Local History Notebook

Sir John de Eure
of Kirkley

Son of  Sir John de Eure and Agnes de Insula, born c13035 at Kirkley, Northumberland 1

Married Margaret de Grey sometime after 1325 2

Children 1

Robert born 1339/40?(died c1369)
Ralph, born c1350
??William

Died Saturday in the fourth week of Lent, 40 Edward III [21st of March 1365/6]

John de Eure was a ward of the Crown during his minority following his father's death in 1322. In March 1326 Sir Thomas Gray/Grey was granted his wardship and the right to marry him to one of Sir Thomas's daughters - Margaret. Developed Witton in County Durham as main seat of the family.

Notes

1    A number of on-line sources interpose an extra generation Sir John de Eure III (1341- 1393) as father of Ralph de Eure, born c1366 rather than 1346. However Ralph de Eure was appointed a Commissioner for the subsidy of 1371 - scarcely likely if he was born in 1366!

2     Sir John de Eure's wife Margaret is often identified as Margaret Lumley on the basis of bequests in her will of 1378. However note #3 clearly explains that she must be the daughter of Thomas de Grey or Gray

Other sources give Isabel Clifford as Ralph's mother. These appear to be based upon a pedigree published in 1880 - "His eldest son Robert left no family, and Sir John de Eure, the second son, succeeded. This sturdy knight married 35th Edward III. (1361), Isabella, daughter of Robert Lord Clifford."
The direct pedigree of the barons Eure of Witton - John Hubbersty Mathews 1880 - page 10

W. Percy Hedley in "Northumberland families, Volume 1" published in 1968 comments "no confirmation of this has been seen".

See also Sir John de Eure III

3    "The following post by Rosie Bevan indicates where the identity of Margaret came from:
From: Rosie Bevan (rbevan AT paradise.net.nz)
Subject: The Grey sisters of Heton
Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.medieval Date: 2002-04-29 00:49:29 PST
Dear List Members

The entry for William, Lord Heron of Ford, Northumberland d.1379 in Complete Peerage, VI p.486, note (i), states that his wife's name was Isabel, parentage unknown, "but it appears from De Banco R., 411 m.218, that she was aunt and coheir of William de Grey, dead by 1362. Margaret, wife of Sir John de Eure, was another aunt and coheir and other coheirs were Sir John Salvayn and Sir William de Felton. The claimant was Sir Thomas de Grey in respect of the manor of Hundburton, (a hamlet now called Humberton), near Stamford Bridge, Yorks."

The heirs of William de Grey were his four aunts, in themselves or their issue. From a petition made to the escheator in 1325, evidence appears that their father was Thomas de Grey. His request was for the wardship and marriage of the heir of John de Eure, as the king had promised to help Thomas marry off one of his daughters. [This petion was granted in March 1326 AJS ] At the same time he also made a petition for the lease of the manor of Duffield at a nominal rent until the majority of the heir, who had married his daughter. . . . [part of post omitted]

The identity of the Thomas de Grey in the petition, is Sir Thomas de Grey of Heton who died in 1343/4. Between 1343 and 1354 Thomas de Grey II of Heton, and his brother in law, John de Eure, were given joint custody of Darras Hall in Callerton Darras, as the heir was a minor aged 9 years old [C.M.Fraser ed., 'Ancient petitions relating to Northumberland'. Surtees Society Publication no. 176. 1966. p.]. In 1311 the escheator north of the Trent had confiscated the lands of John de Grey, son and heir of Juliane de Grey (widow of Sir Robert Grey), in Heton and Norham "par la reson des ordenances feist reprendre en sa meyn le manoir de Heton et un toft et treis acres de terre en Norham el Contee de Northumbr, qe furent a Juliane de Grey et qe par lenemyte et la rebellete Johan fiuz et heir la dite Juliane sicome eschete a la meyn le Roy devyndrent..."[C.M.Fraser ed., 'Ancient petitions relating to Northumberland'. Surtees Society Publication no. 176. 1966. p.23]. It may be significant that the wording implies that the Heton inheritance had come via Juliane de Grey as John was described as her son and heir, not her husband's. He is not even mentioned. The lands were restored in 1312 when Bishop Kellawe formally put Sir Thomas Grey and his wife Agnes in possession of the manor of Heton on 28 October 1312. [Reg. Pal.Dun I 77-78 II 1170-1]. Sir Thomas was most likely a younger son of Sir Robert Grey and Juliane. Like his antecedents, Thomas de Grey was Constable of Norham Castle, Northumberland, one of the two castles of the Palatinate of Durham, on the Scottish border, and he defended it from the Scots in 1318, 1319, 1322 and 1327.

