The first Yorkshire Beaumont - 2 of 2

In the first of these two articles I considered William de Beaumont's early career with Roger Constable of Chester (from 1194, it is reasonable to call him Roger de Lacy) and concluded that it appears that William was in Normandy in the king's service but was apparently back in England by May 1205.

In the years between 1205-1211 William appears several times as a mid-ranking witness to Roger's charters - I don't intend to itemise them. Most and perhaps all of these concerned the lands of the Pontefract honour in West Yorkshire. (1)

Pontefract castle had been released to Roger when King John came to the throne in 1199 (Roger's son and heir John then being taken as "hostage.") Thus  thereafter I suppose that Clitheroe and Roger's other castles at Halton and Castle Donnington became less important.

A picture of Pontefract Castle said to be by Alexander Keirincx,
thus early c17 (Wikipedia)

One obvious thing to mention is the grant of lands at Huddersfield to William, by Roger. The original charter seems not to have been at Whitley Hall and its history is a puzzle (2) . In the RHB 1796 Pedigree in this Archive the charter is mentioned but not its whereabouts. I am inclined towards confidence in R.H.Beaumont's work, and he gives the names of three extra witnesses not noted elsewhere that I have seen.

From Box 1/157 (the part of the RHB 1796 pedigree
dealing with the first William and summarising the grant
of the lands at Huddersfield)

Another grantee of land at Huddersfield from Roger was Colin de Damville (also called Quatremars), and he too was a frequent witness to his lord's charters. Colin also had a grant of land at Huddersfield from Roger. After Roger's death Colin gave his interest in a mill at Huddersfield to Stanlaw abbey for his late lord's soul, William de Bellomonte witnessing that charter (3).

Roger died in 1211, aged I think less than fifty. His son John was now the lord of Pontefract etc etc. John is usually known as eg John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, that is, until 1232 or 1233 when he was made Earl of Lincoln.

Early in his career John de Lacy had a tricky relationship with King John. I think it fairly safe to say that when his father died John was only about nineteen; the main castles were taken back by the King, that security and pledges were given for them in 1213, and that thereafter things were bumpy.

But John de Lacy and at least one other local baron went to the King at a bridge near Retford on 31 December 1215 and submitted to him. The king then came to Pontefract a couple of days later.

John de Lacy on these occasions will have been surrounded by his own people!

I think the location is Merrial or Eel Pie Bridge on the Old London or Great North Road between Tuxford and Retford. Caroline suggested plausibly that "Eel Pie" looks a bit like "Isle de Paix" or Peace Island.

Eel Pie Bridge on the "Old London Road" at West Drayton, Notts
(Google)

In 1218 William de Beaumont became involved in a case about land at Quarmby near Huddersfield. He told the court that the present lord's father (meaning Roger) had granted the land to him. William produced Roger's charter (no doubt the one referred to above!) as his evidence but he lost his case because it was found that the disputed land was not in Huddersfield and thus wasn't included in Roger's grant to him (4). An alternative version of this story is that the grant was to this William's father but I think that was a mis-translation - a question of who was meant by "his father."

Accordingly the William of the 1218 case is the one to whom the Huddersfield land was originally granted.

But whether he was still alive in the 1230s when land at Whitley was granted by John de Lacy (now Earl of Lincoln) to him or to his successor and namesake, I cannot say. RHB thought that this was a successor (5).

The charters connected with the grant of Whitley appear corrupt and have been much discussed and muddled by local historians and others. This grant is mentioned in the RHB 1796 pedigree in this archive but not in a way that helps to unravel muddle. I may well return to this in another article but I really ought to go to Wakefield and look at the documents first (6).

Very briefly, some people called Dransfield (the name of an old farm near Whitley) sell land to the Earl (John de Lacy) who then grants the land to a man named John Muncebote, with a statement in the deed that he may assign it to William de Beaumont if he has no heirs. Some historians have decided that "Montbegon" should be substituted for "Muncebote," a theory which I can't go into details about here, but I am not at all sure that it is necessary to do this, for "Muncebote" or "Mucenbot" is a name that I have found mentioned occasionally in records from that period. (7) No more can be said except this is is another puzzle!

