William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke
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William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke (also Guillaume de Lusignan ) (* between 1227 and 1231; † May 16, 1296 in Brabourne ) was an Anglo-French nobleman. He was one of the leading Lusignans , the French half-brothers of the English King Henry III. Reviled as a foreigner, he had a bad reputation among the English barons. Although he served the king loyally for years, his behavior made him opponents and became the enemy of the aristocratic opposition under Simon de Montfort . During the Second War of the Barons , he played an important role in the victory of the king's party. After the civil war, he served his nephew Edward I as a diplomat and military officer until he died.
origin
William de Valence came from the French aristocratic Lusignan family . He was the fourth or fifth son of Isabella of Angoulême and of her second husband Hugo X of Lusignan , Count of La Marche . William was probably born between 1227 and 1331 in Valence , a village near Couhé in Poitou . His mother was the widow of the English King Johann Ohneland , so Valence was a half-brother of the English King Heinrich III. In 1242 his father's rebellion against the French King Louis IX failed . , then his father withdrew from politics and divided his lands among his sons. Although Valence was still a minor, he was now Seigneur of Montignac , Bellac , Rancon and Champagnac .
Moved to England and married
In the summer of 1247, Valence and several of his siblings accepted an invitation from their half-brother Henry III. to England. While his brothers Guy and Geoffroi finally returned to Gascony , William and his brother Aymer and his sister Alice stayed in England. The king hoped that his south-west French relatives, who were cultured in comparison to the English barons, would enrich his court, strengthen his ties to the south-west French possessions and probably strengthen his position as king by creating a large ruling family. On August 13, 1247, Valence was married to Joan de Munchensi , who was the heir to a large part of the Marshal family's estates . Valence became Lord of Pembroke and Goodrich Castle in the Welsh Marches and of Wexford in Ireland by marriage . In addition, it was presumably agreed in the marriage contract that the king also had to hand over possessions to his landless half-brother, which is why Valence Hertford Castle was handed over. Valence received an annual income of over £ 700 from his wife's estates, and he received an annual pension of 500 marks from the king . He was to receive another 500 marks annually until the king could hand over lands with corresponding income to him. In addition, he received further income from his half-brother, so that Pembroke was able to buy the estates of the Pont de l'Arche family in south-west England in 1252 and the Bertram family's estates in Northumberland in the 1260s. In view of these extensive possessions in England and Ireland, on a trip to Poitou on August 22, 1248, he gave his lordship there Montignac to his brother Geoffroi.
Courtier at the English court
On October 13, 1247, King Valence ceremonially knighted in Westminster , and for the next ten years Valence lived primarily at the royal court. After Matthew Paris he quickly gained considerable influence over the king. However, this cannot be proven beyond doubt based on the certificates and documents received, on the contrary, Valence acted in part stubbornly, probably because, in his opinion, the king was too hesitant to convert his donations into fiefs. Until 1249 Valence took part in tournaments several times, until the king forbade him to do so and as a punishment in October 1249 he temporarily confiscated his possessions. Through the tournaments, however, he won the first English knights who eventually belonged to his entourage, as well as influential friends such as his later brother-in-law John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Gloucester . Together with the king he made a crusade vows in Westminster Hall on March 6, 1250 , but in November 1251 the kings forbade all knights and barons who were to rescue the French king Louis IX, who had been captured in Egypt . wanted to leave for the Holy Land, the departure and had the English ports closed. Valence had also made preparations to set out on the crusade, for which the Pope had promised him support in the amount of 2,200 marks. By the beginning of 1252, the king finally converted the annual donation of 500 marks into the transfer of lucrative guardianship. Until 1268 Valence remained administrator of the estates of Robert Fitzjohn of Warkworth in Northumberland , in addition he received other estates in other parts of England.
