General Notes

John de Segrave, 2nd baron, b. 1256, summoned to parliament from 26 August, 1296, to 6 May, 1325. This nobleman, in the lifetime of his father having been taken prisoner in the wars of Scotland (9th Edward I) [1281], obtained from the king, in consideration of his services there, the grant of £100 towards the liquidation of his ransom. He was subsequently much engaged in the Scottish wars, and in the 24th of the same reign, was constable of the English army in that country. The next year he was by indenture retained to serve Roger le Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, with six knights, himself accounted, as well in time of peace as in war, for the term of his whole life, in England, Wales and Scotland; viz, in the time of peace with six horses, so long as the earl should think fit, taking Bouche of Court for himself and his knights, and for his esquires, hay and oats; as also livery for six more horses and wages for six groom and their horses; likewise for himself two robes yearly, as well in time of peace as war, as for a banneret; and for his five knights, as for his other bachelors, viz., two yearly. Moreover, in time of war, he was bound to bring with him his five knights with twenty horses, and in consideration thereof, to receive for himself and his company, with all those horses, 40s. per day, but if he should bring no more than six horses, then 32s.; it being likewise agreed that the horses should be valued to the end that a fair allowance might be made for any which should be lost in the service. For the performance of this covenant, he had a grant of the manor of Lodene, co. Norfolk.

In the 26th Edward I [1298], his lordship was again in Scotland and had a principal command at the battle of Falkirk. In three years after, he obtained license to make a castle at his manor house of Bretteby, co. Derby, and he was next constituted governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed, as also warden of Scotland. Subsequently, we find him with King Edward at the celbrated siege of Caerlaverock. After the accession of Edward II [1307], he was again made warden of Scotland and within a short time attending the king into that usual theatre of war, was amongst the worsted in the great defeat sustained by the English arms at Bannockburn, and was made prisoner by the Scots, who detained him for a year until he was exchanged for Thomas de Moram and other prisoners of that realm who were incarcerated in London. His lordship eventually lost his life in Gascony whither he was sent by the king, who had conceived some displeasure against him for the escape of Roger Mortimer out of the Tower of London, under pretence of defending those parts with Edmund, Earl of Kent, and others, where, being a great mortality, he d. anno 1325. His lordship m. in the lifetime of his father, in 1270, Christian, dau. of Sir Hugh de Plessetis, Knt., by whom he had issue, Stephen. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 485, Segrave, Barons Segrave of Barton Segrave]