John Maltravers, 1st Baron Maltravers

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John Maltravers, 1st Baron Maltravers (also Mautravers ) (* around 1290; † February 16, 1364 ) was an English nobleman and courtier. He is considered one of the alleged murderers of the deposed King Edward II.

Origin and rebel against King Edward II.

John Maltravers came from a wealthy family of Gentry from Dorset . He was the son of Sir John Maltravers of Lytchett Matravers and his first wife Alinore. Presumably he served in the military under Roger Mortimer in Ireland and probably also took part in the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 . In 1319 he was elected to Parliament as Knight of the Shire for Dorset . In 1320 he accompanied his father-in-law Maurice Berkeley to Gascogne, which then belonged to the English king, on behalf of King Edward II . During the Despenser War he was one of the rebels around Thomas of Lancaster and was pardoned by the king in August 1321, but in January 1322 he belonged again to the rebels and together with Roger Mortimer attacked Newport Castle , which was the hated royal favorite Hugh le Despenser belonged to. While Mortimer had to surrender to the king at the end of January, Maltravers managed to flee abroad. After the king's final victory in the Battle of Boroughbridge in March 1322, his estates were confiscated. After Mortimer was also able to flee to France in 1323, Maltravers joined him and served him as captain of the troops that Mortimer gathered for a planned invasion of England. In September 1326 Maltravers belonged to the small army with which Mortimer and Queen Isabelle landed in England . Mortimer and the queen could overthrow the king and take over the government. As a reward, Maltravers received the Winterborne Houghton estate and Sutton Maudite properties that had previously belonged to Despenser. In February 1327 he received his 1322 confiscated properties back from Parliament.

Confidante Mortimers and alleged murderer of Edward II.

From April 1327 he and his brother-in-law Thomas de Berkeley were tasked with guarding the deposed King Edward II in Berkeley Castle , which is why he is one of the suspects who had been involved in the alleged murder of Edward in September 1327. He was in Berkeley at the time of alleged death when William Ockley brought him and Thomas Gurney orders from Mortimer. By the end of 1328 at the latest, he was one of the closest followers of Mortimer, who in the meantime was de facto regent of England. On April 5th he was given the profitable position of administrator of the royal forests south of the Trent . From 1328 to 1329 he helped put down the Henry of Lancaster rebellion and served as a prosecutor in the conviction of the captured rebels. In 1329 he accompanied the young King Edward III as Knight Banneret . to France, where he had to pay homage to the French king for the possessions in south-west France. In May 1330 Maltravers was Lord Steward of the Household and received goods from John Giffard after a legal dispute . In the same year he was appointed to parliament twice as Baron Maltravers . In October 1330 he became administrator of Clarendon Palace , and by September 1329 at the latest he had become administrator of Corfe Castle , since he was also involved in the conspiracy which in early 1330 convinced Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent , that his half-brother Edward II. Would still live. Because of this intrigue, the Earl of Kent was executed a little later for high treason. After the fall of Mortimer in October 1330 by the young King Edward III. Maltravers fled. He was charged with the murder of the Earl of Kent and a bounty of 1,000 marks was placed on him . His confiscated possessions fell to Kent's widow Margaret Wake and William Montagu . At the end of 1330 or beginning of 1331 Maltravers was able to flee from England, probably from Mousehole in Cornwall, together with Thomas Gournay and other followers of Mortimers . Apparently he spent the next few years in the Netherlands or Germany.

Exile and return to England

In February 1331 Queen Philippa decreed that Maltraver's wife Agnes from her Wittum from her first two marriages to John Argentine († 1318) and John Nerford († 1329) received income to support her family. In August 1332, Agnes allegedly went on a pilgrimage abroad, but this only served as an excuse to visit her husband. In March 1334, William Montagu was commissioned to contact Maltravers because he wanted to divulge secrets. In 1335 Montagu, Edmund Bereford , a brother-in-law of Maltravers, his other brother-in-law Thomas de Berkeley, John Moleyns and Nicholas Beche were pardoned for having supported Maltravers abroad. In 1339 Maltravers received an annual lifelong pension from the king of £ 100, and in 1342 his wife was allowed to live with her husband abroad at will. This treatment of a man condemned as a traitor by King Edward III. led to rumors that Edward II had not been murdered after all, although Maltraver's role in the death or disappearance of the deposed king remained unclear. The later Italian bishop Manuel Fieschi wrote in a report that was written between 1336 and 1343 that Edward II was brought from Berkeley Castle to Corfe Castle, where Maltravers was also a constable . The deposed king lived there in hiding for 18 months and then fled abroad. According to this story, Maltravers' permanent exile until 1351 would have been an attempt to cover up the flight of the deposed king. In 1345 Maltravers met King Edward III. at the mouth of the Zwin in Flanders. He was not yet allowed to return to England, but over the next five years he continued to gain the king's favor. After the English conquest of Calais in 1347, he bought a house there, and in 1348 he was part of an English delegation that negotiated on behalf of the king in Ghent , Bruges and Ypres during the Hundred Years War . In 1351 he became administrator of the Channel Islands , where he founded a hospital in Bowes near St. Peter Port . In 1351 he was finally allowed to return to England, where he received his confiscated lands back on June 20. In November 1351 he was again called to a session of parliament, and in February 1352 his reinstatement in the favor of the king was officially confirmed by parliament. He spent the last years of his life in England. He was buried in Lytchett Matravers.

Marriages and offspring

Maltravers was married twice. Around 1313 he married Ela (also Milicent ), a daughter of Maurice de Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley and Eva la Zouche. With her he had a son, John. Ela probably died before 1329, around this time Maltravers married Agnes († 1375), the twice widowed daughter of Sir William Bereford. This marriage remained childless.

Since his son John had died in 1350 and his son Henry had died before him, his two granddaughters Joan, wife of Sir John Kaynis, and Eleanor , wife of Sir John Arundel , became his heirs. The title Baron Maltravers initially fell in Abeyance , until his granddaughter Eleanor became Baroness Maltravers in her own right after the childless death of her sister .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . Pimlico, London 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 265.
  2. ↑ Seymour Phillips: Edward II . New Haven, Yale University Press 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-15657-7 , pp. 543, n129.
  3. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . Pimlico, London 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 265.
  4. ↑ Alison Weir: Isabella. She-Wolf of France, Queen of England . London, Pimlico 2006, ISBN 0-7126-4194-7 , p. 276.
personal data
SURNAME Maltravers, John, 1st Baron Maltravers
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maltravers, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and courtier
DATE OF BIRTH around 1290
DATE OF DEATH February 16, 1364