General Notes

Bartholomew de Badlesmere, age 26 in 1301, hanged 14 Apr 1322.  [Magna Charta Sureties]

Joined rebellion of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster-thus his execution.

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Sir Bartholomew Badlesmere rose from provincial obscurity to national prominence and then abruptly fell; a graphic illustration of the uncertainty of Edward II's England. He was born about 1275 into a gentry family from Badlesmere in Kent. His father rose to be Justice of Chester in the service of Prince Edward and died in 1301, by when Bartholomew had also made his mark. He served in Gascony in 1294, in Flanders in 1297, when he became one of Edward I's household knights, and in Scotland in 1303-4. Almost alone among Edward's household knights, he was elected to parliament, sitting at the Carlisle Parliament of 1307: perhaps evidence of unusual political ambitions. Badlesmere was appointed constable of Bristol in 1307, was granted Chilham castle -- henceforth his principal seat -- in 1309, and from then on he attended parliament as a baron. One factor here may be his wife's lands as widowed Countess of Angus and heiress in her own right; another may be the patronage of the Earl of Gloucester, whose principal retainer he was, and whom he assisted as keeper of the realm in 1311.

Certainly on Gloucester's death at Bannockburn in 1314 Badlesmere became more prominent in royal service. He was closely associated with the Earl of Pembroke. Thus in 1315 he accompanied Pembroke on his defence of the north; in 1316 Pembroke helped him bring the recalcitrant citizens of Bristol to heel; and in 1317 both went on embassy to Avignon. Late in 1317 it was with Badlesmere that Pembroke strove to restrain the irresponsibility of Roger Damory and with whose assistance in council Pembroke hoped to guide the king more sensibly. The royal grants accompanying Badlesmere's rise culminated in his appointment in 1318 as steward of the royal household, an office of first-rate political importance offering intimate contact with the king. In 1316 the king retained him for life for £400 in peace and 5,000 marks (£3,333) in war, when he was to serve with 100 men-at-arms, and in 1317 added 1,000 marks for his counsel: high valuations indeed for his service. Another sign of his rise are the marriage of his daughter to the heir of the marcher lord Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, for which he paid £2,000.

It was therefore entirely logical that in 1321 Edward II should send Badlesmere to persuade the northerners not to join the marcher lords against the Despensers, but Badlesmere deserted and demonstrated his hatred of the Despensers by concocting the false charge of treason against them. His reasons for rebelling are not clear. Certainly the rise of the Despensers to favour with the king deprived Badlesmere of much of his influence and his marriage ties with the Mortimers may have made him sympathetic towards the marchers. However that may be, the desertion of the steward of his household, bound to him by intimate personal ties, made Edward II into his most vengeful enemy. That Badlesmere's Kentish lands were isolated from those of the other rebels offered Edward the means of revenge. It was probably a deliberate ploy to provoke a crisis that provoked him to send Queen Isabella to Badlesmere's Leeds castle and, when Lady Badlesmere predictably refused admission, Edward reacted to the affront by besieging the castle. Badlesmere's only hope was support from the marchers and northerners, but this Lancaster denied him. The reasons for Lancaster's hostility are not known. Opposed by the king and earl, Badlesmere was doomed and was duly executed on 14 April 1322. [Who's Who in Late Medieval England, Michael Hicks, Shepheard-Walwyn, London, 1991]

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Bartholomew de Badlesmere, who in the lifetime of his father (22nd Edward I) [1294], received command to attend the king at Portsmouth, upon the 1st day of September, with horse and arms, to embark with him for Gascony, and, in the year that he succeeded to his paternal property, was in the wars of Scotland. He was afterwards in the retinue of Robert de Clifford in the Welsh wars, and in the 1st year of Edward I [1272], was appointed governor of the castle of Bristol. In two years afterwards, he was summoned to parliament as Badlesmere, and had a grant from the king, through the especial influence of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, and Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, of the castle and manor of Chilham, in Kent, for his own and his wife's life, which castle had been possessed by Alexander de Baliol in right of his wife Isabel, and ought to have escheated to the crown upon the decease of the said Alexander by reason of the felony that John de Strabolgi, Earl of Atholl (Isabel's son and heir), who was hanged in the 5th of Edward II [1312], Lord Badlesmere was constituted governor of the castle of Leeds and obtained, at the same time, grants of divers extensive manors. In the next year but one, his lordship was deputed with Otto de Grandison and others, ambassador to the court of Rome, and the next year, upon the death of Robert de Clifford, he obtained a grant of the custody of the castle of Skipton in Yorkshire, whereof the said Robert died possessed, to hold during the minority of Roger de Clifford, his son and heir.

His lordship was further indebted to the crown for numerous charters for fairs and marts throughout his extensive manors; and he held the high office of steward of the household for a great number of years; but notwithstanding his thus basking in the sunshine of royal favour, his allegiance was not trustworthy, for joining the banner of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and other discontented nobles of that period, he went into Kent without the king's permission; where, being well received, he put himself at the head of some soldiers from his castle at Leeds and then proceeded to Canterbury with 19 knights, having linen jackets under their surcoats, all his esquires being in plate armour, and thus repaired to the shrine of St. Thomas, to the great amazement of the good citizens. While Lord Badlesmere remained at Canterbury, John de Crumwell and his wife sought his lordship's aid, and, pledging himself to afford it, he hastened to Oxford where the barons of his party had been then assembled. In the meantime the king being apprised of the baron's proceedings, despatched the queen to Leeds and, upon admission being denied to her, the castle was regularly invested by Adomere de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and John de Britannia, Earl of Richmond, to who it eventually surrendered, when Lord Badlesmere's wife, young son, and daughters, all falling into the hands of the besiegers, were sent prisoners to the Tower of London. The baron and his accomplices afterwards were pursued by Edmund, Earl of Kent, and John de Warren, Earl of Surrey, and being defeated and taken prisoners at the battle of Borough-Bridge, his lordship was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Canterbury, and his head set upon a pole at Burgate. At the time of the baron's execution, upwards of ninety lords, knights, and others concerned in the same insurrection suffered a similar fate in various parts of the kingdom. Margaret, his lordship's widow (one of the daus. and co-heiresses of Thomas, 3rd son of Thomas, 2nd son of Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester), continued prisoner in the Tower until, through the influence of William Lord Roos, of Hamlake, and others, she obtained her freedom, whereupon taking herself to the nunnery of Minoresses, without Aldgate, in the suburbs of London, she had 2s. a day for her maintenance to be paid by the sheriff of Essex; she subsequently, however, obtained a large proportion of the deceased lord's manors for her dowry. By this lady, Lord Badlesmere left issue. His lordship had been summoned to parliament from 26 October, 1309, to 5 August, 1320. His unhappy fate occurred in 1322. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 19, Badlesmere, Barons Badlesmere]