Thomas Rokeby (military)

Sir Thomas Rokeby (also Thomas de Rokeby ) († April 23, 1357 in Kilkea Castle ) was an English military man and civil servant. He served as Justiciar of Ireland from 1349 to 1355 and from 1356 until his death .

origin

Thomas Rokeby was likely born before 1300 and was believed to be a son of Alexander de Rokeby , a landowner who was owned by Rokeby and Mortham in 1286 or 1287 . After the death of his father, Rokeby inherited these estates in northern Yorkshire .

Military in the war against Scotland

Rokeby is first mentioned in 1322 when he, along with other knights, was charged with attacking Bowes Castle , a castle belonging to the Earl of Richmond . He became famous during the Weardale Campaign in 1327 when he was the first to inform the English army of the location of the Scottish army that had invaded northern England. Rokeby had fallen into the hands of the Scots as a scout. They had released him, however, because they were waiting for the English army ready to fight. For this news, the young King Edward III. an annual pension of £ 100, and Rokeby was knighted by the king. In 331 he accompanied Henry Percy when he traveled to France as an English envoy. During the Second Scottish War of Independence , Rokeby served as a soldier in the Scottish Marches . He served as Sheriff of Yorkshire from November 1335 to March 1337 , and in July 1337 he received an additional annual pension of £ 60 for his services in Scotland. Between June and October 1336, Rokeby participated in the campaign of Edward III. to Scotland part, in which this advanced to Perth . His entourage included five men-at-arms and nine archers. The king then appointed him in October 1336 in command of the rebuilt Stirling Castle , and in August 1338 he was also in command of Edinburgh Castle . Stirling was besieged by Scottish troops from 1339 before the starved crew had to surrender in July 1341. Edinburgh Castle had been conquered by the Scots on April 16, 1341. In December 1342, Rokeby was reappointed Sheriff of Yorkshire. During his almost seven-year second term in office, Rokeby took on other local offices for the crown, including setting up troops for the king's wars. When the Scottish King David II invaded northern England in the autumn of 1346, the Scottish army was defeated by an English army at the Battle of Neville's Cross . Besides Ralph Neville and Henry Percy , Rokeby was one of the English commanders and commanded the second of the three battalions of the English army. After the battle, Rokeby and John Darcy of Knaith escorted the captured Scottish king to the Tower of London . The English king made him a banneret and granted him an annual payment of 200 marks .

Serves as Justiciar of Ireland

Take over the administration

After the capture of the Scottish King in the next few years in the war against Scotland there was no further major fighting, Eduard III was able to. Supervise Rokeby with new tasks. On July 17, 1349 he appointed Rokeby Justiciar of Ireland and thus head of the English administration and military commander in Ireland . English rule there was threatened by numerous rebellions by the Irish population. The king had admitted that Ireland was not in good shape and pacified. Therefore, Rokeby not only received the usual force of 20 men-at-arms, which the Justiciar could dispose of, but the king made 20 more men-at-arms and 40 mounted archers available to him for three months. The Irish Privy Council should decide on an extension of the financing of this force. In October 1349 Rokeby was replaced as sheriff of Yorkshire and in December 1349 he arrived in Ireland. Apart from a brief interruption when he was at the English royal court from March to June 1352, Rokeby stayed in Ireland until August 1355. Thus, in the middle of the 14th century, he had by far the longest term of office of a justiciary.

Activity as administrator

One of Rokeby's first official acts was the arrest of the Irish treasurer Robert de Emeldon , who was sent to England as a prisoner on the king's orders. But already from January to April 1350 he undertook a trip through western and southern Ireland to collect due taxes and fees. In June 1350 a council meeting in Kilkenny decided on extensive reforms and reorganizations of the administration and the judiciary. With the support of John de St Paul , Archbishop of Dublin, who also served as Chancellor of Ireland , Rokeby was able to implement the reforms and increase government revenues significantly, even though the Black Death had reached Ireland in the autumn of 1348 . In 1351 Rokeby called a large council meeting in Kilkenny. At this meeting, regulations were passed on how the individual counties should organize their defense against attacks by the Irish. To this end, Rokeby tried to accelerate the collection of fees and debts from the government. Many of these regulations passed by the council were incorporated into the Kilkenny Bylaws in 1366 . Rokeby also found excuses for the setbacks in the fight against the Irish and for the lack of income. With the consent of the council, he holds the government in England responsible for this. This would give way too quickly to objections from Ireland, ignore the recommendations of the Irish government and instead listen to liars and opportunists. Rokeby himself was accused of having exploited the country through his financial claims and the collection of fees, while he had protected his friends from the collection of taxes and fees by the treasury. Although English ministers were forbidden to acquire land during their tenure, Rokeby would have acquired lands near Dublin, Kildare and Tipperary .

