General Notes

Hubert de Bourgh became one of the most eminent and conspicuous nobles of his time; and as a subject was considered the greatest in Europe during the reigns of King John [1199-1216] and Henry III [1216-1272]. "The first mention of the Hubert, I find," says Dugdale, "is that he was servant to King Richard I, as also to King John, being sent by the latter from Roan, in the 1st year of his reign, to treat of a marriage for him with a daughter to the king of Portugal; and had such great estimation from that king, that in the 3rd of his reign, being lord-chamberlain of the household, he was constituted warden of the marches of Wales and had a hundred soldiers to attend him in those parts." In the next year we find him employed on an embassy to Philip of France, to treat for the restitution of Normandy, then seized upon by that monarch---and for some years after engaged in the important duties of sheriff for the cos. of Dorset, Somerset, Hereford, Berks, and Lincoln. At the period that the barons rose against King John, this even then powerful nobleman was seneschal of Poictou, and, taking part with his royal master, he was nominated one of the commissioners to treat with the insurrectionary lords at Runnymede, in which capacity he witnessed the signing of Magna Carta, and was advanced by the king, before he left the field, to the high station of Justice of England. In ten days afterwards he was constituted sheriff of the cos. of Kent and surrey, and governor of the castle of Canterbury, and within a month made sheriff of Herefordshire, governor of the castle of Hereford, and governor of the castles of Norwich and Oxford. In the October following he obtained a grant of the lordship and hundred of Hoa, in Kent, part of the possession of Robert Bardolph; and was again constituted, on 19 of the ensuing November, one of the commissioners upon the part of the king to treat with Richard, Earl of Clare, and others, then deputed by the barons, in the church of Erith, in Kent, touching a peace between the king and those turbulent nobles. He subsequently augmented his reputation by the gallant defence of Dover Castle against Louis of France, when King John was compelled to fly to Winchester, and after the death of that monarch, by still faithfully holding the castle for the young king, Henry III, although the highest honours and rewards were tendered him personally by the French prince for its surrender. In the 4th year of the new king, he succeeded William Mareschall, Earl of Pembroke, just then deceased, in the guardianship of young Henry (at that time but fourteen years of age), and in the government of the kingdom; and he suppressed in the next year a dangerous insurrection of the Londoners, begun by one Constantine, a chief man of the city, whom he caused to be hanged. His great power soon after, however, exciting the jealousy of the barons, the Earl of Chester and others of the discontented party signified to the king that, unless he forbore to require their castles and to hearken to their counsels of this Hubert, who then assumed a higher deportment than any nobleman of the kingdom, they would all rise in rebellion against him; but it does not appear that this cabal prevailed, for we find in the next year, when the king solemnized the festival of Christmas at Westminster, this Hubert, by especial royal appointment, proposing to the lords spiritual and temporal then assembled, an aid "for vindicating the injuries done to the king and his subjects in the parts beyond the sea." And soon afterwards, having executed the office of sheriff for the cos. of Norfolk and Suffolk, from the 1st to the 9th of Henry III [1216-1225], inclusive, and of the co. of Kent, from the 3rd to the 11th of the same reign [1219-1227], he was created (on 11 February, 1226) Earl of Kent, with most extensive territorial grants from the crown. Within the year, too, he was constituted, by the advice of the peers of the whole realm, Justice of England. His lordship afterwards, however, incurred the temporary displeasure of his royal master, as Dugdale thus states---"But before the end of this thirteenth year (about Michaelmas), the king having a rendezvous at Portsmouth of the greatest army that had been seen in this realm (it consisting of English, Irish, Scotch, and Welch), designing therewith the recovery of what his father had lost in foreign parts, and expecting all things in readiness, with ships for their transportation, but finding not half so many as would suffice for that purpose, he wholly attributed the fault to this Hubert, and publicly calling him Old Traytor, told him that he had taken 5,000 marks as a bribe from the Queen of France, and thereupon drawing out his sword would have killed him on the spot had not the Earl of Chester and some others prevented it, but displaced him from his office of Justice, whereupon he withdrew until the king grew better pacified as, it seems, he soon was; for the next ensuing year, when divers valiant knights, coming to the king out of Normandy, earnestly besought him to land forces in that country, assuring him that it might be easily recovered, this Hubert wholly dissuaded him from attempting it and prevailed with him to make an expedition into Gascony and Poictou, where he succeeded so well that, having little opposition, he freely received the homage of the inhabitants of those countries."

