Roger (Mowbray) de Mowbray (1119 - abt. 1188)

Born 1119 in Yorkshire, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1188 at about age 69 in Palestine

Biography

Sir Roger de Mowbray(I) whose surname derived from Montbray in Normandy, was the son of Nigel d'Aubigny and his second wife, Gundreda de Gournay whom he married in 1118. A witness list to one of Mowbray's charters mentions a brother Robert but there are doubts about the authenticity of this list.

Mowbray married Alice de Gant, who died in 1181, daughter of the Lincolnshire baron Walter de Gant and widow of the Yorkshire baron Ilbert de Lacy, not long after 1141.

Roger and Alice had children:

1. Nigel; and
2. Robert.

Mowbray's father, Nigel d'Aubigny, had been one of Henry I's most important "new men", and with his brother William, ancestor of the earls of Arundel, served Henry faithfully. D'Aubigny fought in Henry's armies and acted as an important local official in northern England, where he probably had custody of a castle in York. He was one of the most frequent attestors to Henry's charters during his lifetime. Henry magnificently rewarded d'Aubigny, a landless younger son, by arranging for him to marry Matilda de l'Aigle, who was divorced by papal dispensation from Robert de Mowbray, the former earl of Northumbria who had been imprisoned since his revolt of 1095, and granted the earl's Norman lands, including Montbray, to d'Aubigny; d'Aubigny retained these lands even after he divorced Matilda (supposedly on the grounds of consanguinity, but probably because the couple had no children) to marry Gundreda. Henry may have granted other Norman lands to d'Aubigny, and Gundreda brought him the Norman castle of Écouché as her marriage portion. Henry I also gave him a huge honour in England, based on lands forfeited by Robert (I) de Stuteville after the battle of Tinchebrai, and comprising the Domesday holdings of Geoffrey de la Guerche and Gospatric, some of the lands held in 1086 by Hugh fitz Baldric and Erneis de Burun, and other estates as well. D'Aubigny also became overlord of the Tison and Arches fees, and at the time of his death in Normandy in 1129 he was one of the most powerful of the Anglo-Norman barons, with a number of castles in England and Normandy.

Roger first rose to prominence as one of the leaders at the battle of the Standard in 1138. The English army set out for the battle from his holding of Thirsk. Ailred of Rievaulx stated that so great was the fervour against the Scots that Roger was brought along with the army though still a boy (puerulus) and carefully placed among others where he would presumably be safe. The fact that Mowbray had sufficient control over his estates to give land to Byland in the same year and was knighted around the same time seems at first glance to contradict Ailred's statement about his youth, but it is possible that he was rewarded for his participation in battle with an early end to his minority and with a dubbing.

Three years later, in 1141, he fought in Stephen's army at the battle of Lincoln and was among those captured by Ranulf (II), earl of Chester and Robert, earl of Gloucester. Probably as part of his settlement with his captors, he granted fourteen knight's fees to Ranulf's follower, Eustace fitz John. His marriage to Alice de Gant may be connected with Ranulf's attempts to create a large network of allies and thus may also have resulted from Mowbray's capture at Lincoln.

In the early part of Henry II's reign, Mowbray recovered his Norman estates, lost to Geoffrey of Anjou during Stephen's reign, and some time before 1172 turned them over to his elder son, Nigel, who also seems to have been brought into a prominent role in the governance of his father's estates in England at an early age, frequently witnessing his father's charters and confirming them with his own.

