Rhys Mansel

The gate of Oxwich Castle with the coat of arms of Rhys Mansel

Sir Rhys Mansel , also called Rice Mansel or Mansell (born January 25, 1487 in Oxwich , † April 10, 1559 in Clerkenwell ), was a Welsh nobleman, statesman and military.

origin

Rhys Mansel came from the Welsh Mansel family , mentioned on the Gower at the end of the 13th century . Rhy's grandfather Philip Mansel married Mabel, daughter of Gruffudd ap Nicolas . As a supporter of the House of Lancaster , his lands were stripped from him by parliamentary resolution in 1464. His son Jenkin Mansel took part in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 as a follower of Rhys ap Thomas , grandson of Gruffudd ap Nicolas . After the battle he got his father's lands back and the parliamentary decision to confiscate the goods was annulled. From his 1486 marriage with Edith Kyme (approx. 1450-1510) he had four daughters and a son, Rhys Mansel, whose godfather was Rhys ap Thomas. As a teenager, Rhys was entrusted to his uncle Matthew Cradock, a sailor and merchant from Swansea . In 1509 he led several merchant ships on behalf of his uncle. After the death of his father in 1510 he took over the management of the family estates. In 1511 he married his ward Eleanor Basset. His wife died childless before 1517, but Mansel was granted lifelong usage rights to the manor house Beaupre Castle , which he later expanded.

Rise under Henry VIII and Maria I.

In 1517 he served as a soldier under the Earl of Worcester in Flanders. Around 1520 he began building a new mansion at Oxwich Castle , which was completed around 1538. In 1526 he was knighted. His third wife Cecily Dabridgecourt, whom he married in 1527, was a lady-in-waiting of Princess Maria , the eldest daughter of Henry VIII. A friendship existed between the two women, which continued after Cecily's wedding and which Rhys opened up access to the court. In the crackdown on the rebellion of Thomas FitzGerald in Ireland, he distinguished himself by bravery during the capture of Maynooth Castle in 1535 . In 1536 he became Chamberlain of Chester and a member of the Council of the Marches . In 1537 he leased the lands of the dissolved Margam Abbey , which he then bought in 1540. He paid off the substantial purchase price of over £ 2,482 by 1557, but with this acquisition he was able to triple his property and became one of the most important landowners in South Wales . In Margam he built a new mansion that became his main residence.

In the war against France and Scotland in 1543, as Vice Admiral , he led a fleet of ten ships in the English Channel without being able to achieve success. A raid against Rothesay Castle on the Isle of Bute , which he led in 1544, was more successful . He received other offices during the reign of the strictly Protestant Edward VI. no longer due to his wife's friendship with the Catholic Princess Maria. At the coronation of Mary in 1553, however, he commanded a 500-strong guard, while his wife was given a place of honor. Mary made him Chamberlain and Chancellor of South Wales and the Counties of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire , making him a powerful royal representative in South Wales. In 1557 she granted him the privilege of maintaining his own 50-man bodyguard .

Conflict with the Herberts

The rise of Rhys made him a rival of Walter Devereux and the Earl of Worcester , possibly even a rival of the Herberts . Presumably this rivalry contributed to an incident that took place in December 1557 outside Oxwich Castle. Sir George Herbert of Swansea moved to Gower with some of his followers in order to demand the salvage rights of a merchant ship stranded off Oxwich Point against Rhy's son Edward Mansel . A scuffle broke out between Mansel's followers and Herbert's people, and Rhy's sister Anne tried to mediate. She was hit in the head by one of Herbert's henchmen and died of the injury six days later. Rhys indicted Herbert in the Star Chamber , which sentenced Herbert to a heavy fine, gave the rights to the ship to the Mansels and brought the henchman who threw the fatal stone before a court. However, the court later acquitted the perpetrator, while Herbert avoided paying the fine until his death in 1570. This led to a long-running feud between the Mansel and Herbert families.

Death and burial

Before the new Queen Elizabeth could reverse her sister's religious changes, Rhys Mansel died in his town house in Clerkenwell near London. He received an elaborate Catholic rite burial at St Bartholomew-the-Great in Smithfield . In the abbey church of Margam is his magnificent empty funerary monument. His heir was his eldest son Edward Mansel.

Family and offspring

Rhys Mansel was married three times, from his second and third marriage he had several children:

1. ⚭ May 17, 1511 Eleanor Basset († before 1517), daughter of James Bassett von Beaupre
2. ⚭ 1520 Anne Brydges
   1. Cathrin Mansel (* approx. 1523, † around 1592) ⚭ William Basset von Beaupre
   2. Elsbeth Mansel († around 1591)
3. ⚭ 1527 Cecily Daubridgecourt († 1558), daughter of John Daubridgecourt from Solihull
   1. Edward Mansel (around 1530 - August 5, 1595)
   2. Anthony Mansel (* 1531; † September 1604)
   3. Mary Mansel (* 1531; † after 1559)

Web links

• Welsh Biography online: Mansel family
• Oxford DNB: Rice Mansel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Philip Mansel. In: thepeerage.com. Retrieved November 12, 2018 . 
2. ^ Royal commission on ancient and historical monuments in Wales: An inventory of the ancient monuments in Glamorgan . In: Domestic architecture from the reformation to the industrial revolution, p. 1, The greater houses. tape 4 . RCHAW, Cardiff 1981, ISBN 978-0-11-700754-3 , pp. 46 (English).
3. ^ Diane M. Williams: Gower. A Guide to ancient and historic monuments on the Gower peninsula . Cadw, Cardiff 1998, ISBN 1-85760-073-8 , pp. 27 .
4. ↑ Oxwich Castle. In: explore-gower.co.uk. Retrieved November 12, 2018 . 
5. ^ Familysearch Community Tree. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on December 31, 2015 ; Retrieved August 14, 2013 . 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.