General Notes

Upon the decease of William de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex, much dispute arose regarding the inheritance: Beatrix, his aunt and heir, in the first place, preferring her claim, sent Geoffrey de Say, her younger son, to transact the business for the livery thereof, but Geoffrey FitzPiers insisted upon the right of Beatrix, his wife. Nevertheless, Geoffrey de Say, in consideration of 7,000 marks promised to be paid on a certain day, obtained an instrument in right of his mother, under the king's seal, for the whole of the barony, but the said Geoffrey de Say, making default of payment, this Geoffrey FitzPiers, being a man of great wealth and reputation, made representation that the barony was the right of his wife and, promising to pay the money, obtained livery thereof and procured the king's confirmation of his title. One of the earliest acts of this feudal lord was to dispossess the monks of Walden of certain lands which they had derived from his predecessors, a proceeding followed by a long controversy, which, after being referred to the Pope and the King, was finally compromised. Upon the removal of Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, from the office of Justice of England by Richard I, this Geoffrey was appointed to succeed him, and at the coronation of King John, 26 June, 1199, he was girt with the sword as Earl of Essex, and then served at the king's table. Being nominated patron of the monastery at Walden, he appears soon after to have been received with great ceremony by the monks and perfectly reconciled to those holy fathers. In the 7th King John, he had a grant of the castle and honour of Berkhamstead, with the knights' fees thereunto belonging to hold to him and the heirs of his body, by Aveline, his 2nd wife. His lordship m. 1st, Beatrix de Say, by whom he had issue, Geoffrey, William, Henry, all of whom assumed the name of Mandeville, and Maud, m. to Robert de Bohun. He m. 2ndly, Aveline ---, and had an only son, John FitzPiers, Lord of Berkhamstead. His lordship, whom Matthew Paris characterizes as "ruling the reins of government so that after his death the realm was like a ship in a tempest without a pilot," d. 2 October, 1213, and was s. by his eldest son, Geoffrey de Mandeville. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, England, 1883, p. 353, Mandeville, Earls of Essex]

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GEOFFREY FITZ PETER (d. 1213), earl of Essex and chief justiciar of England, was a sheriff, a justice itinerant and a justice of the forest under Henry II. During Richard's absence on crusade he was one of the five justices of the king's court who stood next in authority to the regent, Longchamp. In 1190 Fitz Peter succeeded to the earldom of Essex, in the right of his wife, who was descended from the famous Geoffrey de Mandeville. In attempting to asset his hereditary rights over Walden priory Fitz Peter came into conflict with Longchamp, and revenged himself by joining in the baronial agitation through which the regent was expelled from his office. Though refusing to give him formal investiture of the Essex earldom, Richard appointed him justiciar in succession to Hubert Walter (1198). Fitz Peter continued Walter's policy of encouraging foreign trade and the development of the towns; many of the latter received, during his administration, charters of self-government. He was continued in his office by John, who found him an able instrument of extortion. He profited to no small extent by the spoliation of church lands in the period of the interdict. But he was not altogether trusted by the king. The contemporary "Historie des ducs" described Fitz Peter as living in constant dread of disgrace and confiscation. In the last years of his life he endeavoured to act as a mediator between the king and the opposition. It was by his mouth that the king promised to the nation the laws of Henry I. (at the council of St. Albans, Aug. 4, 1213). But Fitz Peter died a few weeks later (Oct. 2). Fitz Peter was neither a far-sighted nor a disinterested statesman; but he was the ablest pupil of Hubert Walter, and maintained the traditions of the great bureaucracy which the first and second Henries had founded.