[BITList] Generations of Umfraville

[John Feltham]

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Umfraville,  Gilbert  de, seventh earl of Angus  (1244?-1307), baron, was the son and heir of Sir Gilbert de Umfraville [see under Umfraville,  de, family  (per. c.1100-1245)] and Matilda (Maud), heir to the Scottish earldom of Angus. This Matilda had previously been married to John Comyn, who took the title of earl of Angus during his lifetime. The title then passed to her second husband, who died in April 1245. The Umfravilles had come originally from Normandy and acquired a considerable estate in England, most notably the barony of Prudhoe with its castle and the liberty of Redesdale and Coquetdale, all in Northumberland. For 10,000 marks the wardship of the young Gilbert was granted to Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, under whose influence his charge joined the barons in their revolt against Henry III. However, Earl Simon's death at the battle of Evesham in 1265, by when Gilbert had joined the royalists, presumably released the young man from his obligation to pay Montfort 1200 marks for entry to his inheritance on reaching his majority.

In 1295 Gilbert was summoned to the English parliament as Lord Umfraville, although his Scottish title of earl of Angus was sometimes also used as a courtesy in English royal writs. He served with Edward I in Wales in 1277 and also in Gascony in 1294. Although Earl Gilbert was clearly in possession of his Scottish earldom, including custody of the royal castles of Dundee and Forfar, he does not seem to have played much part in Scottish affairs, although he could lay claim to be one of the seven ancient Celtic earls who allegedly had the right to elect a king of Scots. This claim naturally took on a greater importance after the untimely death of Alexander III in 1286. Earl Gilbert was given custody of Dundee and Forfar castles and in 1290 attended the parliament held at Birgham to ratify the marriage contract between Margaret, the Maid of Norway, and Edward, Prince of Wales. After the death of the Maid, he, along with other keepers of royal castles, professed himself unsure of King Edward's right to take them into his hands until a new king was chosen, but he was soon persuaded and did homage to the English king as lord superior of Scotland. Earl Gilbert, like so many of his peers, was quite at ease with the idea of holding important lands and offices in more than one kingdom, though it was not long before such an outlook become untenable.

With the outbreak of war between England and Scotland in 1296, Umfraville remained loyal to King Edward. He went north with the English army in the same year, having again paid homage to the English king as earl of Angus, along with Patrick, earl of March and Dunbar, and Robert (VI) de Brus and his son, Robert Bruce, later king of Scots. An unsavoury incident occurred at this time between Angus's eldest son and heir, Gilbert, and Sir Hugh Lowther, a royal servant. It is not known why the young Gilbert attacked Lowther, but he was certainly made to give due satisfaction for the incident.

Earl Gilbert went north again in 1298 and, along with Earl Patrick of Dunbar, played a crucial role in that year's campaign. The English had advanced far into Lothian, where they could find no provisions, since the Scots had burnt the crops and driven off all cattle in the area; supplies sent north by ship were not sufficient to stem the rising tide of starvation and, to cap it all, there was no sign of the Scottish army. In the nick of time, these two 'Scottish' earls arrived with news of the whereabouts of Wallace and his men, and Edward's army marched forward to victory at Falkirk. Earl Gilbert continued to play his part in Anglo-Scottish affairs, attending a meeting at York in July 1299 to consider the state of English garrisons in Scotland; but since he was now in his late fifties, the turn of the century saw him entering semi-retirement. He was summoned to the Carlisle parliament of early 1307 but died in the same year. His wife was Elizabeth, third daughter of Alexander Comyn, earl of Buchan, and Elizabeth de Quincy. Gilbert and Elizabeth were buried in a magnificent tomb in Hexham Priory, where their effigies can still be seen.

The couple had three sons, the eldest of whom, Gilbert, died in 1303 without children from his marriage to Margaret, daughter of Thomas de Clare. The youngest, Thomas, was appointed Edward I's constable of the royal castle of Dundee in 1304 once English control was again established north of the Forth. He and a number of his men from the Dundee garrison gave chase to William Wallace 'beneath' Ironside, a hill behind Dundee, in September 1304; this was the Scottish leader's last recorded skirmish before his final capture in August 1305, and perhaps forms a flimsy basis for the claim made by a fifteenth-century chronicler, John Hardyng, that Gilbert de Umfraville, earl of Angus, took Wallace prisoner, defeated Bruce in battle, and was regent of Scotland north of the Forth. Alas, Earl Gilbert's career was far more ordinary.

Robert Umfraville, eighth earl of Angus  (c.1277-1325)  was the second son of Gilbert de Umfraville and Elizabeth Comyn. Having survived his elder brother, Robert succeeded to his father's estates in both England and Scotland when aged about thirty. He proved a loyal and energetic supporter of Edward II, and was given positions of considerable responsibility, including that of a royal lieutenant in Scotland in 1308 and keeper of the march in 1310. He regularly served on commissions for negotiating truces between 1307 and 1313, while he also seems to have maintained his family's control of the royal castle of Dundee, before its capture by King Robert in 1312.