Power struggle between the Lusignans and their rivals at court
Support for Heinrich's expedition to Gascony
When there was a rebellion in Gascon, which belonged to the English king, in 1252, the influence of the Lusignans at the English court rose rapidly. In January 1252 Valence belonged to the Privy Council and settled the dispute between the King and Simon de Montfort , who had previously been King's Lieutenant of Gascony. Convinced that the king would not punish them, Valence and the other Lusignans began dealing with other magnates. In October 1252, Valence sacked Bishop Hugh of Ely's holdings at Hatfield , and by the end of the year he assisted his brother Aymer in plundering the palaces of Boniface of Savoy , Archbishop of Canterbury. According to Matthew Paris and other chroniclers, from this point onwards the royal court was divided into the camp of the Lusignans, related to the king, and the camp of the Savoyards related to Queen Eleonore , including Thomas and Peter of Savoy . Valence continued to be friends with the powerful Earl of Gloucester , whose son and heir Gilbert married his niece Alice in January 1253 . Shortly afterwards, he and Gloucester set off on a trip to France, during which they participated in several tournaments. Before October 1253 he finally met Henry III in Gascony, who tried to put down the rebellion there. Together with his relatives in Poitou, Valence raised a force of over 100 knights from Poitou who supported the king. Valence also helped to pacify the mountain regions of Bergerac and Gensac and to settle the dispute between Simon de Montfort and Gaston de Béarn over Bigorre . Typically, however, he also tried to persuade the king to surrender further lands, but only received the promise to get another lucrative guardianship. After they pacified Gascony, he accompanied the king in the winter of 1254 when he traveled back to England via Paris. In 1255 the king gave him the guardianship of his wealthy, but still underage brother-in-law William de Munchensi for a year .
Increasing influence of Valence on the king's politics
In England Valence was in high favor with the king, but apparently had less influence than his rivals at court, especially the Savoyards. The king only sought his advice when it seemed useful, for example in January 1256 on questions about Gascony. In September 1255 Valence had accompanied the king to the north of England, where he negotiated with the minority government for the young Scottish king Alexander III. led. In October 1255 in Windsor, he testified how the king accepted the Pope's offer of succession to the Sicilian throne, although he was not a clear proponent of this Sicilian adventure . It was only when the King approved the candidacy of his younger brother Richard of Cornwall as Roman-German King at Christmas 1256 that Valence possibly had greater influence. After Richard of Cornwall set out for Germany in April 1257, the king, who was in dire financial straits, turned increasingly to the Lusignans for advice and to borrow money from them. In November 1257, for example, Valence had lent the king 1,100 marks, for which the heir to the throne, Lord Eduard Stamford and Grantham , had pawned him. This resulted in an alliance between Valence and the heir to the throne, who had lost numerous possessions due to the Welsh uprising from the end of 1256. This alliance, which gave Valence further influence over the government, further enraged his opponents, and many old rivalries now became open feuds. In November 1256, the king had decreed that no trials of his favorites, especially the Lusignans, were allowed. The king preferred Valence against other courtiers in the allocation of guardianship and lands, which further fueled the conflict. The friendship between Valence and the heir to the throne destroyed his friendship with the Earl of Gloucester, who was a rival of Edward in the Welsh Marches .
Role during the war in Wales
As an important Marcher Lord , Valence had become indispensable for the king when the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd revolted against English supremacy from 1256. The Welsh rebellion escalated into open warfare that directly threatened many of Valence's properties. However, Valence remained at the royal court while his vassals in Pembroke fought against the Welsh under the leadership of Roger of Leybourne at Carmarthen . It was not until August 1257 that he took part in the king's campaign, during which the king advanced unsuccessfully to Deganwy Castle . However, Valence got into a violent dispute with Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford and his son Humphrey , among other things over the rights in Pembroke. Valence was also in open dispute with Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester . When, in April 1258, the armistice with Lord Llywelyn ended and the Welsh attacked from Cemais from Pembroke, Valence sought retribution in Parliament and accused Simon de Montfort and his former friend Gloucester of treason. This led to the fact that the two allied with five other barons on April 12th to demand a reform of the rule of the king. This reform movement led to the overthrow of the Lusignans.
Fall and disempowerment
Political isolation
At odds with Gloucester, at enemies with Montfort and Hereford and numerous other barons, Valence and his brothers were politically isolated in April 1258, although they were highly favored by the king. The hostility that Valence and his entourage now faced was less a result of his foreign origins, as is often assumed. Of the entourage that had accompanied him to England in 1247, only one knight remained in his service, while his other followers were all English. The king's preference for Valence and his followers, as well as his arrogant and often aggressive demeanor, were the real reason for the rejection by the English barons. Due to the strictness of their officials, especially those of Valence's administrator William de Bussay , the Lusignans were also unpopular with the landed gentry. In many cases they were held responsible for the harshness with which the king tried to raise money for a campaign in Wales. The Lusignans had become the main target of the complaints, which were actually directed against the unsuccessful personal rule of the king. In 1257 Peter of Savoy and Simon de Montfort proposed peace negotiations with the French king, which further weakened the position of the Lusignans.
