Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk

Coat of arms of Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk

Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk KG (also Thomas Mowbray I or Thomas Mowbray, 1st Earl of Nottingham ) (born March 22, 1366 , † September 22, 1399 in Venice ) was an English magnate , diplomat and military. During the politically troubled reign of Richard II , he had an eventful career, but until 1397 he managed to stand on the side of the respective rulers. However, he was then overthrown and died in exile.

Origin and promotion to Earl of Nottingham

Thomas Mowbray came from the English Mowbray family . He was the second son of John Mowbray, 4th Baron Mowbray and his wife Elizabeth Seagrave . His mother was a granddaughter of Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk , a younger son of King Edward I. It is often stated that Mowbray was born on March 22, 1366, but since his older brother John was probably born in August 1365 , Thomas must have been born later than March. Presumably he was named after Thomas Becket, who was especially admired by his mother . His mother died in 1368 at the latest, and his father also died in 1368. Finally, the guardianship of Thomas and his brother John was given to their great-aunt Blanche Wake in 1372 . On the occasion of the coronation of Richard II, John Mowbray was raised to Earl of Nottingham on July 16, 1377 . Thomas Mowbray had become a close friend of Richard II, who made him knight of his household and in 1382 granted him the right to hunt in the royal forests. In addition, the king bought Mowbray for about £ 1,000 the right to marry Elizabeth Lestrange , the nine-year-old daughter and heiress of the late John Lestrange, 5th Baron Strange of Blackmere and his wife Isabel de Beauchamp. Mowbray married her in 1383, but Elisabeth died a few months later. His brother John had died childless on February 10, 1383. Thomas Mowbray was promoted to Earl of Nottingham two days after his brother's death and was awarded his brother's inheritance, although he was still a minor. In the same year he was accepted into the Order of the Garter.

From favorite to opponent of the king

Mowbray as a favorite of Richard II.

For the next few years, Mowbray continued to be popular with the king. He had his own rooms in the royal palaces of Eltham and Kings Langley . The powerful John of Gaunt , an uncle of the young king, is said to have counted him among the friends of the king who had a bad influence on him. Mowbray was presumably responsible for the failed assassination attempt on Gaunt in February 1385, but the latter forgave him later in the year. During the King's campaign in Scotland in the summer of 1385, Richard II gave Mowbray the life of Marshal of England on June 30th , which his great-grandfather Thomas of Brotherton had previously held. On January 12, 1386, the king converted the office into an inheritance and increased it to the office of Earl Marshal. Mowbray presumably had the treatise written on the rights and duties of the marshal. The office remained Mowbray's preferred title until he was promoted to Duke of Norfolk in 1397 .

Growing estrangement between Mowbray and Richard II.

From this time Mowbray's relationship with the king deteriorated. After his first wife died in July 1384, Mowbray married Elizabeth FitzAlan , daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 11th Earl of Arundel . Although both the King and Queen Anne attended the week-long wedding celebrations at Arundel Castle , the marriage had taken place without official permission from the King. Therefore, the king ordered the confiscation of Mowbray's property, and Mowbray had to pay the king compensation in order to get his property back. It is considered uncertain whether the king would have approved the marriage of his favorite with a daughter of Arundel, because at this time he had already got into bitter arguments with Arundel. Richard II probably suspected that Arundel had a strong influence on his son-in-law Mowbray. Indeed, in 1386, Mowbray became increasingly angry when the king began to favor other barons, most notably Robert de Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford . At the end of 1386, Mowbray had close contacts with a group of magnates who, under the leadership of Arundel and the Duke of Gloucester , had rejected the king's policy in October 1386 during the Wonderful Parliament . In 1387 Mowbray took part in a sea expedition under the command of Arundels. The English ships attacked a French-Flemish fleet off Margate on March 24, 1387 , which was transporting a large amount of wine. The captured wine could be sold profitably in England, but the victory brought Arundel and Mowbray only the envy of their opponents, and the king also behaved very cautiously and did not reward Mowbray for this success in the war with France .

