William VII de Braose

Abt 1280 - Bef 1326  (46 years)    Has more than 100 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

• Name	William VII de Braose  [1, 2, 3]
  Birth	Abt 1280	Bramber, Sussex, England
  Gender	Male
  Death	Bef 1 May 1326  [3]
  Siblings	1 Sibling
  + 1. William VII de Braose,   b. Abt 1280, Bramber, Sussex, England d. Bef 1 May 1326  (Age 46 years) ▻ Agnes;   Elizabeth de Sully,  m. Bef 24 Apr 1317   2. Peter de Braose   d. Yes, date unknown
  Person ID	I23460	Geneagraphie
  Last Modified	19 Mar 2010

  
  

  Father	Marquis William de Braose, VI,   b. Bef 15 Jul 1224   d. Bef 6 Jan 1290-1291, Findon, Sussex, England (Age 66 years)
  Mother	Aline (Aliva) Multon,   b. Abt 1255, Bramber, Sussex, England d. Yes, date unknown
  Family ID	F145793	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Agnes   d. Yes, date unknown
  Children	1. William de Braose   d. 1320 + 2. Joan de Braose,   b. 1284   d. 1323 (Age 39 years) + 3. Alivia de Braose,   b. Abt 1305   d. Bef 21 Aug 1331 (Age 26 years)
  Family ID	F145796	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	19 Mar 2010

  
  

  Family 2	Elizabeth de Sully,   b. 1287, Gower, Glamorganshire, Wales d. Bef 24 Aug 1328 (Age 41 years)
  Marriage	Bef 24 Apr 1317
  Family ID	F10048	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	19 Dec 2007

  
  

• Notes

  of Gower 2nd Lord de Braose. Baronies of Gower & Bramber passed onto his son in law John de Mowbray. was held by Eleanor de Montfort, first at Odiham castle in Hampshire, then at Dover castle, until her husband's defeat at the battle of Evesham in 1265. Had already taken on many of the duties of the lordship and the inheritance was granted by the king on March 1, 1291. True to his father's tradition, young William had law suits that had been rumbling on for years. In 1299 the Bishop of Llandaff succeeded in a plea to the king, who ordered William to answer for his misdeeds before the court and the royal justices. In 1306 William's tenants in Gower sought justice from the king, having taken the drastic step of deserting their lands. They accused their lord of failing to protect them and their rights. His neglect and mismanagement had disgraced the marcher lordships. William was forced to issue charters of rights for the burgesses of Swansea and his tenants in Gower. Another case reached boiling point in 1307. William was ordered in court to give eight hundred marks to his father's third wife and widow, Mary de Roos. William mounted the bar in fury and bitterly insulted the judge. The king ordered him to walk from Westminster to the exchequer without his sword belt and with his head uncovered, to seek the judge's pardon. He was then put in the Tower of London for contempt of court. William was all but bankrupt and forced to sell his lands to pay his debts. If William de Braose neglected his duties as a landlord, it was probably because his king demanded so much from him in war. Edward I called out the feudal host in 1277 and began a determined series of campaigns to conquer Wales. His Welsh wars continued for twenty five years and brought an end to Welsh independence. William gained his early military education as a squire to Reginald de Grey, lord of Ruthin, who fought in Wales. William's father took men from Bramber and Gower to fight Llewelyn, the last great prince of Wales, who was killed in 1282. The siege of Emlyn (near Cardigan) in January 1288 illustrates what an enormous commitment the lords of Gower made to the Welsh wars. William was still his father's heir when he fought to subdue Rhys ap Maredudd that winter. He had seven mounted knights and sixty three foot soldiers in his personal following. He raised another three heavy and eighteen light horse, two mounted and nineteen foot crossbowmen, and 400 foot. The army used hundreds of woodmen from the Forest of Dean to hack a path through the wooded mountains. William also had an enormous siege engine. It was hauled across the difficult winter terrain on four carts, pulled by forty oxen which were later increased to sixty. He employed men to pick up 480 rocks on the beach below Cardigan and take them by sea and up the river Teify to Llechryd. From there the stones were carried by 120 pack horses. The siege engine needed blacksmiths, mechanics, twenty four woodcutters to make a bridge for the assault, two master workmen and large quantities of pig fat to grease it. It was escorted by twenty horse and 463 foot soldiers, who were also William de Braose's men. The siege began on New Year's Day and was over by January 20. Detailed administrative records of the siege still exist. They show that not one man was lost by the English force. Presumably the great siege engine and its 480 rocks wore down the Welsh defenders of Emlyn castle and persuaded them to surrender peaceably. As the English crown subdued Wales, the autonomy of the marcher lords was inevitably the next royal target. Under Edward II William de Braose was the unwitting cause of a bloody showdown, after which the marcher lords were never to recover their former glory. In 1297 William had won the valuable wardship of John de Mowbray from the king in honour of his loyal service in Flanders. William betrothed ten year old John to his six year old daughter Alina and the young couple later became William's heirs. Gower was Alina's future inheritance but politics in the marches of Wales became increasingly hostile. In 1320, after the death of his son, William sold the reversion of Gower to the earl of Hereford, Humphrey de Bohun, who wanted it for his son after Alina's death. William attempted some spectacular double dealings with his other warlike neighbours. While Humphry de Bohun, Roger Mortimer of Chirk and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore each claimed to have received charters confirming their purchase of Gower from William, Edward II promoted his self seeking favourite, Hugh Despenser. John de Mowbray decided to settle the issue by seizing Gower himself. All hell broke loose. The king ordered the confiscation of Gower on October 26, 1320, because William had not sought a royal licence to "alienate" it to John de Mowbray. He sent a force to take it but at the little chapel of Saint Thomas, by Swansea castle, armed men were ready to prevent the seizure. Men of the king's own household returned on November 13 with a larger and more successful force. This was a challenge to the marcher lords' cherished autonomy. They rose in revolt. In August 1321 a baronial coalition in parliament banished Hugh Despenser and his father. John de Mowbray regained Gower. Six months later a royalist resurgence prompted the Despensers' return. After the battle of Boroughbridge in March 1322 John de Mowbray was excecuted and Aline and her son John were thrown into the Tower of London. William was a broken man, forced to give his last remaining lands to the king for a life annuity. The outcome of Boroughbridge left him £10,000 in debt to Hugh Despenser. In his efforts to gain his daughter's freedom William submitted to the conniving schemes of the Despensers and relinquished almost everything he owned. From the Tower Alina described him as "frantic and not in good memory ". He never lived to see her free.

  
  

• Sources

  [S61] John Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Guide to the Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, (London ,). [S14] Brian Tompsett, University of Hull Royal Database (England), (copyright 1994, 1995, 1996 , , Repository: WWW, University of Hull, Hull, UK HU6 7RX bct@tardis.ed.ac.uk). [S11] Frederick Lewis Weis, Magna Charta Sureties, 1215, (4th ed, Genealogical Publishing, Baltimore , , Repository: J.H. Garner), line 149B pp 155-156 (Reliability: 0).