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John was one of the three hundred nobles who received knighthood when Edward Prince of Wales had that honour conferred upon him. In the thirtyfourth year of Edward the First, 1305, this John, although not of full age, had livery of his lands, and attended the King on his expedition into Scotland. Edward the Second, on succeeding his father, appointed John to the shrievalty of Yorkshire, and to the government of the city of York. He was afterwards made governor of Malton and Scarbrough castles. These distinguished honours, and certain marks of royal favour, did not, however, secure the loyalty of Mowbray. He joined Thomas Earl of Lancaster, and other great nobles, in an insurrection against the Spencers*, and shared the ill fortune of his confederates, being taken prisoner with the said Earl and many others, at Boroughbridge, and was afterwards hanged at York. All his landed property was confiscated to the Crown, of which Epworth in the Isle of Axholme was a part. Edward also imprisoned Aliva and her son John in the Tower.

The numerous acts of compassion exercised by Edward III, on his accession to the throne, shewed that he possessed in no ordinary degree that brave and generous disposition so well calculated to ensure a prosperous and happy reign. He liberated the wife and son of Mowbray; and, acknowledging

* Fabian in his Chronicles gives the following account :

"In this XII yere, the kynge held his great councell at York, where contrary to the mynde of his lords, syr Hugh Spencer the sone was made hyghe chaumberlayne of England; by reason whereof he bare hym so hawtely and so prowde, that no lorde of this land myghte gaynsaye hym anythynge that he thought good, whereof grew the occasion of the barons warre, as after followeth."

Walsingham says it was occasioned by this Hugh Spencer obtaining a license from the King to hold an estate in capite which the Earl of Hereford had purchased of William de Breos, the fatherin-law of Mowbray. Another historian says that Mowbray, on the death of his father-in-law, immediately took possession of the estates, without the formality of taking livery of the King. Spencer, longing for the barony, prevailed on the King to put the rigour of the feudal law in force, and seize it to the Crown, and to confer it on him.

+ Aliva married for her second husband Sir Richard Peshall, knt. and died fifth Edw. III. but before her death she obtained from the King a confirmation of Gowherland to herself and her son John, who in his Charter, styles himself "Dominus Insula de Haxeholme, et de Honoribus de Gowher et de Brember. See Dug. Mon. Ang. Vol. 1. 776. Cart. 2. Edw. III.

ledging the sense he entertained of the eminent services which the forefathers of John de Mowbray had rendered his royal progenitors, accepted his homage, and gave him livery of all the lands which his father had forfeited by rebellion to the Crown; and, upon the death of his mother, John gave three hundred pounds fine for all the lands which she had inherited. In the fourteenth of Edward III, 1340, John was made governor of Berwickupon-Tweed. He was in that memorable battle near Durham, against David King of Scotland, who was taken prisoner. John attended the King in his campaigns abroad; and, from his constancy and attachment to him during a long and active life, proved himself worthy of the royal favour which had been extended towards him. He fell a victim to the pestilence which prevailed at York, in the thirty-fifth of Edward III. His body was taken to Bedford, and buried in the Grey Friars of that city. He had one son,

John, born at Epworth, A. D. 1326, by Joan, his wife, who was the daughter of Henry, Earl of Lancaster. This John granted the famous deed, of which mention is made in other parts of this History, to his tenants and resiants in the Isle of Axholme, in which he gave them free use of all the waste lands adjoining to the several parishes for their common.

JOHN DE MOWBRAY, like his father before him, stood high in the favour of the King, whom he attended to the wars in France. In the memorable battle of Crescy, Mowbray is mentioned, with Mortimer and others, as attendants of Edward, who conducted in person the last line of the English forces; and when peace was concluded between the sovereigns of France and England, John de Mowbray was one of the English lords who made oath for the just observance of its articles *. In forty-second of Edward III, he went to the Holy Land; and was killed by the Turks near Constantinople, A. D. 1368 †. He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Lord Segrave, by whom he had two sons, John and Thomas, the former of which was born at Epworth, A. D. 1365.

JOHN DE MOWBRAY succeeded his father, and on the coronation of Richard

*Froissart, f. 146.

Dug. Mon, Ang. Vol. 2. 294.

Richard II, 1377, was created Earl of Nottingham*, with this special clause in the charter of his creation, that all the lands and tenements of which he was then possessed or should become possessed, should be held "sub honore comitatu, and as parcel of his earldom f." These, however, he enjoyed but a short time; for dying in the the sixth year of Richard II, 1382, at London, he was buried in the church of the Friars Carmelites, near Fleet Street§.

THOMAS DE MOWBRAY, on the death of his brother John, was created Earl of Nottingham †, and three years afterwards was constituted Earl Marshal of England for life, being, according to Sandford, the first Earl Marshal; for before his time they were only Marshals, though Dugdale calls Thomas of Brotherton, Earl Marshal. He joined the Duke of Gloucester, and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick in accusing the King's ministers of high treason, who, together with Burleigh, Beauchamp, Berners, and Salisbury, were sent into banishment or perished by the hand of the executioner. He afterwards not only lent his aid to accomplish the destruction of his father-inlaw, the Earl of Arundel, but was ** one of those who guarded him to his execution, and is affirmed to have been the person who bound up his eyes, and even cut off his head. He is also stated to have had a principal hand in the execrable murder of the King's uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. The precise manner of the death of this unfortunate nobleman has ever been wrapped in the veil of mystery, and is differently related by different authors. Mowbray was Governor of Calais when the Duke was imprisoned there.

