In this, Chapter 3, Part 3, of Goadby's History of Loughborough, we hear about the changing fortunes of the Despencer family. It's a very interesting if rather gruesome read.
As I've said before, I've kept the text and the layout as it appeared in the original newspaper serialisation. I've added a few explanatory notes at the end, if I think these might be useful. In the 160 years since the original publication appeared, there have been many more discoveries and revelations about Loughborough's history, so some of the information contained in this article will be wrong: I have not tried to amend these in any way, so reader, beware!
THE
HISTORY OF LOUGHBOROUGH, FROM THE TIME OF THE BRITONS TO THE MIDDLE OF THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
Chapter 3, Pt
3 The family of the Dispensers
In: Loughborough
Monitor 22 September 1864, pg 5
Part 3 – The first
Hugh Dispenser associated with Simon de Montfort in the Baron’s War, and its
lasting political issues – Slain at Evesham – The elder and the younger De Spencer
– The latter becomes the favourite of Edward III – His rapacity and unpopularity
- An armed Confederacy formed against him – Spoilation of his and the Father’s
Lands – Loughborough, Beaumanor, &c. wasted and despoiled by their Enemies –
The Father’s immense losses – Execution of Father and Son.
It is time we
should attempt something like a history of the Dispensers. We have already seen
how the first Seigneur of that name came into possession of the manor, and how
the surname of the family itself originated. It remains that we should lightly
touch upon the public life of the notable individuals who successively owned
the Manor, occasionally resided near it, and were in person and character
pretty well known to the yeoman and tradesmen who constituted it principal inhabitants.
Won by the civilities
and blandishments of King John from any participation in the movements that
brought about the ever-memorable Magna Charta, the noble spirit of Hugh Dispenser
could no longer remain inactive when Henry III, after the most solemn and
binding oath to the contrary, repeatedly despised its sacred laws. He joined Simon
de Montfort, heart and hand, in his chivalrous resistance, and was equally useful
in the council and the field. There can be little doubt that he assisted the
Barons in every way, and gave his counsel to De Montfort when he proposed that
representation of Counties in Parliament which Englishmen justly hold to be as
sacred as Magna Charter itself, and whatever odium may have been attached to
his name by enthusiastic illogical monarchists, ought for ever to be dissipated
in the clearer light which has been thrown upon the political and social revolution
he helped the Earl of Leicester (i.e. De Montfort) to effect. When the spirits
of the Barons were depressed, Dispenser boldly inspired them. Rishanger [1] records one of his notable speeches
or prophecies. Northampton was taken and his associates were dispirited, when, said
he, “Behold, the King’s party have been made joyful by this capture, but I tell
you of a certainty that the month of May will not pass over but there shall be
such a confusion and retribution as that all of their late joyfulness shall be
swept into oblivion.” And the Battle of Lewes justified his prediction. He had
been made Justiciary of England in 1260, was deposed 1262, and was restored
July 1263, when all his previous acts were rendered valid. He was made Baron le
Dispenser in 1284. He fought on De Montfort’s side at the battle of Evesham, August
4, 1265, and in the press of the fight when all was lost, was advised by his
friend and leader to fly the field and wait for better times and things, but he
and Ralph Basset “dying, refused to live,” says Rishanger, and perished in the
fight. His body was buried with De Montfort’s in the Abbey of Evesham.
His lands and
estates were shortly afterwards confiscated by the king, with the sole
exception of the manor of Loughborough, which was graciously conferred upon
Alivia, his widow, daughter of Philip Basset, “out of the love the king bare
her father,” to quote the very expression of the grant. After liberating, without
any ransom, a number of unfortunate person who had been taken prisoners at the
battle of Lewes and confined in Wallingford Castle, this good lady returned to
live with her father, and we hear no more of her afterwards.