Mowbray as Lord Appellant

In the summer and autumn of 1387, Mowbray and the king became increasingly estranged. In November 1387 the government commission, which the previous year had been entrusted with the rule for a year by the Wonderful Parliament, had to give up most of its power. When their members Gloucester, Arundel and their allied Earl of Warwick realized that their lives were in danger, they rallied their armed vassals at Hornsey . They accused five of the king's most important favorites, including Robert de Vere, who had been promoted to Duke of Ireland, of treason, which is why they were later referred to as Lords Appellant . Before December 12, they were joined by Mowbray and Henry Bolingbroke, 3rd Earl of Derby . The king stated that the prosecution would be heard during the next parliament , but before that he had sent de Vere to Chester to raise an army. The united troops of the five Lords Appellant defeated the army led by de Vere on December 20th at the Battle of Radcot Bridge . Allegedly Mowbray is said to have reached the slaughter place too late and no longer took part in the fighting, which is unclear. While de Vere fled abroad, the Lords Appellant occupied London, met the king armed in the Tower of London on December 28 and secured government power. During the next parliament, which met on February 3, 1388, they obtained the condemnation and execution of eight friends of the king. This so-called Merciless Parliament humiliated the King and his favorites at court, but it did create tension among the Lords Appellant. While Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick sought to remove the minions' influence over the king, Mowbray and Bolingbroke were not so determined. The break occurred over the fate of the courtier Sir Simon Burley , the king's former teacher. Richard II tried everything to save Burley. Mowbray and Bolingbroke spoke out against the execution to the last, and the Duke of York also supported the king's petition for clemency. Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick, however, were adamant and had Burley executed on May 5th. The king never forgave them for this.

Another service for Richard II.

Service in the Scottish Marches and rivalry with the Earl of Northumberland

After the Merciless Parliament ended on June 4th, the differing opinions of the Lords Appellants soon came back to light. Mowbray, in particular, quickly became reconciled with the king. In early 1389, the king subsequently approved his marriage to Elizabeth FitzAlan. On March 8, 1389, the Privy Council charged him with the defense of the eastern Scottish Marches . In May he was given the management of Berwick and Roxburgh Castle . He was to receive £ 12,000 a year for his office. In return, Mowbray wanted to raise an army of 400 men-at-arms and 800 archers in June and July 1389 . Mowbray's new office made him the opponent of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland , who viewed the eastern Scottish Marches as a sphere of influence. As a result, he refused military assistance to Mowbray when a Scottish army invaded northern England in late June. This dispute over competencies meant that the Scots were able to plunder the counties in the north of England without resistance. In the meantime, in May 1389, Richard II had overturned the council that the Merciless Parliament had set up to control it and regained power. On October 15, 1389, during a session of the Privy Council, the king openly advocated Mowbray and demanded that he receive more soldiers. However, this was rejected by the majority of the Privy Council. The Privy Council offered Mowbray only an extension of his office as defender of the Scottish Marches for five years on the previous terms, which he accepted. A little later, Northumberland was given the post of Commandant of Calais as compensation. He exchanged this office in 1391 with Mowbray, who in 1394 was appointed chief judge of Chester , Flintshire and the other royal estates in North Wales for life .

Military service in Ireland

In March and April 1390 Mowbray took part in an Anglo-French tournament at Saint-Inglevert , and on May 28, 1390 he fought during a jost against the Scottish Earl of Moray for six rounds before the fight was a draw. These tournament fights improved his reputation as a military man. From 1394 to 1395 he took part in Richard II's first campaign to Ireland . There he led a series of forays and raids. In one of these advances, he nearly captured Art Mór Mac Murchadha , the self-proclaimed King of Leinster . Eventually he was given the task of negotiating with Mac Murchadha. When he met him on January 7, 1395 at Tullow , he was finally able to get Mac Murchadha to leave Leinster. In February 1395 he accepted the homage of the Irish chiefs of Leinster for the king. In gratitude for his services, the king enfeoffed him shortly afterwards with the Irish rule Carlow . In May 1395 he returned to England with the king.

Service as a diplomat

A little later, Mowbray, along with Edward, 1st Earl of Rutland and William Scrope, was commissioned to negotiate a marriage between the widowed Richard II and the French princess Isabelle . From 1395 to 1396 he and Rutland traveled several times to negotiate in France before an agreement was reached for the marriage in March 1396. In September Mowbray then took part in the solemn marriage in Calais, where he was on guard of honor for the French King Charles VI. belonged to. Richard II also instructed him to negotiate secretly with the dukes of Burgundy and Berry . Apparently the Köelng had such great confidence in Mowbray's negotiating skills that in February 1397 he again sent him abroad with Rutland. In Germany they took part in the Court Day in Frankfurt, during which an end to the papal schism was discussed. In addition, Richard II wanted to find out how his chances of running as Roman-German king would be.

