John de Lacy, 1st Earl of Lincoln

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Coat of arms of John de Lacy

John de Lacy, 1st Earl of Lincoln (according to another count also 3rd Earl of Lincoln ; * around 1192, † July 22, 1240 ) was an English magnate .

Origin and youth

John came from the de Lacy family , one of the oldest, richest and most important families of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. He was the eldest son and main heir of Roger de Lacy († 1211), Constable of Chester , and of Maud (or Matilda ) de Clere . Nothing is known about his childhood and youth. When his father died, he was still a minor, and it was not until September 1213 that he was able to take possession of his extensive inheritance. The legacy included lands in the northern Midlands and northern England with over 100 Knight's fees and the baronies of Pontefract in Yorkshire and Clitheroe , Penwortham , Widnes and Halton in Lancashire . In order for Lacy to take over his inheritance, King Johann Ohneland demanded that he pay the immensely high fee of 7,000 marks within three years . As security, the king demanded that the two most important castles in the legacy, Pontefract and Castle Donington in Leicestershire, be given to him. Lacy had to bear the cost of the crews, and in the event of a rebellion, the king threatened him with expropriation.

Changing posture during the First Barons' War

In 1214 Lacy took part in the king's unsuccessful campaign in Poitou . In the same year, the King gave him Donington Castle, for which Lacy, however, had to hold his younger brother hostage. Together with the king he made a vow of crusade on March 4, 1215 . From 1214 on, King John faced an increasingly strong aristocratic opposition, but at the end of May 1215 Lacy was one of the king's supporters. However, when the City of London joined the rebels, Lacy switched sides too. Although the king had canceled his outstanding debts of 4,200 marks after his crusade vows, the high fee that Lacy was supposed to pay for the assumption of his inheritance was certainly the main reason for Lacy's change of party. In June 1215, Lacy was present at the king's recognition of the Magna Carta and was elected one of the 25 barons who were to oversee the king's compliance with its regulations. He commanded the rebel forces in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire , but during the Barons' First War that followed he wavered between the king's party and the rebels. On the New Year of 1216 he submitted to the king, who forced him to renounce the Magna Carta and again to hold his brother hostage. After initially continuing to support the king, he rejoined the rebels before John's death in October 1216. After the lost battle of Lincoln in May 1217, however, he changed camp again and swore to the young King Henry III in August . the loyalty. The Regency Council commissioned him in September 1217 to oversee the surrender of Carlisle Castle by the Scottish King Alexander II . At that time, Lacy was already planning to fulfill his crusade vows. In May 1218 he and his overlord Ranulf de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester, set out on the Damiette crusade . In August 1220 he returned to England with the Earl of Chester. He strengthened his bond with his overlord in 1221 by marrying Margaret de Quincy , a niece of the Earl.

Supporters of Heinrich III.

In February 1221 he supported the siege of Skipton Castle during the rebellion of William de Forz . In the winter of 1223 to 1224 he belonged with the Earl of Chester to the nobility opposition to the legal advisor Hubert de Burgh . However, he again submitted to the king and took part in the siege of the rebel-held Bedford Castle in 1224 . In February 1225 he testified to the renewed recognition of the Magna Carta by Henry III. In 1226 he served as royal judge of Lincolnshire and Lancashire. He belonged to the English embassy that met with German princes in Antwerp in 1227 , and took part in Henry III's French campaign in 1230 . part. After the failed campaign, he was one of the English negotiators who negotiated an armistice with France. As a thank you, the King gave him Collingham in Yorkshire and Bardsey in Lincolnshire.

In the summer of 1232 he again supported the aristocratic opposition under the Earl of Chester against Hubert de Burgh, who was dismissed as legal advisor at the end of July. After de Burgh was imprisoned at Devizes Castle , Lacy provided one of the four knights to guard him. However, he supported the new regime under Peter des Roches only half-heartedly, presumably his support for des Roches was based on the desire to be elevated to Earl of Lincoln . According to an agreement concluded before the death of the Earl of Chester on October 26, 1232, Hawise , the earl's sister, inherited his title Earl of Lincoln, which she then passed on to her son-in-law Lacy. On November 22, 1232, Lacy was officially elevated to the Earl of Lincoln, receiving a third of Lincolnshire's tax revenue. In addition, he inherited other goods from the Earl of Chester, including parts of the Leeds reign . In the fall of 1233, Lacy assisted the king in defending the Welsh Marches during the Richard Marshal rebellion . According to the chronicle of Roger von Wendover , Lacy was bribed by Peter des Roches, who promised him the guardianship of the minor heir and the income from the possessions of Nigel de Mowbray for a small fee of 1,000 marks. However, Des Roches was overthrown in the spring of 1234. Lacy now rose to become one of the king's most important advisers and took on important ceremonial tasks at the coronation of Queen Eleanor in 1236 .

1237 Lacy belonged to embassies to Scotland and Wales, to which he testified the renewed recognition of the Magna Carta by the king. The king transferred the administration of Cheshire to him after the death of John of Scotland, Earl of Chester in 1237 . Lacy offered the king 5,000 marks for the right to marry his daughter Maud to the underage Richard de Clare , the heir to the Clare family . The king first tried to marry the young Clare to one of his French relatives. After this failed, Lacy acquired the right to marry for only 3,000 marks. Richard of Cornwall , the king's younger brother, had initially supported Lacy in this arrangement, but eventually resented his preferred position with the king and attempted an unsuccessful revolt against his brother in 1238. However, Lacy's influence at court waned after 1238, presumably due to a long-term illness.

In addition to foundations for the Church of Pontefract and for the Cistercian monastery of Stanlaw Abbey in Leicestershire, John issued the oldest surviving charter for Rochdale . He was buried near his father in the choir of Stanlaw Abbey Church. When the monastery was relocated to Whalley in the 1290s , his bones were reburied there.

Family and offspring

Lacy was married to Margaret , daughter of Roger de Quincy, eldest son of Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester , since 1221 . According to later information from the 15th century, Lacy had already married Alice, a daughter of the Anglo-Norman baron Gilbert de l'Aigle ( House l'Aigle ) in 1214 , but this marriage is not mentioned in older chronicles. From his marriage to Margaret, which he entered into in 1221, he had several children, including:

His son Edmund became his heir. After his death, his wife married Walter Marshal in 1242 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares. The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 62
predecessor Office successor
New title created Earl of Lincoln
1232-1240 		Edmund de Lacy
personal data
SURNAME De Lacy, John, 1st Earl of Lincoln
ALTERNATIVE NAMES De Lacy, John; de Lacy, John, 3rd Earl of Lincoln
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English magnate
DATE OF BIRTH around 1192
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1240