Earl of Lincoln John de Lacy

Earl of Lincoln John de Lacy

Male Abt 1192 - 1240  (~ 48 years)

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  • Name John de Lacy 
    Title Earl of Lincoln 
    Born Abt 1192  Lincolnshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died 22 Jul 1240  Stanlaw, Chester, England Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Association Hugh Bigod (Relationship: Magna Carta Surety Barons) 
    Person ID I4623  avefamily
    Last Modified 21 Nov 2018 

    Children 
    +1. Maud Lacy,   b. Abt 1225,   d. Bef 10 Mar 1289  (Age ~ 64 years)
    Last Modified 21 Nov 2018 
    Family ID F1466  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 2 Margery Quincy,   b. Abt 1206,   d. Bef 30 Mar 1266, Hampstead Marshall, Middlesex, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 60 years) 
    Last Modified 21 Nov 2018 
    Family ID F1467  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Photos
    Magna Carta Surety Barons
    Magna Carta Surety Barons
    Crusaders
    Crusaders

  • Notes 
    • John de Lacy was one of the twenty-five medieval barons who were surety for Magna Carta in 1215.
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      "John de Lacy, the constable of Chester, was a member of one of the oldest, wealthiest and most important baronial families of twelfth- and thirteenth-century England, with territorial interests distributed widely across the counties of the north Midlands and north.

      "John (c. 1192-1240) was the eldest son and heir of Roger de Lacy, constable of Chester (d. 1211) and his wife, Maud de Clere. He was a minor at the time of his father’s death and did not enter into possession of his lands until September 1213. Like a number of the rebels, he was a young man at the time that he became involved in the revolt. Although a natural royalism is suggested by his decision to join John on his expedition to Poitou in 1214, he nurtured a sense of grievance against the king owing to the terms on which he was granted possession of his father’s estates. The de Lacy inheritance was a highly valuable one, comprising more than a hundred knights' fees, together with the baronies of Pontefract (Yorks.), and Clitheroe, Penwortham, Widnes and Halton (Lancs.). John, when he permitted the young heir to enter, therefore exacted his price. He insisted that the latter offer a massive fine of 7000 marks repayable over three years, in the meantime handing over to a royal keeper his chief castles of Pontefract (Yorks.) and Castle Donington (Leics.), to be garrisoned by the king at Lacy’s expense on pain of confiscation should the latter rebel.

      "As late as the end of May 1215 Lacy was still assumed to be on the king’s side. However, with the fall of London he threw in his lot with the rebels and was present at Runnymede and named to the Twenty Five. Thereafter he veered opportunistically between the rebel and royalist camps. On New Year’s Day 1216 he submitted to the king, agreeing to terms which shed remarkable light on the latter’s own attitude to the Charter imposed on him at Runnymede. Lacy was obliged not only to submit to the king personally but also to renounce the cause for which he had been fighting. In the words of the submission 'If I have sworn an oath to the king’s enemies, then I will not hold to it, nor will I adhere in any way to the charter of liberties which the lord king has granted in common to the barons of England and which the lord pope has annulled'. Through the imposition of such terms, John was hoping to kill off the charter at birth. Although ostensibly entering into the terms of his own free will, Lacy was probably agreeing to a formula devised by the king’s clerks. Precisely the same wording is found in the charter of submission of Gilbert FitzReinfrey, who likewise made his peace in January 1216.

      "In May 1216 Lacy was still at the king’s side, but by the time of the latter’s death at Newark in October he was in rebellion again. He was probably active on the rebels’ behalf for much of 1217, but appears not to have been present at the baronial defeat at Lincoln. He submitted and was readmitted to fealty in August, a time when a good many rebels submitted to the new king. In the following month he was ordered to oversee the restoration of Carlisle Castle by the king of Scots. By now, however, his thoughts were now turning to the crusade, and in May 1218 he embarked for Damietta in Egypt with his overlord, Ranulph, earl of Chester. He did not return to England until August 1220. In 1225 he was witness to the definitive reissue of Magna Carta and in the following year he served as a king’s justice in Lincolnshire and Lancashire. Following Ranulph’s death in 1232 he was allowed to inherit one of the earl’s titles, that of the earldom of Lincoln, as the son-in-law of the earl’s sister, Hawise.

      "Lacy died on 22 July 1240 and was buried near his father in the choir of the Cistercian abbey of Stanlaw (Lancs.), his bones being moved to Whalley, when the monks transferred there in the 1290s. He left a widow, Margaret, daughter of Roger de Quincy (d. 1217), eldest son of Saer de Quincy, earl of Winchester (d. 1219), another of the Twenty Five. Margaret died in 1266 and was buried in the Hospitallers’ church at Clerkenwell, London."

      ~ Biography courtesy of Professor Nigel Saul and the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Committee

      Sir John de Lacy burial at Whalley Abbey
      Whalley Abbey is also known as the Parish Church of St. Mary and All Saints, in Whalley, Clitheroe, Lancashire. The Abbey was partly destroyed in 1537 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Presently some fine ruins and other buildings. The intact parish church of St. Mary & All Saints, Whalley, antedates the founding of the Abbey. A premier visitor attraction.