Land ownership, inheritance and property claims

The Mowbrays estate, inherited from his brother John, was concentrated in four regions: first on the Isle of Axholme in northern Lincolnshire , where his estates were around Epworth Castle , the traditional seat of honor . The second property was a strip of estates in north and central Yorkshire between Hovingham via Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard to Nidderdale Castle . The third focus was a group of goods in the Midlands centered on Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire . The fourth focus was the Bramber Honor in Sussex with Horsham , St Leonard's Chase , Shoreham-by-Sea and Bramber Castle . From these estates he probably had an annual income of £ 1,400, making him a substantial income but not yet one of the richest earls. Mowbray used his influence at the royal court to his best advantage to expand his land holdings and to gain political power. Between 1389 and 1398 he gave fiefs, money and offices to more than seventy people, creating a retinue that could keep up with most of the other earls. But he also used around 40 percent of his annual income for this. Most of his followers came from areas where he had previously inherited or acquired property.

In addition, Mowbray could expect another inheritance and could make further claims of ownership. For one, he was the heir to his grandmother Margaret Brotherton , who had an annual income of around £ 2,850 from her extensive estates. However, she did not die until 1399. Mowbray claimed the rule of Gower in the southern Welsh Marches, which had been disputed between the Mowbray family and the Earls of Warwick from the Beauchamp family since the early 14th century . In 1354 Edward III. Gower to the Beauchamp family. Mowbray accepted that it came to a conflict with his former ally, the Earl of Warwick, when he claimed Gower from King, as it had been mistakenly awarded to the Beauchamps in his view. In fact, in June 1397, he was able to convince Richard II to not only transfer Gower to him, but Warwick had to transfer him seventeen properties in the Midlands for eleven years. The proceeds from these estates were to be used to compensate Mowbray for the lost earnings from Gower, which allegedly amounted to £ 5,333. The acquisition of Gower increased Mowbray's annual income to around £ 1,800.

Fall, exile and death

Role in the arrest and conviction of Arundel, Gloucester and Warwick

Despite the favor Richard II bestowed on Mowbray after 1387, it is unlikely that he enjoyed the full confidence of the king. The king had not forgotten Mowbray's membership of the Lords Appellant, and Mowbray was undoubtedly so familiar with the intrigues of the royal court that he was aware of it. The courtiers' discomfort with one another ultimately led to Mowbray's dramatic fall. This began from July 10th to 11th, 1397, when the king suddenly arrested three of the former Lords Appellant, namely Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick. They are said to have planned, along with Mowbray, Bolingbroke and other magnates, to overthrow the king again, but Mowbray would have betrayed the conspiracy. However, there is no evidence for this description from the early 15th century. It is more likely that the king arrested the three magnates out of revenge and a desire to gain complete control of the government. He probably spared Mowbray and Bolingbroke at first, as they had campaigned in vain for Burley. Gloucester, on the other hand, was arrested at Pleshey Castle in Essex . From there he was immediately taken to Calais, where he was placed under Mowbray's supervision. He never appeared in public again. Arundel is said to have been assured of safe conduct , whereupon he voluntarily appeared before the king. However, when he arrived at Westminster , the king had him arrested immediately and also handed him over to Mowbray's care. This had him brought to Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight . On August 5, 1397, Mowbray and seven other favorites of the king brought a series of charges against Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick and formally charged with treason at Nottingham Castle . When Parliament met in Westminster on September 17th, the eight minions, dressed in uniform red robes with gold and silver decorations, repeated the charge of treason. Initially, on September 21, Arundel was charged. Although he valiantly and vigorously defended himself against the allegations, he was convicted of a traitor and immediately taken away for execution. According to the chronicler Thomas Walsingham , Mowbray accompanied the Earl of Kent Arundel to his execution on Tower Hill . Arundel is said to have rebuked both of them violently and prophesied their own, imminent fall.

