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DE BEAUCHAMP Guy
Birth: 1271 Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England
Death: 12 Aug 1315 Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England
Burial: Bordesley Abbey, Warwick
Bordesley Abbey, Warwickshire, England
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_de_Beauchamp,_10th_Earl_of_Warwick
Guy de Beauchamp, 10th Earl of Warwick (c. 1272 – 12 August 1315) was an English
magnate, and one of the principal opponents of King Edward II and his favourite Piers
Gaveston. Guy de Beauchamp was the son of William de Beauchamp, the first
Beauchamp earl of Warwick, and succeeded his father in 1298. He distinguished
himself at the Battle of Falkirk and subsequently, as a capable servant of the crown
under King Edward I. After the succession of Edward II in 1307, however, he soon fell
out with the new king and the king's favourite Piers Gaveston. Warwick was one of
the main architects behind the Ordinances of 1311, that limited the powers of the king
and banished Gaveston into exile.
When Gaveston returned to England in 1312 – contrary to the rulings of the
Ordinances – he was taken into custody by the Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of
Pembroke. Warwick abducted Gaveston and, together with the Thomas, 2nd Earl of
Lancaster, had him executed. The act garnered sympathy and support for the king,
but Warwick and Lancaster nevertheless managed to negotiate a royal pardon for
their actions. After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, King
Edward's authority was once more weakened, and the rebellious barons took over
control of government. For Warwick the triumph was brief; he died the next year.
Guy de Beauchamp is today remembered primarily for his part in the killing of
Gaveston, but by his contemporaries he was considered a man of exceptionally good
judgement and learning. He owned what was for his time a large collection of books,
and his advice was often sought by many of the other earls. Next to Lancaster, he
was the wealthiest peer in the nation, and after his death his lands and title were
inherited by his son, Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick.
Family background[edit]
Guy de Beauchamp was the first son and heir of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of
Warwick, (c. 1238 – 1298). His mother was Maud FitzJohn, daughter of John fitz
Geoffrey, who was Justiciar of Ireland and a member of the council of fifteen that
imposed the Provisions of Oxford on King Henry III.[3] William was the nephew of
William Maudit, 8th Earl of Warwick, and when his uncle died without issue in 1268,
he became the first Beauchamp earl of Warwick.[4] In 1271 or 1272 his first son was
born, and in reference to the new family title, William named his son after the
legendary hero Guy of Warwick.[1] William de Beauchamp was a capable military
commander, who played an important part in the Welsh and Scottish wars of King
Edward I.[4]
A marriage between Guy and Isabel de Clare, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of
Hertford, was contemplated, or possibly even took place and then annulled.[5][a] It
was not until early 1309 that Guy married Alice de Toeni, a wealthy Hertfordshire
heiress.[6] By this time Guy had already succeeded as Earl of Warwick, after his
father's death in 1298.[7] By Alice, Guy had two sons, including his heir and
successor, Thomas, and five daughters:
Maud de Beauchamp (died 1366); she married Geoffrey de Say, 2nd Lord Say, by
whom she had issue. The Barons Saye and Sele are their descendants.
Isabella de Beauchamp; she married John Clinton.
Emma de Beauchamp; she married Rowland Odingsells.
Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick (14 February 1313/1314 – 13 November
1369), he married Katherine Mortimer, by whom he had fifteen children.
Lucia de Beauchamp; she married Robert de Napton.
John de Beauchamp, Lord Beauchamp KG (1315 – 2 December 1360); he carried the
royal standard at the Battle of Crecy.
Elizabeth de Beauchamp (c. 1316–1359); she married in 1328 Thomas Astley, 3rd Lord
Astley, by whom she had two sons, William Astley, 4th Lord Astley and Sir Thomas
Astley, ancestor of the Astleys of Patshull.
Service to Edward I[edit]
Edward I knighted Guy de Beauchamp at Easter 1296.[8] Warwick's career of public
service started with the Falkirk campaign in 1298.[1] Here he distinguished himself,
and received a reward of Scottish lands worth 1000 marks a year.[9] At this point his
father was already dead, but it was not until 5 September that Guy did homage to the
king for his lands, and became Earl of Warwick[8] and hereditary High Sheriff of
Worcestershire for life. He continued in the king's service in Scotland and elsewhere.
