. Käuper: Violence in medieval society. Boydell & Brewer Ltd, Woodbridge 2000, ISBN 0851157742 , p. 43.
  9. ↑ Andrew Fisher: Wallace, Sir William (d.1305). 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
personal data
SURNAME Cressingham, Hugh de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cressingham, Hugh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English clergyman and military
DATE OF BIRTH 13th Century
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1297
Place of death at Stirling