General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> 1st Earl Of Essex
Geoffrey de Mandeville, who in the 5th year of King Stephen [1140], had livery of his inheritance upon paying the sum of £866. 13s. 4d. to the crown, was advanced by that monarch from the degree of baron (by special charter, dated at Westminster), to the dignity of Earl of the county of Essex, unto which charter were witnesses: "William de Ipre, Henry de Essex, John, the son of Robert FitzWalter, Robert de Newburgh, William de St. Clair, William de Dammartin, Richard FitzUrse, and William de Owe;" but notwithstanding this high honour conferred upon him by King Stephen, the Empress Maud, by a more ample charter made at Oxford, allured him to her party, for she not only conferred whatsoever Geoffrey, his grandfather, or William, his father, ever enjoyed, either in lands, forts, or castles, particularly the Tower of London, with the castle under it, to strengthen and fortify at his pleasure, but bestowed upon him the hereditary sheriffalty of London and Middlesex, as also that of Hertfordshire, with the sole power of trying causes in those counties, for which offices and privileges he paid the sum of £360. Moreover, she granted him all the lands in Normandy of Eudo Dapifer with his office of steward as his rightful inheritance and numerous other valuable immunities in a covenant witnessed by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and several other powerful nobles -- which covenant contained the singular clause, "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 him, the said Geoffrey, because they were his mortal enemies." Beside this, he had a second charter dated at Westminster, re-creating him Earl of Essex, to hold to himself and his heirs, and to have the third penny of the pleas of the sheriffalty, as an earl ought to enjoy in his earldom. King Stephen having information of which proceedings, seized upon the earl in the court, then at St. Alban's, some say after a bloody affray in which the Earl of Arundel, being thrown into the water with his horse, very narrowly escaped drowning; certain it is, that to regain his liberty, the Earl of Essex was constrained not only to give up the Tower of London but his own castles of Walden and Blessey. Wherefore, being transported with wrath, he fell to spoil and rapine, invading the king's demesne lands and others, plundering the abbeys of St. Alban's and Ramsay, which last having surprised at an early hour in the morning, he expelled the monks therefrom, made a fort of the church, and sold their religious ornaments to reward his soldiers, in which depredations he was assisted by his brother-in-law, William de Say, a stout and warlike man, and one Daniel, a counterfeit monk. At last, being publicly excommunicated for his many outrages, he besieged the castle of Burwell in Kent and, going unhelmed in consequence of the heat of the day, he was shot in the head with an arrow, of which wound he soon afterwards died 14 September, 1144.
This noble outlaw had m. Rohesia, dau. of Alberic de Vere, Earl of Oxford, chief justice of England, and had issue, Ernulph, Geoffrey, William, and Robert; and by a former wife, whose name is not mentioned, a dau. Alice, who m. John de Lacy, constable of Chester. Of his death, Dugdale thus speaks, "Also that for these outrages, having incurred the penalty of excommunication, he happened to be mortally wounded at a little town called Burwell; 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 corpse 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 expenses of William, whom he had constituted prior of Walden, his absolution was obtained from Pope Alexander III, so