General Notes

BARONY OF VESCY (I)

WILLIAM DE VESCY, brother and heir, was born 19 September 1245.  In the Barons' War he was supporting Simon de Montfort, April 1264, being then of Caythorpe, co. Lincoln; and in June 1265 he, with Robert de Ros, tried unsuccessfully to hold Gloucester against Prince Edward. He had a protection, 16 March 1275/6, going to Santiago; and was summoned to serve against the Welsh, 1277, 1282 and 1283. He was also summoned, 28 June, to attend the Assembly to be held at Shrewsbury, 30 September 1283; to a Council at Westminster, Michaelmas 1288, and 16 April, to be at Norham, 3 June 1291, in connection with the claims to the Scottish throne. He was Justice of the Forest beyond Trent, 30 June 1285-September 1290, and again 24 September 1295; also Constable of Scarborough Castle, 22 August 1289-June 1292. Having succeeded his brother John, 10 February 1288/9, he also inherited his mother's great estates in co. Kildare, in Ireland, derived from the Marshals, Earls of Pembroke, on her death 11 May 1290. On 20 June 1290 he was appointed, with the Bishop of Durham and others, to treat with the Scottish envoys; and in the following year he was one of the competitors for the Crown of Scotland, lodging his petition (by proxy of his son John), 3 August 1291, at Berwick, in right of his grandmother, Margaret, illegitimate daughter of William the Lion. His claim was, however, withdrawn, 10 November 1292, a week before the King's decision thereon. Meanwhile he had been appointed Justiciar of Ireland, 12 September 1290, with an annual grant of £500 for his maintenance, and he landed there, 11 November. Complaints having been made by the Abbot of St. Thomas's, Dublin, and others regarding Vescy's rule in Ireland, the King ordered a commission of inquiry, 10 December 1293; but before this could report, Vescy challenged John FitzThomas FitzGerald, Lord of Offaly, to a wager of battle for defaming him in a matter touching the King. The Justiciarship was placed in commission, April 1294, and both parties were summoned to Westminster, where, on the appointed day, 24 July, Vescy appeared fully armed, but John did not come. Although he claimed judgment by default, Vescy was removed from the Justiciarship, October 1294, when, however, he was going to Gascony on the King's service. In April 1295 he was with the kingj in Wales. He was summoned to Parliament from 24 June to 2 November 1295, by writs directed Willelmo de Vescy, whereby he is held to have become LORD VESCY.

Having no surviving legitimate male issue and in order to secure a patrimony for his bastard son, he, by fine, 12 November 1295, conveyed his Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Northumberland estates, including Alnwick, to Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, who by a further fine, 20 January 1295/6, re-granted those in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire to William for life, with remainder to William, his illegitimate son, and his heirs, whom failing, to the right heirs of William first named, which grant was confirmed by the King, 16 February 1296/7. On the same date (20 January 1295/6) the Bishop regranted Alnwick, &c., to William and the heirs of his body, with remainder to the grantor. William served in Gascony under the King's brother Edmund and the Earl of Lincoln in 1296, but was invalided home towards the end of that year. On 18 February 1296/7 he surrendered his castle and liberty of Kildare to the King, on condition of his and his brother's debts to the Exchequer being forgiven, and he was re-granted Kildare, but for life only, 22 June 1297. He was again summoned for service overseas, 15 May 1297.

He married, after 25 July 1266, Isabel, widow of Sir Robert DE WELLE (died shortly before 24 September 1265), 2nd daughter and coh. of Adam DE PERITON (died shortly before 24 February 1265/6), of Ellington, Northumberland, Faxton, co. Northampton, and Rampisham, Dorset, probably by Sarah. He died s.p.s. legitimate 19 July 1297 at Malton, aged 51, when any Barony which may be supposed to have been created by the writ of 1295 became extinct. His widow died shortly before 5 January 1314/5. [Complete Peerage XII/2:281-3, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]

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William de Vesci was a person in great esteem with Edward I and constituted by that monarch, in the 13th year of his reign [1285], justice of the royal forests beyond Trent, and the next year one of the justices itinerant touching the pleas of the forests. After succeeding his brother, he was made governor of Scarborough Castle, and the year ensuing, doing his homage, had livery of all those lands in Ireland which were of the inheritance of Agnes, his mother, and he was made at the same time justice of that kingdom. But during his sojourn there, he was accused in open court in the city of Dublin, in the presence of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and others, of felony and challenged to the combat by John FitzThomas, for which he subsequently instituted a suit before the chief justice of Dublin against the said FitzThomas on a charge of defamation in saying that he, the said William de Vesci, had solicited him to a confederacy against the king, which charge, being denied by FitzThomas, and a schedule by him delivered into court containing the words which he acknowledged, he was, thereupon, challenged to the combat by this William, and he accepted the challenge. But the king, being apprised of the proceedings, prohibited the battle and ordered the combatants to appear before him at Westminster, to which place William de Vesci came accordingly, mounted upon his great horse covered, as also completely armed with lance, dagger, coat of mail, and other military equipments, and proffered himself to the fight, but FitzThomas, although called, appeared not. The affair was afterwards brought before parliament but dismissed owning to some informality. It was finally submitted to the award of the king, but the ulterior proceedings are not recorded. In the 23rd Edward I [1300], William de Vesci was again in the wars of Gascony, and he was summoned to parliament as a Baron 24 June, 1 October, and 2 November, 1295. His lordship was one of the competitors for the crown of Scotland through his grandmother, Margaret. (The illegitimacy of this lady and her sisters, daus. of William the Lion, is obviously established by the fact of their claim being at once dismissed, whereas, had they been legitimately born, their pretensions were prior to those of either Baliol or Bruce, who had sprung from David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of King William.) He m. Isabel, dau. of Adam de Periton, and widow of Robert de Welles, by whom he had an only son, John, who was justice of the forests south of Trent, and was in the wars of Gascony, and who m. Clementina, a kinswoman of Queen Eleanor, but d. s. p., v. p. On the decease of this son, his lordship enfeoffed Anthony Beke, bishop of Durham, in the castle of Alnwick and divers other lands, in trust for William, his bastard son, who became possessed of all his other estates. This trust the prelate is said to have basely betrayed and to have alienated the property by disposing of it for ready money to William Percy, since which time the castle of Alnwick and those lands have been held by the Percys and their representatives. His lordship d. in 1297, when all his great inheritance passed to his bastard son, William de Kildare, save the estates above-mentioned in Northumberland, and the Barony of Vesci became extinct. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 555, Vesci, Barons Vesci]