William de Munchensi

William de Munchensi (* around 1235; † August 1287 at Dryslwyn Castle ) was an English nobleman and rebel. Munchensi is often confused with another William de Munchensi , who was descended from an older branch of the family and lived in Edwardstone , Suffolk , in the 13th century .

Origin and heritage

William was a son of Warin de Munchensi and his second wife Denise . When his father died in 1255, he was still a minor, so that his inheritance remained for fifteen months from his brother-in-law William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke , a half-brother of King Henry III. , was managed. In 1247 he married William's half-sister Joan de Munchensi , who through her mother was the heiress of a fifth of the Marshal family's estates. After Munchensi came of age, on October 20, 1256, he was able to take over the management of his father's inheritance, from which he received about £ 500 a year.

Dryslwyn Castle in Wales, where William de Munchensi died while conquering it in 1287

Rebel in the Second War of the Barons

Presumably Munchensi quickly got into a dispute with William de Valence, who in 1258, probably with the tolerance of his wife, owned 900 marks from the inheritance, which he kept in Waltham Abbey . This dispute led to Munchensi's alliance in July 1260 with Henry Hastings , Nicholas de Segrave and Geoffrey de Lucy , who, like him, were all former royal wards and had been under the tutelage of the king's favorites. Together with them, he rebelled unsuccessfully in December 1261, when the king overruled the Provisions of Oxford . In May 1263 they supported Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester , when he again urged the king to comply with the commission. In December 1263, Munchensi was one of the rebels who swore to adhere to the arbitration ruling of the French king, which he wanted to make on the legality of the commission in Amiens in January . Nevertheless, when it came to the open war of the barons in 1264, Munchensi, along with Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, was among the leaders of the rebel army at the Battle of Lewes . He may have been knighted before the battle. After the rebels had defeated the king in battle, Munchensi supported the government of Simon de Montfort without attaining any major importance. He witnessed the Peace of Canterbury , which was supposed to consolidate the government of the barons, and was probably a member of De Montfort's Parliament in January 1265 . When the break between Montfort and Gilbert de Clare occurred in February 1265, Munchensi and three other barons were supposed to mediate between the two. Gilbert de Clare, however, joined the king's party. Thereupon it came to another war between the barons and the party of the king. Munchensi joined Simon de Montfort the Younger at Kenilworth Castle , where he was captured on August 2, 1265 by Lord Edward , the heir to the throne. With this he escaped the crushing defeat of Montfort in the Battle of Evesham .

Only after his mother had vouched for him was Munchensi released in June 1266. Nevertheless, he probably joined the remaining rebels, the so-called disinherited , whereupon the king outlawed him and gave his possessions to William de Valence. According to the Dictum of Kenilworth , he finally submitted to the king and was pardoned in February 1267. The severity of William de Valence drove Munchensi a little later on the side of Gilbert de Clare, when he occupied London in April 1267 in support of the remaining disinherited. Munchensi only got his possessions back in December 1267, for which he had to pay 2000 marks.

Follower of Gilbert de Clare and military under Edward I.

Munchensi managed to raise this amount within two years. When he was supposed to take part in Lord Eduard's planned crusade , Munchensi preferred to pay a fine of 1,000 marks in 1269 instead of participating in the crusade with William de Valence. Instead, he remained in the service of Gilbert de Clare and was not finally pardoned until 1275. During the conquest of Wales , Munchensi took part in the campaigns in Wales in 1277, 1282 and 1283. During the rebellion of Rhys ap Maredudd , he served in 1287 under Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall in the siege of Dryslwyn Castle . He died while inspecting an undermining of the castle wall and the wall collapsed prematurely.

Marriage and inheritance

Before sunrise on August 24, 1279, Munchensi had married Amicia, whose origin is unknown, in the doorway of the parish church at Hill Croome , Worcestershire . The marriage was thus not in accordance with the regulations, but after a challenge it was declared valid in 1283. With his wife, Munchensi had a daughter, Denise, who became his heir. After Munchensi's death in 1287 and again in 1290, William de Valence tried unsuccessfully to declare Denise out of wedlock in order to acquire his inheritance as Munchensi's brother-in-law. Denise married Hugh de Vere, a younger son of Robert de Vere, 5th Earl of Oxford , between 1294 and 1297 . She died childless in 1314, so that Aymer de Valence , the son of William de Valence, became her heir.

In his will, Munchensi had left 1,000 marks for supporting the crusader states in the Holy Land.

Web links

• HW Ridgeway: Munchensi, William de (c.1235-1287). 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
• Sir George de Cauntelo on thepeerage.com , accessed March 3, 2016.