The king was disempowered and Valence was exiled
The aristocratic opposition, to which Simon de Monfort, Peter of Savoy and the Earl of Gloucester belonged, had called for a reform of the government in April 1258 during parliament. The king then nominated Valence as one of his representatives in the 24-member committee that was supposed to work out a reform program for the government. Valence continued to play against Simon de Montfort. This and the other opponents of Valence now cleverly exploited the aristocratic opposition to damage Valence further. Valence and his brothers vowed to support the reform movement, but when the Oxford Parliament debated in June 1258 that the crown should get back numerous abandoned lands, Valence refused to approve. Then Montfort is said to have replied, according to the Chronicle of Matthew Paris , that Valence would either give back his castles or lose his head. When it became clear that the opponents of the reform program, the so-called Provisions of Oxford , would not find a majority, the Lusignans, Lord Eduard and John de Warenne fled to Winchester at the end of June, where they settled in Wolvesey Castle , the castle of Aymer de Valence, Bishop of Winchester entrenched. After a short siege, they had to surrender on July 5th.
Valence turned down the new government's offer to remain in custody until government reform was completed. On July 14th he left England with his brother Aymer. He was granted an annual pension of 3,000 marks, in exchange for which his possessions were to be administered by his followers. Any proceeds beyond the pension were to be kept in the New Temple in London. However, the government later cut his pension by 1,500 marks.
Exile in France
Valence reached Boulogne with his brothers , where they were able to evade an ambush by Henry de Montfort , a son of Simon de Montfort. From there they were allowed to travel through France to their homeland in southwestern France, although the French Queen Margaret , who was a sister of the English Queen Eleanor, tried to prevent this. The French king apparently believed that the expulsion of the Lusignans from England encouraged peace negotiations between France and England. In fact, after the Valence was driven out in December 1259, the Treaty of Paris was signed between France and England. Joan de Munchensi, the wife of Valence, was indignant about the financial restrictions imposed on her by the new government and followed her husband into exile in south-west France in December 1258. To this end, the government took measures to prevent funds from being smuggled into France from Valence. Indeed, William de Bussay, the administrator of Valence, was arrested in November 1258 when he was returning from an unauthorized visit from France. Over the next several months, Bussay and several other Valence bailiffs were convicted of abuse of office and imprisoned.
In Poitou, Valence initially took care of the administration of its properties. On March 2nd, 1259 he bought properties near Limoges , then he bought Montignac back from his brother Geoffroi. However, he soon began to arrange his return to England. In December 1259 he was in Paris, where he secretly met Simon de Montfort, who had fallen out with other members of the government of the barons. Allegedly at the suggestion of the English king, they settled their private differences. Montfort agreed to a return from Valence to England, which his new ally Lord Eduard wished. The plan failed when Lord Eduard's revolt against his father quickly failed in the spring of 1260, but the three nevertheless retained their alliance. From August to October 1260 Valence defended Lourdes and Tarbes , two possessions of Montfort in Bigorre in southwestern France , against the French nobleman Eschivat de Chabanais on behalf of Lord Eduard . On October 2, 1260 he concluded an armistice with Eschivat in Tarbes as a deputy of Montfort. On November 27, 1260, he met Lord Edward in Paris, presumably to discuss his return to England again. However, the death of his brother Aymer on December 4th forced him to postpone this plan.
Role in the war of the barons
Return to England
In February the King had appointed Geoffrey de Gascelin , a henchman of Valence, as constable of Hertford Castle . Due to Valence's alliance with Lord Eduard, who at that time was still in opposition to his father, it was initially unclear whether Valence would loyally support his half-brother Heinrich. Therefore the king, who increasingly regained his power against the aristocratic opposition, tried on March 27th to prevent the return of Lord Eduard and Valence to England. Around Easter, April 24th, Valence and Lord Eduard reached Dover . Valence swore in Dover to keep the Provisions of Oxford and also to face the accusations of his opponents. With this he came closer to the aristocratic opposition, which tried to prevent the regaining of the power of the king, possibly he also tried to strengthen his position at the court against the Savoyards. However, the king quickly managed to break his alliance with Lord Eduard and Montfort. On April 30th, he took Valence back to his court in Rochester and returned his confiscated lands to him.
