The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.

Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Mandeuile : or "Magnaville, one of the proudest honours of the Cotentin i altered by habit of speech into Mandeville." So says Sir Francis Palgrave; but opinions are divided as to the place from whence the name of this great house was derived. M. le Prevost also considers it to have been Magneville, near Valonges; "while M. Delisle reports that it was Mandeville le Trevieres: the Norman estates of the Magnavilles, Mandevilles, or Mannevilles, as they were indifferently called, lying partly in the neighbourhood of Creuilli, and the rest round Argentan, where, at a later period, they held the honour of Chamboi."—Planche. They were, it is said, derived from Manno, or Magnus, a Northern Viking, who gave his name to the fief in the tenth century. Geoffrey, the "Sire de Magnavile" mentioned by Wace as rendering great aid in the battle of Hastings, was one of the chief grantees after the Conquest, and held lands in ten different counties. Walden, in Essex, was the head of his barony, and remained the principal seat of his descendants. This "famous Souldier" was one of the great potentates of his day. The Conqueror appointed him Constable of the Tower of London, and he held the Shrievalties of London, Middlesex, and Hertford. He founded a Benedictine monastery at Hurley in Berkshire, as a cell of Westminster Abbey, and desired to be laid in the Abbey, "giving, in return for his burial, the manor of Eye, then a waste morass, which gave its name to the Eye Brook, and under the names of Hyde, Eyebury (Ebury) and Neate, contained Hyde Park, Belgravia, and Chelsea."—Dean Stanley. William de Mandeville, his successor, married Margaret de Rie, heiress of the great Eudo Dapifer, and their son Geoffrey was in her right Hereditary Steward of Normandy. This second Geoffrey received from King Stephen the Earldom of the county of Essex, but was bribed to desert his service by two other more ample charters from the Empress Maud, of which the second, dated from Westminster and re-conferring the Earldom. "is," says Dugdale, "the most antient Creation Charter which hath been ever known." Both are remarkable for the privileges and concessions they contain. She granted him all the lands, forts and castles that his father and grandfather had held; the Tower of London, "with the little Castle under it," to strengthen and fortify at his pleasure; the Hereditary Shrievalties of London, Middlesex, and Hertfordshire, with the trial of all causes in those counties; all the lands granted to him by Stephen, with twenty additional knight's fees; the whole of Eudo Dapifer's Norman estates, with his office of Steward, and covenanted that "neither the Earl of Anjou (her Husband) nor herself, nor her children, would ever make peace with the Burgesses of London, but with the consent of the said Geoffrey, because they were his mortal Enemies." She constituted him Earl of Essex, with the third penny of the pleas of the Shrievalty, "as an Earl ought to enjoy in his Earldom," gave him the Hereditary Shrievalty of the county, and made him and his heirs Chief Justices of Essex for ever. His adherence had been valued at no contemptible price; but, great as were the powers and dignities conferred upon him, he did not long enjoy them. No sooner was Stephen firmly established on the throne, than he had his recreant liegeman seized at the Court of St. Albans. The Earl, a violent and headstrong man, did not submit without a sharp struggle; "they had a bloody fight, in which the Earl of Arundel (though a stout Soldier), being thrown into the Water with his Horse, escaped drowning very narrowly." He was securely lodged in prison, and only set free after surrendering the Tower of London, with his own castles of Walden and Plessey; and thus bereft of his strongholds, and maddened by rage and disappointment, he betook himself to the savage life of an outlaw.

"He was to weete, a stoute and sturdie theefe,
Wont to robbe churches of their ornaments."

He collected a band of determined followers, and foraged the country in every direction for spoil; first invading the King's own demesne lands, and "wasting them miserably. Likewise, having married his sister Beatrix to Hugh Talbot of Normandy, he caused her to be divorced, and wedded to William de Say, a stout and warlike Man; and with his aid, he went on in Plunder and Rapine everywhere, without mercy; making use of divers cunning Spies, whom he sent from door to door, as Beggars, to discover where any rich men dwelt; to the end he might surprise them in their Beds; and then keep them in hold, till they had with large sums of Money purchased their liberty. And being highly transported with wrath, he at length grew so savage, that by the help of this William de Say, and one Daniel, a counterfeit Monk, he got by Water to Ramsey; and entring the Abbey very early in the morning, surprised the Monks (then asleep, after their nocturnal offices) and expelling them thence, made a Fort of the Church; taking away their Plate, Copes, and other Ornaments, and selling them for Money to reward his Soldiers." For this last outrage he was publicly excommunicated in 1144, and not long after, while besieging the castle of Burwell, "he put off his helmet (it being Summer), on account of the heat," and going bare-headed with shield and lance, he was shot in the head with an arrow, and mortally wounded. "Whereupon, with great contrition for his sins, and making what satisfaction he could, there came at last some of the Knights Templars to him; and putting on him the habit of their Order, with a Red Cross, carried his dead Corps into their Orchard, at the Old Temple in London; and Coffining it in Lead, hanged it on a crooked Tree. Likewise, that after some time, by the industry and expences of the Prior of Walden, his Absolution was obtained from Pope Alexander the Third, so that his Body was received amongst Christians, and Divine Offices celebrated for him; But, that when the Prior endeavoured to take down the Coffin, and carry it to Walden; the Templars being aware of the design, buried it privately in the Porch before the West door of the New Temple." This is a striking story; all the more striking, perhaps, because it reminds us that this spoliator and outcast had been in his younger days a benefactor of the Church. The Prior who interceded for his absolution was the Superior of the Abbey that he had founded near his Essex castle; "placing it upon a meeting of four Roadways, and in angle of two Waters, that the Monks should of necessity be charitable to Poor-people and hospitable to Passengers." It had been consecrated in 1136, but apparently not over richly endowed; for his successor Geoffrey III.—evidently himself unwilling to increase its income, "advised the Prior to be content with a small Church, and little Buildings."

