John Seagrave, 2nd Baron Seagrave

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Coat of arms of John Seagrave, 2nd Baron Seagrave

John Seagrave, 2nd Baron Seagrave (also John de Segrave ) (* 1256 , † between May 8, 1325 and October 4, 1325 ) was an English nobleman and military man. He took part in numerous campaigns by King Edward I and his successor Edward II and took over important military commands and administrative tasks in Scotland until 1322.

origin

John Seagrave was the eldest son of Nicholas Seagrave, 1st Baron Seagrave and his wife Matilda . His brothers included Nicholas , Henry, and Gilbert Seagrave . According to the Dictum of Kenilworth, his father owned lands with an annual income of 500 marks (£ 330) in 1268 , making him one of the middle barons. The family's holdings were mainly in Derbyshire , Warwickshire , Huntingdonshire , Leicestershire and Northamptonshire . Although the Seagrave family sided with the nobility opposition to King Henry III during the Second Barons' War in the 1260s . fought, John Seagrave took part in the crusade of the heir to the throne Lord Edward . After this king became king, he also served him in 1277 and from 1282 to 1283 in the campaigns for the conquest of Wales . In 1287 he served the king in Ireland and during the Scottish succession dispute in 1291 in Scotland .

Youth and heritage

In 1270 Seagrave was married to Christine de Plessis (also Christiana ), a daughter of Hugh de Plessis . De Plessis gave the estate of Stottesdon in Shropshire to his daughter and Seagrave on July 4, 1270 , for which Seagrave later owed the king a Knight's fee . In the next few years Seagrave received further goods from his father, so in 1275 a quarter Knight's fee in Calvedon in Warwickshire and in 1282 a Knight's fee in Atterton and Witherley in Lincolnshire . In 1281 Seagrave exchanged Roger of Kingswood's possessions at Kingswood in Shropshire for land and forest holdings and a watermill in Cherle . In 1289 Seagrave received the estates from Penn in Buckinghamshire and Blyborough in Lincolnshire. After the death of his father in late 1295, he became his heir and on December 10, 1295 paid homage to King Edward I for his possessions. As Baron Segrave , he was regularly invited to parliaments from August 26, 1296 .

Role in the state crisis of 1297

In 1297 Seagrave signed a contract with Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk , according to which Seagrave Bigod as Marshal of England had to provide 16, or even 20 riders if necessary. In peacetime, Bigod would provide his entourage with food and drink, and Seagrave, as Knight Banneret, and his knights would be given robes according to their rank in the retinue of the Earl of Norfolk. For the duration of this service, Bigod Seagrave gave the Loddon estate in Norfolk as a fief. In the same year, 1297, Seagrave Bigod apologized to King Edward I because Bigod could not take part in the king's campaign to Flanders during the war with France because of an alleged illness . As a vassal of Bigod, Seagrave himself was to take part in the king's campaign, but together with Bigod and Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford , he appeared at the treasury on August 22, the day the army left, to collect additional taxes Prevent Funding the War. The barons handed over a letter of protest against the tax of the eighth levied by the king and complained about the high tax burden and what they saw as the illegal expansion of the previous, traditional taxes by the king.

Military at war in Scotland under Edward I.

After the settlement of this crisis in 1297 Seagrave took over after Bigod's resignation as Marshal as Deputy Marshal of his duties during the Scottish War of Independence . On June 30, 1300 he again paid homage to the king in Carlisle . On February 12, 1301, he sealed the letter that the English barons had written to the Pope, in which they complained about the Pope's interference in the Scottish War of Independence. After an investigation and discussion of the duties of the marshal, Seagrave received £ 100 a year from 1301 instead of the previous remuneration of the marshal, which mainly comprised a share of the spoils of war. This agreement could only be achieved with the assurance that Seagrave would only receive the money if he also fulfilled his duties as marshal.

In August 1302 Seagrave was appointed Commandant of Berwick Castle and in November 1302 King's Lieutenant in Scotland. Even before the armistice in Scotland expired at the end of September 1302, he undertook a Chevauchée past Stirling to Kirkintilloch on the orders of Edward I with the support of barons from the north of England . In February 1303 he undertook another raid with Ralph Manton on other areas controlled by the Scots. His troops were surprised and defeated on February 24 at the Battle of Roslin by a Scottish force led by John Comyn of Badenoch and Simon Fraser . Seagrave was wounded and captured with several of his knights, but was freed a little later. In the winter of 1303 to 1304 Seagrave undertook another Chevauchée to Lothian together with Robert de Clifford and William Latimer . In doing so, they made sure that their plans were not revealed in advance or revealed by spies. Indeed, during their raid, they managed to surprise and defeat a Scottish force led by William Wallace and Simon Fraser, but the two leaders escaped. As a result, Seagrave worked closely with Robert Bruce to subdue Wallace and Fraser. Finally, in the summer of 1305, the captured Wallace was handed over to Seagrave, who escorted him to London. Seagrave was one of the judges who sentenced Wallace to death in a show trial. After the execution, he was assigned to take the body parts of the quartered Wallace to Newcastle , Berwick , Stirling and Perth , where they were exhibited. In the same year he resigned his offices as King's Lieutenant of Scotland and as Commander of Berwick Castle. Since his wife had also lived in Scotland during her husband's service, she received financial compensation from the king in 1306.

Military service under Edward II.

