(note: This information is included because a “Mary Egbert” was mentioned as his descendent. I do not know how this Mary Egbert is related to the rest of the Egberts since the only information available was her name. It does present some interesting possibilities, and will be worth pursuing in the future) (information from Magna Charta by John S. Wurt)
 
 

Saire de Quincey, the Surety, born before 1154, was a baron present at Lincoln when William the Lion of Scotland did homage to the English monarch in October 1200. He obtained large grants and immunities from King John and was created Earl of Winchester, March 2, 1207, having been the governor in 1203 or the Castle of Ruil in Normandy. He is credited with rewriting the Magna Charta from the Charter of King Henry I and the Saxon Code. Because he had opposed the King’s concession to the Pope’s legate, he was bitterly hated by King John. One of the barons to whom the City and Tower of London were resigned, Saire de Quincey was excommunicated with the other barons the following year. He was sent, with Robert FitzWalter, by the other barons, to invite the Dauphin of France to assume the crown of England and, even after the death of King John, he kept a strong garrison in Montsorell Castle in behalf of Prince Louis. When the barons were defeated by the troops of King Henry III, Saire de Quincey, with many others, was made prisoner and his estates forfeited. In the following October his immense estates were restored upon his submission. In 1218 the Earl of Winchester went with the Earls of Chester and Arundel to the Holy Land, assisted at that siege of Damietta in 1219, and died November 3 that same year, on the way to Jerusalem. His wife was Margaret Beaumont, whom he married before 1173.

At the beginning of John’s reign Saire de Quincey was not a baron, much less a great one. In the civil war the king had had the advantage over the rebels. Few of the barons had had much actual military experience. The barons’ contribution to the war was the scutage they paid, a war fund substituted for the contingent of knights owed to the king’s service. The money was collected from vassels, and mercenary knights were paid from it. Many of the mercenaries were regulars who served the same baron from campaign to campaign, but those barons who are known to have had extensive military experience were only Saire de Quincey, Robert FitzWalter, William de Mowbray, William D’Albini, Roger de Cressi and Robert de Roos.

Saire de Quincey is associated with two stalwart castles in the south of England: Colchester and Winchester, which were both once sites of Roman forts. Colchester’s keep, the only portion now surviving, is in complete harmony with other Norman castles. It must have been a formidable stronghold, and a challenge to Saire de Quincey. The King’s men held the castle against Quincey, the first earl to attack Colchester. John had given the fortress into the charge of a Fleming whom he thought he could trust. But Quincey took the castle, and later found holding it more difficult. The fighting was of such a nature that John himself came to Colchester to see just how stubborn Saire de Quincey was. The Earl held the castle for two months, but lack of food forced him to give up and take flight to France.