Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/225

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Mowbray
219
Mowbray

drawn by horses, and hung in iron chains at York (ib. p. 78; Chron. de Melsa, ii. 342; Annales Paulini, i. 302; Murimuth, p. 36; Walsingham, i. 165). It was long before the king and the Despensers would suffer Mowbray's body to be taken down from the gallows (Knighton, col. 2541).

Grainge, in his 'Vale of Mowbray' (p. 58), mentions a tradition still current in the vale in his time, that Mowbray was caught and hastily executed at Chophead Loaning, between Thirsk and Upsall, and his armour hung upon an oak, and that at midnight it may yet be heard creaking, when the east wind comes soughing up the road from the heights of Black Hambleton.'

The king took all Mowbray's lands into his own hands, his widow Alina and his son John were imprisoned in the Tower, and under pressure she divested herself of her rights in Bramber and the rest of her Sussex inheritance in favour of the elder Despenser, reserving a life interest only to her father, William de Brewes (Dugdale, Monast. Angl. vi. 320; Baronage, i. 126; Rot. Parl. ii. 418, 436). She afterwards alleged that Despenser got the manor of Witham in Kent from De Brewes, at a time when he was 'frantiqe and not in good memory,' merely on a promise to release his daughter and grandson (ib.) The younger Despenser also secured the reversion of Mowbray's Bedfordshire manors of Stotfold, Haime, and Wilton, held for life by De Brewse (Cal. of Ancient Deeds, A. 98). The historian of St. Albans tells us that Mowbray, with the other lords of his party, had supported the rebellious prior of the cell of Bynham against Abbot Hugh (1308-1326), to whom they wrote letters, ' refertas 11011 tantum precibus quantum minis implicitis,' because Despenser took the other side (Gesta Abbatum, ii. 141).

An inquisition post mortem of his estates was held on their restoration to his son John de Mowbray II [q. v.] in 1327 (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 127; Grainge, pp. 363-5).

[Rolls of Parliament, vol. iii.; Lords' Rep. on the Dignity of a Peer; Parliamentary Writs; Rymer's Fœdera, Record ed.; Cal. of Ancient Deeds; Cal. of Close Rolls, 1307–1313; Trokelowe, Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, Murimuth, Chronicon de Melsa, Walsingham's Historia Anglicana and Gesta Abbatum S. Albani, all in the Rolls Ser.; Chron. de Lanercost, Maitland Club ed.; Knighton in Twysden's Decem Scriptores; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 126, and Monasticon Anglicanum (ed. Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel), vi. 320, where the sixteenth-century account of the Mowbrays written at Newburgh Priory is printed; G. T. Clark's Cartæ de Glamorgan, i. 271, 283; Stubbs's Const. Hist. ii. 345, 350.]

J. T-t.

MOWBRAY, JOHN (II) de, ninth Baron (d. 1361), son of John (I) de Mowbray [q. v.], was released from the Tower, and his father's lands were restored to him, on the deposition of Edward II in January 1327 (Rot. Parl. ii. 421; Dugdale, Monast. Angl. vi. 320, Baronage, i. 127). Though still under age he was allowed livery of his lands, but his marrifige was granted, for services to Queen Isabella, to Henry, earl of Lancaster, who married him to his fifth daughter, Joan (ib.; Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1327-30, p. 26). His mother's great estates in Gower, Sussex, &c., came to him on her death in 1331 (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 127). Henceforth he styled himself 'Lord of the Isle of Axholme, and of the Honours of Gower and Bramber.' The De Brewes's inheritance involved him in a protracted litigation with his mother's cousin, Thomas de Brewes, which had begun as early as 1338, and was still proceeding in 1347 (Year-book, 15 Edw. Ill, p. 266; Rot. Parl. ii. 195, 222; Dugdale, Baronage, i. 420-1; Nicholas, Historic Peerage, p. 72). Mowbray had also had a dispute before his mother's death with her second husband, Sir Richard Peshall, touching certain manors in Bedfordshire, &c., which he and his mother had granted to him for life, and in 1329 forcibly entered them (Cal. of Pat. Rolls, 1327-30, pp. 267, 435).

Mowbray was regularly summoned to the parliaments and 'colloquia' from 1328 to 1361, and was a member of the king's council from the former year (Rep. on Dignity of a Peer, App. pp. 380-625). In 1327, 1333, 1335, and again in 1337, he served against the Scots (ib. pp. 374, 420, 442); but there is little evidence for Dugdale's statement that he frequently served in France. In 1337, when war with France was impending, he was ordered as lord of Gower to arm his tenants; next year he had to provide ships for the king's passage to the continent, and was sent down to his Sussex estates in the prospect of a French landing (Fœdera, ii. 986, 1015, Record ed.) According to Froissart (i. 179, ed. Luce), he was with the king in Flanders in October 1339; but this is impossible, for he was present at the parliament held in that month, and was ordered to repair towards his Yorkshire estates to defend the Scottish marches (Rot. Parl. ii. 103, 106, 110). Next year he was appointed justiciar of Lothian and governor of Berwick, towards whose garrison he was to provide 120 men, including ten knights (ib. ii. 115). In September 1341 he was commanded to furnish Balliol with men from Yorkshire (Fœdera, ii. 1175). On 20 Dec. 1342 he received orders to hold himself ready to go to