Laurette de Braose

Family/Spouse: 4th Earl of Leicester Robert IV de Beaumont. Robert (son of 3rd Earl of Leicester Robert III de Beaumont and Petronella de Grandmesnil) was born about 1150 in Leicestershire, England; died in 1204 in Leicestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

At his peak Lord of Bramber, Gower, Abergavenny, Brecknock, Builth, Radnor, Kington, Limerick, and the three castles of Skenfrith, Grosmont, and Whitecastle.

William inherited Bramber, Builth, and Radnor from his father, Brecknock and Abergavenny through his mother. He was the strongest of the Marcher Lords involved in constant war with the Welsh and other lords. He was particularly hated by the Welsh for the massacre of three Welsh princes, their families and their men which took place during a feast at his castle of Abergavenny in 1175. He was sometimes known as the "Ogre of Abergavenny". One of the Normans' foremost warriors, he fought alongside King Richard at Chalus in 1199 (where Richard was killed).

William received Limerick in 1201 from King John. He was also given custody of Glamorgan, Monmouth, and Gwynllwg in return for large payments.

William captured Arthur, Count of Brittany at Mirebeau in 1202 and was in charge of his imprisonment for King John. He was rewarded in February 1203 with the grant of Gower. He may have had knowledge of the murder of Prince Arthur and been bribed to silence by John with the city of Limerick in July. His honors reached their peak when he was made Sheriff of Herefordshire by John in 1206-7. He had held this office under Richard from 1192-1199.

His fall began almost immediately. William was stripped of his office as bailiff of Glamorgan and other custodies in 1206-7. Later he was deprived of all his lands and, sought by John in Ireland, he returned to Wales and joined the Welsh Prince Llewelyn in rebellion. He fled to France in 1210 via Shoreham "in the habit of a beggar" and died in exile near Paris. Despite intending to be interred at St John's, Brecon, he was buried in the Abbey of St Victorie, Paris by Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, another of John's chief opponents who was also taking refuge there.

His wife and son were murdered by King John-starved to death at Windsor Castle.

See Castle of Grosmont

William de Braose inherited the large estates of his grandmother, Bertade Gloucester, and besides possessed the Honor of Braose, in Normandy. This feudal lord was a personage of great power and influence during the reigns of Henry II and Richard I, from the former of whom he obtained a grant of the "whole kingdom of Limerick, in Ireland," for the service of sixty knight's fees, to be held of the king and his younger son, John. For several years after this period, he appears to have enjoyed the favor of King John and his power and possessions were augmented by divers grants from the crown. In the 10th of the king's reign [1209], when the kingdom labored under an interdiction and John deemed it expedient to demand hostages from his barons to ensure their allegiance should the Pope proceed to the length of absolving them from obedience to the crown, his officers who came upon the mission to the Baron de Braose were met by Maud, his wife, and peremptorily informed that she would not entrust any of her children to the king, who had so basely murdered his own nephew, Prince Arthur. de Braose rebuked her for speaking thus, however, and said that if he had in anything offended the king, he was ready to make satisfaction according to the judgment of the court and the barons, his peers, upon an appointed day and at any fixed place without, however, giving hostages. This answer being communicated to the king, an order was immediately transmitted to seize upon the baron's person, but Braose having notice thereof fled with his family into Ireland.

This quarrel between de Braose and King John is, however, differently related by other authorities. The monk of Llanthony stated that King John disinherited and banished him for his cruelty to the Welsh in his war with Gwenwynwyn, and that his wife Maud and William, his son and heir, died prisoners in Corfe Castle. Another writer relates, "that this William de Braose, son of Philip de Braose, Lord of Buelt, held the lands of Brecknock and Went for the whole time of King Henry II, Richard I, and King John without any disturbance until he took to wife the Lady Maud de St. Walerie, who, in revenge of Henry de Hereford, cause divers Welshmen to be furthered in the castle of Bergavenny as they sat at meat; and that for this, and for some other pickt quarrel, King John banished him and all his out of England. Likewise, that in his exile, Maud his wife, with William, galled, Gam, his son, were taken and put into prison where she died the 10th year after her husband fought with Gwenwynwyn and slew three thousand Welch." From these various relations, says Dugdale, it is no easy matter to discover what his demerits were, but what usage he had at last, take here the credit of these two historians who lived near that time. "This year, viz. anno 1240," quoth Matthew of Westminster, "the noble lady Maud, wife of William de Braose, with William, their son and heir, were miserably famished at Windsor by the command of King John; and William, her husband, escaping from Scorham, put himself into the habit of a beggar and, privately getting beyond sea, died soon after at Paris, where he had burial in the abbey of St. Victor." And Matthew Paris, putting his death in anno 1212 (which differs a little in time), says, "That he fled from Ireland to France and, dying at Ebula, his body was carried to Paris and there honorably buried in the abbey of St. Victor." "But after these great troubles in his later days," continues Dugdale, "I shall now say something of his pious works. Being by inheritance from his mother, Lord of Bergavenny, he made great grants to the monks of that priory, conditionally, that the abbot and convent of St. Vincent, in Maine (to which this priory of Bergavenny was a cell) should daily pray for the soul of him, the said William, and the soul of Maud, his wife."

