BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON OUTSTANDING AND INTERESTING MAULES
EARLY MAULES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
BORN BEFORE1500
Peter succeeded his father as Lord of Maule in about 1065. He was a 'bon viveur' turned pious who, in 1076 gave the churches of St. Mary and St.Vincent to the monks of St.Evroult and endowed the Priory of Our Lady of Maule. He is described in the 'Ecclesiastical History' of Ordericus Vitalis as 'open-handed, recklessly generous and extravagant, religious in giving alms but not in fasting'. He married a lady called Windesmoth and exceptionally, for those days, all their eight children reached adulthood.
Hubeline, their eldest daughter, married a Geoffrey (surname not known). Erenburge married Baudri de Dreux. Odeline married Walter de Poissi and Hersende married Hugh de Voisins.
An extract from the, rather tongue-in-cheek, epitaph of Peter as written by John of Rheims a monk in the House of Saint-Evroult.
"Lord Peter, born of noble race,
And heir to lands of boundless space
Lies buried in his native earth
Among the tokens of his worth.
But though a knight of high degree,
'Twas not by deeds of chivalry
He won a never-dying name;
Such honours blazon not his fame.
He, prudent shrank from war's alarms,
And feasting pleased him more than arms;
Good-humoured, lavish, jovial, free,
He spent his days in revelry.
His liberal bounty never failed,
He lived beloved and died bewailed.
......
......
Ye men of Paris, him lament,
With you his youthful days he spent.
And, Saints! your merits be the price
To win him rest in Paradise."
Ansold the eldest son of Peter was knighted in 1065, he was a tall and powerful man and a noted warrior. According to one version of the 'Battell Abbey Rolls' he accompanied his youger brother Guarin to the Battle of Hastings. He was present, together with his brothers Theobald and William, two of his brothers-in-law and many reputable witnesses, when his father confirmed the charter of the Priory in Maule about 1076. He accompanied Duke Guiscard on his expedition to Greece and distinguished himself at the Battle of Durazzo 18/10/1081, where the Emporer Alexius Comneus of Constantinople was defeated.
Ansold succeeded his father as Seigneur de Maule in 1100. At the end of February 1106, when a comet appeared, Ansold took fright and resolved a dispute between himself and the monks of Maule. A charter of this was witnessed by his wife Adeline, the daughter of Ralph Malvoisin of Mantes, and his two eldest sons.
Shortly before his death his wife reluctantly consented to dissolve their marriage so that he could take holy orders. He was accepted as a monk on 24/12/1118 and died in the Priory at Maule three days later. Odo of Montreuil performed the office of priest at his funeral and wrote an epitaph to his memory, as follows:-
"Stranger, dost thou wish to know
Who lies buried here below?
Ansold was his name, a knight,
Once the foremost in the fight.
Six days before the year begun
In due course of time to run,
He was summoned to his rest:
God reward him with the blest!"
Tradition has it that Guarin accompanied William, Duke of Normandy to England in 1066, and was granted the Lordship of Atun [or Hatun] in Cleveland and 'many other lands in the north of England' for his services. This has not been confirmed and Guarin may have been amongst those who arrived in England in the years following the Conquest.
Possibly a page at court of K. William I, Robert is also mentioned as being at the court of King Henry I when David, Earl of Huntingdon was there learning the 'arts of chivalry'. He accompanied him into Scotland when he became King David I in 1124, and is believed to have obtained from him grants of lands in Lothian, possibly Mauldslie in Temple. He and his brother may have made a grant of the church at Hatun and the chapel of Newton of Thorp and Little Hatun to the newly-restored Abbey of St. Hilda at Whitby in the reign of Henry I, but the translators of the charter disagree in its exact interpretation.
The eldest son of Ansold was known as 'Peter the Turbulent'. In his youth a spendthrift and a gambler. He fought in the Battle of Bremule on 20/08/1119, but when the French were defeated, he ran away. After succeeding his father as Lord of Maule he surrounded himself with a band of lawless companions. They became the scourge of the surrounding countryside, destroying villages and harassing the inhabitants. Eventually King Louis VI (Le Gros) marched on Maule and demolished the chateau and the fortified wall as punishment. Peter was debarred from his ancestral lands, his chateau was destroyed, and the lands given to the Priory of Our Lady of Maule. Peter married Ada (1091-1137) the daughter of Manasseh, Count of Guines.
Accompanied his father into Scotland in 1124. Fought against the English at the 'Battle of the Standard' in 1138 and, for his bravery, received grants of land at Fowlis Easter, Gowrie and two tofts in Selkirk and Clackmannan. He was definitely in the entourage of Earl Henry, son of King David I in the period 1141-1151 and was a witness to several charters.
He gifted the church of Fowlis in Gowrie with tithes of adjoining lands and marling of the mill to his nephew Thomas, parson of the church at Fowlis. At least part of the lands at Fowlis Easter passed to the Mortimers in about 1190, possibly on William's death when his daughter Christina, who married Roger Mortimer, would have inherited.