Final break with the aristocratic opposition
For the next several months, Valence was mainly occupied with the administration of his regained possessions. It was not until 1262 that he was again at the royal court more often, but compared to the Savoyards he had significantly less influence on the king. He did not succeed in obtaining pardons for all of his followers, and it was not until July 10, 1262 that the king granted him compensation for the income lost during his exile. He waited for the full payment of this compensation in March 1263. In July 1262 he accompanied the king to France, where he and Henry of Almain tried unsuccessfully to get the king to officially underage Gilbert de Clare , the son of the late Earl of Gloucester, appointed as its heir. In August, apparently annoyed, Valence left the king and returned to England. On October 14th the king ordered that Valence should return to France, but on November 11th he was still in London. Finally, with promises of land and money, the king succeeded in breaking his alliance with Gilbert de Clare. In order to break the alliance between Gilbert de Clare, who was still a minor, and Valence, the king promised Valence on December 10th to hand over parts of Clare's holdings to him for administration. In July 1263 the king increased his offer by promising Valence possessions from Clare which would give him £ 500 annual income. In September 1263, the King Valence promised further lands with income of the same amount. Because of these promises, Valence did not support the Montfort and Clare rebellion in 1263. Clare Valence long resented this betrayal.
Decisive role in the victory of the royal party in the war of the barons
Instead, Valence remained a loyal supporter of the king during the Second War of the Barons . In February 1263 he traveled to Paris as Henry's ambassador, and then presumably traveled to Poitou, where he received the homage from Raymond V, Viscount de Turenne and other nobles for Henry . In October 1263 he was part of King Henry's retinue when he met the French king in Boulogne. When the open civil war against the aristocratic opposition under Montfort broke out in 1264, Valence belonged to the troops of Lord Edward on April 5 when Northampton was conquered . The people of London then looted his London town house and stole his money, which he had deposited in the Temple. He was also one of Lord Eduard's troops at the Battle of Lewes on May 14th. Together with John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey , he belonged to the right wing of the royal army. When it was foreseeable that the king's army would be defeated, he was able to flee to Pevensey Castle together with Warenne and his brother Geoffroi de Lusignan , from where they fled further into exile in France. The victorious rebels who had taken over the government of England confiscated his lands in England. Pembroke fell to Gilbert de Clare, while Goodrich Castle fell to Humphrey V. de Bohun.
In May 1265, however, Valence returned to England. He landed in Pembroke with Warenne and a force of about 120 men. This became the signal for a revolt by the Marcher Lords against the government of the barons under Montfort. In addition, Lord Eduard escaped from captivity by the government and joined the troops of Valence and Warenne. Together they were able to decisively defeat Simon de Montfort the Younger at Kenilworth in August 1265 and a few days later Montfort himself in the Battle of Evesham .
Enrichment at the expense of the defeated disinherited
Then Valence took part in the siege of Kenilworth Castle, where a large part of the remaining rebels, the so-called disinherited, had holed up. In May 1266 he was able to beat more disinherited at Bury St Edmunds together with John de Warenne . The king rewarded Valencia's loyalty with extensive lands that had been taken from defeated rebels such as Humphrey V. de Bohun, Roger Bertram and William de Munchensi . Apparently Valence had no part in the creation of the Dictum of Kenilworth , which gave the disinherited the opportunity to subjugate and repurchase their property. On the contrary, Valence even seemed to be an opponent of the dictum, and his severity towards the disinherited drove his brother-in-law William de Munchensi to take up the fight again. With Gilbert de Clare, who had meanwhile been installed as Earl of Gloucester, he had repeated clashes when it came to the confiscation and distribution of rebel property. By 1268, the king converted the £ 500 annual pension that Valence still received into possessions mainly in East Anglia . Through an intrigue by Valence, Warenne and Henry of Almain, Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby , one of the leaders of the disinherited, had to give up most of his possessions in 1269, which fell to Edmund, 1st Earl of Lancaster .
Valence remained enemies with the Clare and Bohun families until his death. This was not least due to the fact that these families were also partial heirs to the Marshal property. He had another feud against his wife's family, the Munchensi, which culminated in the unsuccessful attempt in 1289 to have Dionysia, the only daughter of his brother-in-law William, declared illegal. He was certainly supported in this by his wife, who hated her half-brother because he had significantly reduced her inheritance.
In the service of Edward I.
