General Notes

NICHOLAS DE MOELS, whose parentage is unknown, appears to have been froman early age in the court of King John, and was an official activelyemployed in the King's service both in embassies and the field. In 1217the manor of Watlington was granted to him "for his sustenance in theking's service," and similar gifts followed. In April 1223, he was sentto Poitou on an embassy from the King, and again in the followingJanuary. In the summer of 1223 he served in the King's expedition intoWales, and in the following year at the siege of Bedford. In January1224/5 he was one of the ambassadors sent. to Cologne to treat of aproposed marriage between Henry III and a daughter of Leopold VI, Duke ofAustria. In July 1226 the land of Little Berkhampstead was granted tohim, and this and other estates were later confirmed in fee. He also, byhis marriage with a wealthy heiress, Hawise, one of the daughters andheirs of James de Newmarch, acquired Cadbury and other manors in Somersetand the neighbouring counties, thus becoming one of the greaterlandowners. In 1227 he was in Gascony on the King's service, and a jointambassador to the Count of Flanders; in March 1228 was charged withnegotiations as to the truce with France, and in November of that year,at Westminster, witnessed Henry's grant to the Bishop of Chichester ofland in." New Street," now the site of Lincoln's Inn. In April of thefollowing year, as miles noster familiaris, he was a plenipotentiary totreat of peace with Louis IX of France, and was again going to Gascony inthe King's service. He was sheriff of Hants and custos of WinchesterCastle from July 1228 to March 1231/2, sheriff of Devon, 1234-1236, ofYork, Easter 1239 to Michaelma 1241, and of Kent, March to October 1258.He was granted the custody of the Channel Islands in 1234, and was keeperthe bishopric of Durham during part of the vacancy after the translationof Bishop Richard le Poer, 1237. At the Coronation of Queen EIeanor, in1236, he and Richard Siward, milites strenui, carried the two royalsceptres. In 1242 he was ambassador to the King of France with RalphFitzNicholas, and later in the year joined the English King in Bordeaux.In September 1243 Henry III, returning to England, left Nicholas de Moelsas seneschal of Gascony. In the following year he inflicted a defcat onthe King of Navarre. In 1245 he was appointed keeper of the castles ofCardigan and Carmarthen, and in the same year was constable of Pembroke,Haverford, Kilgarran and Tenby. In 1246 and 1247 he was in the wars ofWales and was seneschal of Carmarthen, and in February 1248/9 was addedto the commissioners to deal with the King of Navarre. As "Nicholas deMolis, king's clerk," he had a grant of free warren in his demesne landsin Cadbury and Mapperton in January 1250/1. On 16 June 1252 he was sentinto Gascony with Roscelin de Fos, Master of the Templars in England, asconservator of the truce between Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester,and Gaston, Viscount de Bearn. He was engaged in Wales in connection withHenry's futile expedition in 1257, and in 1263 received his last militarysummons to the muster at Hereford against Llewelyn. In January 1257/8 hewas appointed constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports.He was constable of the castles of Rochester, Canterbury, and Winchesterin 1258, of Sherborne in 1261, and of Corfe in 1263, and one of theKing's serjeants in Windsor Castle 1263-64. He was on the King's side inthe Barons' War, and was ordered, 4 July 1264, to deliver Windsor Castleto John, son of John, the custodian appointed by the Barons.

He married, in or after 1230, Hawise, widow of John DE BOTREAUX (whom shemarried in 1218), and younger daughter and coheir of James DE NEWMARCH(de Neufmarché), of Cadbury, &c. Somerset. She apparently was living in1244. He probably died in or shortly after 1264, and was certainly deadbefore Easter 1271.  [Complete Peerage IX:1-4, (transcribed by DaveUtzinger)]