View from Whitley towards Almondbury. Photo by EMB, 1972.
Part of Box 14-021 in this Archive

We do not know if William married, or to whom. It is however very clear that the namesake who married a Norfolk lady in about 1185 - and his son - are a different family with entirely different feudal connexions. I wrote about these Norfolk and Suffolk Beaumonts on this blog in June 2015.

...............

(1) Many of the charters are in Early Yorkshire Charters, volume 3, and/or in the Cartularies of the local religious houses.

(2) It is said now to be at the West Yorkshire Archives (DD/RA/F/19/26) having come from the Ramsden family, of Byram and Longley. It is catalogued intriguingly as "The Original Document of Grant by Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester, to William Beaumont of land in Huddersfield" and must have been seen by R.H. Beaumont who it is said, wrote an "elaborate" account which is referred to in notes by a Mr G.W.Tomlinson (Yorks. Arch. Journal vol. 8 p. 502). I don't know if the document was seen by Roger Dodsworth when he noted the Longley and Whitley deeds in 1629.

(3) In this case the charter was seen by Dodsworth, at the Ramsden house, Longley. Yorks. Arch. Journal vol. vii p.273. Whalley Coucher Book vol. 3 pp. 935-936. The names Damville and Quatremars appear with enormous variations.

(4) Selden Society volume 56, for 1937 (Rolls of the Justices in Eyre for Yorkshire in 3 Henry III 1218-1219), ed. Doris M Stenton, no.282.

(5) 1796 Pedigree.

(6) West Yorkshire Archives (Whitley Beaumont documents) ref: DD/WBD/IX/1 is the charter which was perhaps optionally in favour of William. WBD/IX/2 and WBD/IX/3 are charters which closely precede it, whilst WBD/IX/91 is a [c18] copy of WBD/IX/1.

(7) John “Mucenbot” is mentioned as being acquitted in a case of alleged wounding and robbery in Yorkshire in 1218-19. Selden Society 1937 (as above), no.692.

EMB
June 2020

The first Yorkshire Beaumont - 1 of 2

This article follows three in which I have argued against the supposed involvement of William de Beaumont and Roger Constable of Chester in the Third Crusade. In this article I look at the first part of William's actual career in Roger's service.

A second article will track the second part of his career, from about 1205 onwards.

The great antiquarian of the Whitley family, R.H. Beaumont, did not know the origins of this man otherwise he would have no doubt said something at the beginning of the large family tree that he sent to his Nottinghamshire cousin in 1796.

Very nearly always I have found that anything actually written by RHB is right. Much that has been written afterwards by others is wrong.

Heading to the 1796 Pedigree (this archive, Box 1/157)

Many of the known facts come from copies of charters. These are usually undated, but one tries to ascertain the dates by looking at the subject matter, and the groupings and identity of witnesses. Most of the references to William are attestations by him of Roger's charters.

An early one is a charter by Roger to a man named William son of Fulk, described as Roger's marshall, relating to land near Clitheroe. The most senior witness to this charter is known to have been at Winchester in April 1194 when the inheritance of Pontefract and Clitheroe was confirmed to Roger. (1) (2) This makes it tempting to suggest that as the date, but that is uncertain.

Another early reference to William also relates to Clitheroe. William was a member of Roger's court there. Perhaps we should think in terms of member of a tribunal panel, chaired by Roger himself. This is dated, within the seventh year of Richard I's reign, thus 1195-1196. (3)

Clitheroe Castle (from explorebowland.co.uk)

This early reference to William specifically concerns Cliviger - the place where T.D. Whitaker's ancestors lived (at Holme) since the middle ages.

So where did William come from? I don't think anyone in the last 100-odd years has seriously tried to find out. The name is found frequently so one needs some context rather than make wild guesses. As I found no evidence of earlier Beaumonts in the Pontefract honour, I read up about the careers and affairs of Roger's father and indeed earlier ancestors (Constables of Chester), and I found several mentions of people called Beaumont.