The two other
Hugh Dispensers known to history, or de Spencers, as they now began to be
called, were son and grandson of John le Dispenser the only known male issue of
the famous baron who fell at Evesham. Hugh le Dispenser, better known as the
elderly Spenser, was born in 1235, and restored to the barony in 1295. He
married Isabel, daughter of Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, by whom he had a son
commonly styled the younger Spenser. The younger Spenser married into distinction,
wealth, and trouble. He was one of a number of notables who nuptials were
celebrated at Whitsuntide in 1303, as recorded by Hearne, a rhyming chronicler
in the following lines:
“In this
zere, as I told, at the Whitsonen day,
The Kynge his
fest suld hold at Westmynstre fulle gay,
His sonne
Edward the Prince, and fiteene for his sake,
Thre hundred
of the province, knighted wold he make,
It was the
Kyng’s costage, for ilk a knight was gest,
Also thei mad
marriage of som that wer the best,
The young
Erle of Warenne with great nobly was there,
A wif they
him bikenue (sought out) the erle’s douhter of Bare,
The Erle of
Arundelle his londes laught (got) he then,
And toke a
damyselle, William’s douhter of Warenne,
Young Sir Hugh was there, the Spenser stout and gay,
Gilbert’s
douhter of Clare wedded he that day.”
By virtue of
this marriage he was frequently styled Earl of Gloucester, “a title which,”
says quaint, afterwise Polydore Vergil [2], “geven unto earles and dukes for
honors sake has been fetall (fatal), and foreshowed the destruction of them who
should enjoy it.” It certainly seemed so in Spenser’s case, and wisely does he
class him as one of the unfortunates. Along with the titles, came lands in the
Welsh marches, enough to satiate the greed of any earth-hungry mortal. But
Spenser coveted his neighbours goods, and played the tyrant with the smaller
land-owners about him. And his grand retribution, if we may venture so to style
it, came out of these same lands and hungerings, as we shall presently discover.
He soon became a favourite with Edward II, and his handsome person and
courtier-like manners gave him more authority than his character demanded or
his weak virtues could balance. He was a courtier but not a statesman, a petted
associate but not a far-seeing friend. He could beguile a weary hour pleasantly
enough but never read or battle with any of the difficulties that encompass a
throne. Despised at first for his weakness, he soon became hated for his tyranny.
Lancaster, and other fiery barons began to plot against him. Jealousy, scorn,
and a sense of national justice stung them into action. They withdrew from
Parliament and plotted. A woman, disguised as a minstrel, was sent to a feast
at Westminster with a letter telling the King that he was “neglecting Knights
who had served so faithfully both his father and himself, and was enriching
others who had not borne the burden of the day.” But nothing came of it. An
opportunity, however, soon offered itself, and the turbulent barons had their
revenge. The Younger Spencer had a violent ungovernable fit of earth-hunger.
One John de Mowbray, a Welsh nobleman, had entered upon an estate left him in
the marches by William de Brause, Lord of Gower, without observing the usual
formalities of taking livery and seizin of the king, Now was Spencer’s lucky or
unlucky hour. He advised the King to avail himself of the authority given him by
the feudal law and seize it, as escheated to the Crown, and then bestow it upon
him. This lit the blaze of a civil war. The Earl of Hereford, the uncle and
nephew of Roger de Mortimer, Roger Damory, John de Mowbray (the landless), Hugh
d’Audele, father and son, Roger de Clifford, John Giffard de Brumesfield,
Maurice de Berkely, Henry de Tyes, John Maltravers, and several others, at once
formed a conspiracy, by oaths and writing, to pursue and destroy the favourite.