The death of Gloucester in Mowbray's care

On Monday, September 24th, Mowbray announced before Parliament that Gloucester could not stand trial because he had died in dungeon in Calais. Instead, he had an alleged confession read out by Gloucester, so that Gloucester was posthumously condemned as a traitor. It is widely believed that Gloucester was murdered in Mowbray's captivity and that Mowbray was involved in it. After the fall of Richard II, Mowbray's former servant, John Hall , confessed his involvement in the murder, which likely happened on the night of September 8th. According to Hall, Mowbray reached Calais and reported to Hall that he had received orders from the King and Rutland to assassinate Gloucester. Hall is reported to have asked that he not carry out the murder, but Mowbray threatened him himself and gave him a hard blow on the head. Hall was then taken, along with eight other servants, to an inn called the Princess Inn , to which Gloucester was also taken a little later. Gloucester was told he was going to die. He was allowed to make confession before he was suffocated with a pillow. A little later Mowbray appeared to check the execution of his order. According to Walsingham, Mowbray is said to have previously tried not to have to take over the execution of the murder. The king would have threatened him with his own death if he refused further. Mowbray himself claimed that he delayed Gloucester's assassination for three weeks after receiving the king's orders. He would even have returned to England from Calais, where he had to confess to the king that Gloucester was still alive. This version would explain why the rumor of Gloucester's death was circulating in England several weeks before his actual death. There are other indications that Mowbray was reluctant to carry out the murder, for when the king himself convicted Mowbray a year later he accused him of speaking out against the repeal of the Lords Appellant's laws of 1388 several times the previous year. Indeed, despite his worries, Mowbray had little choice but to aid the king's vengeance against the three previous lords appellant. A little later, however, the king rewarded him richly when he made him Duke of Norfolk on September 29, the penultimate day of Parliament . Bolingbroke, the fifth of the previous Lords Appellant, was also promoted to Duke. Both were pardoned for their opposition from 1387 to 1388, as they allegedly had a moderating effect on the other three Lords Appellant. In addition, Mowbray received Lewes Castle and the associated Honor from the possession of Arundel, which bordered on his own Honor of Bramber, as well as the full possession of the seventeen goods that Warwick had previously had to give him temporarily as compensation.

The fall of Mowbray

Mowbray could only enjoy his new possession for a short time. His part in Gloucester's death had been rumored before October 1397, and he must have realized how vulnerable his position was in the face of the king's arbitrariness. When he met Bolingbroke on the road between London and Brentford in December 1397 , he confided in this because he continued to fear that the king would still take revenge for their opposition as Lords Appellant. According to Bolingbroke's later information, Mowbray reported that a group of courtiers wanted to overthrow Bolingbroke's father John of Gaunt and murder other nobles, including Mowbray and Bolingbroke. The way Bolingbrokes proceeded must have surprised Mowbray. Bolingbroke reported the conversation to his father, who then reported it to the king. To Mowbray's dismay, he and Bolingbroke were called before the king, and a parliament was called in Shrewsbury for January 28, 1398 . According to Adam of Usk , Mowbray wanted to murder John of Gaunt on the way to Shrewsbury, but this failed. He then hid on his estate so that Bolingbroke could deliver his sole version of the conversation on January 30th. Mowbray was immediately removed from his position as Earl Marshal and was to answer before the king. He was declared expropriated on February 17 and was arrested before the end of February. He was incarcerated in Windsor Castle . Although he now vigorously denied the conversation with Bolingbroke, he remained in custody for the next few months, initially in Windsor Castle, and later in an adjoining room of London's St Paul's Cathedral . Bolingbroke, however, remained at large. The king tried to reconcile Mowbray with Bolingbroke, but when the two were confronted on April 29, 1398 in Windsor, Bolingbroke raised new charges against Mowbray. He now also accused him of embezzling money he had received from the king to pay for the Calais garrison, and made him responsible for the death of Gloucester. Since the king did not want an investigation into Gloucester's death, he decided to have the dispute between the two resolved by a court battle . He set this fight on September 16 in Coventry . Both showed up for the duel on time and in splendid armor. Large numbers of spectators had appeared for the fight, but when the two opponents were ready to fight, the king stopped the duel. Since a decision was made about treason against him, he now claimed to pass a judgment himself, so that the blood of the two opponents related to him should not be shed. To end the dispute between the two and their supporters, he banished Bolingbroke from England for ten years and Mowbray for life. The estates Mowbray had received from Arundel and Warwick in 1397 fell to the king, and the rest of the estates fell under royal administration. He was to receive £ 1,000 annually from his estates to support himself in exile. The reason given for Mowbray's harsher punishment was a partial confession made on April 29, in which he admitted meeting Bolingbroke on the street. In addition, he was found guilty of embezzlement of the pay money. The king forbade both of them to establish contact with one another in their exile and gave them until October 20th to leave England. While Bolingbroke was free to choose his place of exile, Mowbray should go to Germany, Bohemia, Hungary or the Holy Land .