In 1174 Mowbray joined the revolt of Henry, the Young King, against Henry II. Henry was trying to raise the size of Mowbray's knights' service and Mowbray had been forced to grant to Robert (III) de Stuteville, who was heir to the man who had lost so much land to Nigel d'Aubigny after Tinchebrai and was rising in power as a royal favourite and Sheriff of York, the manor of Kirkby Moorside in Yorkshire and a number of knight's fees. Mowbray quickly rebuilt a castle at Kinnard in Axholme, Lincolnshire, and garrisoned his castles at Kirkby Malzeard and Thirsk in Yorkshire. His strongholds provided a potential link between the rebels in the midlands and the king of Scotland, and, if Jordan Fantosme is to be believed, he had widespread support in Yorkshire. However, Henry II's illegitimate son, Geoffrey, the bishop-elect of Lincoln, quickly took action and besieged Kinnard, which was not sufficiently prepared for the attack. Kinnard was soon captured early in May 1174, and at least partially destroyed, and Mowbray's younger son, Robert, constable of the castle, was captured on his way to Leicester, where he had hoped to obtain help from the midland insurgents. Geoffrey then moved into York, where he captured and partially destroyed Kirkby Malzeard and closely invested Thirsk. A castle was built nearby at Topcliffe and placed under the command of William de Stuteville, son of Mowbray's rival, Robert, Sheriff of Yorkshire. According to Jordan Fantosme, Mowbray had long since left the area; he left the defence of his castles to his sons, joined William, king of Scotland, shortly after the latter's unsuccessful attack on Wark, and assisted him in subsequent actions. According to William of Newburgh, however, it was only after his setbacks in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire that Mowbray joined King William; he made an alliance and granted his son Nigel as a hostage to the Scottish king. In any case he had joined William before 13 July, when the latter was captured by royalist forces in a surprise attack outside Alnwick. Mowbray himself barely avoided capture and fled into Scotland. On 31 July he met King Henry at Northampton, surrendered Thirsk to him, and was received into the king's peace. His castles at Kinnard, Kirkby Malzeard, and Thirsk were destroyed, either at the time of their capture or in early 1176. The monks of Kirkstall noted that they lost certain land in 1183-4 because of the hatred the king had for Mowbray.

Mowbray was a notable benefactor to religious houses. He founded Byland Abbey, a member of the Savignac order, which later merged with the Cistercian order. The traditions of the house, although they had become somewhat confused by the time they were written in 1197, show that Mowbray and mother were not merely donors of land but played an active role in the establishment of the monastery. At some point between 1147 and 1154, probably on his way back from the second crusade, he attended the general council of the Cistercian order. He also founded Newburgh, an Augustinian priory in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and perhaps the nunnery at Villers-Canivet in Normandy. In addition he made grants of property to approximately twenty other religious houses and to many of these he was quite generous; in 1185 the Templars drew more than £30 annual rent from the various lands he had given them.

Mowbray was also generous to his followers; he created eleven and three-quarters knight's fees before 1166 and several more fractions of fees thereafter, and made other secular grants as well. Some of the new fees derived from grants he was forced to make, but most were to men who were close followers. The effect of Mowbray's generosity, as well as of the grants he was forced to make due to war and politics, was to shrink the honour's demesne. Much of his vast honour had been subinfeudated by the time he inherited it, for eighty-eight fees had been created before Nigel d'Aubigny's death, but Mowbray gave away still more, including the manor which had been his wife's marriage portion. Moreover, in the immediate aftermath of his participation in the revolt against Henry II, he sold land and rights in the forest of Nidderdale to Fountains Abbey for 620 marks. He sold land on other occasions as well, at one point granting woodland to the abbey at Combe in return for a payment they made to help him settle debts to Jewish moneylenders. Roger and his son Nigel bought the manor of Askham Richard (which he afterwards granted away) from Roger's tenant Juetta de Arches for 220 marks. By the end of his life, Roger held little more than the six core demesne manors that would support the family for many years. These estates were very valuable and in some cases, such as Kirkby Malzeard and the Isle of Axholme, consisted of a number of Domesday vills; as a result they provided a sufficient financial basis for the Mowbray family to remain securely within the baronage until their fortunes began to rise again.

Mowbray chose to accompany Louis VII of France on the second crusade, following in the steps of his maternal grandfather who had participated in the first crusade. The second crusade was a débâcle but Mowbray managed not only to survive but, according to John of Hexham, to gain glory by defeating a Muslim leader in single combat.

References in his charters suggest that he may have taken part in the crusade led by Philip of Flanders in 1177.

He journeyed to Jerusalem in 1186 and ended up with the army of the kingdom of Jerusalem at the disastrous battle of Hattin on 6/7 July 1187, where he was captured. The Templars ransomed him the next year, but he died soon after and was buried in the Holy Land. His estates passed to his son Nigel, who died in the course of the third crusade, and then to his grandson William, who paid relief for them in 1194.

Jordan Fantosme described Roger as an experienced fighter and said he and Adam de Port, a fellow rebel in 1174, were "the best warriors known to men".

Sources

• Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, III:62.
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Early Yorkshire Charters Vol 1. Ballantyne & Co. Edinburg. 1914. Edited by William Farrer. Pages 426-427.[1]
• http://www.thepeerage.com/p65817.htm#i658165
• Wikipedia: Roger de Mowbray (died 1188), accessed 13 October, 2018.
• Foster, William Edward. The Royal Descents of The Fosters of Moulton and The Mathesons of Shinnes & Lochalsh (Phillmore & Co., London, England, 1912) Page 45