As might be expected, Angus fought for Edward II at the battle of Bannockburn. Having survived the battle itself, Earl Robert fled from the carnage as a member of the earl of Hereford's cavalry troop, seeking refuge in the English-held castle of Bothwell, on the Clyde. The constable, a Scot, decided that now was the time to declare his allegiance to King Robert and promptly handed over his very important prisoners. Angus seems to have been released just over a year later, when he was admitted to Edward II's household as a banneret. He returned to duty on the borders where he was empowered to receive 'rebels' to the king's peace. In 1319 he took part in the unsuccessful English siege of Berwick and seems to have remained active in the king's service: though his loyalty was stretched by the activities of the Despensers, as earl of Angus he none the less sat in judgment on Thomas of Lancaster in March 1322, even though he had formerly been a retainer of the earl's. King Robert I appears to have deprived Angus of his Scottish lands after Bannockburn, but the earldom itself was not granted out until the end of his reign, when it was given to Sir John Stewart of Bonkil. By 1389 it had passed to an illegitimate branch of the Douglas family. Robert Umfraville died in March 1325, and was buried, not with his parents in the family chapel at Hexham, but in the Cistercian abbey of Newminster. He had married twice: his first wife was Lucy, daughter of William of Kyme, from whom the Umfravilles acquired a large amount of land in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, including Kyme Castle; his second wife, Eleanor, may have been a kinswoman of the Clares, earls of Gloucester. Robert and Lucy produced two children, their son and heir, Gilbert, and a daughter, Elizabeth; Robert and Eleanor had two sons, Robert and Thomas.

Gilbert Umfraville, ninth earl of Angus  (1309/10-1381) , was the son and heir of Robert Umfraville and Lucy Kyme and was fifteen years old when his father died in 1325. Although he was accorded the title of earl of Angus when summoned to the English parliament, his Scottish inheritance remained forfeited until the campaigns of Edward Balliol provided an opportunity to try to win it back. He was therefore present at all the major battles of the period: Dupplin (1332), Halidon Hill (1333), and Nevilles Cross (1346). After this last battle, he received the submission of the pro-Bruce garrison in Roxburgh Castle. Umfraville also attested forged letters purporting to have been granted in 1333 by the boy-king, David II, asserting that Scotland was held of the English kings; in this document he was not only described as earl of Angus and lord of Prudhoe, but also as marshal of Scotland.

In his Scottish activities Angus was closely associated with Sir Henry Percy (d. 1352), who was the chief English commissioner in the north. In 1346 Percy wrote to the chancellor, John Offord, complaining that Angus's name had been omitted from the latest commission for the keeping of the eastern border; it is not clear whether this was a mistake, or whether Angus had earned Edward III's displeasure in some way.

Having finally lost his Scottish inheritance with the cessation of Edward III's interest in Scotland in the 1350s, and David II's return to his throne, Umfraville concentrated on his interests in Northumberland and those parts of southern Scotland still in English hands. He married twice. His first marriage, to Joan, daughter of Sir Robert Willoughby of Eresby, produced three sons, but none of them outlived their parents. His second marriage, to Matilda Lucy, heir to her brother Anthony Lucy, brought the Umfravilles the honour of Cockermouth and estates in Cumberland. There were no children of the marriage. In 1375 Henry, Lord Percy (1341-1408) [see Percy,  Henry, first earl of Northumberland] persuaded Umfraville to make over to him, probably by sale, a considerable portion of his inheritance, including the castle and barony of Prudhoe. When Gilbert died, on 6 January 1381, part of the Umfraville estate went to his niece Eleanor Tailboys, who married Sir Gilbert Burowden. But Matilda retained Cockermouth and the Northumberland barony of Langley, and when, later in 1381, she married Percy, who was now earl of Northumberland, these, too, passed to the Percys. However, in 1375 the liberty of Redesdale had been settled by an entail on the two sons of Gilbert's father's second marriage. The elder, Robert, died before Gilbert, but Thomas was still alive, and now inherited Redesdale.

Sir Thomas Umfraville  (d. 1387)  was the youngest son of Robert Umfraville, eighth earl of Angus, and his second wife, Eleanor. Although he inherited Redesdale from his half-brother Gilbert in 1381, these lands were insufficient to maintain him in the style to which the main branch of the family were accustomed, and he was never summoned to parliament. However, he seems to have acquired the barony of Kyme, the inheritance of his father's first wife, even though this was never mentioned in the entail of 1375, and through this he inherited Redesdale. He married Joan, daughter of Adam Roddam. Their two sons, Thomas and Robert Umfraville, enjoyed a higher profile than their father, the former sitting in parliament as the member for Northumberland, and the latter becoming a knight of the Garter. The older Thomas died on 21 May 1387, only five years after his entry to Redesdale.

Fiona Watson 

Sources  CDS, vols. 1-5 + J. Stevenson, ed., Documents illustrative of the history of Scotland, 2 vols. (1870) + F. Palgrave, ed., Documents and records illustrating the history of Scotland, 1 (1887) + G. W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and the community of the realm of Scotland, 3rd edn (1988) + J. Hodgson, A history of Northumberland, 1/2 (1827); repr. (1973) + W. P. Hedley, Northumberland families, 1, Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, Record Series (1968) + GEC, Peerage, new edn, vol. 1 + RotP + Chancery records + Rymer, Foedera, new edn + The chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, ed. H. Rothwell, CS, 3rd ser., 89 (1957) + Paris, Chron. + J. R. Maddicott, Simon de Montfort (1994) + C. Given-Wilson, The English nobility in the late middle ages: the fourteenth-century political community (1987)
Likenesses  tomb effigy, Hexham Priory [see illus.]



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