General Notes

NICHOLAS DE MOELS, whose parentage is unknown, appears to have been from an early age in the court of King John, and was an official actively employed in the King's service both in embassies and the field. In 1217 the manor of Watlington was granted to him "for his sustenance in the king's service," and similar gifts followed. In April 1223, he was sent to Poitou on an embassy from the King, and again in the following January. In the summer of 1223 he served in the King's expedition into Wales, and in the following year at the siege of Bedford. In January 1224/5 he was one of the ambassadors sent. to Cologne to treat of a proposed marriage between Henry III and a daughter of Leopold VI, Duke of Austria. In July 1226 the land of Little Berkhampstead was granted to him, and this and other estates were later confirmed in fee. He also, by his marriage with a wealthy heiress, Hawise, one of the daughters and heirs of James de Newmarch, acquired Cadbury and other manors in Somerset and the neighbouring counties, thus becoming one of the greater landowners. In 1227 he was in Gascony on the King's service, and a joint ambassador to the Count of Flanders; in March 1228 was charged with negotiations as to the truce with France, and in November of that year, at Westminster, witnessed Henry's grant to the Bishop of Chichester of land in." New Street," now the site of Lincoln's Inn. In April of the following year, as miles noster familiaris, he was a plenipotentiary to treat of peace with Louis IX of France, and was again going to Gascony in the King's service. He was sheriff of Hants and custos of Winchester Castle from July 1228 to March 1231/2, sheriff of Devon, 1234-1236, of York, Easter 1239 to Michaelma 1241, and of Kent, March to October 1258. He was granted the custody of the Channel Islands in 1234, and was keeper the bishopric of Durham during part of the vacancy after the translation of Bishop Richard le Poer, 1237. At the Coronation of Queen EIeanor, in 1236, he and Richard Siward, milites strenui, carried the two royal sceptres. In 1242 he was ambassador to the King of France with Ralph FitzNicholas, and later in the year joined the English King in Bordeaux. In September 1243 Henry III, returning to England, left Nicholas de Moels as seneschal of Gascony. In the following year he inflicted a defcat on the King of Navarre. In 1245 he was appointed keeper of the castles of Cardigan and Carmarthen, and in the same year was constable of Pembroke, Haverford, Kilgarran and Tenby. In 1246 and 1247 he was in the wars of Wales and was seneschal of Carmarthen, and in February 1248/9 was added to the commissioners to deal with the King of Navarre. As "Nicholas de Molis, king's clerk," he had a grant of free warren in his demesne lands in Cadbury and Mapperton in January 1250/1. On 16 June 1252 he was sent into Gascony with Roscelin de Fos, Master of the Templars in England, as conservator of the truce between Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and Gaston, Viscount de Bearn. He was engaged in Wales in connection with Henry's futile expedition in 1257, and in 1263 received his last military summons to the muster at Hereford against Llewelyn. In January 1257/8 he was appointed constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports. He was constable of the castles of Rochester, Canterbury, and Winchester in 1258, of Sherborne in 1261, and of Corfe in 1263, and one of the King's serjeants in Windsor Castle 1263-64. He was on the King's side in the Barons' War, and was ordered, 4 July 1264, to deliver Windsor Castle to John, son of John, the custodian appointed by the Barons.

He married, in or after 1230, Hawise, widow of John DE BOTREAUX (whom she married in 1218), and younger daughter and coheir of James DE NEWMARCH (de NeufmarchÈ), of Cadbury, &c. Somerset. She apparently was living in 1244. He probably died in or shortly after 1264, and was certainly dead before Easter 1271.  [Complete Peerage IX:1-4, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]