General Notes

Hugh de Spencer, Sr., so called to distinguish him from his son Hugh, who bore the designation of Hugh, Jr., both so well known in history as the favorites of the unfortunate Edward II. Of Hugh, Sr., we shall first treat, although as father and son ran almost the same course at the same time, and shared a similar fate, it is not easy to sever their deeds. Hugh, Sr., paid a fine of 2000 marks to the king, in the 15th of Edward I (1287), for marrying without license Isabel, daughter of William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and widow of Patrick de Chaworth (you descend from her and Patrick also), and by this Isabel he had this only son Hugh.

In the 22nd year of Edward I, 1294, he was made governor of Oldham Castle, Co. Southampton, and the same year had summons to attend the king at Portsmouth, prepared with horse and arms for an expedition into Gascany. In two years afterwards he was in the battle of Dunbar in Scotland, where the English arms triumphed (this was the time when Edward I took the Stone of Scone away from the Scotch). The next year Hugh, Sr., was one of the commissioners accredited to treat of peace between the English king and the kings of the Romans and France. To the very close of Edward I's reign his lordship seems to have enjoyed the favour of that great prince and had summons to Parliament from June 23, 1295, to March 14, 1322; but it was after the accession of Edward's unhappy son, Edward II, that the Spencers attained that extraordinary eminence, from which, with their feeble minded master, they were eventually hurled into the gulf of irretrievable ruin. In the first years of Edward II's reign we find the father and son engaged in the Scottish wars. In the 14th of Edward II, 1221, the king having heard of great animosities between the younger Despenser or Spencer, as they were now known, and Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, and learning they were collecting their followers in order to come to open combat, interfered and strictly commanded Lord Hereford to forbear. About the same time, a dispute arising between Hereford and John de Moebray, regarding some lands in Wales, young Despencer seized possession of the estate and kept it from both litigants. This conduct and similar proceedings on the part of the Elder Despencer, exciting the indignation of the barons, they formed a league against the favorites and placing the king's cousin, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, at their head marched with banners flying from Sherbourne to St. Albans, whence they despatched the Bishops of Salisbury, Hereford and Chichester to the king with a demand that the Spencers be banished; to which the king, however, giving an imperious answer in the negative, the irritated barons continued on their route to London, when Edward at the instance of the Queen acquiesced; whereupon the barons summoned a Parliament in which the Spencers were banished from England and the sentence was proclaimed in Westminster Hall. To this decision, Hugh, the Elder, submitted and retired, but Hugh, the Younger, lurked in divers places, sometimes on land and sometimes at sea, and was fortunate enough to capture during his exile two vessels near Sandwich laden with merchandise to the value of ú40,000, after which being recalled by the king an army was raised, which encountered and defeated the baronial forces at Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire. In this action where numbers were slain, the Earl of Lancaster was taken prisoner and carried to his own Castle of Pontefract, and there after a summary trial (the Elder Spencer being one of the judges) beheaded. The Spencers now became more powerful than ever, the Elder was immediately created Earl of Winchester, the king loading him with grants of forfeited estates. Young Spencer obtained like his father immense grants, from the lands forfeited after the battle of Boroughbridge, but not satisfied with these, and they were incredibly numerous, he extorted by force whatsoever else he pleased. Amongst other acts of lawless oppression, it is related that he seized upon the person of Elizabeth Comyn, a great heiress, the wife of Richard Talbot, in her house in Kennington in Surrey and detained her 12 months in prison, until he compelled her to assign to him the manor of Painswike in Gloucestershire, and the Castle and manor of Goderick in the Marches of Wales; but these ill-obtained and ill-exercised powers were not formed for permanent endurance, and a brief space only was necessary to bring it to a termination. The Queen (Isabel, Daughter of Philip IV, the Fair, King of France, and sister of Lewis X, Philip V, and Chas. IV, through whom Edward III, of England, claimed the French crown) and her paramour Roger de Mortimer had fied to France, and through the influence of the Despencers had been proclaimed traitors, ascertaining the feelings of the people, ventured to return, and landed at Harwich, with the noblemen and persons of eminence who had been exiled after the defeat at Boroughbridge, raised the royal standard, and soon found themselves at the head of a considerable force; when marching upon Bristol, where the king and his favorites then were, they were received in that city with acclamation, and the Elder Spencer being seized, was brought in chains before the prince and the barons and received judgment of death, which was accordingly executed, by hanging the culprit upon a gallows in sight of the king and his son, upon St. Dennis Day in Oct., 1326. It is said by some writers that the body was hung up with two strong cords for four days, and then cut to pieces and given to the dogs. Isabel, his wife, had died shortly before May 30, 1306.