(PRO C 148/128 Subject: Memorandum that Sir Thomas de Grey, Constable of Norham Castle, has undertaken to find men for defence of the castle besides those provided by the Bishop of Durham. (Cal. of Documents relating to Scotland, III, 772) County Northumberland 16 Edw II ) . . . "
Quoted in http://www.celtic-casimir.com/webtree/18/44952.htm

4    The Mowbrays of Easby were neighbors of the Lords Eure, whose principal manor in that area was in Stokesley, but they also held one of the two manors of Easby. Sir John de Eure of Stokesley, Ingleby, and Easby, was an associate of the Earl of Lancaster and of John I, Lord Mowbray, at the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322 and, like them, was subsequently executed. [CPR Edward II 1321-1324, pp. 75 and 128; and THE CHRONICLE OF LANERCOST, ed. and trans. by Sir Herbert Maxwell (1912), pp. 235-236.] He was succeeded by his son, also named John de Eure, the latter being for a time as early as 1346 the feudal lord of William de Plumpton and Christiana his wife with respect to the manor of Brenkley near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. [NCH v. 12: 522-523; and FEUDAL AIDS v. 4: 57-59.]

According to VCH YORKSHIRE NORTH RIDING 2: 306-307, the second manor of Easby was held for several centuries by the Mowbrays who inherited the lands of William de Tanton. There is no indication that the Eures ever owned both manors at Easby. Even so, William de Mowbray, the father of Sir John Mowbray (the judge), was required to do homage to John de Eure in 1301 "for all the property he held of John de Insula in Stokesley manor." ["Feet of Fines for the County of York from 1300 to 1314," edited by M. Roper, YORKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY RECORD SERIES 127 (1963): 3.] It is not clear what interest, if any, William de Mowbray had in the manor of Stokesley that required him to give homage. The 1326* inquisition post mortem of the elder John de Eure's estates in Yorkshire lists "the manor with its members, held jointly with Agnes his wife and the heirs of their bodies, of John de Claveryng by knight's service." [CIPM 6: 462.] There is no indication that John de Mowbray held any interest in this manor at that time. http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/sources/mowbray/christiana2.shtml

*Should this be 1362? - see notes on Margaret de Eure's will. NO - Agnes was the wife of the Sir John de Eure who (definitely) died in 1322.

5    John de Eure was '19 and more' in August 1322 at the Inquisition into Agnes' claim for possession of her Dower.
but Sir John de Eure of Stokesley, aged 22 in 1326-7 at father's Inq. P.
M.; Inq. P.M. 1367-8. (Clay 54; Visit 610)
John de Eure's wardship and marriage were granted to Sir Thomas Gray in 1326. Since he was not a minor (ie under 21) presumably this related to the forfeiture of his father's lands for treason

6    John de Bermeton had lands in Witton, Escomb, and Stanhope, of the grant of Bishop Hugh ; and also held the manor of Witton, and twenty-seven acres of land there, of John de Ever, by homage, fealty, and 12d. rent, as appears by an inquisition taken after his death, in the 5th year of Bishop Hatfield. [1349/50]  William Hutchinson Vol 3 1823 p368

Bodleian Charters
WOTTON, ESCOUMB, and STANHOPE. Anthony Becke, bishop of Durham, grants to Walter de Bermeton a toft and 127 acres of land of the waste in the fields of Wotton, Escoumb, and Stanhope, to hold the same for an annual rent of [625. 3c?]. (c. 1300.)
[With seal]

The vill of Hamsterly was part of the ancient possessions of
the Eures; in Bishop Bury's time, by an inquisition taken on
the death of William de Foxcotes, it appears he died seized of
four messuages and nineteen acres of land in Hamsterly, held
of the heirs of the Lord John de Hamildon, John deriving his
name from his then place of residence: and in the fifth year of
Bishop Hatfield, we find Alanus de Botery held there eight
messuages and thirty acres of John de Ever, by fealty and one
mark rent.

7    NORTHUMBERLAND. Inq. 6 June, 19 Edward III [1345] [re Robert Dareynes]
Calverdon Dareyns. The manor (extent given), including seven tenements called 'husbandlandes' in Calverton bt the Water, held of Sir John de Eure as of the manor of Kreklawe, by homage and fealty, by suit at his court of Kreklawe every three weeks, and by service of 14d. for cornage to the king at the feast of St Cuthbert in September, and 4s. 5d. for the ward of the castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and 16d. to the said Sir John, lord of Kreklawe, for making and repairing the enclosure of his park at Mitford.

References

 a    "The Register Booke of Ingleby iuxta Grenhow" (JOHN BLACKBURNE, Cross & Jackman, "The Canterbury Press," 6, High Street. 1889. )

b    http://www.our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p1141.htm

c    http://www.celtic-casimir.com/webtree/18/44951.htm

d    "Plantagenet ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families" Douglas Richardson, Kimball G. Everingham" Genealogical Publishing Com, 2004 - 945 pages

e    Mark Arvanigian, Landed Society and the Governance of the North in the Later Middle Ages: The Case of Sir Ralph Eure, in: Medieval Prosopography 22, 2001, p. 65-88

f    http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/2004-10/1097728656

g    Introduction (page xxxi) to Sir Thomas Gray Scalacronica (Surtees Society Vol 209 2005)

h    Inquisitions post mortem