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1. Oliver, sixth baron Deyncourt: A former rebel enters his inheritance

This month Louise Wilkinson examines the fine of a young Lincolnshire rebel to enter into his inheritance, having come back into the king’s peace following the conclusion of the civil war of 1215–17 which threatened to rip baronial society asunder. Analysis of the pledges he found to answer for him, were he not able to pay, reveals the dynamic forces of family, locality and politics that may have facilitated the reconciliation of contrariants to the crown and the step-by-step restoration of their and the crown’s fortunes across the country.

⁋1On 20 May 1217, the royalist victory at the battle of Lincoln played a decisive role in determining the outcome of the civil war between the supporters of the young king, Henry III, and those of the French Prince Louis. ¹ Lincolnshire, a region dominated by no single noble family, had been deeply divided by the conflict. Although Nicholaa de la Haye, lady of Brattleby, ² and Ranulf, earl of Chester, lord of Bolingbroke, ³ sided with the crown, many leading rebels held lands in Lincolnshire and its neighbouring northern counties. These included William de Albini, William of Huntingfield, John de Lacy, constable of Chester, William de Mowbray, Roger de Montbegon and Richard de Percy, all of whom belonged to the committee of twenty-five barons selected to oversee the enforcement of Magna Carta in 1215. ⁴ Other baronial rebels with substantial estates in the area included Norman Darcy, lord of Nocton, ⁵ Gilbert de Gant, lord of Folkingham, ⁶ Simon of Kyme, lord of Sotby, ⁷ Henry de Neville, lord of Ashby, ⁸ Richard of Sandford, lord of Thoresway in the right of his wife, ⁹ members of the Scoteny family, lords of Stainton le Vale, ¹⁰ and Oliver de Vaux, lord of Freiston in the right of his wife. ¹¹ Among the rebels captured at the battle of Lincoln, there was also a young Lincolnshire nobleman, Oliver, sixth baron Deyncourt, ¹² the heir to the barony of Blankney and various properties in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. ¹³

⁋2The Deyncourts, whose name derived from Ancourt (arr. Dieppe, cant. Offranville, France), ¹⁴ were a well established baronial family, whose ancestor, Walter, had made his fortune in England during the reign of William I. Walter, first baron Deyncourt, had acquired lands in no fewer than five English counties by the time of the Domesday survey in 1086. ¹⁵ Born in c. 1196, the childhood and adolescence of Walter’s descendant, Oliver, sixth baron Deyncourt, were marked by periods of dislocation and disruption. Oliver’s father, the fifth baron, died in 1201, ¹⁶ whereupon the young Oliver and his lands (thirty-five knights’ fees) passed briefly into royal hands. Shortly after this, however, the rights over Oliver’s wardship and marriage were assigned to John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, one of King John’s leading servants, in return for a fine of 400 marks. ¹⁷ The bishop, in his turn, then transferred Oliver and his estates to the safekeeping of one of his wealthiest tenants, Gilbert FitzReinfrey, another royal administrator and an influential northern landholder, who procured a letter patent from the king, confirming this new arrangement in September 1204. ¹⁸ This was to prove no more than a temporary change of guardian. By 1211, if not earlier, Oliver and his lands had returned to de Gray’s custody, where they remained until the bishop’s death in October 1214. ¹⁹