Exile and death

Mowbray left the port of Kirkley Road near Lowestoft in Suffolk on October 19th with a retinue of thirty men . His departure was watched by over 1,000 onlookers, including some 80 members of the Suffolk gentry . According to their information, he wanted to sail to Dordrecht first . Before February 18, 1399, Mowbray arrived in Venice , where he was able to persuade the Senate to rent him a galley. He borrowed 750 ducats from the merchants Antonio Bembo and Giovanni Cane in order to undertake a trip to the Holy Land, which he is demonstrably going on. During his absence, his grandmother Margaret Brotherton died in England on March 24, 1399, who had been raised to the Duchess of Norfolk in 1397 and whose heir he was. Before he left England, the king had assured him in a letters patent that his lawyers would be allowed to accept and administer inheritances for him during his exile. This has now been revoked by the king, who claimed the inheritance for himself. Whether Mowbray found out about this is unknown, because he died of the plague during his trip to the Holy Land or after his return . He was buried in the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

The character of Mowbray has been rated negatively by chroniclers and historians. This representation of the breakup of the court battle between Mowbray and Bolingbroke was made in 1864

Historical evaluation and character

Mowbray's skills as an experienced and skilled military man, diplomat and advisor were widely recognized. He had held several high-ranking offices, but was also a perfect courtier. Since he earned only a middle income from his land holdings, he probably had to accept these offices in order to be able to lead a lifestyle that was appropriate to his rank through additional income. However, none of the contemporary chroniclers defended his behavior. According to Thomas Walsingham, all spectators at the Coventry court battle would have hoped for a Bolingbrokes victory as they loathed Mowbray for the Gloucester murder. His early death in exile was seen as a just punishment. Younger historians also described Mowbray as proud and lavish, as a selfish defector or as a schemer, and overall rather negative. He was considered brave and politically quite capable, but also unscrupulous and at times quick-tempered. But he would have had to have been significantly more courageous to be able to withstand the king's order to assassinate Gloucester in September 1397, which he was probably extremely reluctant to implement.

Little is known about Mowbray's personal life. He probably had a sincere interest in his ancestors. In February 1384, a year after his brother's death, he led a procession through London to his grave in the Carmelite Convent on Fleet Street . In 1396 he sent a representative to Constantinople to transfer the body of his father, murdered by the Turks in 1368, to England. Its main foundation was the Axholme Carthusian Priory in Lincolnshire , established in 1396 . Mowbray especially revered the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary , and so his foundation Domus Visitationis Beate Marie Virginis was consecrated.

Descendants and inheritance

Mowbray had five children with his second wife, Elizabeth:

• Thomas Mowbray, 4th Earl of Norfolk (1385-1405)
• Margret (1391–1459) ∞ Sir Robert Howard (1385–1436)
• Elizabeth ∞ Michael de la Pole, 3rd Earl of Suffolk (1394-1415)
• John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk (1392-1432)
• Isabel (around 1400–1452)

1. ∞ Henry Ferrers († around 1423)
2. ∞ James Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley

Mowbray's heir became his eldest son Thomas Mowbray II. After the overthrow of Richard II, the Dukedom of Norfolk was repealed in October 1399. Thomas Mowbray II inherited only the title Earl of Norfolk and the subordinate titles, Mowbray's widow Elizabeth was demoted to Countess of Norfolk . In 1401 she married Sir Robert Goushill , a former vassal of Mowbray. After his death, she married Sir Gerard Usflete before she died in 1425.

literature

• Rowena E. Archer: The Mowbrays, Earls of Nottingham and Dukes of Norfolk, to 1432 . British Library Document Supply Center, West Yorkshire, 1993 (?)

Web links

• Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk on thepeerage.com , accessed August 18, 2015.
• C. Given-Wilson: Mowbray, Thomas (I), first duke of Norfolk (1366-1399). 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

Individual evidence

1. ^ Diane M. Williams: Gower. A Guide to ancient and historic monuments on the Gower peninsula. Cadw, Cardiff 1998. ISBN 1-85760-073-8 , p. 19

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Duke of Norfolk 1397-1399	John Mowbray (from 1425)
Margaret Brotherton	Earl of Norfolk 1399	Thomas Mowbray
New title created	Earl of Nottingham 1383-1399	Thomas Mowbray
John Mowbray	Baron Mowbray Baron Segrave 1379-1399	Thomas Mowbray