Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/101

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Fitzalan
95
Fitzalan

lower marches of Normandy' (Luce, ii. 20). His cruelty, no less than his success, made him exceptionally odious to French patriots (Blondel, Reductio Normanniæ, pp. 190-6, is very eloquent on this subject; cf. Monstrelet, liv. ii. ch. 158). In the summer of 1534 he was despatched with Lord Willoughby to put down a popular revolt among the peasants of Lower Normandy. This gave them little difficulty, though in January 1435 Arundel was still engaged on the task (Luce, ii. 53). The clemency with which he sought to spare the peasants and punish the leaders only was so little seconded by his troops that it might well have seemed to the French a new act of cruelty (PoPol. Verg. p. 483). In February 1435 his approach led Alençon to abandon with precipitation the siege of Avranches (Luce, ii. 54).

In May 1435 Arundel was despatched by Bedford to stay the progress of the French arms on the Lower Somme; but on his arrival at Gournay he found that the enemy had repaired the old fortress of Gerberoy in the Beauvaisis, whence they were devastating all the Vexin. He accordingly marched by night from Gournay to Gerberoy, and arrived at eight in the morning before the latter place. But La Hire and Saintrailles had secretly collected a large force outside the walls, and simultaneous attacks on the English van from the castle and from the outside soon put it in confusion, while the main body was driven back in panic retreat to Gournay. Arundel and the small remainder of the van took up a strong position in the corner of a field, protected in the rear by a hedge, and in front by pointed stakes; but cannon were brought from the castle, and the second shot from a culverin shattered Arundel's ankle. On the return of La Hire from the pursuit the whole body was slain or captured (Monstrelet, liv. ii. ch. 172). Arundel was taken to Beauvais, where the injured limb was amputated. He was so disgusted at his defeat that he rejected the aid of medicine (Basin, i. 111), and on 12 June he died. His body was first deposited in the church of the Cordeliers of that town. A faithful Shropshire squire, Fulk Eyton, bought the remains from the French, and his executors sold them to his brother William, the next earl but one, who deposited them in the noble tomb in the collegiate chapel at Arundel, which Earl John had himself designed for his interment (Tierney in Sussex Arch. Collections, xii. 232-9). His remains show that he was over six feet in height. The French regarded the death of the 'English Achilles' with great satisfaction. 'He was a valiant knight,' says Berry king-at-arms, 'and if he had lived he would have wrought great mischief to France' (Godefroy, p. 389). 'He was,' says Polydore Vergil, 'a man of singular valour, constancy, and gravity.' But his exploits were those of a knight and partisan rather than those of a real general. He had just before his death been created Duke of Touraine, and in 1432 had been made a knight of the Garter.

Arundel had been twice married. His first wife was Constance, daughter of Lord Fanhope; his second Maud, daughter of Robert Lovell, and widow of Sir R. Stafford. By the latter he left a son, Humphrey (1429-1438), who succeeded him in the earldom. On Humphrey's early death, his uncle, William IV Fitzalan (1417-1487), the younger son of John V, became Earl of Arundel. He was succeeded by his son, Thomas II Fitzalan (1450-1524), whose successor was William V Fitzalan (1483-1544), the father of Henry Fitzalan [q. v.]

[Monstrelet's Chronique, ed. Douet d'Arcq (Soc. de l'Histoire de France); Waurin's Chroniques, 1422-31 (Rolls Series); Jean le Fèvre, Seigneur de Saint-Remy, Chroniques (Soc. de l'Histoire de France); Thomas Basin's Histoire de Charles VII, vol. i. (Soc. de l'Histoire de France); Godefroy's Histoire de Charles VII, par Jean Chartier, Jacques le Bonvier,&c. (Paris, 1661); Stevenson's Wars of English in France (Rolls Series); Blondel's De Reductione Normanniæ (Rolls Series); Hall's Chronicle, ed. 1809; Polydore Vergil's Hist. Angl. ed. 1570; Rolls of Parl., vol. iv.; Luce's Chron. de Mont Saint-Michel, vol. ii. (Soc. des Anciens Textes Français); Doyle's Official Baronage, i. 76; Tierney's Hist. of Arundel, pp. 106-27, 292-303, and 625, corrected in Sussex Arch. Coll. xii. 232-9; Lords' Rep. on Dignity of a Peer; Martin's Hist. de France, vol. vi.]

T. F. T.

FITZALAN, RICHARD I, Earl of Arundel (1267–1302), was the son of John III Fitzalan, lord of Arundel, by his wife Isabella, daughter of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, and was therefore the grandson of John II Fitzalan [q. v.] He was probably born on 3 Feb. 1267 (Eyton, vii. 258, but cf. Calendarium Genealogicum, i. 347, which makes him a little older). His father died when he was five years old, and his estates were scandalously wasted by his grandmother Matilda, and her second husband, Richard de Amundeville (Eyton, iv. 122). He was himself, however, under the wardship of his grandfather, Mortimer, though several custodians, among whom was his mother (1280), successively held his castle of Arundel. In 1287 he received his first writ of summons against the rebel Rhys ap Maredudd, and was enjoined to reside on his Shropshire estates until the revolt was put down (Parl. Writs, i. 599). He is there