Henry (Essex) of Essex (abt. 1128 - abt. 1170)

Born about 1128 in Rayleigh, Essex, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1170 at about age 42 in Reading Abbey, Reading, Berkshire, England

Biography

"Henry was the son of Robert Fitzsweyn of Essex (d. c.1140), and Gunnora, daughter of Robert Bigod. He inherited from his father the Domesday honour and castle of Rayleigh in Essex. He was also one of the royal constables during the reigns of Kings Stephen and Henry II. That office included the duty of bearing the royal standard to indicate the location of the king when on campaign or in battle.

Henry's arms were blazoned Argent, an Orle Gules.

He married first Cecily, who was the mother of at least Henry the younger and Hugh.

Second he married Alice, probably the daughter (or possibly the widow) and heir of Robert de Vere (d. c.1151). Alice is the probable mother of Henry's daughter Agnes. Alice brought him Robert de Vere's constableship and the barony of Haughley, which had come to Robert through his wife, Alice.

Henry's children include Henry of Essex the younger, Hugh, Robert, Agnes of Essex (who married Aubrey de Vere, first earl of Oxford), and Alice (who may have married Geoffrey de Say).

Henry is mentioned in several chronicles, including the Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond.

From about 1151 onwards Henry served King Stephen as a royal constable and local justice in Essex. Although Stephen's rival, Empress Matilda, named him as one of those who ‘ought to’ guarantee her second charter to Geoffrey de Mandeville, and Henry himself reportedly heard the bishop of Winchester's command in 1141 to support the empress, there is no convincing evidence that he ever deserted the king. But upon Stephen's death he moved immediately into the service of Henry II, witnessing for the new king as royal constable at Christmas 1154 and serving with the chancellor Thomas Becket on the first judicial eyre of the reign, in 1156, through nine southern counties. He was sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1155, Bedfordshire in 1156 and 1157, and Buckinghamshire from 1156 to 1159. As a justiciar as well as constable, he travelled frequently with the king.

After he dropped the royal standard in a Welsh ambush during Henry II's campaign into Wales of 1157, however, his political importance waned. Dropping the standard seemed to signal the king's death. Henry participated in the king's Toulouse campaign in the spring and summer of 1159.

At the royal court held at Easter, 1163, Henry was accused of treason for that act by a claimant to the Montfort estate of Haughley. The two men fought a judicial duel a few months later. Jocelin details Henry's judicial duel with Robert de Montfort (a rival for Henry's wife's inheritance) on Fry's Island in the River Thames at Reading. Henry's body was carried senseless from the site of the duel by monks of the nearby Reading Abbey, but he survived and took the Benedictine cowl. As he was a convicted traitor, however, his estates and offices were forfeit, and his family was disgraced. Henry was allowed to remain as a monk at Reading Abbey, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Henry of Essex is thought to have died at Reading Abbey in the same year that Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered, 1170.

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

• Wikipedia: Henry of Essex

• Henry of Essex's Arms: John de Bidun, Eodem anno, as in Madox's Exch., p. 685

• G. E. Cokayne ed., The Complete Peerage, vol. X, pp 199-207

• T. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and His Sons (Berkeley, 1983), p. 259

• David Nash Ford, Trial by Combat at Reading in Royal Berkshire History at berkshirehistory.com, accessed 2004-12-01

See also:

• Find A Grave: Memorial #148705489 Henry de Essex (1121-1170)

Acknowledgements

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