- Falkes de Breauté
Sir Falkes de Breauté (died 1226) was a British soldier and royal favorite. He was of obscure Norman parentage, and has been described as the illegitimate child of a Norman knight and a concubine, possibly a knightly family from the village of
Bréauté . Most chroniclers, however, describe him as from common stock, and he was often referred to only by his first name, which was said to be derived from the scythe he had once used to murder someone,cite book|title=The Struggle for Mastery|last=Carpenter|first=David|pages=306|publisher=Oxford University Press US|year=2003|isbn=0195220005] as a sign of contempt.ervice under John
The first accurate records of his royal service are from 1206, when he was sent to
Poitou by King John on royal service. Upon his return in February 1207 he was entrusted with the wardenship ofGlamorgan andWenlock , and around that time also knighted. He was then made constable ofCarmarthen , Cardigan and theGower peninsula , and gained a fearsome reputation in the Welsh Marches, destroyingStrata Florida Abbey in 1212 for its opposition to the king. He served regularly in royal service, including in trips to Flanders and Poitou, and was in high favour with the king. It is often said that he was a foreign mercenary condemned byMagna Carta ; this is incorrect, and he was actually one of the royalists who swore to abide by the charter's terms.cite web|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3305|title=Oxford DNB article:Breauté, Falkes de|accessdate=2008-10-06]Breauté rose to power during the
First Barons' War as an unquestioning subject of King John, earning the hate of baronial and monastic leaders alike. He earned the title of John's steward in 1215, a title he kept until the following year. [cite book|title=The Household Knights of King John|first=S. D.|last=Church|pages=9|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0521553199] On 28 November 1215, de Breauté capturedHanslope ,Buckinghamshire , a castle of William Mauduit, and he soon after capturedBedford Castle belonging to William de Beauchamp, and in reward was allowed to keep it. In 1216 John divided his army betweenWilliam de Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury and four "alien" captains, one of whom was de Breauté. When Prince Louis invaded landed in the same year de Breauté was tasked with holdingOxford against the baronial forces. On 17 July he and the Earl of Chester sackedWorcester , which had allied itself with Louis. In reward John gave de Breauté the hand of Margaret, the widow of Baldwin de Revières, Earl of Devon, who had died in 1216, and daughter of Warin Fitzgerald, the royal chamberlain, and this marriage made de Breauté ‘the equal of an earl’ as he inherited the Earldom until the heir reached his majority. [cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=FLbdk_L9TYQC&pg=PA306&dq=Falkes+de+Breaut%C3%A9&as_brr=3&ei=TP7qSJ3SHoPWtgPhhNi3Bw&client=safari&sig=ACfU3U18VUTc2JdyWgEdtxsv96iErvZHwQ|title=The Struggle for Mastery: Britain, 1066-1284|last=Carpenter|first=David |date=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press US|pages=306|accessdate=2008-10-07] As Margeret's dowry he gained control of theIsle of Wight , and as part of her inheritance tookStogursey , also becoming chamberlain to the Exchequer. When John died on 19 October de Breauté served as the executor of his will, and was one of the royalists who reissued Magna Carta on 12 November 1216.ervice under Henry III
Under Henry III de Breauté continued to fight with the same loyalty he had shown John. Holding the High Sheriffdoms of
Cambridgeshire ,Oxfordshire ,Buckinghamshire ,Northamptonshire andBedfordshire he presented a major obstacle to Louis and the barons, although he lost Hertford and Cambridge in 1217. On 22 January of that year de breauté and his men committed their worst atrocity, attackingSt Albans because it had come to terms with Prince Louis, although it had done so under duress. After attacking the townspeople his men turned on the abbey, killing the abbot's cook and only leaving after blackmailing the abbot for 200 marks. His men also attackedWardon Abbey , and although he eventually compensated St Albans it was felt he only did so to please his wife.At the end of February he led a royalist force to relieve the port of Rye, although his attack failed. After this he captured the
Isle of Ely , before playing a critical role in the campaign leading up to the Battle of Lincoln. He joined the Earl of Chester to besiegeMountsorrel , and in response the rebels were forced to divide their forces, with Louis and half his forces remaining at the siege ofDover while the rest marched north to relieve Mountsorrel. After achieving this they marched to Lincoln to assist a rebel force besiegingLincoln Castle ; while the town had fallen to the rebels, the castle garrison had remained loyal to King Henry. By the time they got there the royalist force had already arrived under the command ofWilliam Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke , and he forced a battle in the streets of the town itself. Before the battle began de Breauté had led his force into the castle itself, and his crossbowmen fired down at the rebel force from the walls. Sallying out himself, with such force that he was captured before being rescued by his men, he fought on until the rebels fled, with even the Angevin leaders acknowledging his role in a critical victory against superior forces.In reward for his role in the victory the royal court celebrated
