General Notes

John de Lacy, Magna Charta Surety 1215, b. c 1192, d. 22 July 1240, Earl of Lincoln 1232, Constable of Chester, son of Roger de Lacy and Maud de Clare; m. (2) bef. 21 June 1221, Margaret de Quincy.  [Magna Charta Sureties]

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on the Earldom of Lincoln, prior creations, [Burke's Peerage, p. 1712]:

The Earldom of Lincoln was revived twenty years after the 2nd Earl's death in favour of his cousin, Ranulph Earl of Chester, who of course also had a long-standing connection with the county through their common ancestress Countess Lucy.  Ranulph's prominent role in defeating the French invaders at the Battle of Lincoln earlier in 1217, the year he was made Earl of Lincoln, played a part in his elevation.  Soon after Michaelmas 1230 he made over the Earldom to his sister Hawise, from whom it was conveyed to her son-in-law John de Lacy, the traffic in the dignity being approved by Henry III in both cases in the autumn of 1232.

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John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, in the 15th year of King John, undertook the payment of 7,000 marks to the crown in the space of four years for the livery of the lands of his inheritance and to be discharged of all his father's debts due to the exchequer; further obliging himself by oath that, in case he should ever swerve from his allegiance and adhere to the king's enemies, all his possessions should devolve upon the crown; promising also that he would not marry without the king's license. By this agreement it was arranged that the king should retain the castles of Pontefract and Dunnington, still in his own hands; and that he, the said John, should allow £40 per annum for the custody of those fortresses. But the next year he had Dunnington restored to him upon hostages. About this period he joined the baronial standard and was one of the celebrated twenty-five barons appointed to enforce the observance of Magna Carta. But the next year he obtained letters of safe conduct to come to the king to make his peace, and he had similar letters upon the accession of Henry III, in the 2nd year of which monarch's reign he went with divers other noblemen into the Holy Land. He m. Margaret, dau. and heir of Robert de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, by Hawyse, 4th sister and co-heir of Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, which Ranulph, by a formal charter under his seal, granted the Earldom of Lincoln, that is, so much as he could grant thereof, to the said Hawyse, "to the end that she might be countess and that her heirs might also enjoy the earldom;" which grant was confirmed by the king and, at the especial request of the countess, this John de Lacy, constable of Chester, was created by charter, dated at Northampton, 23 November, 1232, Earl of Lincoln, with remainder to the heirs of his body, by his wife, the above-named Margaret. In the contest which occurred during the same year between the king and Richard Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, Earl Marshal, Matthew Paris states that the Earl of Lincoln was brought over to the king's party with John le Scot, Earl of Chester, by Peter de Rupibus, bishop of Winchester, for a bribe of 1,000 marks. In 1237, his lordship was one of those appointed to prohibit Oto, the pope's legate, from establishing anything derogatory to the king's crown and dignity in the council of prelates then assembled; and the same year he had a grant of the sheriffalty of Cheshire, being likewise constituted governor of the castle of Chester. The earl d. in 1240, leaving Margaret, his wife, surviving, who re-m. William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke. His lordship left issue, Edmund, his successor, and two daus., which ladies in the 27th Henry III, were removed to Windsor, there to be educated with the king's own daus.; of these, Maud m. Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, London, 1883]