Geoffrey III., the second of his three sons by Rohese de Vere (the elder, Ernulph, had died in banishment), was again created Earl of Essex by Henry II., and received back his forfeited lands, certifying to one hundred and three knight's fees. He was "an elegant man of speech, much noted for his abilities in secular affairs," and was sent with the Justiciary Richard de Lucy against the Welsh in 1167; but, falling sick at Chester, "it hapned that his servants being all gone to dinner, and nobody left with him, he died." He left no children, having been early divorced from his wife Eustachia—a kinswoman of the King's; and his brother William, who succeeded him, proved the last of his race. This third Earl, "of sharp wit, prudent in council and a stout Soldier, did not much verse himself amongst his own relations, but spent his youthful time, for the most part, with Philip Earl of Flanders," and only came home after his brother's death. He was much employed in military service, chiefly in Normandy, where he had the custody of several castles; and joined with Hugh Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, as Justiciary of England during Coeur de Lion's absence in the Holy Land. He was twice married; first to Hawise, the heiress of William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle, with whom, by the King's gift, he had the whole county of Albemarle, "antiently assigned to guard the Borders of Normandy;" and secondly to Christian, daughter of Robert Lord Fitzwalter, but had no heirs, and his Earldom expired with him. He died in 1190 at Rouen, and when "drawing near his end, called together his Kindred and Servants; and gave them charge (with his hands lifted up on high) to convey his Body to Walden in England, there to be buried. But Henry de Vere, his Kinsman, standing by, told him, That the difficulty of the passage was such, that it could not be done. To whom he replied, 'If you cannot, it is because you have no mind to effect, what I, a dying man, desire; then take my Heart, and carry it thither.'"

The great Mandeville inheritance reverted to his father's sister Beatrix, the wife of the same William de Say who had helped the outlawed Earl to surprise Ramsey Abbey. She was the mother of two sons and two daughters; William, who died in his father's life-time; Geoffrey; Beatrix, married to Geoffrey Fitz Piers; and Maud, married to William de Boeland. Though then very aged and decrepit, she lost no time in establishing her claim; and despatched her surviving son Geoffrey, whose right to the barony seemed beyond dispute, to the King, "to transact the Business, for Livery, of that great heritage." But the younger Beatrix had married one of the most potent nobles in the kingdom, an able and ambitious man, "skilful in the Laws," who insisted that it belonged to his wife; and hotly and persistently contested it. Geoffrey de Say, however, had friends at court, and obtained an instrument under the King's seal for the whole barony, on promising to pay 7,000 marks into the Treasury. But this, at the time appointed, he neglected to do; and Fitz Piers, "rich in money and everything else," seized upon the opportunity, proffered the sum demanded in his stead, and procured the King's confirmation of his title. At the coronation of John, he was girt by the King with the sword as Earl of Essex. He had been appointed by Coeur de Lion Justiciary of England in 1197; and "ruled the reins of government," says Matthew Paris, "so that after his death, the Realm was like a Ship in a Tempest, without a Pilot." Dugdale adds that "he was allied to all the Great Men of England, either in Blood or Friendship, so that the King feared him above all Mortals."

His children by Beatrix de Say (he had afterwards another wife) all took the name of Mandeville, which ended with them. There were, besides a daughter, three sons; the youngest was a clerk in holy orders, and Dean of Wolverhampton; and the two others were successively Earls of Essex, and died s. p, Both were men of mark amongst the barons who wrested Magna Charta from King John; and the elder, who was also Earl of Gloucester in right of his wife, was one of the twenty-five lords chosen to enforce its observance. The second died in the flower of his age in 1227; and the Earldom devolved on their, sister Mary, the wife of Robert de Bohun, Earl of Hereford; while the lands passed to their half-brother, John Fitz Piers, the son born of the great Justiciary's second marriage. His grandson, John Fitz John, was summoned to parliament in the time of Henry III.

There was a branch of this house seated in Dorsetshire, where they held the honour of Merstwood, consisting of 14 1/2 knight's fees, which Robert de Mandeville recovered from Henry de Tilly in the first years of King John's reign. It was an old suit, begun in his grandfather's time, and in 1211 "he accounted to the King £183 6s. and 8d., 5 Palfreys, and 3 Norway Goshawks for it." His brother Geoffrey succeeded, and the line ended with Geoffrey's son.

Several manors continue to bear this long defunct name; such as Kenton-Mandeville and Hardington-Mandeville in Somersetshire; Sutton-Mandeville in Wiltshire; Stoke-Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, &c.