A statement of their wishes was forwarded to the king, but without waiting for
an answer, they proceeded to despoil and devastate the lands of the younger
Spencer, murdering his vassals [3],
burning his houses, plundering his property, and sweeping away his cattle. Upon
the day of St Barnaby following in the same years, 1320-1, the like
devastations were committed upon the lands of the father, who does not appear
to have given them any provocation for so flagrant a violation of the rights of
private property. He was, says Hume [4], “a nobleman venerable from his
years, respected through all his past life for wisdom, valour and integrity,
and well fitted, by his talent and experience, could affairs have admitted of
any temperament, to have supplied the defects both of the king and of his
minion.” But he was the father of their enemy, respected by the king, and
therein was his crime and their provocation. A simultaneous rising took place
where his different manors were situated, and those two hell-hounds, Murder and
Rapine, slipped their leash, rending, tearing, and devouring like him whose
progeny they are.
The two
Spencers soon afterwards preferred petitions to the king and from the petition
of the Elder now preserved in the Tower, we are enabled to state the losses he
suffered by this feudal raid. Thirteen manors in Wiltshire, six in Gloucestershire,
four in Dorset, five in Hants, two in Berkshire, six in Oxfordshire, three in
Buckinghamshire, four in Surrey, one in Cambridgeshire, two in Huntingdonshire,
one in Yorkshire, and in Lincolnshire, and five in the respective counties of
Chester, Warwick, and Leicester, were pillaged and laid waste. The manors in Leicester
were “Loughteburgh, Beaumaner, Ernesby, Fricheby, and Huttlescote.” We cannot,
of course, state what were the particular damages done in the manor of
Loughborough, since none but a general summary of the losses is given, but
probably the flocks of oxen, sheep, hogs, and the droves of horses would be driven
away, the farmsteads plundered of their corn, wool, and provisions, and the
mills of their malt and flour, and then unceremoniously set fire to and left.
The Bercary [sheep farm] was doubtless destroyed at this time, since we hear no
more of It after this date. The petition also hints a personal violence when it
says that they “used his debtors, tenants, friends, and people as those of his
son, except that the loss of his goods, moveable and immoveable, was greater.”
The consternation of the people at this exhibition of feudal revenge must have been
considerable, and here and there some sturdy opposition may have been offered
to the savage plunderers, although we cannot suppose that much could be done
against a large armed force. The actual destruction done in the neighbourhood
was severe and extensive. The Barons did not do their work lightly or ineffectually.
Some nine years after the date of this aid, we find that the manor of Beaumanor
was held by John de Insula, and was said to be “wasted by war,” and as we know
nothing but this confederate attack to which it could be attributed, we presume
that the woods had been fired and such ravages made that no cultivation seemed
possible.
The general
extent of the elder Spencer’s loss was as follows: Two crops of corn, one in
the granges, the other upon the ground; 2,800 sheep; 1,000 oxen and heifers;
1,200 cows with their breed for two years; 40 mares with their breed for two
years; 560 cart-horses; 2,000 hogs; 400 kids; 40 tuns of wine; 600 bacons; 800
carcases of beef; 600 muttons in the larder; 10 tuns of cyder; and armour for
200 men, with other warlike engines and provisions, with the destruction of his
houses, to his damage of £30,000 in current coin, or more than twice that sum
according to present rates of value. The abbey of Langley, in Wiltshire, was
entered at the same time, the coffers broken open, and £1,000 taken away in
silver, with his charters, evidence, and bonds, cups of gold and silver, and
other silver vessels and jewels, of the total value of £10,000. They also entered
the King’s castle at Marlborough, of which he was constable, and carried off his
goods, 36 sacks of wool, 6 pair of rich vestments, a library, a golden chalice
for the Sacrament, one cross of gold, another of ivory and ebony, with other ornaments
belonging to the chapel, as clots of gold, carpets, coverings, &c., and his
whole wardrobe, to his damage of £5,000. “The plain interference is,” says
Hume, in considering these details as discovering the manners of the age, “that
the greater part of Spencer’s vast estate was farmed by the landlord himself,
managed by his stewards or bailiffs, and cultivated by his villains [5]. Little or none of it was let on lease
to husbandmen; its produce was consumed in rustic hospitality by the baron or
his officers, a great number of idles retainers, ready for any disorder of
mischief, were maintained by him; all who lived upon his estate were absolutely
at his disposal; instead of applying to courts of justice, he usually sought
redress by open force and violence, the great nobility were a kind of
independent potentates, who, if they submitted to any regulations at all, were
less governed by a municipal law than by a rude species of the last of nations.