In 1299 he was present at the king's wedding to Margaret of France at Canterbury,
and in 1300 he took part in the Siege of Caerlaverock.[5] The next year he was a
signatory to a letter to the Pope, rejecting Rome's authority over the Scottish
question, and also participated in negotiations with the French over the release of the
Scottish King John Balliol.[5][10] He was present at the Siege of Stirling in 1304,
serving under Edward, the Prince of Wales.[8] In March 1307 he made preparations to
accompany Prince Edward to France, but this journey never took place.[5]
Early in 1307, Edward I made his last grant to Warwick, when he gave him John
Balliol's forfeited lordship of Barnard Castle in County Durham.[5] On 7 July that year,
near Burgh by Sands in Cumberland, Warwick was present when King Edward died.
[11] Together with Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, he
carried the ceremonial swords at the coronation of King Edward II on 25 February
1308.[8]
Conflict with Edward II[edit]
Before his death, the old king had exiled Prince Edward's favourite Piers Gaveston,
and Warwick was among those charged with preventing Gaveston's return.[12] The
new king, however, not only recalled his favourite, but soon also gave him the title of
earl of Cornwall. Warwick was the only one of the leading earls who did not seal the
charter, and from the start took on an antagonistic attitude to Edward II.[9] Gaveston
was a relative upstart in the English aristocracy, and made himself unpopular among
the established nobility by his arrogance and his undue influence on the king.[13] He
gave mocking nicknames to the leading men of the realm, and called Warwick the
"Black Dog of Arden".[b]
Gaveston was once more forced into exile, but Edward recalled him in less than a
year. The king had spent the intervening time gathering support, and at the time, the
only one to resist the return of Gaveston was Warwick.[14] With time, however,
opposition to the king grew. Another source of contention was Edward abandoning his
father's Scottish campaigns, a policy that opened the Border region up to devastating
raids from the Scots.[15] This affected Warwick greatly, with his extensive landed
interest in the north.[16] Tensions grew to the point where the king in 1310 had to ban
Warwick and others from arriving at parliament in arms.[5] They still did, and at the
parliament of March 1310, the king was forced to accept the appointment of a
commission to draft a set of ordinances towards reform the royal government.[17]
The leaders of these so-called Lords Ordainers were Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop
of Canterbury, on the side of the clergy, and Warwick, Lincoln and Lancaster among
the earls.[17][18] Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, was the most experienced of the
earls, and took on a modifying role in the group.[19] Thomas of Lancaster, who was
Lincoln's son-in-law and heir, was the king's cousin and the wealthiest nobleman in
the realm, but at this point he took a less active part in the reform movement.[20]
Warwick is described by some sources as the leader of the Ordainers; he was
certainly the most aggressive.[5] The set of Ordinances they drafted put heavy
restrictions on the king's financial freedom, and his right to appoint his own ministers.
It also – once more – ordered Gaveston to be exiled, to return only at the risk of
excommunication.[21]
Gaveston's death[edit]
Gaveston's third and final exile was of even shorter duration, and after two months he
was reunited with Edward in England.[22] Archbishop Winchelsey responded by
excommunicating Gaveston, as the Ordinances had stipulated.[23] Lancaster, who
had by this time inherited his father-in-law Lincoln, had taken over leadership of the
baronial opposition.[24] A number of the barons set out in pursuit of Gaveston while
the king left for York. Gaveston ensconced himself at Scarborough Castle, and on 19
May 1312 agreed on a surrender to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, as long as
his security would be guaranteed.[25]
Pembroke lodged his prisoner in Deddington in Oxfordshire. On 10 June, while
Pembroke was away, Warwick forcibly carried away Gaveston to Warwick Castle.[26]
Here, in the presence of Warwick, Lancaster and other magnates, Gaveston was
sentenced to death at an improvised court. On 19 June he was taken to a place
called Blacklow Hill – on Lancaster's lands – and decapitated. According to the
Annales Londonienses chronicle, four shoemakers brought the corpse back to
Warwick, but he refused to accept it, and ordered them to take it back to where they
found it.[27] Gaveston's body was eventually taken to Oxford by some Dominican
friars, and in 1315, King Edward finally had it buried at Kings Langley.[27]
The brutality and questionable legality of the earls' act helped garner sympathy for the
king in the political community.[28] Pembroke was particularly offended, as he had
been made to break his promise of safety to Gaveston, and his chivalric honour had
been damaged. From this point on Pembroke sided firmly with King Edward in the
political conflict.[29] The king himself swore vengeance on his enemies, but found
himself unable to move against them immediately, partly because they were in
possession of a number of highly valuable royal jewels taken from Gaveston.[30][31] A
settlement was reached in October, whereby the rebellious barons and their retainers
received a pardon.[32] The king nevertheless emerged strengthened from the events,
while Warwick and Lancaster were largely marginalised.[33] This all changed in 1314,
when the king decided to stage his first major campaign against the Scots. Warwick
and Lancaster refused to participate in the campaign, which ended in a humiliating
English defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn on 24 June. This led to another political
bouleversement, and Edward was forced to reconfirm the Ordinances, and submit to
the leadership of the rebellious barons.[34]
Death and historical assessment[edit]
In mid-July Warwick had to withdraw from government to his estates, due to illness.
