|
01 April 2015
de
Lacy
Wikipedia =
de Lacy (Laci, Lacie,
Lascy, Lacey) is the surname of an old Norman noble family which originated from
Lassy, Calvados. The family took part in the Norman conquest of England and the
later Norman invasion of Ireland. The name is first recorded for Hugh de Lacy
(1020-1085). His sons, Walter and Ilbert, left Normandy and travelled to England
with William the Conqueror. The awards of land by the Conqueror to the de Lacy
sons led to two distinct branches of the family: the northern branch, centred on
Blackburnshire and west Yorkshire was held by Ilbert's descendants; the southern
branch of Marcher Lords, centred on Herefordshire and Shropshire, was held by
Walter's descendants.
Until 1399, the
northern branch of the family held the great Lordship of Bowland before it
passed through marriage to the Duchy of Lancaster, as well as being Barons of
Pontefract and later Earls of Lincoln.
The southern branch
of the family became substantial landholders in the Lordship of Ireland and was
linked to the Scottish royal family; Elizabeth de Burgh, whose great grandfather
was Walter de Lacy, married Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland.
Hugh de
Lacy
(30 + 31x
great grandfather)
Hugh de
Lacy had two sons -
 |
Walter
de Lacy - 29x great grandfather - see below |
|
Ilbert
de Lacy - 29x great uncle + 30x great grandfather depending on which line
followed- click HERE for line of descent
|
Walter de
Lacy
(29x great
grandfather)
The son of
Hugh de Lacy. Walter married Emmeline and they had the following children -
|
Emma de
Lacy - 28x great grandmother. |
|
Roger
de Lacy |
|
Hugh de
Lacy |
|
Walter
de Lacy |
Wikipedia =
Walter was originally
from Lassy, in Normandy.
Walter was given the
lordship of Weobley in Herefordshire after the Conquest. He is already attested
in the Welsh Marches by 1069, when he is recorded stopping a Welsh attack and
then raiding into Wales in retribution. Walter and his brother Ilbert may have
come to England in the household of Odo of Bayeux, the Bishop of Bayeux and
half-brother of King William the Conqueror. Although some historians, such as W.
E. Wrightman, have argued that Walter was a follower of William fitzOsbern,
others, including C. P. Lewis and K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, have argued that Walter
was an independent agent in England.By the time of Walter's death, he held a
block of lands in Herefordshire along the border with Wales. Another group of
lands was centred on Ludlow in Shropshire. These two groupings of lands allowed
Walter to help defend the border of England against Welsh raids. Walter also had
other lands in Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Oxfordshire.
Walter kept a large number of his manors in demesne, managing them directly
rather than giving them as fiefs to his knightly followers.Some of these lands
in Hereford, including Holme Lacy, were held of the Bishop of Hereford through
feudal tenure.In total, Domesday Book records Walter's lands as being worth £423
in income per year and as comprising 163 manors in 7 different counties.He was
one of 21 individuals with land valued at more than £400 at the time of the
survey.
In 1075, Walter was one
of the leaders of the force that prevented Roger de Breteuil from joining up
with the other rebels during the Revolt of the Earls. Walter had joined forces
with Wulfstan the Bishop of Worcester, Æthelwig the Abbot of Evesham Abbey, and
Urse d'Abetot the Sheriff of Worcester.
Walter died on 27 March
1085, falling off some scaffolding at Saint Guthlac's Priory when he was
inspecting the progress of the building at that monastery. He was buried in the
chapter house at Gloucester Abbey.He was a benefactor to Gloucester Abbey,as
well as Saint Guthlac's.
Emma de
Lacy
(28x great
grandmother)
The
daughter of Walter de Lacy and Emmeline. Emma married
Sir Hugh Talbot of Shrewsbury, son of Sir Richard Talbot of Battlesden and Aimée
D' Aubigny and they had the following children-
|
Gilbert
de Lacy -27x great grandfather |
Gilbert de
Lacy *
(27x great
grandfather)
The son of
Emma de Lacy and Hugh Talbot. He married Agnes and they had the following
children-
| .Eve de Lacy
-married Hugh de Lonchamp |
| Hugh de Lacy - 26x
great grandfather |
| Heloise (Halwyse)
de Lacy- married William Devreux |
http://www.ewyaslacy.org.uk/doc.php?d=rs_ewy_0201 states-
* Emma had
married Hugh de Talbot about 1095, but their son Gilbert chose to
take the de Lacy surname and inherited the Baronetcy and properties
when Hugh died in 1121. Gilbert de Lacy thus became the 4th Baron de
Lacy He was born c1104 [1110?] in Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire, and
died in 1163. He married Agnes [no surname or parentage known] in
about 1132 and was succeeded by his son Hugh de Lacy. According to
some sources it was Gilbert who recovered the family’s lands
[including Ewyas Lacy] from the Crown [Henry II] after Roger de
Lacy’s banishment.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes an
alternative view of this period and the succession, in
that this Gilbert de Lacy may have been the son of the
Roger de Lacy disinherited and banished in 1069, who had
succeeded his father on the family’s Norman estates of
Lassy and Campeaux by 1133. He is said to have returned
to England during the civil war between King Stephen and
the Empress Maud and, profiting from the anarchy
prevailing in the southern Marches, recovered most of
his father’s lands which had been given to Pain fitz
John, Joce de Dinan and Miles of Gloucester after 1096.