Specifically this leads me to suggest that perhaps William was related to the Thomas de Beaumont who consented to the sale by his uncle (whose heir Thomas would have been), to Roger's father John Constable of Chester, of land at Staining in Lancashire, which John then gave to Stanlaw abbey. The charter in question was witnessed by (amongst others) Robert of Croxton, the name of the man whom John would put in charge of Nottingham castle (see earlier article). (4)

A near contemporary (perhaps the same) Thomas de Beaumont held at Pirton in Oxfordshire which belonged or had belonged to the early Constables of Chester (5), and it is noteworthy that the priest of Pirton was a witness to the Staining charter just mentioned.

And a mid c12 Philip de Bellomonte witnessed a charter of Roger's grandfather Richard son of Eustace which related to people called Croxton, who were tenants of the Constables of Chester somewhere in or near Nottinghamshire. (6)

The name of the uncle in the Staining charter was William "the monk," a figure who appears in affairs of the Cotentin peninsular in Normandy in the mid c12 where charter evidence confirms that his heir was his nephew Thomas de Bellomonte, and indeed that Thomas also had a brother named Philip, and other brothers in fact (7)

I feel that the likelihood of there being two sets of people with these names and the same relationship is quite low!

I have a lot of notes on these people. My suggestion is that our William was closely related to these Beaumonts, perhaps a younger son in that family.

Moving on......

Between the late 1190s and about 1205 references to William seem to dry up. Roger Constable of Chester was out of the country for four years, in Normandy, in the service of King John, and no charter evidence datable within that range seems to be available. It is well known that Richard "the Lionheart" left things in such a mess that his brother was unable in the end to hold on to Normandy.

Roger conducted the defence of one of the most important castles in this struggle, that of Chateau Gaillard, at Les Andelys on the Seine between Rouen and Paris. Roger was forced to surrender it in March 1204 when there were apparently 36 knights there who were taken prisoner by the French. (8)

Chateau Gaillard (from normandie-tourisme.fr)

A year or so later, when king John was at Northampton, for whatever reason, he ordered that a William de Beaumont should have a debt holiday due to being overseas in the kings service. This order is stated to be "by the Constable of Chester" (and Roger was present) which means that we can be very sure that our William de Beaumont is the one meant.

The full quote in my translation is "to respite William de Bellomonte from the payment of 10 marks (£6. 6s.8d) [see below] which he owes to the Jews in York, and to free him from the interest of the debt as long as he was beyond the sea with horses and arms in the king's service. Given at Northampton 23 May 1205. As witness me, myself. By the Constable of Chester." (9)

from Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinensi Asservati
[Close Rolls kept in the Tower of London]
1833 edition ed T.D.Hardy vol. 1 p.33b

This was known to R.H.Beaumont who noted it in the 1796 Pedigree.

Thus, William has been in Normandy in the king's service. It must mean a year or more ago as Normandy had effectively been lost when Chateau Gaillard surrendered, so it leads to the intriguing possibility that William had been serving under Roger.

The rest of William's career will be considered separately. In closing this however I note that many years later William would witness a charter of Roger's son concerning the earlier gift of the land at Staining (10). This may point to his being related to the earlier Thomas de Beaumont.

.......................

(1) The fine was levied on 21st April 1194 before the king, archbishop and bishops, the Earl of Chester and other barons (Early Yorkshire Charters vol.3 no. 1522 p.208 and elsewhere).

(2) The Earl of Chester witnessed Roger's charter to his marshall, to which William de Beaumont was a mid-ranking witness (T.D.Whitaker's Hist. of Whalley, Fourth Edition vol.ii, p.100 and elsewhere).

(3) Early Yorkshire Charters vol 3 no.1524 p.211 and elsewhere incl Kirkstall Coucher Book no.274 where there is said to be a copy at Dodsworth viii 43. The RHB 1796 Pedigree notes this Clitheroe final concord as "Dodsw. MSS vol.58 fo.149." and as the earliest mention of William de Bellomonte. See Falconer Madan's Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, volume 2 no. 5000 pp. 897-898 MS Dodsw.58, where folio 149 is extracts from the Kirkstall Coucher Book. I mention this in detail as an illustration of the accuracy of R.H. Beaumont's work.