Christmas at his expense atNorthampton , but this proved the climax of his career. After the battle he was one of the many fighters who was alienated by Hubert de Burgh,Justiciar of England, over them keeping the castles they had captured for their own profit. Due to his role in the campaign and the victory at Lincoln itself he was unassailable for many years; he deflected judgements made against him in 1218 and 1219 and kept hold of his High Sheriffdoms, including that ofRutland . Between 1218 and 1219 he also served as aJustice of the Peace forEssex ,Hertfordshire andEast Anglia , and whenWilliam de Redvers, 5th Earl of Devon died he was given the castle ofPlympton .He had made many enemies due to his actions during the war; numbered among them were William Marshal, who pawned four manors to him during the war and had difficulty getting them back, and the Earl of Salisbury, who grew to dislike him after de Breauté supported
Nicola de la Haie for constable ofLincoln Castle against Salisbury's personal preference. Due to his status as a commoner his position was more tenuous than that of his enemies, as he had no lands to base himself on, and relied increasingly on the favour of noblemen such as the Earl of Chester andPeter des Roches ,Bishop of Winchester , who supported him due to their disenchantment with the rule of Hubert de Burgh. In 1222 he cooperated with de Burgh to supress a revolt by the citizens ofLondon , capturing three of the ringleaders and executing them without trial.Rebellion
de Burgh's growing ascendancy drew de Breauté and his allies even closer together, but tensions boiled over in November 1223, [cite book|title=The Reign of Henry III|last=Carpenter|first=David|year=1996|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=1852851376|pages=46] when de Burgh and the king were forced to flee to
Northampton while de Breauté, theCount of Aumale and the earls of Chester and Gloucester attempted to seize theTower of London . A new civil war was averted by the intervention of Simon Langton,Archbishop of York , but after a parley in london on 4 December failed tensions rose again. Threatened with excomunication the "schismatics" returned to the king's court, agreeing on 30 December to give their castles and shrievalties to the king. de Breauté immediately lostHertford Castle and the shrievalties of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, and lost the rest of his shrievalties by 18 January 1224.The failure of de Breauté and his allies gave the advantage to de Burgh, who in February 1224 ordered de Breauté to give up Plympton and Bedford castles, rejecting his claim that Plympton Castle was part of his wifes inheritance. He refused to give the castles up, and in response the royal court sent justices to his land with a fake charge of Breach of the Peace. They found him guilty of 16 counts of Wrongful Disseisin, and on 16 June William de Breauté, Falkes' brother, seized
Henry of Braybrooke , one of the justices sent by the king and a personal enemy of both de Breautés. This was foolish in the extreme, as the King and his court were barely 20 miles away discussing the defence ofPoitou , and on 20 June the king and his forces besieged Bedford Castle, with Simon Langton excommunicating both the brothers and the garrison as a whole. The siege lasted eight weeks, with over 200 killed by the missiles of the defenders, and after a fourth assault broke the walls William and 80 knights were captured, refused pardon and hanged.Exile
Having lost Bedford and his brother, Falkes submitted to Henry III on 19 August, pleading for forgivness in exchange for the loss of all his posessions. At this his wife left him and plead for divorce, claiming she had been forced into the marriage eight years before; she was unsuccessful, but did manage to recover some of her lands. On 25 August Falkes officially gave up his lands, and chose exile to France rather than judgement from the barons. Arriving in
Normandy he was imprisoned by Louis VIII inCompiègne as revenge for his defeat of the french forces during the war, but was released in 1225 either through the intervention of the pope or through his Crusader's Badge, assumed in 1221. After release he spent several months inRome , and published a fourteen-page defence of his actions, the "querimonia", which laid the blame at the feet of Langton and de Burgh, and begged the pope to support him as a man excomunicated without cause and as a crusader. Departing for England, de Breauté was captured inBurgundy by an english knight he had once imprisoned, but papal intervention yet again saw his release. After this he lived inTroyes , but was expelled from France in 1226 for forbididng to pay homage to the king, and again stayed in Rome, dying slightly before 18 July, allegedly from a poisoned fish.References
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