⁋3Although Oliver’s immediate fate after de Gray’s death is far from clear, Oliver and his barony quickly became caught up in the political turmoil which engulfed England in the aftermath of King John’s rejection of Magna Carta (1215). When celebrating Christmas at Nottingham on 25 December 1215, the king issued letters close, addressed to the sheriffs of Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, instructing them to hand over to Philip Mark, John’s deeply unpopular Poitevin servant, ²⁰ all Oliver’s land, together with the lands of those of Oliver’s tenants who were in rebellion, which the king had given him. ²¹ These letters were accompanied by letters patent, addressed to all the knights and free tenants of Oliver’s barony, ordering them to answer to Philip as their lord. ²² From these letters, it would appear that Oliver or at least some of his tenants had joined the rebellion against the crown. Curiously, the letters to Philip Mark made no reference to Oliver’s wardship, in spite of the fact that Oliver was legally still a minor. Perhaps, during the troubled circumstances of 1215, King John had prematurely awarded Oliver seisin of his inheritance in an attempt to bolster support. ²³ If this was the case, though, it seems strange that there is no formal record of Oliver entering his lands until Henry III’s reign. Another possibility is that Oliver, who was by this time nineteen, had taken action himself and claimed his inheritance without royal licence. Such a course of action was, of course, extremely risky, especially for the underage heir of a dead tenant-in-chief. There was the very real danger that Oliver’s inheritance might be declared forfeit before he had formally secured seisin. Even so, there are examples of other young noblemen, including sons whose loyalist fathers were still alive, who joined the rebellion in 1215. William, the son of Oliver’s erstwhile guardian, Gilbert FitzReinfrey, was captured when the rebel garrison of Rochester Castle (Kent) surrendered on 30 November 1215. ²⁴ Oliver, sixth baron Deyncourt, might well have had strong personal grounds for disillusionment with King John’s government. Trevor Foulds has shown that new tenants were intruded on Oliver’s demesne lands during, and probably as a consequence of, his minority. ²⁵ Whatever the case, John’s grant to Philip Mark might well have brought Oliver Deyncourt temporarily to heel. The king issued letters of safe conduct to Oliver on 5 and 31 January 1216, and again on 6 and 24 March 1216, ²⁶ possibly indicating that Oliver had entered into negotiations to make his peace with the crown. ²⁷ Nevertheless, Philip Mark retained possession of the Deyncourt lands, nominally at least, until 18 May 1216, when the king granted Oliver’s lands to John de Lacy, constable of Chester, a former rebel who had returned to the king’s faith on 1 January 1216. ²⁸

⁋4After this, Oliver disappeared from the records until his capture among the rebels at the Battle of Lincoln on 20 May 1217. ²⁹ Just four days after the battle, Philip Mark secured a new grant of all Oliver’s land, just as King John had given it to him. ³⁰ Yet, once again, Mark’s seisin of Oliver’s inheritance was short-lived. Oliver made peace and secured possession of his barony later that year. As the fine rolls of King Henry III confirm, Oliver’s minority ended at the very beginning of the second year of the new reign, when he paid £100 ‘for having all lands that fall to him by hereditary right and for his relief’, ³¹ in accordance with cap. 2 of Magna Carta. ³² By the end of October 1217, scutage was already being demanded from Oliver by the crown. ³³

⁋5When Oliver made his fine with the king, eight men acted as pledges for his ability to pay should he fail. The names of these men offer an interesting insight into this former young rebel’s political influence and connections in the aftermath of the civil war. The pledges were: Robert Musard, Adam de Bella Aqua, William de la Beuvrière, William of Launde, Gerard de Fancourt (alias Fennecurt), Ralph Deyncourt, Henry Bishop (alias Leveske) and John Marshal. ³⁴ What is striking about the identities of these men is that none of them were great northern landowners, similar to those whom Holt observed lending one another support in the years leading up to and immediately following the civil war. ³⁵ This situation perhaps owed something to Oliver’s youth and the uncertainties surrounding his wardship; he had not yet had an opportunity to forge and strengthen his own network of noble connections. There was, instead, a familial element to the group who acted as Oliver’s pledges. Henry Bishop (pledge for 20 marks) was none other than Oliver’s stepfather. Henry had married Oliver’s mother, Amabilia, in 1201. ³⁶ Although Henry held lands in Branston (Lincolnshire) as Amabilia’s dower in 1212, ³⁷ Henry and his wife might well have encountered problems securing the remainder of the Deyncourt dower during Oliver’s minority, a situation that is unlikely to have been helped by the fact that Henry, like Oliver, rebelled against the crown. ³⁸ When the justices in eyre visited Lincolnshire in 1218–19, Henry, acting as his wife’s attorney, brought a writ of novel disseisin against a long list of tenants in Branston, as well as a plea of dower against Oliver himself. ³⁹ Early in 1219, Henry and Oliver appeared before the royal justices at Nottingham in order to settle Amabilia’s claim to the third part of the Deyncourt manors of Granby and Sutton (Notts.), Elmton, Cresswell and Holmesfield (Derb.) and Wooburn (Bucks.). ⁴⁰ On 10 February 1219, they drew up a final concord, whereby Oliver acknowledged Branston to be Amabilia’s dower, and granted her the homage and services of six tenants (who all appeared in court on this occasion and acknowledged that they owed services). Oliver also granted her 100s. in rent from four mills in Wooburn, together with a one-off payment of 20 silver marks, whereupon Amabilia resigned her right in the remainder of Oliver’s barony. ⁴¹ It was possibly in the hope of resolving the issue of Amabilia’s dower and, once Oliver had come of age, of reinforcing Amabilia’s title to the Deyncourt properties that Henry acted as his stepson’s pledge in 1217.

