William de Forz, Count of Aumale († 1241)

Coat of arms of William de Forz

William de Forz, Count of Aumale (also William de Fortibus ; * between 1191 and 1196; † March 1241 ) was an English nobleman . He was one of the leading barons in the dispute between the kings and the barons over the recognition of the Magna Carta , but switched sides several times. During the minority of Henry III. he led an unsuccessful revolt against the king.

origin

William de Forz was a son of Hawise, Countess of Aumale and her second husband Guillaume de Forz , an adventurer and knight from the Poitou . His father, who had been a close follower of King Richard the Lionheart , died as early as 1195, from whom he inherited the name Forz after the village of Fors in Poitou as well as some estates in Poitou and on the Île d'Oléron . After the death of his father, his mother married Baudouin de Béthune for the third time , she lost her possessions in 1196, the county of Aumale in Normandy, and lived on her English estates. William probably grew up in Poitou and came to England after the death of his mother on the intercession of Robert de Ros , a vassal of his mother, in September or October 1214. On the condition that he married Aveline, a daughter of Richard de Montfichet, King John Ohneland granted him the rich inheritance of his mother in England. These included the Lords Holderness and Skipton with Skipton Castle in Yorkshire , Cockermouth in Cumberland and other estates at Barrow-on-Humber in Lincolnshire . As heir to his mother and English pretender to their title of count, he carried the title Count of Aumale - this title was partly translated into English as "Earl of Albemarle", but he never held an earl title of the Kingdom of England .

Role during the war of the barons

Presumably influenced by Robert de Ros and his brother-in-law Richard de Montfichet , he came into contact with other northern English barons who rebelled against the rule of King John. After the King's recognition of the Magna Carta in June 1215, he and Richard de Montfichet were among the 25 barons who were supposed to monitor compliance with the provisions of the charter. In August, however, he joined the king, who made him constable of Scarborough Castle . He accompanied the king on his campaign to northern England during the War of the Barons at the end of 1215. In June 1216, however, he changed sides again and supported the claim to the throne of the French Prince Ludwig , only to submit to the king again shortly before John's death. After Johann's death in October 1216, he supported Johann's son Heinrich's claim to the throne and fought on his side in the Battle of Lincoln . In November 1217 he witnessed the renewed recognition of the Magna Carta by the regent William Marshal .

Rebel against the king

During the Civil War, Forz had become constable of the royal castles of Rockingham and Sauvey and Castle Bytham in early 1216 , and he had come into possession of confiscated property from the rebels. After the end of the Civil War in September 1217, the Regency Council reclaimed these properties, but Forz refused to return them. Above all, he refused to return the castles and provocatively expressed his displeasure with the Regency Council by participating in a banned tournament in Brackley . In 1218 he refused the planned marriage of a daughter of his with a son of the loyal William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury . In November 1219 the Regency Council finally decided to retake the castles by force if necessary. When a royal army rallied at Northampton Castle in 1220 to take the castles, its crews fled Rockingham and Sauvey Castle so that the royal troops could take the castles without a fight in May. Forz eventually renounced the controversial possessions, except for Castle Bytham in Lincolnshire, to which he had inheritance claims through his mother.

Disgruntled that he had not been appointed Seneschal of Gascony and Poitou, Forz left the royal court at Oxford at Christmas 1220. He occupied his castle in Bytham in Lincolnshire, which was the real main point of contention , which is why his brief revolt is also known as the War of Bytham . He then attacked Newark , Sleaford and Kimbolton Castle unsuccessfully , before he could capture Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire in January 1221 . The papal legate Pandulf then excommunicated him as a rebel, and the Regency Council he again gathered an army at Northampton to take action against Forz. In a hopeless situation, he fled to his northern English possessions and finally asked for church asylum in Fountains Abbey at the end of 1221 . Once again the reign treated him extremely leniently. Castle Bytham was destroyed, but Forz and his supporters were pardoned. Nevertheless, he sued in court in 1236 unsuccessfully for the return of the lands of Bytham Castle.

Only the castle hill remains of the controversial Castle Bytham

Next life

In 1223 Forz again came into conflict with the Regency Council when he was one of a group of barons who appeared armed in front of the Tower of London and unsuccessfully demanded the removal of Justicard Hubert de Burgh . During the rebellion of Falkes de Bréauté in 1224, the Regency Council suspected him of secretly supporting the rebellion, and indeed Forz had kept in touch with other former followers of King John, like him from Poitou, who were in opposition to the native Anglo-Norman nobility . After Breauté's defeat, however, Forz came to terms with the Regency Council, which he served in 1227 as one of the envoys who met with German princes in Antwerp . In 1230 he accompanied King Heinrich III. during his unsuccessful campaign in Brittany . In 1237 he became administrator of the property of the late Earl of Chester , to which his son William was entitled through his first marriage. In spring 1241 he took part in the barons' crusade with Peter de Maulay , but died on the sea voyage to the Holy Land. He was buried in an unknown location.

Legacy and aftermath

Even his contemporaries complained about Forz's capricious temperament and his volatility, with which he switched sides more often than others. In addition to the fines he had to pay, he was also an inept administrator. He had inherited a debt free inheritance, but in 1226 he was heavily indebted to Jewish moneylenders. In addition, he had high debts to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1231 , which his son had to take over. No lawsuit has come down to us that he had not lost, although he lost most of them because he did not appear in court out of negligence or insubordination and did not send a lawyer.

His wife Aveline had died in the fall of 1239 and was buried at Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire. He left a son, William , who became his heir.

Web links

• William de Forz, Count of Aumale on thepeerage.com
• Nigel Saul: William de Forz. Magna Carta Trust, 2015.

literature

• Barbara English: Forz, William de, count of Aumale. 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. ^ John T. Appleby: Johann "Ohneland". King of England . Riederer, Stuttgart 1965, p. 219
2. ↑ Historic England: Sauvey Castle. Retrieved April 12, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Nicholas Vincent: Maulay, Peter (I) de (d. 1241). 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

predecessor	Office	successor
Hawise de Aumale	Titular Count of Aumale 1214–1241	William de Forz