Kilkea Castle, where Rokeby died (2007 photograph)

Military activity

In addition to these attempts to improve the administration, Rokeby served primarily as a military in Ireland. The main threat to the English settlers was at Leinster , where attacks by the rebellious Irish came from the hill country and woods of Wicklow , Carlow and northern Wexford . In 1350, 1353, 1354 and 1355 Rokeby led campaigns against the Irish. In 1354 he was able to capture Mac Murchadha in Muirchertach . This had called himself the prince or even king of Ireland, which is why Rokeby had him executed. During the campaign in Leinster in September and October 1354, the English army of over 1,000 men suffered heavy losses. To push back the Irish, he laid out a chain of fortified bases south of Dublin and east of Kildare in 1355 . At the same time, he constantly tried to negotiate with the Irish, who were at odds with one another. Therefore he succeeded in getting a number of Irish chiefs to support the English in return for an annual pension. When the English Treasury criticized these payments, Rokeby countered that the Irish Council and the Irish nobles had recommended the payments. The payments would avoid higher costs, as the Irish would fight against rebellious Irish on British pay and thereby weaken them. A few years later, such payments were considered common. Among the Irish, such payments even meant that their recipients were recognized as chiefs, as they had previously been partially confirmed in office by the justiciars. Rokeby's campaigns were not limited to the south-east of Ireland. From 1352 to 1353 he made an extensive judicial tour of Munster . In the course of this trip, between October 1352 and January 1353, he set up an army of almost 1,000 men at times to take action against the MicCharthaigh and MicConmara . Through this campaign he was able to drive the MicCharthaigh out of the valley of the Lee in the hinterland of Cork . He gave properties abandoned by their owners due to the uprisings to new owners with the condition that they defend them. To secure his position in Thomond, he had Bunratty Castle rebuilt, which, however, was presumably conquered by the Irish in 1355. Rokeby's military successes were confirmed by the contemporary Dublin annals , which otherwise rarely praised the achievements of the English governors. According to this report, Rokeby not only fought successfully, but also paid for the food he needed during the campaigns. He was so humble himself that he ate from wooden dishes to save money for the campaigns. Despite these eulogies, the English position was actually weakened considerably in the summer of 1355 by rebellions and attacks by the Irish. Rokeby's tenure, which had begun successfully, ended in setbacks and failures despite his efforts.

Detachment, reinstatement and death

In 1354 Rokeby asked the English government that he could return to England and that he would be appropriately rewarded for his great efforts. To this end, he asked for the reimbursement of funds that were still open from his time as administrator of Stirling Castle. His request for replacement were initially rejected, but in July 1355 Edward III decided to replace Rokeby with the Earl of Desmond . Then Rokeby returned to England on August 9, 1355. However, Desmond died in January 1356. His successor was the Earl of Kildare , who had already served as Rokeby's deputy. Among other things, the city of Cork campaigned for the reinstatement of Rokeby, whereupon the king reappointed Rokeby as Justiciar on July 24th. He probably returned to Ireland in October 1356 and was immediately drawn back into the war in Leinster. In February 1357 he raised an army for a new campaign against the rebellious Irish, but before he could achieve greater success, he died in April 1357 in County Kildare.

Marriage and inheritance

Rokeby was married to a Juliana about whom little is known. Their marriage was presumably childless. Rokeby's heir became his eponymous nephew Thomas Rokeby , a son of his brother Robert Rokeby .

literature

• Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven: Ireland in the 1350s: Sir Thomas de Rokeby and his successors . In: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , 97 (1967), 45-59
• Robin Frame: English officials and Irish chiefs in the fourteenth century . In: The English Historical Review , 90 (1975), pp. 748-777

Web links

• Robin Frame: Rokeby, Sir Thomas (d.1357). 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. ^ Geoffrey WS Barrow: Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland . Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1965, p. 358.
2. ↑ Michael Brown: The wars of Scotland, 1214-1371 . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2004, ISBN 0-7486-1237-8 , p. 244.
3. ^ Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven: Ireland in the 1350s: Sir Thomas de Rokeby and his successors . In: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , 97 (1967), p. 47.
4. ↑ Robin Frame: English lordship in Ireland, from 1318 to 1361 . Clarendon, Oxford 1982, ISBN 0-19-822673-X , p. 307.
5. ↑ Robin Frame: English lordship in Ireland, from 1318 to 1361 . Clarendon, Oxford 1982, ISBN 0-19-822673-X , p. 295.
6. ^ Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven: Ireland in the 1350s: Sir Thomas de Rokeby and his successors . In: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , 97 (1967), p. 48.
7. ^ Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven: Ireland in the 1350s: Sir Thomas de Rokeby and his successors . In: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , 97 (1967), p. 51.
8. ^ Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven: Ireland in the 1350s: Sir Thomas de Rokeby and his successors . In: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , 97 (1967), p. 50.
9. ^ Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven: Ireland in the 1350s: Sir Thomas de Rokeby and his successors . In: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , 97 (1967), p. 53.