(4) Whalley Coucher Book vol. 2 p.420 no. IV, and no. III is John's charter, a copyist having erroneously called him Lacy. The foundation of Stanlaw (by the Mersey) was moved to Whalley at a later date.

(5) Farrer, Honors & Knights Fees vol. 2 pp. 251-252, shows that Pirton belonged to the Constables of Chester and mentions a Philip de Beaumont of the 1220s, whose predecessor had been called Thomas. Proceedings in the early 1230s recited that the c12 Thomas de Beaumont had given some land at Pirton in marriage with a daughter (Bracton's Note Book vol. 2 no.566 p.439) (Curia Regis Rolls 6 p.139).

(6) Rufford Charters (Ed. Holdsworth) Vol 2 428 (page 234) - Thoroton Society Record Series vol. XXX (1974).

(7) A lot of the context here is to do with Neville-sur-mer and Montebourg abbey. It would take a whole chapter to review these people and their early associations with the early Constables of Chester. See Keats-Rohan Domesday Descendants pp. 283, 317; BN lat. 17137, 356/fol.246; also a Montebourg charter, BN lat. 10087, 422/139. There is a place called Beaumont near St. Pierre-Eglise.
The catalogue is hard to access but I think Archives de la Manche H-9504 refers to the priory at Neville-sur-mer. References to charters appear to show that the nephews Thomas and Philip were succeded by Philip, whose father was Thomas. A very similar naming pattern appears re Pirton. There were two mid c12 men called William "the monk." This one was a donor to Montebourg Abbey.

(8) A solid account of the siege and surrender (6 March 1204) of Chateau Gaillard, with many details and sources, was given by Kate Norgate in "England under the Angevin Kings," (1887) vol. 2 pp. 411-423. Another useful book is Sir Maurice Powicke's "The Loss of Normandy."

(9)  Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum i 33b .. I think the word "fuit" - meaning "was" or "used to be" - tells us that William has now returned, and the debt holiday is merely to be for the period he was away.... Perhaps in captivity.  I think that the phrase "horses and arms" is somewhat a stock phrase referring to military service. Note the letter that looks like a 9; this means "Con."...... Roger himself is the sheriff of York at this time, and is seen bending the royal ear on other matters as well.  He obtained a similar order two days later for a man called Robert de Leveland, which was put on the roll next (RLC i 33b also).

(10) Whalley Coucher Book vol. 2 p. 419-420 no. I. The charters are printed in the wrong order. It was common practice for an abbey to ask (say) a donor's son, in this case grandson, to reconfirm earlier gifts. Also, attestation of a charter by any individual can be taken in this way - that having seen the deed executed, he ought to have said at the time if he did object. Therefore someone who might have objected would be asked to come and attest the deed.

EMB
June 2020

Added 21 Aug.2020. I think I have goofed. As a mark was two thirds of a pound, ten marks would be £6-13-4 wouldn't it? £10 being 2400d. Two thirds of that being 1600d. 133.333 shillings.

Another red herring (3 of 3) - Roger Constable of Chester in England during the Third Crusade

This is the third of three articles. Please take them in order.

I am sure all my readers will remember that Richard (the so-called Lionheart) became Duke of Normandy and King of England in July 1189, left England before that Christmas, and spent a few months in Normandy before travelling on via Marseille, Sicily, and Cyprus, reaching Acre in about June 1191.

After the King leaves England it is not long before a faction headed by his brother, the future king John, known at this time as "Count John," begins to assert itself. This is when we find mention of Roger Constable of Chester (de Lacy, if you prefer), not in the Holy Land at all, but in England!

As so often with old stories, this one exists in several versions, and it would take many pages to compare and analyse the different versions. What seems most likely is that Roger's father, John Constable of Chester, who attends the coronation at Westminster, agrees to have responsibility for keeping Nottingham and Tickhill castles for the king, and places Robert of Croxton at Nottingham and Eudes de Deiville at Tickhill on his behalf.

Giving him Tickhill and Nottingham makes sense in that the Constable of Chester has lands in the East Midlands and indeed South Yorkshire from which he can draw men and resources (1). His castle at Halton (near Runcorn, on the Mersey) is further away but he could also draw in support from Cheshire and indeed Lancashire if necessary.

