General Notes

Hugh de Spencer, Sr., so called to distinguish him from his son Hugh, whobore the designation of Hugh, Jr., both so well known in history as thefavorites of the unfortunate Edward II. Of Hugh, Sr., we shall firsttreat, although as father and son ran almost the same course at the sametime, and shared a similar fate, it is not easy to sever their deeds.Hugh, Sr., paid a fine of 2000 marks to the king, in the 15th of Edward I(1287), for marrying without license Isabel, daughter of William deBeauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and widow of Patrick de Chaworth (you descendfrom her and Patrick also), and by this Isabel he had this only son Hugh.

In the 22nd year of Edward I, 1294, he was made governor of OldhamCastle, Co. Southampton, and the same year had summons to attend the kingat Portsmouth, prepared with horse and arms for an expedition intoGascany. In two years afterwards he was in the battle of Dunbar inScotland, where the English arms triumphed (this was the time when EdwardI took the Stone of Scone away from the Scotch). The next year Hugh, Sr.,was one of the commissioners accredited to treat of peace between theEnglish king and the kings of the Romans and France. To the very close ofEdward I's reign his lordship seems to have enjoyed the favour of thatgreat prince and had summons to Parliament from June 23, 1295, to March14, 1322; but it was after the accession of Edward's unhappy son, EdwardII, that the Spencers attained that extraordinary eminence, from which,with their feeble minded master, they were eventually hurled into thegulf of irretrievable ruin. In the first years of Edward II's reign wefind the father and son engaged in the Scottish wars. In the 14th ofEdward II, 1221, the king having heard of great animosities between theyounger Despenser or Spencer, as they were now known, and Humphrey deBohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, and learning they were collectingtheir followers in order to come to open combat, interfered and strictlycommanded Lord Hereford to forbear. About the same time, a disputearising between Hereford and John de Moebray, regarding some lands inWales, young Despencer seized possession of the estate and kept it fromboth litigants. This conduct and similar proceedings on the part of theElder Despencer, exciting the indignation of the barons, they formed aleague against the favorites and placing the king's cousin, ThomasPlantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, at their head marched with banners flyingfrom Sherbourne to St. Albans, whence they despatched the Bishops ofSalisbury, Hereford and Chichester to the king with a demand that theSpencers be banished; to which the king, however, giving an imperiousanswer in the negative, the irritated barons continued on their route toLondon, when Edward at the instance of the Queen acquiesced; whereuponthe barons summoned a Parliament in which the Spencers were banished fromEngland and the sentence was proclaimed in Westminster Hall. To thisdecision, Hugh, the Elder, submitted and retired, but Hugh, the Younger,lurked in divers places, sometimes on land and sometimes at sea, and wasfortunate enough to capture during his exile two vessels near Sandwichladen with merchandise to the value of œ40,000, after which beingrecalled by the king an army was raised, which encountered and defeatedthe baronial forces at Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire. In this action wherenumbers were slain, the Earl of Lancaster was taken prisoner and carriedto his own Castle of Pontefract, and there after a summary trial (theElder Spencer being one of the judges) beheaded. The Spencers now becamemore powerful than ever, the Elder was immediately created Earl ofWinchester, the king loading him with grants of forfeited estates. YoungSpencer obtained like his father immense grants, from the lands forfeitedafter the battle of Boroughbridge, but not satisfied with these, and theywere incredibly numerous, he extorted by force whatsoever else hepleased. Amongst other acts of lawless oppression, it is related that heseized upon the person of Elizabeth Comyn, a great heiress, the wife ofRichard Talbot, in her house in Kennington in Surrey and detained her 12months in prison, until he compelled her to assign to him the manor ofPainswike in Gloucestershire, and the Castle and manor of Goderick in theMarches of Wales; but these ill-obtained and ill-exercised powers werenot formed for permanent endurance, and a brief space only was necessaryto bring it to a termination. The Queen (Isabel, Daughter of Philip IV,the Fair, King of France, and sister of Lewis X, Philip V, and Chas. IV,through whom Edward III, of England, claimed the French crown) and herparamour Roger de Mortimer had fied to France, and through the influenceof the Despencers had been proclaimed traitors, ascertaining the feelingsof the people, ventured to return, and landed at Harwich, with thenoblemen and persons of eminence who had been exiled after the defeat atBoroughbridge, raised the royal standard, and soon found themselves atthe head of a considerable force; when marching upon Bristol, where theking and his favorites then were, they were received in that city withacclamation, and the Elder Spencer being seized, was brought in chainsbefore the prince and the barons and received judgment of death, whichwas accordingly executed, by hanging the culprit upon a gallows in sightof the king and his son, upon St. Dennis Day in Oct., 1326. It is said bysome writers that the body was hung up with two strong cords for fourdays, and then cut to pieces and given to the dogs. Isabel, his wife, haddied shortly before May 30, 1306.

Name Suffix:<NSFX> Earl Of Winchester