General Notes

Nicholas de Meinill, b. 6 Dec 1274, 2nd Lord Meinill of Whorlton, son of Nicholas de Meinill and Christina.  [Ancestral Roots]

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BARONY OF MEINILL (II)

NICHOLAS DE MEINILL, LORD MEINILL, son and heir, born 6 December 1274. Before 21 July 1299 he did homage for his father's lands. The rights of the Archbishop of Canterbury were secured by letters patent issued on 1 April 1300. On 14 January 1299/1300 he was among the knights of the North Riding who were summoned to be at the exchequer at York to treat with the treasurer and others of the King's council. He was summoned for military service against the Scots in 1300, and in various years up to 1322, and to Parliament from 8 January 1312/3 to 14 March 1321/2, being in 1318 addressed as one of the Majores Barones. His seal is appended to the Barons' letter to the Pope, 12 February 1300/1. In 1301 it was found that he and others had not disseised the Abbot of Fountains of land in Whorlton. On 6 July 1311 he had licence to grant the reversion of the manor of Castle Leavington after the death of Christine, late the wife of his father, to John de Meinill and the heirs of his body. On 3 June 1312 he had licence to fell 200 oaks in his wood of Aldwark, forest of Galtres, and to sell them. In 1314 he was appointed custos of the peace in Cleveland, Blackhow-moor, and the wapentakes of Bulmer, Rydale and Birdforth, and in 1316 to a commission of array in the East and North Ridings. In 1314 he settled a great part of his property on Nicholas, his illegitimate son by Lucy, daughter and heir of Robert de Thweng, of Kilton, elder brother of Marmaduke, 1st Lord Thweng. In December of the same year the Archbishop of York issued a mandate ordering certain clergy, whom Nicholas de Meinill had summoned to meet him with horses and arms to start for the Scottish Marches, to neglect the summons, regarding it as a breach of ecclesiastical liberty and in April of the following year the Archbishop summoned him with fifty other knights to attend a council of war at Doncaster to provide for the safety of the North against the Scots. On 24 May 1315 he was appointed sheriff of co. York, but was superseded on 20 October. In 1315 he bought the reversion of a moiety of the manors of Wooler, Hethpool Heatherslaw, Lowick, and Belford Northumberland, on the death of Mary (widow of Nicholas de Graham) to hold to him and the heirs of his body, and failing such issue to Nicholas son of Lucy daughter of Robert de Thweng and the heirs of his body, with remainder to his own right heirs. In 1316 he surrendered the manor of Great Broughton to Rievaulx Abbey. In 131? he was commissioned to raise his men and tenants in co. York for the King's expedition against the Scots. In 1319 he complained that Robert de Colville had enclosed a wood bordering on his chace at Whorlton, and had made a salt-leap into which his own deer entered and did not return. In 1320-21 John son of William de Rosels conveyed the manor of Aislaby to him for life, with remainder to Nicholas his son by Lucy de Thweng. In 1321 he was ordered to abstain from attending the meeting of the "Good Peers" convened by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster; and in 1322 to raise men-at-arms and foot soldiers and be ready to march with them to the King. He died 26 April 1322, apparently unmarried.  [Complete Peerage VIII:627-30, XIV:472, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]