His lordship subsequently so fully re-established himself in royal favour that he obtained permission, under certain circumstances, to execute the office of Justice of England by deputy, and he soon afterwards had a grant of the office of Justice of Ireland and was appointed governor of the Tower of London, castellan of Windsor, and warden of Windsor Forest. Here, however, he appears to have reached the summit of his greatness for, sharing the common fate of favourites, he was soon afterwards supplanted in the affections of the king and exposed to the hostility of his enemies, so that, at one period, his life was saved only by his taking sanctuary in the church of Merton. He was afterwards dragged by Sir Godfrey de Crawcombe from before the altar of the chapel at the bishop of Norwich's manor house in Essex and conveyed prisoner, with his legs tied under his horse, to the Tower of London, "whereof," says Dugdale, "when they made relation to the king who had sate long up to hear the news, he went merrily to bed. Howbeit," (continues the same authority), "the next morning, Roger, bishop of London, being told how they had dragged him from the chapel, went immediately to the king and boldly rebuked him for thus violating the peace of the church, saying, that if he did not forthwith free him of his bonds and send him back to that chapel whence he had been barbarously taken, he would pronounce the sentence of excommunication against all who had any hand therein. Whereupon the king, being thus made sensible of his fault, sent him back to the same chapel upon the 5th calend of October, but withall directed his precept to the sheriff of Essex and Herefordshire, upon pain of death, to come himself in person, as also to bring with him the posse comitatus, and to encompass the chapel, so to the end he should not escape thence nor receive any manner of food, which the sheriff accordingly did, making a great ditch as well about the bishop's house as the chapel, resolving to stay there forty days." From this perilous situation the earl was relieved through he influence of his staunch friend, the archbishop of Dublin, upon condition of expatriating himself, being conveyed in the interim again to the Tower, when the king, learning that the disgraced lord had deposited great treasure in the new temple of London, peremptorily demanded the same, but the Templars as peremptorily refused surrendering the property entrusted to them without the consent of the owner, which latter being obtained, "great store of plate, both of gold and silver, much money, and divers jewels of very great value" were seized and deposited in the royal treasury. His lordship was subsequently committed close prisoner to the castle of Devizes where, it is said, upon hearing of the death of his great enemy, the Earl of Chester (5 November, 1233) "he fetched a deep sign and exclaimed, 'God have mercy on his soul,' and calling for his psalter, stood devoutly before the cross, ceasing not before he had sung it all over for the health of his soul." Soon after this the earl received a full and free pardon for his flight and outlawry with a grant that his heirs should enjoy all the lands of his own inheritance, but as to such as he had otherwise acquired, "they should stand to the king's favour and kindness and such terms as the king should think fit." Whereupon, relinquishing his title to the office of Justice of England and entering into obligation upon oath never again to claim it, he had restitution of numerous extensive lordships and manors. He did not, however, obtain his freedom, but was still closely confined at Devizes from whence he eventually made his escape into Wales and was ultimately pardoned with the other English nobles who had joined Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, upon the conclusion of peace with that chieftain. Again, though, he incurred the displeasure of the king in consequence of his dau. Margaret having m. Richard, Earl of Gloucester, a minor, without license, but was pardoned upon clearing himself of all cognizance of the matter and paying a fine. He was, however, again in disgrace, and again mulct and so on until he was stript of almost all his splendid possessions.

The Earl's marriages are differently given by different authorities. Dugdale assigned him four wives, but Milles, three only. According to Milles, he m. 1st, Margaret, dau. of Robert de Arsic, by whom he had two sons; 2ndly, Isabel, dau. and co-heiress of William, Earl of Gloucester, and widow of Geoffrey de Mandeville; and 3rdly, Margaret, dau. of William, King of Scotland. By the last he is said, but erroneously, to had had two sons; his only issue by the Princess were two daus., who both d. s.p., Margaret, m. to Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and Magota. The Earl had, however, (besides these two dau., his only children by the princess), two sons previously mentioned, viz.:

I. John (Sir), m. Hawyse, dau. and heiress of William de Lanvalay, and left issue a son, John. This Sir John de Burgh never inherited the Earldom of Kent. He fought under the banner of the barons at the battles of Lewes and Evesham, in the reign of Henry III. The period of his decease is not ascertained. His son and heir, John, d. in the 8th Edward I [1280], leaving the extensive manors and estates which he inherited from this father and mother to three daus., as co-heirs, viz., (1) Hawyse, m. to Robert de Greilly; (2) Devorgila, m. to Robert Fitz-Walter; (3) Marguerite, a nun at Chiksand, co. Bedford.

II. Hubert, ancestor of the Barons Borough, of Gainsborough.

Hubert de Bourgh, thus celebrated as Earl of Kent, d. 4 March, 1243, and his remains were honourably interred within the church of the Friars preachers (commonly called the Black-Friars), in the city of London. With his lordship, the Earldom of Kent, in the family of Burgh, expired, which Collins accounts for in his parliamentary precedents by the allegation that the patent by which the earldom was conferred was in remainder to his heirs male by the Scottish princess only, and that lady leaving no male issue, the dignity, of course, ceased. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 89-90, Burgh, Earl of Kent]

NOTE: According to Brian Tompsett's "Directory of Royal Genealogical Data," the Earl's first wife was Beatrice de Warenne (mother of Sir John de Burgh), folowed by Isabella de Clare in 1217, and Margaret of Scotland in 1221, but does not mention a marriage to a Margaret de Arsic. Furthermore, he states the Earl's father was Walter de Burgh, referencing CP VII, 133-142, and note "a" on p. 133 regarding his parentage, naming Walter de Burgh as his father, and William (father of Richard "the Great," Lord of Connacht) as his brother, whereas Burke calls John de Burgh his father, and Adelme (ancestor of the house of Clanricarde), his brother.