It is also said in this account that in 1158 or 1159
Gilbert de Lacy resigned his lands to his eldest son
Robert [who was succeeded by his younger brother Hugh in
1162] and joined the Knights Templar, travelling first
to France and then to Jerusalem which he reached in 1161
or 1162. He became preceptor of the Templars in ‘the
county of Tripoli’, and in 1163 he is said to have been
among the leaders of a Crusader army resisting Nur-ad-Din.
The year of his death is not known in this account.
Hugh de
Lacy
(26x great
grandfather)
The son of
Gilbert de Lacy and Agnes. He married Rohese de Monmouth, daughter of Baderon de
Monmouth and Rohais de Clare and they had
the following children -
|
Walter
de Lacy - 25x great grandfather |
|
Hugh de
Lacy |
|
Gilbert
de Lacy |
|
Robert
de Lacy |
http://www.ewyaslacy.org.uk/doc.php?d=rs_ewy_0201 states-
Hugh de
Lacy, born c 1125 [1138?] in Ewias Lacy, became the 5th Baron de
Lacy, Lord of Ludlow, on his father’s death in 1163. In October 1171
he accompanied King Henry II to Ireland and attained a prominent
position in the king’s entourage. Before the king left Ireland in
April 1172 he had granted Hugh de Lacy the kingdom of Mide [as Earl
of Meath] as well as custody of the City of Dublin. De Lacy himself
returned to England by the end of December 1172, but seems to have
spent little time in his Herefordshire estates. In 1173 he was in
Normandy fighting on behalf of Henry II against Louis VII of France
and subsequently seems to have spent much of his time in Ireland. In
later years his relationships with the king over the domains there
were often strained as suspicions arose over his actions in treating
with his Irish opponents and collecting tribute, and he was recalled
by the king on several occasions. Hugh de Lacy was assassinated on
26th July 1185 [1186?] in Ireland, beheaded with an axe by the
Irish, although King Henry II is reported to have welcomed his
death.
Hugh de
Lacy had married Rose [Rohese] de Monmouth, the daughter of Badion (Baderon)
de Monmouth and Rohese de Clare, in about 1170 [1163?]. Their eldest
surviving son and heir was Walter [II] de Lacy, and their other
children were Hugh [died 1242], Gilbert and Robert. After the death
of Rose sometime before 1180, Hugh married the daughter of the Irish
King of Connacht [Connaught], apparently to the displeasure of King
Henry II, and had another son, William Gorm, who was later deemed
illegitimate.
Walter de
Lacy
(25x + 26x great
grandfather)
The son of
Hugh de Lacy and Rohese de Monmouth. He married Margaret de Braose, daughter of
William de Braose and
Maud de St Valery and they had the following children -
|
Egidia
de Lacy - direct ancestor - married Richard Mor
de Burgh |
|
Gilbert
de Lacy - 24x great grandfather - 1206-1230 |
|
Petronilla de Lacy - 25x great grandmother. Married Raoul de Tosny. More to
follow. |
http://www.ewyaslacy.org.uk/doc.php?d=rs_ewy_0201 states -
Walter
de Lacy was born in about 1172 in Ewias Lacy and was a minor at the
time of his father’s death in 1185/6. He eventually succeeded to
Hugh’s estates in England, Wales and Normandy, becoming Lord of
Ludlow and Weobley in the final quarter of 1188/9 – although Ludlow
Castle, which had been taken from his father by Henry II to curb the
power of the de Lacys in the Marches, remained in the King’s hands.
It was not until 1194 that Walter de Lacy regained full possession
of the Irish estates as Lord of Meath [Mide], after considerable
political and other difficulties.
