General Notes

William de Briouze, Lord of Briouze [in Normandy], Bramber, Brecon, Over-Gwent, etc., son and heir (a).  He m. Maud de St Valery, "Lady of La Haie."  In consequence of his well-known quarrel with King John, his lands were forfeited in 1208, and his wife and 1st son starved to death in the dungeons of Corfe (or of Windsor) in 1210.  He d. at Corbeil near Paris, 9, and was buried 10 Aug 1211, in the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris.  [Complete Peerage I:22]

(a) He slaughtered Seisyll ap Dyvnwal and a host of unarmed Welshmen, in the castle of Abergavenny in 1175, in revenge for the death of his uncle Henry of Hereford.  Seisyll was owner of Castle Arnold, and is said in an inaccurate version of the Brut to have captured Abergavenny in 1172, the slaughter being dated 1177.  But the better version of the Brut, on the contrary, states that Seisyll was captured in 1172 by the garrison of Abergavenny.

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At his peak Lord of Bramber, Gower, Abergavenny, Brecknock, Builth, Radnor, Kington, Limerick, and the three castles of Skenfrith, Grosmont, and Whitecastle.

William inherited Bramber, Builth, and Radnor from his father, Brecknock and Abergavenny through his mother.  He was the strongest of the Marcher Lords involved in constant war with the Welsh and other lords.  He was particularly hated by the Welsh for the massacre of three Welsh princes, their families and their men which took place during a feast at his castle of Abergavenny in 1175.  He was sometimes known as the "Ogre of Abergavenny".  One of the Normans' foremost warriors, he fought alongside King Richard at Chalus in 1199 (where Richard was killed).

William received Limerick in 1201 from King John.  He was also given custody of Glamorgan, Monmouth, and Gwynllwg in return for large payments.

William captured Arthur, Count of Brittany at Mirebeau in 1202 and was in charge of his imprisonment for King John.  He was rewarded in February 1203 with the grant of Gower.  He may have had knowledge of the murder Prince Arthur and been bribed to silence by John with the city of Limerick in July.  His honors reached their peak when he was made Sheriff of Herefordshire by John in 1206-7.  He had held this office under Richard from 1192-1199.

His fall began almost immediately.  William was stripped of his office as bailiff of Glamorgan and other custodies in 1206-7.  Later he was deprived of all his lands and, sought by John in Ireland, he returned to Wales and joined the Welsh Prince Llewelyn in rebellion.  He fled to France in 1210 via Shoreham "in the habit of a beggar" and died in exile near Paris.  Despite intending to be interred at St John's, Brecon, he was buried in the Abbey of St Victorie, Paris by Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, another of John's chief opponents who was also taking refuge there.

His wife and son were murdered by King John-starved to death at Windsor Castle.

See Castle of Grosmont


William de Braose inherited the large estates of his grandmother, Berta de Gloucester, and besides possessed the Honour of Braose, in Normandy. This feudal lord was a personage of great power and influence during the reigns of Henry II and Richard I, from the former of whom he obtained a grant of the "whole kingdom of Limeric, in Ireland," for the service of sixty knight's fees, to be held of the king and his younger son, John. For several years after this period, he appears to have enjoyed the favour of King John and his power and possessions were augmented by divers grants from the crown. In the 10th of the king's reign [1209], when the kingdom laboured under an interdiction and John deemed it expedient to demand hostages from his barons to ensure their allegiance should the Pope proceed to the length of absolving them from obedience to the crown, his officers who came upon the mission to the Baron de Braose were met by Maud, his wife, and peremptorily informed that she would not entrust any of her children to the king, who had so basely murdered his own nephew, Prince Arthur. de Braose rebuked her for speaking thus, however, and said that if he had in anything offended the king, he was ready to make satisfaction according to the judgment of the court and the barons, his peers, upon an appointed day and at any fixed place without, however, giving hostages. This answer being communicated to the king, an order was immediately transmitted to seize upon the baron's person, but Braose having notice thereof fled with his family into Ireland.

This quarrel between de Braose and King John is, however, differently related by other authorities. The monk of Llanthony stated that King John disinherited and banished him for his cruelty to the Welsh in his war with Gwenwynwyn, and that his wife Maud and William, his son and heir, died prisoners in Corfe Castle. Another writer relates, "that this William de Braose, son of Philip de Braose, Lord of Buelt, held the lands of Brecknock and Went for the whole time of King Henry II, Richard I, and King John without any disturbance until he took to wife the Lady Maud de St. Walerie, who, in revenge of Henry de Hereford, cause divers Welshmen to be murthered in the castle of Bergavenny as they sat at meat; and that for this, and for some other pickt quarrel, King John banished him and all his out of England. Likewise, that in his exile, Maud his wife, with William, galled, Gam, his son, were taken and put into prison where she died the 10th year after her husband fought with Gwenwynwyn and slew three thousand Welch." From these various relations, says Dugdale, it is no easy matter to discover what his demerits were, but what usage he had at last, take here the credit of these two historians who lived near that time. "This year, viz. anno 1240," quoth Matthew of Westminster, "the noble lady Maud, wife of William de Braose, with William, their son and heir, were miserably famished at Windsor by the command of King John; and William, her husband, escaping from Scorham, put himself into the habit of a beggar and, privately getting beyond sea, died soon after at Paris, where he had burial in the abbey of St. Victor." And Matthew Paris, putting his death in anno 1212 (which differs a little in time), says, "That he fled from Ireland to France and, dying at Ebula, his body was carried to Paris and there honourably buried in the abbey of St. Victor." "But after these great troubles in his later days," continues Dugdale, "I shall now say something of his pious works. Being by inheritance from his mother, Lord of Bergavenny, he made great grants to the monks of that priory, conditionally, that the abbot and convent of St. Vincent, in Maine (to which this priory of Bergavenny was a cell) should daily pray for the soul of him, the said William, and the soul of Maud, his wife."

This great but unfortunate personage had issue by his wife, Maud de St. Walerie, I. William; II. Giles: III. Reginald; IV. Sir John; I. Joane; II. Loretta; III. Margaret; IV. Maud.

When the contest between King John and the barons broke out, Giles de Braose, bishop of Hereford, arraying himself under the baronial banner, was put in possession by the people of Bergavenny and the other castles of the deceased lord, and eventually King John, in the last year of his reign, his wrath then being assuaged, granted part of those lands to the bishop's younger brother and heir. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 72, Braose, Baron Braose, of Gower]