In January 1308 Seagrave was asked to attend the coronation of the new King Edward II. In March 1308 the new king appointed him in command of Nottingham Castle and administrator and judge for the royal forests north of the Trent . However, he had to cede this lucrative office to the royal favorite Piers Gaveston on October 1, 1310 , although he received a one-time compensation. After Gaveston was murdered, the office of administrator and forest judge was transferred to Seagrave on September 4, 1312 for life. In 1309 Seagrave was appointed defender of Scotland to the Forth , and in November 1310 he was appointed defender of Annandale in south-west Scotland. In 1313 he was defender of the Scottish Marches in Cumberland , and in 1314 he took part in the campaign of Edward II in Scotland. He got into Scottish captivity again at the Battle of Bannockburn . He was released at the end of 1314, but in addition to the high ransom he had to pay, Edward II had to release four high-ranking Scottish prisoners for his release. In 1315 there was a rebellion in Nottingham Castle, during which the angry citizens stormed the outer castle gate of Nottingham Castle, killed some guards and finally besieged Seagrave for eight days without supply in the Keep .

Shortly after the reign of Edward II had begun, a nobility opposition had formed against the king, whose leaders included Thomas of Lancaster , a powerful cousin of the king. Seagrave, like his brother Nicholas and other members, had entered the service of Lancaster and had pledged to serve the earl with an entourage of thirty men-at-arms . Lancaster paid him 50 marks a year for this . In 1318, King Lancaster had to make concessions in the Treaty of Leake , and in August Seagrave was appointed to the Council of State, which, according to the agreement, was supposed to control the king's rule outside of parliamentary sessions. However, unrest continued in England. In 1320 Seagrave was commissioned to restore peace in Warwickshire. When the Despenser War finally broke out in the spring of 1321 , a rebellion of the Marcher Lords against the royal favorite Hugh le Despenser , Seagrave was warned in January and April 1321 not to participate in illegal or treasonous meetings, and in November he was banned from to meet with other barons in general. In the same month he was asked to set up infantry and horsemen in Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire to put down the rebellion. In fact, Seagrave now left Lancaster's service as the latter supported the Marcher Lords rebellion against the king. In February 1322 he was to set up as many foot soldiers and men-at-arms as possible and as commanding officer he was to make Nottingham Castle ready for defense. After the rebellion failed, he was to come to York with his vassals , where the rebel leaders were sentenced. After that he was to set up troops in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire in late 1322 and early 1323 for a new campaign to Scotland . During the War of Saint-Sardos , he traveled to south-west France in July 1324, where he was commanding the troops of the Duchy of Aquitaine .

Expansion of his possessions

During the many years in the service of the king, Seagrave was able to acquire further lands, in addition he had considerable income through his offices and received various rights and privileges from the king for his possessions. Among other things, he received lumber from royal forests for the construction of a chapel at his Chalcombe estate , permission to fortify his estates Dwelling at Bretby in Derbyshire and Caludon and market rights for Woodweston in Huntingdonshire and Aspel in Warwickshire. Nevertheless, Seagrave was also asked in judicial investigations taking place in Cambridge from 1299 to 1300 to prove, according to the Statute Quo Warranto , that his claim to possession of Connington , Boxworth and Fen Drayton was legitimate. In 1301 he paid £ 800 to manage the estates of Hugh de Plessis , a relative of his wife, and for the right to marry Hugh de Plessis' heirs. In September 1312 Edward II offered him either land with an annual income of £ 100 or £ 1000 for land purchase instead. In 1318, according to an agreement, he received the lands of his younger brother Henry, who died childless. At his death he owned estates and lands in nine English counties: Oxfordshire , Shropshire, Hampshire , Buckinghamshire , Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire.

The exact date of Seagrave's death is unknown. He was last invited to parliament on May 8, 1325 and died before October 8, 1325. He was buried in Chalcombe Priory.

Family and offspring

From his marriage to Christine de Plessis , Seagrave had at least three children:

His wife survived him until at least 1331. His heir was his son Stephen, who died a few months after him.

literature

  • Charles Moor: Knights of Edward I. Publications of the Harleian Society (83), London 1931, pp. 236-238

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helen M. Jewell: Seagrave, Nicholas of, first Lord Seagrave (1238? –1295). 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. ↑ KB McFarlane: An indenture of agreement between two English knights for mutual aid and counsel in peace and war . In: Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research , 38 (1965), pp. 201-208
  3. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 420
  4. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 433
  5. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 498
  6. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 500
  7. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 503
  8. ↑ Michael Penman: Robert the Bruce. King of the Scots . Yale University Press, New Haven 2014, ISBN 978-0-300-14872-5 , p. 121.
  9. ^ David Cornell: Bannockburn. The triumph of Robert the Bruce. Yale University Press, New Haven 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-14568-7 , p. 277
  10. ↑ John Robert Maddicott: Thomas of Lancaster, 1307-1322. A Study in the Reign of Edward II. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1970, p. 59
  11. ↑ John Robert Maddicott: Thomas of Lancaster, 1307-1322. A Study in the Reign of Edward II. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1970, p. 226
predecessor Office successor
Nicholas Seagrave Baron Segrave
1295-1325 		Stephen Seagrave
personal data
SURNAME Seagrave, John, 2nd Baron Seagrave
ALTERNATIVE NAMES De Segrave, John, 2nd Baron Segrave
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and military
DATE OF BIRTH around 1256
DATE OF DEATH between May 8, 1325 and October 4, 1325