General Notes

Jim Weber:
Eustace de Vesci, who attaining majority in the 2nd Richard I [1191], gave 2,300 marks for the livery of his lands, with liberty to marry whom he pleased. In the 14th King John [1213], when the first commotion arose amongst the barons, the king, hastening to London, summoned all the suspected lords thither and forced each to give hostages for his peaceable demeanor. But this Eustace, one of the most suspected, refused to attend the summons and fled into Scotland, whereupon all his possessions in England were seized upon by the crown and a special command issued to demolish his castle at Alnwick. But a reconciliation between the kind and his turbulent nobles soon afterwards taking place through the influence of the legate Pandulph, Eustace had restitution of his estates. But this was a deceitful calm -- the winds were only stilled to rage with greater violence -- the baronial conflict ere long burst forth more furiously and was only allayed by those concessions on the part of the crown, which have immortalized the plains of Runnymede. The cause of this celebrated quarrel, in which, by the way the people had little or no immediate interest, was doubtless of long standing and was based on the encroachment of the Sovereign on the privileges of the nobility, but the spark that ignited the flame was personal injury; an affront inflicted by King John on this Eustace de Vesci. "Hearing," writes Sir William Dugdale, "that Eustace de Vesci had a very beautiful wife, but far distant from the court, and studying how to accomplish his licentious desires toward her, sitting at table with her husband and seeing a ring on his finger, he laid hold on it and told him that he had another such stone, which he resolved to set in gold in that very form. And having thus got the ring, presently sent it to her in her husband's name, by that token conjuring her, if ever she expected to see him alive, to come speedily to him. She, therefore, upon sight of the ring, gave credit to the messenger and came with all expedition. But it so happened that her husband casually riding out met her on the road, and marvelling much to see her there, asked what the matter was, and when he understood how they were both deluded, resolved to find a common woman and put her in apparel to personate his lady." The king afterwards boasting to the injured husband of the favours he had received, Eustace had the pleasure of undeceiving him, "whereat the king grew so enraged that he threatened to kill him; Eustace, therefore, apprehending danger, hastened into the north, divers of the nobles whose wives they king had vitiated accompanying him. And being grown strong by the confluence of their friends and others, seized his castles, the Londoners adhering to them." When John was subsequently brought to submission, Eustace de Vesci was one of the twenty-five Barons appointed to enforce the observance of Magna Carta, but he was slain soon after, about 1216, by an arrow from the ramparts of Barnard Castle (belonging to Hugh de Baliol), which he had commenced besieging, or was about to attack. He had m. Margaret, natural dau. of William, King of Scotland, and was s. by his son, William de Vesci. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 555, Vesci, Barons Vesci]
----------
Eustace de Vesci, one of the twenty-five barons appointed to enforce the observance of Magna Carta, elder brother of Warine de Vesci (father of Margerie who m. Gilbert de Aton), succeeded his father, William de Vesci; m. Margaret, dau. of William and sister of Alexander, kings of Scotland; and, dying about 1216, was s. by his son, William de Vesci. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 15, Aton, Barons de Aton]