Participation in Lord Eduard's crusade
By fighting together during the Barons' War, Valence and Lord Eduard had renewed their friendship. On June 24, 1268, Valence took a crusade vows during Parliament in Northampton, along with Lord Eduard, John de Warenne and Henry of Almain. Lord Eduard made an agreement with him in which Valence promised to provide 19 knights for the crusade. For this, Lord Eduard supported him with 2000 marks and with the transport of the knights and the other soldiers belonging to them. With this force, Valence actually provided its own crusade contingent. In July 1268 Valence visited his possessions in Pembroke and in the spring of 1270 he visited his lands in Ireland, probably for the first time. There he took over the guardianship of the underage Gerald Fitz Maurice Fitzgerald , which he had bought from Thomas de Clare, Lord of Thomond . On August 20, 1270, he and Lord Eduard set out on the crusade to the Holy Land . Nothing is known about his deeds during the Crusade, only that he acquired a jeweled gold crucifix in the Holy Land , which Marie , the second wife of his son and heir Aymer, later donated to Westminster Abbey . When Lord Eduard almost fell victim to a poison attack in Acre , Eduard appointed Valence as one of his executors on June 18, 1272. Already in August 1272, before Lord Eduard, Valence started the return journey, perhaps out of concern that his old opponent, the Earl of Gloucester, who had remained in England, might attack his possessions while he was away. He reached London again on January 11, 1273, and on June 7, 1273, he was caught illegally hunting with his entourage in a royal forest in Hampshire .
Service to the King in France
Lord Eduard was after the death of his father Heinrich III. in November 1272 became King of England as Edward I. For the new king he traveled back to Gascony , where he accepted the oath of allegiance from the citizens of Limoges on September 3, 1273 for Eduard. There he met the king, who first visited his possessions in France on his return from the crusade. Together with Edward, Valence stayed in Gascony, where the king learned of the illegal hunt in Hampshire on November 29th. In July 1274 Valence returned to Limoges, appointed a seneschal there and besieged the castle of Marie, Vicomtesse de Limoges in Aixe . Back in England, he took part in the coronation of Edward I at Westminster Abbey on August 19, 1274, and on September 4 he hunted again in Hampshire without permission. On February 2, 1275 he represented Eduard before the Parlement in Paris, where Gaston de Béarn challenged the absent English king to a duel. In May Valence returned to England, where the king made him constable of the Welsh Cilgerran Castle , in addition he made him guardian of the heirs of Roger de Somery . In return, he assumed part of the king's debt.
Participation in the campaign against Wales and renewed service in France
Valence played an important role during the first campaign against Lord Llywelyn of Wales in 1277 . Together with Edmund , the king's brother, he led one of the three English armies from Pembroke Castle to Ceredigion , where they reached Aberystwyth before July 25th . There they began building Aberystwyth Castle . On October 3rd, Valence was back in Pembroke, from where he was traveling to southern England. Before December 27th he was in Marwell , Hampshire. Valence spent the next year mainly at the royal court before he should take possession of the French Agenais for the king in June 1279, which was due to the king after the Treaty of Amiens concluded that year . On August 8th, Valence entered Agen , and on August 10th he appointed Jean de Grailly Seneschal. He then went to Castile as envoy in November . In January 1280 he returned to Agen, where he laid the foundation stone for Tournon and the Bastide Valence d'Agen . Before June 6, 1280 he returned to London.
Participation in Edward's second campaign against Wales
In the summer of 1282 Valence took part in the king's campaign to Wales again. His eldest son, William the Younger, fought under the command of the Earl of Gloucester in West Wales, and fell on June 16 at the Battle of Llandeilo Fawr . After this failure, Edward I dissolved Gloucester through Valence as commanding officer in West Wales. Valence raised a new army at Carmarthen , with which he advanced to Central Wales on December 6th. In January 1283 he put down a Welsh rebellion in Cardigan, and in April he moved from Aberystwyth with over 1,000 men to the Welsh hill country, where, after a ten-day siege, he captured Castell y Bere , the last castle of the new Welsh prince Dafydd ap Gruffydd . From September to Christmas 1284 he accompanied Edward I when he undertook his triumphant tour of conquered Wales. As early as 1282, the king had given him the management of the lands of his underage son-in-law John Hastings, Lord of Abergavenny , until he came of age in 1283. Notably, he received no further rewards from the king afterwards. Instead, in 1285, despite Valence's personal protest in Aberystwyth, Eduard sent coroners to Pembrokeshire to hear complaints from the Earl of Hereford and the citizens of Haverfordwest against Valence. This action by the king openly violated the rights of Valence as Marcher Lord of Pembroke.
