Goadby's History of Loughborough Chapter 3 Part 3

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

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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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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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