General Notes

Lieutenant of England - ruled in Henry II's absence.

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(b) The family appears to have taken its name from Luce, a commune in the department of Orne, about 6 kil. SE of Domfront, and in the bailiwick of Passeis.  In the return of the Norman fees of 1172 there occurs the following: "De Passeis . . . Ricards de Lucceio j militem et sibi xvij milites" (H.F., vol xxiii, p. 697 e; so also in Red Book, Rolls Ser., vol ii, pl 639, but beginning "De Baillia de Basseis").  Luce lies geographically in Maine, and its real connection with Normandy dates from the occupation in 1092 of Domfront, the castle of Robert de Belleme, by Henry Beauclerc, the Count of the Cotentin.  It seems probable that this particular connection between Henry I and the southern border of Normandy may have first brought the family to the King's notice, a view which is supported by the fact that in a charter for Seez Cathedral dated Feb 1131, Henry mentions a fief which he had bought from Richard de Lucy, and his mother Aveline.  [Complete Peerage VIII:257 note (b)]

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The first mention of this family is in a render made by King Henry I of the lordship of Dice, in Norfolk (whether in requital of services, or as an inheritance, the record saith not) to Richard de Lucie, who was governor of Falais, in Normandy, temp. King Stephen, and defended that place with great valour when besieged by Geoffrey, Earl of Anjou, for which heroic conduct he had a grant of lands in the county of Essex with the services of divers persons, to hold by ten knights' fees. In the subsequent contest between Stephen and the Empress Maud, he remained steady in his allegiance to the former and obtained a victory of some importance near Wallingford Castle. Upon the adjustment of the dispute, the Tower of London and the castle of Winchester were, by the advice of the whole clergy, placed in the hands of this feudal lord, he binding himself by solemn oath and the hostage of his son to deliver them up on the death of King Stephen to King Henry, which, being eventually fulfilled, Richard de Lucy was constituted sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in the 2nd of Henry II, A.D. 1156, and in three years afterwards, being with the king in Normandy, he was despatched to England to procure the election of Thomas ‡ Becket, then lord chancellor, to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, vacant by the death of Theobald, Abbot of Becco. Soon after that he was appointed to the high office of Justice of England. In the 12th of this reign [1166], upon the aid then assessed for marrying the king's dau., he certified his knights' fees (lying in the cos. of Kent, Suffolk, and Norfolk) de veteri feoffamento, to be in number seven, and that his ancestors performed the service of Castle Guard at Dover, for the same, as also that he held on knight's fee more, de nova feoffamento, in the co. Devon.

About this time Becket, having fled into Normandy from the power of King Henry, came to Wiceliac to celebrate the feast of the ascension, and observing several persons of distinction present, amongst whom was this Richard de Lucie, he ascended the pulpit and there, with lighted candles, pronounced the sentence of excommunication against them all as public incendiaries betwixt the king and himself, but being neither convicted nor called to answer, they appealed and entered the church. Soon after this (13th Henry II) during a temporary absence of the king beyond sea, de Lucie was constituted Lieutenant of England, and again in 1173, when the Earl of Leicester and others having reared the standard of rebellion in behalf of Prince Henry, he besieged, in conjunction with Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, the town of Leicester and, having reduced it, demolished its walls and laid it in ashes.

In 1178, he founded the priory of Westwode in the diocese of Rochester in honour of St. Thomas, of Canterbury, the martyr, and began, about the same time, the foundation of the priory of Lesnes, in Kent, which he munificently endowed. In this priory he subsequently assumed the habit of a canon regular and departing this life soon after (about 22nd Henry II) [1176], and was buried in the chapter-house there.

He m. Rohais ---, and had issue, Geffrey, who d. in his father's lifetime, leaving Richard, his son and heir, who departing this life, s. p., before 1196, the inheritance devolved upon his aunt, Rohais; Hubert, who had the lordship of Stanford, in Essex, and hundred of Angre, for his livelihood, but d. s. p.; Maude, m. 1st to Walter Fitz-Robert, to whom she brought the lordship or Dice, and 2ndly, to Richard de Ripariis, and d. 27th Henry III, 1243, leaving issue; Rohais, m. 1st, to Fulbert de Dover, Lord of Chilham, in Kent, and 2ndly, Richard de Chilham. This Rohais, upon the decease of her nephew, succeeded to the estates of her elder brother and, upon the death of her younger brother, Hubert, she had livery of the whole barony on paying a fine to the crown in the 9th King John [1208]. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage Ltd, London, England, 1883), pp. 335-6, Lucy, Barons Lucy]