One side of Roger's seal (from Ormerod, Cheshire,
Standard Edition, vol. 1 p.696

John however then decides to join the Crusade. He leaves England in March 1190 and he is killed or dies before the end of that year (2). News comes back to England, and his son Roger (a young man in his mid-twenties) finds himself with all this responsibility.

Some treachery is involved. The "Gesta Regis Henrici" (3) tells the explicit story that Robert of Croxton (at Nottingham) and Eudes de Deiville (Tickhill), betray those castles to count John, that both men then disappear, and that Roger apprehends two of their associates - Alan of Leek (who had been at Nottingham) and Peter de Bovencourt (Tickhill), and has these two hanged, and later also hangs an unnamed squire who was found driving away the birds that were feasting on their still-swinging corpses.

Someone gave Roger the nick-name "Hell" (this is supposed to refer to his treatment of the Welsh, but I do wonder). Richard Holmes, editing the Pontefract Chartulary over 100 years ago, described him as "of an able, capable, and dauntless character." Count John (who was to be King from 1199) was unhappy at the time, but later came to recognise and respect Roger's abilities.

This Nottingham / Tickhill story refers to the year 1191. I think it more credible than the alternative story that Roger was in the Holy Land, which is based on a copying error. I think some of the confusion is due to his later change of name, to Lacy, for I have even seen that name ascribed to his father, which must be quite wrong.

The two castles are now in the hands of Count John's supporters, and although at a meeting at Winchester in late March it is agreed that they should be restored to the king's side, or at least security given, I don't think that actually happens. I think the castles remain in rebel hands for two or three years.

Not long after this comes the news of the death (childless) of Roger's distant relative Robert de Lacy, lord of Pontefract and Clitheroe (4). Through his grandmother, Roger has the best claim to being Lacy's heir.

King Richard arrives back in England in early 1194. Tickhill surrenders just on news of the royal return. Nottingham holds out till the King appears in person in late March. It is tempting to suggest that Roger Constable of Chester is there in person when the rebels were marched out. But I don't have evidence.

Nottingham Castle (Photo by EMB, April 2020)

Roger's track record of loyalty counts a lot in his favour. He gets the honours of Pontefract and Clitheroe (5). Roger will go on to serve King John prominently, in both Normandy and England.

It is very clear that a William de Bellomonte / Beaumont works for Roger - starting in the mid 1190s it would seem - and that he is later granted lands by him and so on. I plan to write more about that, quite soon.

The object of these three articles has been to argue that in the absence of evidence, the Third Crusade story is a red herring! I always say that one new fact can change everything, but here we are dealing with stories rather than facts, so it is a matter of where the story came from and when, and whether it fits with other credible stories.

I have considered the intriguing possibility that perhaps William de Beaumont went to the East in the service of John Constable of Chester, Roger's father. Chronologically that seems possible but there is no evidence!
.................

(1) See eg Farrer, Honors & Knights Fees, vol. 2 for details of parts of the "barony" of the Constables of Chester, which extended into several counties. But that only details lands they held of the Earls of Chester.

(2)  It has been suggested that, following a visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury to Chester, John decided to lead a group of Cheshire men to go with king Richard, and that he left England in March 1190 (Kathryn Hurlock, Cheshire & the Crusades (2011) in Trans. Hist. Soc. Lanc. & Cheshire). Sources conflict, but John Constable of Chester is generally said to have died at Tyre before the end of 1190. This is before the Lionheart reached the Holy Land. News of John's death would not have reached England till some weeks later. I have not much knowledge of the crusade but was there anything going on at Tyre in 1190? I wonder if that was a slip of a quill pen long ago. However, at that very time, I believe the siege of Acre was taking place. Remember that Roger was said to have been at Acre. Perhaps his father was actually there, in 1190. Interestingly the eminent Cheshire historian Geoffrey Barraclough in a footnote to his (posthumous) 1988 edition of charters of the Earls of Chester, said that John died at Acre (p.210, note to charter no.208). So does a well-written Wikipedia article on John.