The method in which we find they treated the king’s favourites and ministers is
a proof of their usual way of dealing with each other. * * I cannot forbear making
another remark drawn from the detail of the losses given by the elder Spencer;
particularly the great quantity of salted meat which he had in his larder, six
hundred bacons, eighty carcases of beef, six hundred muttons. We may observe
that the outrage of which he complained began after 3rd of May, or the 11th new
style [6], as we learn from the same paper. It
is easy, therefore, to conjecture what a vast store of the same kind he must
have laid up at the beginning of winter; and we may draw a new conclusion with
regard to the wretched state of ancient husbandry, which could not provide
subsistence for the cattle during winter, even in such a temperate climate as
the south of England; for Spencer had but one manor so far north as Yorkshire.
There being few or no enclosures, except for deer, no sown grass, little hay,
and no other resource of feeding cattle, the barons as well as the people were
obliged to kill and salt their oxen and sheep in the beginning of winter,
before they became lean on the common pasture; a precaution still practised
with regard to oxen in the least cultivated parts of this island. The salting
of mutton is a miserable expedient, which has everywhere been long disused.
From this circumstance, however trivial in appearance, may be drawn important
inferences with regard to the domestic economy and manner of life in those ages.”
The furious
barons were not content with this vast spoliation. They formed themselves into
an association marched to the outskirts of London, and there demanded the banishment
of the Spencers. Both were abroad on important errands, and the King replied
that it was contrary to law that he should grant them their request since
neither father nor son had been accused of any crime, or had any opportunity of
defending themselves. The barons then entered London, presented to Parliament a
charge against the Spencers without any facts to support it, and extorted from
the lay barons a sentence of attainder and perpetual exile against them. As soon
as they had secured from the King and indemnity for their riotous proceedings,
they dispersed their men and returned home. A subsequent Parliament, however,
revoked the banishment of the Spencers, and once more it was remarked that there
were three kings on the throne of England instead of one. After the disgrace
and the decapitation of the Earl of Lancaster and other of the barons, which
the younger Spenser was mainly instrumental in effecting, the popular animosity
against father and son swelled higher than ever. Having curtailed the revenues
of Queen Isabella, and act justified by the King when he afterwards told her
that he did not consider any of his territories safe in the hands of so
treacherous a person, they were charged with denying her the necessaries of
life and alienating from her the affections of her husband. And in the midst of
these tumults and bickerings, we need not wonder that their arrogance, tyranny,
and rapacity increased.
Such was the
condition of affairs when the Queen proceeded to France, and was affectionately
received by her brother King Charles. Thither she proceeded, not as Froissart [7] states, to obtain assistance against
the Spencers, who really wished to ger her out of the kingdom, but to negotiate
a treaty between her brother and her husband. In France she found many enemies
of the Spencers, and was easily captivated by the good graces of Roger
Mortimer. She determined to make war on her husband under cover of an attack on
the Spencers, and with an army of Hainaulters [8] and others she landed in England.
