- Hugh de Morville, Lord of Westmorland
Hugh de Morville (died c. 1202) was an
Anglo-Norman knight who served King Henry II ofEngland in the late 12th century. He is chiefly infamous as one of the assassins ofThomas Becket ,Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170. He held the title Lord ofWestmorland , which he inherited from his father,Hugh de Morville, Lord of Cunningham and Lauderdale .Westmorland
Hugh is thought to have been his father's eldest son. He appears in the service of King Henry from 1158.
University of Edinburgh historian Geoffrey W. S. Barrow identifies two charters given by the younger Hugh in his capacity as Lord of Westmorland, one being read aloud to his court at his castle ofAppleby on the upperRiver Eden . One of the witnesses was Harvard de Malnurs, Constable ofKnaresborough Castle . This rare surname may refer to a hamlet on the border ofBrittany and Maine now called La Malnoyere. Reginald de Beauchamp, who witnessed both charters, suggests a relative of Hugh's mother, Beatrice de Beauchamp. [Barrow, Geoffrey W. S. "Some Problems in 12th and 13th century Scottish History", p.100-101.]Another mentioned, Peter de Lacelas, appears to be a kinsman of Gerard de Lacelles and his son Alan, who were firmly established as tenants of the de Morvilles in Westmorland. Alan de Lascelles was captured with his lord at the siege of
Alnwick Castle in July 1174. Lascelles has a beauchamp rather than a Morville association, for Loucelles, when the name was derived, is one of a small group of parishes betweenBayeux andCaen from which the Beauchamps ofBedford drew their vassals of knightly rank. [Barrow, Geoffrey W. S. "Some Problems in 12th and 13th century Scottish History", p.101.]Becket's murder, excommunication and exile
Hugh de Morville and three other of King Henry II's knights,
Reginald Fitzurse ,William de Tracy , andRichard le Breton (or de Brito), plottedThomas Becket 's murder after interpreting the king's angry words (supposedly "who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?") as a command. They assassinated the archbishop inCanterbury Cathedral onDecember 29 ,1170 , and after Henry advised them to flee toScotland they subsequently took refuge in de Morville'sKnaresborough Castle .It is known that Hugh de Morville, Richard de Brito, and
William de Tracy built a church atAlkborough , nearScunthorpe in today'sSouth Humberside , where, until 1690, an inscribed stone on thechancel recorded the benefaction. [Sudeley, Lord, "Becket's Murderer William de Tracy", in "The Sudeleys - Lords of Toddington", London, 1987, pps:77-8, 82, 88, ISBN 0261-1368 ] Any such benefactions made by the assassins failed to impressPope Alexander III , however, and he excommunicated Tracy and the other murderers onMaundy Thursday ,March 25 ,1171 . Tracy paidscutage on his lands in 1171 and set out forRome after the end of September, but before Henry II's expedition toIreland in October. [Sudeley, p.85 ] The departure of Hugh de Morville and the other knights to Rome was delayed until two of them, FitzUrse and de Morville, had taken part in the rebellion against the king of 1173-4. The Archbishop's murderers finally gained their audience with the Pope, who, despite their penitance, declared they should be exiled and fight "in knightly arms in The Temple for 14 years" inJerusalem , and after the given time return to Rome. [ Sudeley, pp 87-8 ]A Hugh de Morville appears in the service of the Crusader-king Richard I in the 1190s. It seems probable that this individual is one and the same as the Lord of Westmorland. He stood hostage for Richard in 1194, when the king had been captured by
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor . The German poetUlrich von Zatzikhoven claimed he got the French language sourcebook for his romance "Lanzelet " from Hugh de Morville. [Schultz, James A. (1991). "Ulrich von Zatzikhoven". InNorris J. Lacy , "The New Arthurian Encyclopedia", pp. 481–482. New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.]Death and burial
Sir
William de Tracy 's journey east is confirmed by Romwald, Archbishop of Hovenden andSalerno , who says the Pope instructed the knights, once their duties were fulfilled, to visit the Holy Places barefoot and in hairshirts and then to live alone for the rest of their lives on the Black Mountain nearAntioch , spending all their time there in vigils, prayers, and lamentations. Romwald ofHovenden continues that after their death the bodies of the knights were buried atJerusalem before the door of The Temple. But this does not conform exactly to the tradition that the murderers were buried under theportico in front of the Aqsa mosque, which was the refrectory of theKnights Templars . [Sudeley p.90-91] Another tradition is that the bodies of the knights were returned to the island of Brean Down, off the coast ofWeston-super-Mare and buried there.The Lordship of Westmorland passed to Hugh's sister (some sources say niece), Maud, in 1174; she held the lands until Hugh's expiation. Hugh must have been confirmed dead before 1202 or 03, when his English lands were in the hands of co-heiresses.
Notes
References
*Barrow, Geoffrey W. S., "Some Problems in 12th and 13th century Scottish History - a Genealogical Approach", in "The Scottish Genealogist", Vol. XXV, no. 4, December 1978. ISSN|0300-337X.
*Lacy, Norris J. (1991). "The New Arthurian Encyclopedia". New York: Garland. ISBN 0-8240-4377-4.
*Ulrich von Zatzikhoven; Kirth, Thomas (translator), "Lanzelet",Columbia University Press , 2005. ISBN 3-11018-9364
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