(3) A useful secondary source for much of what is covered in this article is John T. Appleby, "England without Richard" (1965), which at pp. 68-69 tells the story of Nottingham and Tickhill. The source for this is Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi (ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series) vol. ii pp. 232-233 not 234-5 as cited by Appleby.

(4) Robert de Lacy [the lord of Pontefract, and Clitheroe] died on 21 August 1193 and was buried at Kirkstall Abbey near Leeds, according to that abbey's doubtfully reliable history of his family (Mon. Angl. 5 533b). There may be some traditions of Robert de Lacy having been to the Holy Land and dying there, but I now think that doubtful or due to mix-ups.

(5) April 1194, agreed when the King was at Winchester. The castle at Pontefract is kept back from him, which seems to mean that Clitheroe becomes for a time a more important castle.

..................

EMB
June 2020

Another red herring (2 of 3) (a 17th century copying error)

This is Part 2. Part 1 should be read first.

Did Roger Constable of Chester / Roger de Lacy (call him what you will) go on the Third Crusade?

A statement that he did was made by William Dugdale in his printed "Baronage" in the 1670s. I believe this is the earliest such statement in print. Dugdale said:-

This Roger was (Joreval. 1248. l. 3) at the siege of Acon (in the Holy Land,) with King Richard the First, An. 1192. (4 Rich. 1.) and (Joreval. 1248. l. 3) likewise in that sharp fight against the Saracens, who endeavored to relieve it; as also at the siege (Mat. Paris, p. 30?) and taking of Damieta.

There are other, later, books on Roger that do not repeat this (1).

I suspect that Thomas Dunham Whitaker, writing as he did in the late 1790s (2), may well have had a copy of an early edition of Dugdale's Baronage and taken this information from it, omitting the statement that Roger was also at the siege of Damietta because he [Whitaker] knew that at least that part of it must be wrong (3).

So what of the rest of it? "Acon" or "Achon" means Acre, a long siege of which was ended by the Crusaders in July 1191.

The source given by Dugdale is "Joreval 1248 line 3." By that he meant a chronicle which had been printed in 1652, in a book of which I should suppose Dugdale himself must have had a copy. The printed book is Twysden, "Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores Decem" [ten chroniclers], where in line 3 of Column 1248 is indeed mention of "Roger de Lacy" as one of the knights involved in a particular engagement - corresponding, I feel sure, to the "sharp fight" mentioned by Dugdale.

This chronicle, printed in 1652, had come from an abbot of Jervaulx, hence "Joreval," and it appears, but don't quote me as to the details, to be in this particular respect a version or copy of something at one time said to be by Geoffrey de Vinsauf, nowadays thought to have been written in the early thirteenth century by "Richard of Holy Trinity."

It is a story of a surprise attack by the "Turks," memorable in one way because the Normans were caught with their trousers down (in a sense).  The king himself therefore, and many others with him, on the urgency of the moment, proceeded without their cuishes to the fight, some even without their breeches, and they armed themselves in the best manner they could ..... This from a modern and anonymous translation (Cambridge, Ontario, 2001).

The same story is available in various other editions, and the key point is that most of those give the name as Roger "de Sacy." Thus, on its own, the source which I think was used by Dugdale and fed the information to Thomas Dunham Whitaker, is not remotely authoritative.

In the table below, the left hand column shows names mentioned in Hollinshed's 1577 chronicle in context of the Third Crusade fairly generally, whilst the other five columns give the names of the knights involved in accounts of the specific "sharp fight" incident (4).

And yet this appears to be the only story naming our Roger in the Crusade. It appears to be based on a copying error. Furthermore a Roger "de Sacy" certainly was a crusade companion of king Richard (5).

So I am not convinced. Please read Part 3 where there is a story that Roger Constable of Chester was actually in England at the time.

..................

(1) For example Ormerod, Cheshire, vol 1 page 510 in the 1819 edition does not mention this where it would if it was going to! William Beamont (no relation, I think) in his 1873 History of Halton and Norton, at p.20, states that Roger was present, with Richard Coeur de Lion, at that historic event, the storming of Acre, but cites no reference, and a modern book quoting that agrees with me that there is no supporting evidence (Kathryn Hurlock and Paul Oldfield, editors: Crusading and Pilgrimage in the Norman World (Boydell Press, 2015), p.135 in an article by Andrew Abram).