Insurrections broke out everywhere. The older Spencer was commander of Bristol,
but was delivered up to her by the garrison, Oct. 26, 1326. He was tried before
an assembly of barons, and sentenced to be drawn upon a hurdle to a place of execution,
and then beheaded, and afterwards gibbeted, He was now nearly ninety years of
age, and the sight of this venerable patriarch’s execution was witnessed by the
King and his favourite from the walls of the Castle. In the following month the
King, and the younger Spencer, who had made their escape from Bristol Castle,
were captured in Glamorganshire. The latter was arraigned at Hereford, before
Sir W. Trussel, the judge and murderer of his father. After accusing him as the
cause of all the evils of the nation, he pronounced sentence of execution upon
him, and concluded by furiously exclaiming, “Away, then traitor! Go and
received the reward of your tyranny, wicked and attainted traitor!” Dressed in
a black robe, with the arms of his family reversed thereon, and with a crown of
nettles upon his head, in mock imitation of the suffering of Christ, he was
conducted through the city of Hereford to the market place, amidst the hooting
and gibes of an unbridled multitude. He was then bound to a scaffold, his body
mutilated, his heart torn out and cast into the fire, his head cut off, and his
body other maltreated. His head was borne to London Bridge in a chariot with
his surcoat of arms, on which was written the first seven verses of the fifty-second
Psalm. The following distich was made upon his execution:
“Funis cum
lignis, a te miser ensis et ignis,
Hugo securia,
equus abatalit omne decus.”
“which versys
to them that understand no Laten,” saysy quaint Fabyon [9],
“maybe in
this wyse be expownyed or Englysshed” –
“With ropes
were though bound and on the gallows honge,
And from thy
body thyne hed with swerde was kytte,
Thy bowellys
in the fyre were throwe and burnyd longe,
Thy body in
iiii pecys eke with an was slytte,
With horse
before drawyn fewe men pyteynge it,
This with
these tomentys for thy sinnys sake
From the
wretchyd Hugh all worldly welthe was take.”
In the early
part of Edward III’s reign, the sentence of banishment and attainder was
annulled, and Hugh le Dispenser, the son of the younger Spenser was restored to
the barony. This was again made void, and in 1397 his son Thomas le Dispenser petitioned
to Parliament for restoration, and was restored, “First: Because they (his
ancestors) were not appealed to or called to answer, nor due process made against
them according to law. Secondly: Because the Prelates, who were Peers of the Realm,
did not consent to the said exile and dispersion. Thirdly: Because it was against
Magna Charta that any man should be exiled, or tried, without judgement of his
peer,” The first Parliament of Henry IV reversed this and again attainted the
Dispensers.
END OF
CHAPTER 3 PART 2
____________________________________
NOTES
[1] William Rishanger (1250-?) was a Benedictine monk and
recorder of Roman history who wrote several books including ‘Opus
Chronicorum’, a life of Simon De Montfort, and on the topic of the second
Baron’s War.
[2] This refers to Polydore Vergil (1470-1555), born in
Urbino, Italy, and originally named Polidoro Vergilio, who wrote an extensive
English history, ‘Anglicae historia libri XXVI’.
[3] A vassal is a person under the protection of a feudal
lord to whom he has vowed homage and fealty, or might be simply a feudal tenant,
but also someone in a subservient or subordinate position.
[4] This reference is probably to a ‘History of
England’, a series of works written by philosopher, economist, and
historian David Hume (1711-1776)
[5] Usually spelled villeins, these were tenants of the lord
of the manor, who paid dues and gave service to the lord, in exchange for the
use of land in Mediaeval times.
[6] The calendar change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian
calendar was made by an Act of Parliament in 1750, with subsequent amendments
and further acts following.
[7] Jean Froissart (1337-1405) was a French author and
historian, known for particularly for his three works – ‘Chronicles’, ‘Meliador’,
and ‘L’Horiofe Amoureux’.
[8] Hainaut is today an area of Belgium and northern
France: Hainaulters are therefore people from this area.
[9] Robert Fabyon (1450-1511/12 (will proved 1513)) was the
author of Fabyan’s Chronicle, which tells of the history of England and France.
He was a draper, Alderman, and Sheriff of London.
____________________________________
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lynneaboutloughborough
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(2024). Goadby’s History of Loughborough, Chapter 3, Pt 3. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2024/07/goadbys-history-of-loughborough-chapter_01454134461.html [Accessed 7 July 2024]
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