[35] Political leadership was soon left almost entirely to Lancaster, when Warwick died
on 12 August 1315. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham reported rumours that the
king had him poisoned.[36] He was buried at Bordesley Abbey in Worcestershire, an
establishment to which his family had served as benefactors.[5] In value, his
possessions were second only to those of the earl of Lancaster among the nobility of
England.[37] His lands, though primarily centred on Warwickshire and Worcestershire,
were spread out over nineteen counties as well as Scotland and the Welsh Marches.
[5] His heir was his oldest son, whom he had named Thomas after the earl of
Lancaster.[5] Thomas, born probably on 14 February 1314, did not succeed to his
father's title until 1326, as Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick.[7][38] In the
meanwhile his possessions went into the king's hand, who donated his hunting dogs to
the earl of Pembroke.[39] A younger son, named John, also became a peer, as John
de Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp. Like his older brother, he distinguished himself
in the French wars, and was a founding member of the Order of the Garter.[40]
Guy de Beauchamp is probably best remembered by posterity for his opposition to King
Edward II, and for his part in the death of Gaveston.[5] To contemporaries, however,
he was considered a man of considerable learning and wisdom. His library, of which
he donated 42 books to Bordesley Abbey during his lifetime, was extensive. It
contained several saints' lives as well as romances about Alexander and King Arthur.
[1] As mentioned, Edward I entrusted the supervision of his son with Warwick.
Likewise, when the earl of Lincoln died in 1311, he supposedly instructed his son-in-
law Thomas of Lancaster to heed the advice of Warwick, "the wisest of the peers".
[41] Chronicles also praised Warwick's wisdom; the Vita Edwardi Secundi said that
"Other earls did many things only after taking his opinion: in wisdom and council he
had no peer".[1][5] Later historians have reflected this view, in the 19th century
William Stubbs called Warwick "a discriminating and highly literate man, the wisdom of
whom shone forth through the whole kingdom".[5] He was politically and economically
well connected by traditional ties of kinship and marriage.
Warwick's death came at an inconvenient time; Thomas of Lancaster proved unequal
to the task of governing the nation, and further years of conflict and instability
followed. Nevertheless, the problems of Edward II's reign were deep, and in the words
of Michael Hicks: "one must doubt whether even Warwick could have brought unity
as one chronicler supposed".[1]
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jweber&id=I03537
Parents
DE BEAUCHAMP William (1237 - Jun 1298)
FITZ JOHN Maud (ABT 1238 - 16 Apr 1301)
Siblings
DE BEAUCHAMP Isabel (ABT 1263 - BEF 30 May 1306)
DE BEAUCHAMP Guy (1271 - 12 Aug 1315)
Marriage To DE TOSNY [DE TOENI] Alice (26 Apr 1284 - 1 Jan 1324)
m.
Notes
Parents
DE TOSNY Ralph VII (1255 - BEF 29 Jul 1295)
____ Mary (Clarissa) (ABT 1260 - )
Children by DE TOSNY [DE TOENI] Alice 26 Apr 1284 - 1 Jan 1324
DE BEAUCHAMP Thomas (14 Feb 1314 - 13 Nov 1369)
DE BEAUCHAMP Elizabeth (ABT 1315 - 1359)
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