William "Black Will" de Braose Lord Brecknock 
William "Black Will" de Braose was born in Brecknock, Surrey, England. William "Black Will" de Braose's father was Reginald de Braose Baron Abergavenny and his mother was Gracia de Briwere. He had a brother and two sisters, named John, Loretta and Mary. He died on May 2nd, 1230 in Wales.Death Notes
Executed (hung) by his father's father-in-law, Llywelyn Fawr ap Iorwerth.
General Notes
Weis' Ancestral Roots Shows Gracia de Briwere as his mother; however, if Gwladus Ddu "the Dark Eyed" verch Llewelyn, his father's 2nd wife, was his mother (his maternal parentage is debated), then he was executed by his own grandfather, Llywelyn Fawr ap Iorwerth Prince of Wales.
SRCES:
Weis/Sheppard Magna Carta Sureties
Weis/Sheppard Ancestral Roots, 7th Ed.
Complete Peerage
Dict. Nat. Biog.
Visit. Shropshire (St.Peter pedigree)
Bromfield's Norfolk
Pedigrees from Plea Rolls
a series of articles on Braose in vol 4-6 of The Genealogist (the old one)
Bartrum's Welsh Pedigrees lists him as son of Gracia.
William de Braose. This feudal lord fell a victim to the jealousy of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, who, suspecting an intimacy between him and the princess, his wife, King Henry's sister, invited him to an Easter feast and treacherously cast him into prison at the conclusion of the banquet. He was soon afterwards put to death with the unfortunate princess. He had married, Eva, dau. of Walter Mareschal, and sister of Richard, Earl of Pembroke, by whom he had four daus., his co-heirs, viz., Isabel, Maud, Even, and Eleanor. The line of the branch thus terminating in heiresses. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 72, Braose, Baron Braose, of Gower]
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In 1229, Dafydd went to London to do homage for the lands and rights he would inherit, and in the same year he married Isabella, the daughter of William de Breos. That was one of a series of marriages between Llywelyn's offspring and members of the great families of the March, for apart from Gruffudd, who married Senana, a descendant of Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd, all Llywelyn's progeny married into the Francigenae. So great was the desire of the de Breos family to ally with the prince that the uncle, the brother and the daughter of William de Breos married members of the house of Aberffraw. Yet the relationship between the two families did not prevent Llywelyn from hanging William de Breos in 1230 for excessive familiarity with Joan. The hanging was an audacious act and the lack of reaction to it proof of the power of Llywelyn and of the intensity of the desire of William's sons-in-law to obtain their share of his possessions, for William was the last of his line of the de Breoses. The male line died out remarkably frequently among the families of the Marcher Lords and the marriages of co-heiresses played a key role in the dismemberment of the empires of their fathers. [A History of Wales, John Davies, Allen Lane - The Penguin Press, London, 1993]
‌William "Black Will" de Braose and Joanna were married in a religious ceremony about October 1228.
Family Notes
One interesting story from Joan and Llywelyn's marriage: about 1230/1231,
Llywelyn returned home unexpectedly to find Joan alone in their bedroom with
William de Braose. This story is recounted in "Here Be Dragons" and one
other "purely historical" source. William was later hanged on Llywelyn's order.
From "The Genealogist" article by Wm. Addams Reitwiesner: He was discovered in Joan's chambers, accused of being her lover, and promptly
and publicly hanged. While the story that William and Joan were lovers has
been generally accepted, the Annals of Margam (in T. Gale, ed , Historiae
Britannicae et Anglicanae Scriptores XX (Oxford, 1687), 2-18, [anno] MCCXXX)
implies that the "intimacy" was devised by Llywelyn to avenge himself on
William for political injuries inflicted not only by William but by the entire
Braose family; the execution was hailed by the Welsh as a vindication of a
blood-feud against the Braoses dating from at least 1176. Indeed, shortly
after the execution Llywelyn wrote to William's widow Eva and to William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, Eva's brother, stating, in effect, that so far as
he was concerned, the intended marriage between Llywelyn's son Dafydd and
Eva's daughter Isabella could go forward as planned, and that he could not
have prevented the Welsh magnates from taking their vengeance. See J. Goronwy Edwards, Calendar of Ancient Correspondence concerning Wales (Board of Celtic Studies of the University of Wales, History and Law Series, 2)(Cardiff, 1935), pp 51-52, nos. XI.56a, 56b. The marriage in fact took place three months later.[Custer February 1, 2002 Family Tree.FTW]
[merge G675.FTW]
One interesting story from Joan and Llywelyn's marriage: about 1230/1231,
Llywelyn returned home unexpectedly to find Joan alone in their bedroom with
William de Braose. This story is recounted in "Here Be Dragons" and one
other "purely historical" source. William was later hanged on Llywelyn's order.
From "The Genealogist" article by Wm. Addams Reitwiesner: He was discovered in Joan's chambers, accused of being her lover, and promptly
and publicly hanged. While the story that William and Joan were lovers has
been generally accepted, the Annals of Margam (in T. Gale, ed , Historiae
Britannicae et Anglicanae Scriptores XX (Oxford, 1687), 2-18, [anno] MCCXXX)
implies that the "intimacy" was devised by Llywelyn to avenge himself on
William for political injuries inflicted not only by William but by the entire
Braose family; the execution was hailed by the Welsh as a vindication of a
blood-feud against the Braoses dating from at least 1176. Indeed, shortly
after the execution Llywelyn wrote to William's widow Eva and to William
Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, Eva's brother, stating, in effect, that so far as
he was concerned, the intended marriage between Llywelyn's son Dafydd and
Eva's daughter Isabella could go forward as planned, and that he could not
have prevented the Welsh magnates from taking their vengeance. See J. Goronwy Edwards, Calendar of Ancient Correspondence concerning Wales (Board of Celtic Studies of the University of Wales, History and Law Series, 2)(Cardiff, 1935), pp 51-52, nos. XI.56a, 56b. The marriage in fact took place three months later.
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Children
Eva de Braose
Eva was born in 1220 in Bramber Castle, Bramber, Sussex, England. She died before July 28th, 1255.
Isabela de Braose
Isabela was born in 1228 in Bramber Castle, Sussex, England. She died about 1246 in Nunnery at Godstow, (near) Woodstock, Oxfordshire.
Eleanor de Braose
Eleanor was born in Breconshire, Wales. She died in of Llanthony Inn, Gloucestershire, England.
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