This great but unfortunate personage had issue by his wife, Maud de St. Walerie, I. William; II. Giles: III. Reginald; IV. Sir John; I. Joane; II. Loretta; III. Margaret; IV. Maud.

When the contest between King John and the barons broke out, Giles de Braose, bishop of Hereford, arraying himself under the baronial banner, was put in possession by the people of Bergavenny and the other castles of the deceased lord, and eventually King John, in the last year of his reign, his wrath then being assuaged, granted part of those lands to the bishop's younger brother and heir. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p.72, Braose, Baron Braose, of Gower]

Buried:
Abbey of St Victorie, Paris, Seine, France

William married Maud de St. Valery in 1169. Maud was born about 1155 in Bramber, Sussex, England; died in 1210 in Corfe, Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

From "The de BRAOSE Web":

Maud (Matilda) de Braose was also known as the Lady of la Haie and to the Welsh as Moll Walbee. Married to William de Braose, the "Ogre of Abergavenny", she was a significant warrior in her own right. Her long defense of Pain's Castle when it was besieged by the Welsh earned it the name "Matilda's Castle". The local people saw her as a supernatural character. She was said to have built Hay Castle (picture, right) single handed in one night, carrying the stones in her apron. When one fell out and lodged in her slipper she picked it out and flung it to land in St Meilig's churchyard, three miles away across the River Wye at Llowes. The nine foot high standing stone (left) can still be seen inside the church. The final fall of her husband may owe a lot to her hasty reply to King John when he requested her son William as a hostage in 1208. She refused on the grounds that John had murdered his nephew Arthur whom he should have protected. The dispute between John and the de Braoses led to Maud dying of starvation in the King's castle at Windsor along with her son, while her husband, stripped of all his lands, died the following year in exile in France.

Notes:

William was very fortunate in his marriage to Berta. All of her brothers died young without heirs, so she brought a number of important lordships to the de Braoses in 1166. These included Brecon and Abergavenny. William became Sheriff of Hereford in 1174. His interest in Sussex was maintained as he confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather for the maintenance of Sele Priory and extended St Mary's, Shoreham. See St Mary's, Shoreham, Sussex. William m. Berta, dau. of Milo de Gloucester, Earl of Hereford, and co-heir of her brother, William, Earl of Hereford, by whom he acquired Brecknock, with other extensive territorial possessions. He had two sons, William and Reginald, and was s. by the elder. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 72, Braose, Baron Braose, of Gower]

William married Heiress of Brecon Bertha FitzMiles de Gloucester about 1150 in England. Bertha (daughter of Earl of Hereford Miles Fitzwalter and Sybil de Neufmarche) was born about 1130 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Philip confirmed his father's gifts to the abbey of St Florent in 1096. He was the first Braose Lord of Builth and Radnor, their initial holding in the Welsh Marches. Philip returned from the 1st Crusade in 1103. He built the Norman Church of St Nicolas at Old Shoreham and founded the port of New Shoreham. His lands were confiscated by Henry I in 1110, due to his traitorous support of William, son of Robert Curthose, but they were returned in 1112. Philip de Braose went on 2nd Crusade and died in Palestine.

Philip confirmed the gifts of his nephew, Philip de Harcourt, to the newly established Knights Templar. Philip de Harcourt, Bishop of Bayeux, bestowed the manor and church of Shipley on the Templars between 1125 and 1130 and in 1154 added St Mary's, Sompting.

See St Nicolas, Old Shoreham

Philip married Aenor de Toteneis in 1099 in Bramber, Sussex, England. Aenor was born in 1084 in Barnstable, Devonshire, England; died in 1153 in St. Mary Magdalen, Barnstaple, Devonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Eva De Totenais
• Birth: 1084, Barnstaple, Devon, England
• Death: 1153, Barnstaple, Devon, England

Miles married Sybil de Neufmarche in Apr 1121. Sybil (daughter of Lord of Brecon Bernard de Neufmarche) was born before 1093 in Aberhonwy, Breconshire, Wales; died after 1143 in Gloucestershire, England; was buried in Llanthony Priory, Gloustershire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]