It was not only in
Ireland that Walter de Lacy had problems; by 1197 he was in the
position of having to offer payments to King Richard to try and
recover his Norman and English lands, which the King had
sequestrated, probably for actions taken by de Lacy to reinforce his
position in Ireland. However by 1199 Walter de Lacy seems to have
been restored to favour in King John’s court, and by 1205 had not
only extended his own lands in Ireland but also seen his brother
Hugh de Lacy installed as Earl of Ulster.
Walter de
Lacy married Margaret [?Margery] de Braose [Briouze], the daughter
of William de Braose of Brecknock, Lord of Bramber, in November 1195
[?November 1200], and his son and heir Gilbert de Lacy was born
c.1205 [1196?] in Ewyas. Walter’s new father-in-law also had
extensive holdings in the Welsh Marches and in Ireland, so the
alliance had considerable mutual benefit as the two men looked after
each others interests in both places. The downside of this was that
the King’s suspicions of the powerful Marcher Lords with additional
holdings in Ireland were reinforced, and the power struggles
continued, especially after William de Braose rebelled against the
King and fled across the Irish Sea in 1210, and Walter de Lacy’s
English and Irish estates were again confiscated by King John.
By 1213
an English Baronial revolt in alliance with Welsh ruler Llewellyn ap
Iorwerth had placed the security of the Marches under threat, and
Walter de Lacy returned to England as King John’s ally, recovering
all his lands (on payment of a substantial sum to the crown] by
about 1215. The following year he was additionally made Castellan
and Sheriff of Hereford, and appointed custos of the vacant see of
Hereford.
In 1220
Walter de Lacy returned to Ireland after a long absence, and in the
years following was heavily engaged in a series of wars that had
broken out there. Matters again became complicated when, in 1233,
his brother Hugh arrived in Ireland and, having failed to negotiate
the recovery of the Earldom of Ulster that King John had taken from
him, proceeded to ‘wage war against the King and pillage the King’s
land’. Hugh was captured and detained, but by 1227 the earldom of
Ulster was restored to him. He died in Ulster shortly before 26th
December 1242 without male heirs, and his lands reverted to the
crown.
Meanwhile, Walter de Lacy in 1225 again found himself having to
raise money to pay fines to the King and became heavily reliant on
loans from Jewish financiers, although this did not deter him from
making substantial donations to religious houses including Llanthony
Prima and Secunda, and founding the Grandmontine priory at Craswall
in Herefordshire. However, his profligacy finally caught up with
him, and on 19th November 1240 the Crown issued orders for the
distraint of his estates for the recovery of debts. At the time of
his death on the 24th February 1241 in Meath, Ireland, Walter de
Lacy was blind and feeble, bankrupt, and without male heirs, a sad
end for a man and a family line that had shaped and ruled Ewyas Lacy
and wider estates in the Marches, Herefordshire and Ireland for
nearly two centuries.
Gilbert de
Lacy
(24x great
grandfather)
The son of
Walter de Lacy and Margaret de Braose. He married Isabel Bigod, daughter of
Hugh Bigod and Maud
Marshall and they had the following children-
|
Margaret de Lacy -23x great grandmother. Married John le Bottiler de Verdun
- more to follow. |
|
Maud de
Lacy - direct ancestor. Married Geoffrey de Geneville. More to follow.
|
http://www.ewyaslacy.org.uk/doc.php?d=rs_ewy_0201 states -
Walter de
Lacy’s only son Gilbert had died in 1234 [1230?] in Trim, Meath,
Ireland and was buried in Llanthony. He married Isabel Bigod,
daughter of Hugh [?Ralph] Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk, in about 1225
and had two daughters, Margery [born c.1228 [1230?] in Ewyas Lacy,
and Maud [born c.1230 [1228?] in Dublin. Because Gilbert predeceased
his father the de Lacy estates including Ewyas Lacy passed down to
his daughters [Walter II de Lacy’s grand-daughters] who on Walter’s
death received a moiety of Ewyas Lacy and a share of the Lordship
with the taxes and revenues that attached to it. Later documents
refer to the lordship as being ‘held in coparcenary’, and the split
of the lordship and lands of Ewyas Lacy thus created in 1241
persisted to modern times. The Lacy sisters are also said to have
had marriages personally arranged for them by King Henry III, to
ensure that the estates they had inherited were retained in the
hands of trusted royal servants. Margery died about 1256 and Maud
died on the 11th of April 1304 in Ireland, bringing to an end this
branch of the de Lacy line.
|