⁋6There were slightly more remote familial connections, reinforced by a tenurial bond, between Adam de Bella Aqua (pledge for 20 marks) and Oliver. Adam’s probable father, William (d. 1196), held half a knight’s fee (the vill of Hockerton, Notts.) from Walter, third baron Deyncourt, in 1166. ⁴² Adam’s mother was the daughter of John, fourth baron Deyncourt (Oliver’s grandfather). On their marriage, which took place between 1168 and 1183, John granted the couple four librates of land, two in Cresswell (Derb.) and two in Sutton (Notts.), together with the service of half a knight’s fee in Hockerton. ⁴³ In a similar vein, Ralph Deyncourt (pledge for 10 marks) was probably the same person as Ralph Deyncourt (d.s.p. 1224) of Potter Hanworth in Lincolnshire, the knightly member of a cadet branch of Oliver’s family. Ralph was descended in the male line from a younger son of Ralph, second baron Deyncourt (d. by 1158), ⁴⁴ and served as an administrative knight during the Lincolnshire eyre of 1218-9. ⁴⁵

⁋7Complex ties of neighbourhood, politics and tenure served to underpin Oliver’s relationship with some of his other pledges. A longstanding tenurial association between the Deyncourt and the Fancourt families might well have motivated Gerard de Fancourt to act as Oliver’s pledge for 10 marks. The Fancourts were important honorial barons of the Deyncourts, and probably took their surname from Fallencourt, a place situated thirty kilometres to the east of Ancourt. ⁴⁶ The Fancourts can be found in England, witnessing charters issued by the barons Deyncourt, from the mid-twelfth century onward. ⁴⁷ Gerard himself held half a knight’s fee in Scopwick (Lincs.) from Oliver, ⁴⁸ together with one knight’s fee in Hickling and Kinoulton (Notts.). ⁴⁹ When Gerard granted lands in Scopwick and Kirkby (Lincs.) to Thurgarton Priory in or after 1217, ⁵⁰ Oliver quitclaimed all his right in that property. ⁵¹ Gerard shared similar political sympathies with his Deyncourt lord; like Oliver, he was a rebel during the civil war of 1215-7. At this time, though, Gerard was closely associated with another great baron – William de Albini, lord of Belvoir – from whom he held lands in Harby (Leics.), which bordered his Deyncourt properties in Nottinghamshire. ⁵² During the winter of 1215, Gerard was one of the rebel knights who garrisoned Belvoir Castle, and was present at its capitulation after King John threatened to starve William de Albini, then imprisoned in Rochester Castle. ⁵³ Gerard rebelled again in 1216, before returning to the king’s faith in December that year, and only finally securing the return of his lands in August 1217. ⁵⁴

⁋8William of Launde (Oliver’s pledge for 20 marks) was a local landholder and another former rebel. William possessed ties of neighbourhood with the Deyncourts in Lincolnshire. His family might have taken their name from Ashby de la Launde, a place situated a little over three miles to the south-west of the caput of Oliver’s barony of Blankney. William himself can be found holding lands elsewhere in the county, including property in Coleby, ⁵⁵ Habrough and Killingholme from the crown, ⁵⁶ in Wispington from Robert of Tattershall, ⁵⁷ and in Ewerby from Gerard de Camville (d. 1214). ⁵⁸ Although William served as a royal household knight under King John, ⁵⁹ he moved in the same political circles as his stepson, Norman Darcy, another northern baronial rebel. William had married Norman’s mother, Joan, the widow of Thomas Darcy. ⁶⁰ William and Norman fought on the same side during the civil war, and even made peace together in September 1217. ⁶¹ William also held lands in Yorkshire from the rebel Mowbray family. ⁶²

