Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/210

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into a family in whose favour the Earl of Norfolk's title was soon revived. Margaret, John's widow, soon afterwards married Sir Walter de Manny [q. v.] This John was the last of the Segraves summoned to parliament.

The extent of the Segrave territories and influence became much widened during John's lifetime. His father's estates were almost confined to two or three of the central midland counties, but John also acquired territory in Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and other distant shires. In 1300 he obtained charters of free warren for his demesne lands at North Newenton, Oxfordshire, and Lodene, Norfolk, and later for those at Alkmundbury (Alconbury), Huntingdonshire. In 1301 he had license to crenellate his house at Bretby, Derbyshire (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1292–1301, p. 580), and in 1306 to fortify his manor-house at Caludon, Warwickshire, with a moat and embattelled wall, besides licenses for a weekly market and fairs in 1316 at Fenny-Stanton, Hampshire, and in 1319 at Alspath, Warwickshire.

[Rymer's Fœdera, vols. i. and ii.; Parl. Writs; Historical Documents relating to Scotland; Calendarium Genealogicum; Calendars of Close and Patent Rolls of Edward I and Edward II; Nicolas's Siege of Carlaverock, p. 12, with a short biography, pp. 126–9; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 674–5; Gough's Scotland in 1298; Rishanger's Chron., Peter Langtoft's Chron., Monk of Malmesbury, and Annales Londinenses in Stubbs's Chron. of Edward I and Edward II, all in Rolls Ser.; Walter Hemingburgh (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Chron. de Lanercost and Wallace Papers (Maitland Club); Geoffrey le Baker's Chron. ed. E. M. Thompson.]

T. F. T.


SEGRAVE, NICHOLAS de, first Baron Segrave (1238?–1295), born about 1238, was the son of Gilbert de Segrave (d. 1254) [q. v.], the judge, and of his wife Amabilia or Annabel, daughter and heiress of Robert de Chaucumb. His grandfather was the justiciar Stephen de Segrave (d. 1241) [q. v.] His father died in prison at Pons in Saintonge, and the custody of the captive's lands, though his wife survived, had been granted in 1254 to Edward, the king's son (Dunstable Annals, p. 194). Nicholas was then either sixteen or seventeen years old (Calendarium Genealogicum, p. 65). He came of age about the time when the troubles between Henry III and his barons culminated in the Oxford parliament of 1258. A great Leicestershire landholder, he naturally attached himself to Simon de Montfort, and he is specially mentioned among the ‘juniores pueri Angliæ’ who were like wax in the hands of the rebel leaders (Wykes, pp. 133–4). He was at the parliament in 1262, when the king told the barons that he had obtained absolution from his oath to observe the provisions of Oxford (Hemingburgh, i. 308). He was summoned to attend the king on 1 Aug. 1263 at Worcester, and there to receive knighthood before engaging in the campaign against the Welsh. But he was by that time in active revolt against the king (Dunstable Annals, p. 222). He took part in the spoiling of Peter of Aigueblanche [q. v.], the Savoyard bishop of Hereford (Wykes, p. 134). He shared in the excommunication brought against his party by Archbishop Boniface. On 13 Dec. 1263 he was among the barons who agreed in referring their disputes to the arbitration of St. Louis (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 407). When, after the repudiation of St. Louis' award, fresh war broke out between the barons and the king, Segrave took a leading part in defending Northampton against Henry. He was one of the few who managed to escape from the great destruction that followed when Henry captured that town. He fled thence to London, whence he took part in the siege of Rochester. At the Londoners' request he was made the captain of those citizens who joined Montfort's army in Sussex, and, fighting with them on the left flank of Simon's army at the battle of Lewes in 1264, shared their disgraceful rout at the hands of Edward (Hemingburgh, i. 315; Rishanger, Chron. p. 27). On the ensuing triumph of his party, Segrave was one of those summoned to Montfort's famous parliament in January 1265. On 4 Aug. 1265 he fought at Evesham, where he was wounded and taken prisoner (Flores Hist. iii. 6; London Annals, p. 69; Waverley Annals, p. 365). On 26 Oct. 1265 the king granted all his lands to Edmund, the future Earl of Lancaster (Fœdera, i. 465). This associated Segrave with the most desperate of the ‘disinherited,’ and he was one of the band of fugitives who still held out in 1267 in the isle of Ely, and was excommunicated by the papal legate. His depredations included the plunder of some merchants of Toulouse (Royal Letters, ii. 323). When Gilbert of Clare, earl of Gloucester [q. v.], revolted against the king and occupied London, Segrave, with other refugees, escaped from the Isle of Ely, and on 11 April was admitted into Southwark, whereupon the legate in the Tower put the Southwark churches under interdict and renewed his excommunication of Segrave and his companions (London Annals, p. 77). It is not clear whether Nicholas returned to Ely, or reconciled himself to the king at the same time as Gloucester. Anyhow, he was re-