• General Notes

  Marshal of Ireland from July 1324; fought at sea Battle of Sluys in the lead ship 1340; fought at Crecy 1346.
  
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  BARONY OF MORLEY (II) 1302
  
  ROBERT [DE MORLEY), LORD MORLEY, son and heir by 1st wife, was a minor in January 1304/5. In 1316 he was returned as lord of Morley, Norfolk, and in the same year obtained livery of his wife's lands, havIng done fealty; in 1317 and later years he was summoned for military service against the Scots. He was summoned to Parliament from 20 November 1317 to 15 December 1357, and in 1317 was called one of the "major barons." In 1321 he was requested to appease disturbances, and was ordered not to attend the meeting at Doncaster of the "Good Peers" summoned by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. In the foIlowing spring he was ordered to raise men for the King and come to the muster at Coventry; and probably fought at Boroughbridge, his arms being on the roll. In July 1322 he took part in the King's unsuccessful campaign in Scotland. He was styled a knight in 1324. In May 1324 he was summoned to a Great Council of Magnatcs, and in August and December was summoned for military service in Gascony, and to a colloquium of the magnates and clergy upon the King's proposed expedition there. In July 1324 order was made to put him in possession of the Marshalcy of Ireland. On 26 October 1326 he was a member of the Council at Bristol which elected Prince Edward custos of the kingdom, upon the flight of Edward II. In 1327 he was summoned for service against the Scots; and from that year onwards was on a number of commissions in Norfolk to make arrests, inquiries, oyer and terminer, &c. In 1330, as "cosyn" and heir of Robert de Mohaut, he asked for an inquiry as to the fees Mohaut had held. On 16 June 1331 he held a tournament at Stepney, and with twenty-four others defended himself against all comers. In 1332 he was ordered to choose archers in Norfolk; next year, he served in Scotland, where he fought at Halidon Hill, 19 July 1333, and apparently was employed until the middle of 1335. In June 1335 he gave a quitclaim of the Mohaut inheritance to Queen Isabel, the manor of Framsden being granted to him out of it. In August 1335 he was about to go on a pilgrimage to Santiago; but it is unlikely that he went, because he was summoned to a Council in London, probably on Scottish affairs, which then and in the following year --- when he was summoned again --- caused apprehension. Attacks by French and Scottish vessels were anticipated, and in May 1336 Morley was a commissioner to guard the coast of Norfolk. In January 1336/7 he was in Scotland again, but in July 1338 he was back in Norfolk, guarding the coast. On 18 February 1338/9 he was appointed captain and admiral of the fleet of all the ships of Great Yarmouth and all other ports from Thames' mouth northwards. In 1339 he sailed with the fleet to Normandy and burnt many ports. On 24 June 1340 his ship led the attack on the French fleet at Sluys, which was overwhelmed, and many English ships were recaptured from the enemy. In November 1341 he was setting out for service in Brittany. In January 1342/3 he was ordered to be at Portsmouth, with 20 men, to sail for France on 1 March. On 18 June 1345 protection was granted to Robert de Morley, chivaler, going abroad with Hugh Despenser, in the Earl of Northampton's expedition to Brittany. He had a similar protection, 7 July 1346, on joining Edward III's summer campaign in France; and on 26 August took part in the victory of Crécy as one of the bannerets of the King's division, continuing to serve in France with 30 men, himself, as banneret, 5 knights, 9 esquires and 15 archers. When the King began the siege of Calais, he brought round his fleet and blockaded the port so that no relief could come to the town from the sea. He was present at the tournament at Lichfield, 9 April 1347. He fought under the Earl of Lancaster in the naval action off Winchelsea, 29 August 1350. In 1351 he was again guarding the Norfolk coast; and, in 1354 was a justice in'the same county under the Labourers' Act. In August of that year he was one of the peers who (as such) appointed proxies to give their consent to the informal submission to the Pope of the articles of peace between England and France. In 1355 he was appointed Constable of the Tower, and held this office till his death.
  
  He married, 1stly, in or before 1316, Hawise, sister and coheir of John MARSHAL [LORD MARSHAL], of Hingham, Norfolk,and daughter of William MARSHAL, [1st Lord Marshal], by Christian, daughter of Robert [FitzWalter], 1st Lord FitzWalter, hereditary Marshal of Ireland, who, as Robert's feudal superior [of the Barony of Rye], had been his guardian. She, who on the death of her sister Denise s.p., 14 September 1316, became, according to modern doctrine, Baroness Marshal, may have died before 1327. He married, 2ndly, by September 1334, Joan, who, it has been suggested, was daughter of Sir Piers de Tyes (j). She died 24 December 1358. He died 23 March 1359/60, in Burgundy. [Complete Peerage IX:213-4, XIV:486, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]
  
  (j) His lands lay in Norfolk, Lincs, Essex, Herts, Northants, and Bucks. Knighton, vol ii, p. 112, says that he and a son of his both died the same year. Possibly this was his son Henry, who is not heard of again after the mention of him in the Inq.p.m. on his father, where he is said to be heir to his brother Thomas.
  

Details of Sir Robert's family with Hawise Mareschal