Another service for the king
Politically, Valence was dependent on his nephew Eduard. From his scattered property he received an annual income of about £ 1,500. This was quite modest for a magnate of his class, so that he had to rely on additional income for a befitting life. For this he had to rely on the king, who gave him guardianship or offices, through which Valence received an average of an additional £ 1,000 a year. Because of this low income and because of his dependence on the king, Valence could not develop its own political profile or surround itself with a large retinue.
From September 1286 to June 1289 Valence accompanied the king during his stay in Gascony. He fell seriously ill in November 1286 in Saintes . After returning to England in September 1289, he was involved in the negotiations, according to which the heir to the throne Eduard should be married to the Scottish heiress Margaret , the Maid of Norway . In early 1291 the king appointed him judge to decide the feud between the Earl of Gloucester and the Earl of Hereford in the Welsh Marches. Together with other Marcher Lords, however, he feared further royal interference in their privileges, which is why he asked the king not to enforce the judgment. In August 1291 he supported the king when he held the first hearings on the Scottish succession after the death of the Scottish heir to the throne Margaret . On December 10, 1291 Valence testified in Westminster Abbey how the king, after the death of his mother Eleanor, left his father's heart to the Abbey of Fontevrault for reburial. On December 5, 1292, the king appointed him one of the five commissioners who should oversee the implementation of tournaments. In the summer of 1292 he traveled with the king to Norham , where the latter declared that he would decide the Scottish succession to the throne under English law. Then John Balliol would become the new King of Scotland. In October 1292 he was one of the Marcher Lords at Berwick , who granted the king the levy of a fifteenth tax in the Welsh Marches on condition that no precedent was set . When there was an uprising against English rule in Wales in 1294 , the king sent him in October together with Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk, to South Wales to put down the uprising.
In January 1296 Valence traveled together with his son Aymer as head of an embassy to Cambrai , where he tried in vain to achieve a balance in the Franco-English War . Despite his age, he was probably involved in a skirmish. He returned wounded to England, where his wife had him taken from Dover to his Brabourne estate in Kent in a litter . There he died on May 16. John Leland claimed that Valence fell on June 13, 1296 fighting the French at Bayonne , which is most likely wrong. Valence was buried in a magnificent tomb in Westminster Abbey, where his children, John and Margaret, who died young, had already been buried.
Family and offspring
From his marriage to Joan de Munchensi , with whom he was obviously closely connected, Valence had at least three sons and four daughters:
- John († 1277)
- William († 1282)
- Aymer († 1324)
- Isabel († 1305) ⚭ John Hastings
- Margaret († 1276)
- Agnes († 1310)
- ⚭ Maurice Fitzgerald
- ⚭ Hugh de Balliol
- ⚭ Jean d'Avesnes
His heir became his only surviving son, Aymer. Due to its relatively modest possessions, Valence left the Church with modest foundations. He gave especially Pembroke Priory and the he founded Hospital of Tenby .
Valence and the title Earl of Pembroke
Valence's wife Joan had inherited only part of the Marshal inheritance, so she was only partially heir to the title of Earl of Pembroke . On his seal and in most of his documents, Valence called himself only Lord of Pembroke , and he was never made Earl of Pembroke. However, as Lord of Pembroke, Valence was Chairman of the Pembrokeshire Court. From the end of the 1280s, this led to Valence increasingly being referred to as the Earl of Pembroke. The king occasionally accepted this title in the 1290s, and in 1295 the king called Valence to Parliament as Earl of Pembroke. This made Valence a unique example of an informal advancement of rank, which the king perhaps accepted as a reward for his loyalty to Valence. Valence's widow Joan bore the title Countess of Pembroke until her death in September 1307 and kept Pembroke and Goodrich Castle and Wexford in Ireland as Wittum .
Web links
- HW Ridgeway: Valence, William de, earl of Pembroke (d. 1296). 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
- ↑ Michael Prestwich: Plantagenet England. 1225-1360. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007. ISBN 0-19-822844-9 , p. 96
- ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 69
- ↑ Westminster Abbey: William and Aymer de Valence. Retrieved June 12, 2016 .
- ^ Dorchester Abbey: Abbey Treasures. Retrieved June 12, 2016 .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| New title created |
Earl of Pembroke around 1247-1296 |
Aymer de Valence |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | William de Valence, 1st Earl of Pembroke |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Guillaume de Lusignan, Guillaume de Valence |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Anglo-French nobleman |
| DATE OF BIRTH | between 1227 and 1231 |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 16, 1296 |
| Place of death | Brabourne |