Thomas de Mowbray was one of the ambassadors sent into France to demand the Princess Isabella, eldest daughter of Charles the Sixth, and

to

† Selden.

Stow's Survey, p. 438.

* Cart. 1. Rich. II. m. 30. Thomas was grandson of Thomas of Brotherton, through his daughter Margaret, who married Lord Segrave. His daughter Elizabeth married John as before stated. Thus Thomas had a claim to the honors of Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshal.

**The Archbishop of York, the Duke of Ireland, the Earl of Suffolk, Robert Tresillian, Nicholas Brembre. Knyghton's Col. 2693. Brady's Hist. Vol. 2. 368.

who settled all the articles of marriage between her and Richard. He obtained the King's licence for founding a monastery at Melwood, in the Isle of Axholme, which was "commended to the patronage of St. Mary, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Edward the King and Confessor *." He obtained also the royal charter of confirmation to the office of Earl Marshal of England to the heirs male of his body, with an union of the office of Marshal in the Courts of King's Bench and Exchequer, of Marshal's Crier before the Steward, and Marshal of the King's Household; and that he and his heirs male, by virtue of their office, as Earl Marshal should bear a golden truncheon, enamelled with black at each end, having the royal arms engraved at the upper end, and at the lower the arms of Mowbray.

In the year 1397+ Thomas Mowbray was created Duke of Norfolk; and to support the dignity of his Dukedom, the Manors of Worth and of Kingston-juxta-Lewes, with the reversion of several other Manors, and their advowsons, were conferred upon him.

But the period now arrived when the tide of Mowbray's prosperity turned: the Duke of Hereford presented a schedule§ to the King, which he said contained an account of certain slanderous words which the Duke of Norfolk had spoken to him of his Majesty. The King had several deliberations with parliamentary commissioners on the dispute between these noblemen; and it was at length resolved that the controversy should be determined by the laws

* Leland's Itin. Vol. 1. 39.

+ Thomas Mowbray had for his page Sir John Falstaff, according to Shakspeare, "Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk ;" but in a poem of Weever's, entitled, "the Mirror of Martyrs," it seems to have been Sir John Oldcastle. Oldcastle relating the events of his life, says,

"Within the spring time of my flowing youth,
"He (his father, stept into the winter of his age,)
"Made meanes, (Mercurius thus begins the truth,)
"That I was made Sir Thomas Mowbray's page."

The schedule was to this effect. "That in the month of December, in the 21st year of our reign, the Duke of Hereford, travelling between Brainford and London, met the Duke of Norfolk with

laws of chivalry, in a single combat between the contending parties, before the King, at Gosford Green, near Coventry. The following account of this transaction, from Hollinshed, may not be unacceptable to the reader.

"In the reign of Richard the Second, Henry, Duke of Hereford, and Thos. Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, accused each other of treason, and challenged each other to combat; and having obtained licence of the King, all things necessary were immediately prepared; and on the day appointed the Duke of Aumarle, High Constable of England, and the Duke of Surrey, Marshal, first entered the lists with a great company of men, every one of which bore a tipped staff, to keep the field in order. Then came the Duke of Hereford, the appellant, completely armed, in rich attire, and mounted on a stately white courser; the Constable and Marshal came to the barrier of the lists,

and

with a great train, and discoursed with him of divers matters, amongst which he told him they were all ready to be undone; and the Duke of Hereford demanded, why? He answered for the fact at Radcot Bridge. The Duke of Hereford said, how can that be? for the King hath shewed us favour, and declared us in parliament to be good and loyal towards him. The Duke of Norfolk answered, notwithstanding that it will be done to us, as it has been done to others before, for he will vacate this record. The Duke of Hereford replied this would be a great wonder, since the King had said it before all the people, that he would afterwards make it be annulled. And further the Duke of Norfolk said, this was a marvellous world, and unsafe, for I know well, said he, that if*

my Lord your father, and you had been taken, or killed, when you came to Windsor, after the parliament was up; that the Dukes of Albermarle and Exeter, the Earl of Worcester, and himself, were agreed never to undo any lord with just and reasonable cause: and the malice of this fact was in the Duke of Surrey, with the Earls of Wiltshire and Salisbury, drawing to them the Earl of Gloucester, who had sworn to undo six other lords, that is to say the Duke of Lancaster, Hereford, Albermarle, and Exeter, with the Marquis of Dorset and himself. He also said they proposed to reserve the judgment of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, and hereby we and many others should be disinherited. The Duke of Hereford said, God forbid, for it would be a great wonder if the King should assent to this, for it was with a cheerful countenance that he promised to be a good lord to them and others, and also he knew that he had sworn it by St. Edward; and the Duke of Norfolk answered, he had done the same to him many times, and sworn by the body of God, and that for all this he was never the more to be trusted; and further said to the Duke of Hereford, that the King was about to draw the Earl of March and others to the same agreement and purpose of the said four Lords, to destroy the rest aforesaid. The Duke of Hereford replied if it be so, we can never trust them. The Duke of Norfolk said for certain not: for although they cannot accomplish their design at present, yet they will be contriving ten years from this time to destroy us in our houses." This complaint in writing was read before the King. Paul's History, Vol. 1.

Illegible in the record.

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