His second daughter Cecilia married Walter de Ruthven, the ancestor of the Earls of Gowrie. A third daughter, name unknown, married Archibald Forgand.
Peter married in 1224 Christina, daughter and sole heiress of Sir William de Valoniis, Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland and Baron of Benvie, Balruddery and Panmure. Peter acquired these extensive baronies and other lands in Angus and in England from her inheritance. On the death of Christian, Countess of Essex in 1234, Christian became heir of line of this noble family. The large possessions of the De Valoniis family in the counties of Cambridge, Essex, Hertford, Norfolk and Suffolk were divided between Christian, her aunt and her cousin. Peter and Christina also succeeded to the inheritance of Sibilla de Valoniis, the widow of Robert de Stuteville. In 1254, shortly before Peter's death, they gave lands of Brakes and Bothmernock in the Barony of Panmure to the monks of Aberbroath.
A knight, Sir Thomas was Governor of Brechin Castle. He was known as a distinguished soldier. in 1303 he defended Brechin Castle against the army of King Edward I of England. He held out for three weeks until he was killed on the ramparts. The castle capitulated the next day. Thomas was a henchman of Sir William Wallace (Braveheart).
He was killed at Battle of Nicopolis, in Hungary, fighting the Turks. Robert was Lord of Maule, Palmort, Montainville and Herbeville. He married Anne Dangevilliers but left no male issue and so was the last of the main French line.
Robert's daughter Reginolde (b ?1365) married 1398, Simon de Moranvilliers, Lord of Flaccourt, Patrier to the Dauphin, Governor of Chartres and Mantes. He was killed at the Battle of Agincourt.
Thomas died leading a strong force that fought with the Duke of Albany against Donald, Lord of the Isles at the Battle of Harlaw 24/07/1411 in the Scottish Civil Wars. He fought even though John Ogilvie, Sheriff of Angus, advised him to remain behind out of danger as there was no other man of his house alive. Fortunately his wife Elisabeth, the daughter of Sir Andrew Gray of Fowlis was already expecting and his son Thomas was born posthumously.
Thomas was made heir to his father as a special act of the Parliament of Scotland dispensed with the 'non-age' of heirs of those killed at the Battle of Harlow. Thomas was knighted and became Lord of Brechin. One source states that Thomas was poisoned in Edinburgh by nobles upset about his claim to the Lordship of Brechin. He married Mary the daughter Sir Thomas Abercromby.
Known as Alexander of Camustoun, he was a profligate and on bad terms with his father. In 1498 Alexander and his younger son William left Scotland, reputedly out of hatred for his wife Elisabeth the daughter of Sir David Guthrie, High Treasurer of Scotland. Alexander is supposed to have left with a huge sum of money. One tradition has it that they went to England and were murdered by robbers, another that Alexander went to Germany where he became the ancestor of the German family of Maule.
After a somewhat turbulent youth he settled down and became very generous towards the church and went on pilgrimages in atonement. His grandfather conveyed the Barony to him after disinheriting his son Alexander. Thomas married, firstly, Elisabeth (d. a.1504) the daughter of Sir David Rollock of Ballachie. They had two sons and three daughters, Robert, William, Margaret, Elizabeth and Isobel.
Secondly he married Christian, the widow of James Haldane of Gleneagles and daughter of Lord William Graham. They had no children.
Thomas was killed fighting under the Scottish banner at the Battle of Flodden along with most of his friends, and vassals and including his son-in-law, John Liddell. Apparently Thomas was so obese he could not draw his sword without assistance.
Robert was tall, fresh-complexioned, spoke well, was subject to sudden anger, and given to lechery. Although he never learned to read and write he was an expert in the laws of Scotland and in the genealogy of his family. He was Sheriff of Angus. Always pugnacious, he was involved in an attempt, in 1526, by the Earl of Lennox to rescue K. James V from the Earls of Angus and Arran.
There is a reference to, supposedly, the first game of golf in Scotland on Barry Links at Carnoustie about 1527:- 'Sir Robert Maule exercisit the gowf '. In 1527 he was seriously injured trying to prevent several lords making their way over the land on which he was playing. In 1547 Panmure House was beseiged by a force of English and some traitorous Scots, Robert was shot, captured and held prisoner in Broughty Castle and the Tower of London until his release in 1549.
He married, firstly, Isobel (d. 30/04/1540) the daughter of Sir Laurence Mercer of Aldie. They had sons Thomas, John and Robert and daughters Margaret, Elizabeth, Janet, Agnes, Isabel, Geils, Jean and Catherine. Secondly, Robert married Isobel the widow of David Ochterlony of Kellie and the daughter of James Arbuthnott of that Ilk. They had three sons, Henry, Andrew and William and a daughter Marjory.
Late in life Robert became religious. He died on 02/05/1560 and is buried in the choir of Panbride Church.
Epitaphs copied from the 'Registrum de Panmure'.
Compiled by the Hon. Harry Maule of Kelly, A.D. 1733. Edited by John Stuart and published in Edinburgh, 1874.
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