(2) See part 1.

(3) That siege of Damietta was some years after Roger's death in fact. Nevertheless the Damietta bit found its way into at least one other book (Foss' Judges of England; but this doesn't cite the authority). Incidentally, Roger's son John de Lacy gave a charter at Damietta in 1218 (Pontefract Chartulary no. XXI).

(4) The "Joreval" version is especially corrupt. "Count Henry" and "the earl of Leicester" are two different people, whilst Henry "the Teuton" is the standard-bearer of the King. "R" or "Regis" has been extended as Reginald, making one person into two. The Hollinshed information is extracted from the text made available by the "Hollinshed Project." "Poole" is a sensible translation from "Etang!" The other texts are from publications found by Google or from my old notes of printed texts. I think the incident took place at Jaffa rather than Acre.

(5) There are a number of other primary or near-primary source mentions of Roger de Sacy in the specific context of the Third Crusade. His name occurs with spelling variations such as Sassy, Satya, Sacie etc.. Anyone interested could refer to the Itinerary of Richard I by Lionel Landon (Pipe Roll Society, 1935) and to a detailed article (in French) by Francoise Vielliard called "Richard Coeur de Lion et son Entourage Normand" (2002), which can be read on persee.fr.


EMB June 2020

Another red herring - the third crusade (1 of 3)

I am tackling another red herring - the story that William de Beaumont went on the Third Crusade with Roger Constable of Chester (alias Roger de Lacy).

I will take this in three parts:-
1. Whether this man, the first of the Yorkshire Beaumonts, went on the Crusade;
2. Where the story of Roger going on the Crusade seems to have come from;
3. What Roger seems actually to have been doing during the time of the Third Crusade.

The story of the Yorkshire Beaumonts starts with a William, who was an associate of this Roger. This article is not about his background or about his connexions with Roger. It is simply about whether this William de Beaumont went on the Crusade, most specifically whether he went with Roger.

The full story appears in Thomas Dunham Whitaker's History of Whalley, and was copied from there by various local history authors (1), and now numerous online resources.

The story is that at the time of coming into his inheritance [i.e. the Pontefract honour] (in 1193-1194) Roger....

... was now lately returned from the Holy Land, whither he had accompanied Richard I 

in the third crusade, having assisted at the memorable siege of Acre, where so many of 

his countrymen and equals perished.......

and then a paragraph further down:

“In this crusade he was accompanied by William de Bellomonte, ancestor of the Beaumonts of Whitley Beaumont, in Yorkshire, who received from his patron the grant of ten oxgangs of land in Huddersfield, and who, from the frequency with which he attests the charters of Roger, appears to have been almost his inseparable companion for the remainder of their lives. It was the practice of those days for dependents to adopt, with some distinction, the armorial bearings of their patrons; it has always been usual to add to them some charge in memory of signal achievements, and thus a lion rampant in the shield of the Beaumonts attests their ancient connexion with the house of Lacy, and an orl of crescents alludes (not obscurely) to some triumph over the standard of Mohammed” (2).

I suspect that this story also appears in the earlier editions of Whitaker's book, though I haven't seen them. It would have been written shortly before 1800. (3)

Title page

Whitaker lived at Holme, between Burnley and Todmorden. He was very interested in and knowledgeable about the enormous parish of Whalley, indeed Holme was part of it and had been his family's home for hundreds of years. Perhaps he was a little in thrall to R.H. Beaumont of Whitley, both as an antiquarian and because RHB was the owner of Little Mitton, which is also covered in the book. RHB's journeys between his two estates would have followed the valley of the Calder, passing Whitaker's house at Holme.

T.D. Whitaker (from his History of Whalley)

Whitaker was the younger by about ten years. The 1818 edition of course was produced after RHB's death (4) and specifically Whitaker does NOT say that he obtained the crusade story from him. Nor I believe is any mention of it to be found amongst RHB's papers (5).

If Whitaker's account is not the earliest time this story comes, will someone please tell me.