⁋9There were other men among Oliver’s pledges whose interests had been far more closely allied with those of the crown in the political climate of 1215–17. Somewhat frustratingly the nature of Oliver’s association with William de la Beuvrière (pledge for 20 marks) is more difficult to unravel. He shared his surname with Everard de la Beuvrière, another royal household knight, who acquired lands in Gloucestershire through his service to King John. ⁶³ Robert Musard (Oliver’s pledge for 20 marks) was presumably a member of the Musard family, who held lands in Berkshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. The head of this family in 1217 was Sir Ralph Musard, a household knight and member of the affinity of the regent, William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, one of the victors of the battle of Lincoln. ⁶⁴ Robert was a name favoured by the Musard family during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and Ralph’s eldest son, who succeeded to his father’s lands in 1230, was called Robert. ⁶⁵ Ralph Musard held one knight’s fee from Oliver in 1210–12, ⁶⁶ and in 1242–43, the heir of Robert Musard appeared, holding a portion of a knight’s fee in Nottinghamshire from Oliver, sixth baron Deyncourt. ⁶⁷

⁋10Musard was not the only one of Oliver’s pledges associated with William Marshal, regent of England. John Marshal, Oliver’s pledge for 30 marks, the greatest single sum for his relief, was none other than the regent’s nephew. John himself had both fought at and helped to secure the royalist victory at Lincoln in 1217, where Oliver was captured. He had also played a key role in the crucial naval battle off Sandwich later in the year. ⁶⁸ John’s loyalty and service to Henry III’s cause were recognised by grants of offices and wardships in 1217–18, such as the office of chief justice of the forest and custody of the earldom of Devon and Isle of Wight. ⁶⁹ He also served as a justice on the circuit covering the northern midlands during the 1218–19 eyre. John Marshal’s appearance here as Oliver, sixth baron Deyncourt’s pledge makes one wonder whether he was involved in some form of ransom or other similar financial deal brokered in the aftermath of Oliver’s capture at the battle of Lincoln. ⁷⁰

⁋11Marshal’s role as Oliver’s chief pledge brought this young former rebel firmly under the wing of one of the most loyal servants of Henry III’s minority government. As such, this arrangement might have aided Oliver’s political rehabilitation in the aftermath of the civil war, at a time when Oliver had still yet fully to establish himself in baronial society. This rehabilitation was no doubt aided further, in the years immediately following Oliver’s accession to his lands, by his politically astute marriage in or before 1220 to Nicholaa, the kinswoman and namesake of another leading royalist in Lincolnshire – Nicholaa de la Haye, lady of Brattleby, and castellan and erstwhile sheriff of Lincoln. ⁷¹ The older Nicholaa granted her young relation the manor of Duddington (Northamptonshire) as a marriage portion on the occasion of the Deyncourt marriage. ⁷² In spite of the somewhat inauspicious start to his majority, Oliver, sixth baron Deyncourt, began to mend old wounds. He remained in possession of his barony until his death in 1246, when he was succeeded by John, his son by Nicholaa. ⁷³

1.1. C 60/8, Fine Roll 1 Henry III (28 October 1216–27 October 1217), membrane 1.

1.1.1. 21

⁋1[No date]. Oliver Deyncourt has made fine with the king by £100 ⁷⁴ for having all lands that fall to him by hereditary right and for his relief. He has found pledges for the aforesaid fine which are written on the dorse of this roll. ⁷⁵ Order to the sheriffs of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire to cause him to have full seisin of all lands and fees falling to him by inheritance and their appurtenances in their bailiwicks without delay.

1.2. C 60/8, Fine Roll 1 Henry III (28 October 1216–27 October 1217), membrane 1d.

1.2.1. 24

⁋1[No date]. Pledges for Oliver Deyncourt: ⁷⁶