Could William de Beaumont have gone anyway? This is a tough one, and I don't think we will ever know. Without any evidence it seems silly to believe that he did. Another theory (it is no more) will be mentioned in the third of these articles. My firm impression is that where we do know the names of crusaders, these tend to be great lords, not minor knights. And was he even a knight?

The name Beaumont occurs often in the regions from which crusaders came, so at any given time there are bound to be several Williams. If one of these were found to have gone on the Third Crusade, it would be a question of looking at the context, such as names and backgrounds of his companions, before concluding who that was. Even then, it would be circumstantial evidence, which would be somewhere between very convincing and very slight!

However to conclude this part, I don't think Whitaker's story is of any value as evidence, and I have no other reason to suppose that this William de Beaumont went on the Third Crusade.

In Parts 2 and 3 I will consider evidence as to whether Roger Constable of Chester went.
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(1) For example Pratt, History of Cawthorne, p.23. Also the 1827 account of Kirkstall Abbey.

(2) Quoted from the 1818 edition of Whitaker’s History of Whalley, p.178. The same text is at p.242 of Vol. 1 in the Fourth edition, 1872. No source or authority is given.

Added this 7 Nov. 2020: Another version, this from George Fox's (c.1827) History of Pontefract, p.92:-  Roger succeeded to the estates, and took the name of Lacy. He continued to fight against the Mahometans, accompanied by his confidential friend, William de Bellamonte..... Roger was present at the memorable siege of Acre...... [and so on, with no authority given, of course].

(3) In the 1818 edition Whitaker states that 19 years have elapsed since the publication of the first edition, and that he has rectified various mistakes. But:-
A. The William/Roger crusade story comes in a section dealing with the Lordship of the Honour of Clitheroe (which went with Pontefract), and it seems so odd to have mentioned any Beaumont there.
B. The number of oxgangs (or bovates) later granted to William was twelve, according to other sources which appear to cite from the charter itself. An unimportant error in itself, which I mention only to show that it is not the most careful passage of writing.
C. I fear historical conclusions based on heraldry tend to be very unreliable. In the 1872 edition of the History of Whalley, vol. 1 p.243, is a note from John Gough Nichols dismissing any connexion between crescents and crusades, and I agree so much, but not with the rest of it. Nichols says there that the lion of the Beaumonts is against a blue (azure) background with a lion surrounded by fleurs de lys, but that is the arms of an unrelated and rather grander family. The arms &c of the Yorkshire Beaumonts had a red background and the lion is surrounded by said crescents, here seen with the famous bulls head - all of which is of much later date than the Third Crusade.

From the Beaumont of Whitley etc Family Tree which was printed c.1873
This does not mention the Third Crusade. It starts by stating that the name is derived
from a place in France on the river Sarte (Sarthe), which in the case of this family is most likely wrong!

(4) Published in his History of Craven (1812), is Whitaker's obituary of RHB, who was "..... an excellent judge of forgeries....."

(5) RHB contributed information to Whitaker, clearly.  The book includes plates of several of RHB's family which he must have contributed and which seem to me not relevant to Whalley or Mitton at all! Much information about the friendship between the two is contained in the Introduction to the 1872 edition. The Whitley archive contains (DD/WBC/239) a letter from a genealogist or herald perhaps of the c17 which mentions the crescents but makes no connexion to the crusade. I have seen two or three other theories as to the origin of these "demi-lunes" - all much as likely or as unlikely.

EMB June 2020

Added 16 December 2020. 

I have just come across the 2018 Thesis (Canterbury Christchurch University) by Andrew David Connell on the Constables of Chester, in which is stated on page 168 that William de Beaumont had served with Roger Constable of Chester on crusade under Richard I. The source cited for this (or for an early grant to William) is Bodleian Library MS Dodsworth 155 fo. 151r.  I shall check again but the thesis seems to make no other mention of Roger in the crusade. I am sceptical and am trying to check the source. It seems to be part of what is referred to in the Falconer Madan Catalogue Volume 2 part 2 at page 959 (deeds of Richard Beaumont Esq of Mirfield). Unless there is evidence that Roger Constable of Chester went on the third crusade I am unlikely to believe that William did!