      Alton Rogers received an e-mail dated February 29, 2008 from Sharon at Whalley Abbey Reception (central.office@whalleyabbey.org) noting that the Lacy family were major land owners in the area surrounding Whalley Abbey in Lancashire and other areas in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The family very generously donated the land for the Abbey to build upon and there is a de Lacy family tomb presently within its grounds.


      John de Lacy married as his 2nd wife, before 21 June 1221, Margaret (or Margery) de Quincy, daughter and heiress of Robert de Quincy, by Hawise. [1] She was born before 1217. They had one son, Edmund, Knight (Constable of Chester), and three daughters, including Maud and Margaret.[2] Sir John de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, died 22 July 1240, [3] and his widow Margaret married as her second husband on 6 January 1214/2, Walter Marshal, Knight, 8th Earl of Pembroke. [4]

      Marriage
      Husband: John de LACY
      Wife: Margaret de QUINCY
      Child: Maud de LACY
      Child: Idonea de LACY
      Child: Edmund de LACY
      Marriage: 1223, LIN, England
      Questionable Daughter, Idonia
      In 2005, Richardson was mentioning Edmund, Maud/Matilda, and 2, as of yet, unnamed daughters...and, possibly, an illegitimate son. [5] In Magna Carta Ancestry, Richardson only includes children Edmund, Maud/Matlida, and Margaret. [6] In Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols., ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City, Utah: the author, 2013), Vol III, page 466, Richardson is saying John De Lacy, had by his (2nd) wife Margaret (or Margery) De Quincy one son, and three daughter's, naming only Maud and Margaret.

      The source for naming the other daughter "Idonia" seems to come from a Cheshire Visitation, which has her marrying a Roger de Camville. [7] Now, Richardson has stated that there was no issue from first wife, Alice, but this Visitation pedigree has also given a verified daughter, Maud/Matilda, to Alice. Idonia may also have been assigned to the incorrect mother. Richardson, having acknowledged another unnamed daughter, means the only conflict is with who her mother was, not whether she exists, or not.

      However, Idonia is also involved in questionable Magna Carta lines of descent, through a claimed second marriage, into the Dutton family. While Marlyn Lewis generally tries to cite Richardson, as much as possible, and provides a great on line resource, this falls outside of Richardson's research, so he relied on other sources, "Pedigrees of Some of Charlemagne's Descendants, Vol. III, p. 168; Magna Charta by Wurts, p. 1005", giving us an indication of where this claim comes from. [8]

      The Charlemagne source has her as the daughter of Magna Carta John de Lacy and Margaret de Quincy, calls her "Alice (Idonia)", and marries her off to "Crusader", Geoffrey de Dutton, who dies in 1248. Wurts is the same. That would be this Geoffrey (who needs a LNAB fix) who married this Alice, daughter of this John's grandfather, also a John, also a Crusader, like Geoffrey, also a Constable of Chester, and Baron of Halton, like his grandson.

      Sources
      ? Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families Vol. II, page 514
      ? Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families Vol. II, page 514
      ? Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families Vol. II, page 515
      ? Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families page 514, 515
      ? From: "Douglas Richardson"; Subject: Complete Peerage Addition: Children of John de Lacy; Date: 3 Oct 2005 08:52:31 -0700 [1]
      ? Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 2nd Edition, 2011, p 517 [2]
      ? The Visitation of Cheshire in the Year 1580, Volume 18, p 6 [3]
      ? Marlyn Lewis: Idonea Lacie, F, #11736 [4]
      See also:
      http://www.thepeerage.com/p10683.htm#i106821
      Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, Royal Ancestry series, 2nd edition, 4 vols., ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City, Utah: the author, 2011), Vol II, pp 514-517
      Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols., ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City, Utah: the author, 2013), Vol III, pp 466-470
      Nigel Saul, Magna Carta Barons, database online, accessed 3 June 2014, entry for John de Lacy, Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License
      Ancestral Roots of Sixty Colonists Who Came to New England between 1623 and 1650, 6th ed. Weis, Frederick Lewis. (Baltimore, Maryland, Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1988).
      Harleian Society. The Visitation of Cheshire in the Year 1580, The Publicatons of The Harleian Society (London: The Society, 1882) Vol. 18, Page 6: Appendix: The Visitation of a Part of Cheshire, A.D. 1533:
      "Joh'es Lascy Comes Lincolnie Baro de Halton et Constabul. Cestriae fundator Abbatie de Whalley". First wife: "Margareta Quincy Comitissa Lincone vxor prima." Second wife: "Alicia filia D'ni Gilberti de Auila uxor secunda."
      Hulton, W.A. ed., The Coucher Book or Cartulary of Whalley Abbey. Vol. I, Remains Historical & Literary Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester (Printed for The Chetham Society, 1846) Vol. 10, Page 3
      Farrer, William & Brownbill, J. The Victoria History of the County of Lancaster (Archibald Constable and Co. Limited, London, 1906) Vol. 1, Page 304-7
      Mastin, John. The History and Antiquities of Naseby, in the County of Northampton (Francis Hodson, Cambridge, 1792) Page 62
      Mary Hillard Hinton, Genealogist, Raleigh, NC •Extinct and Dormant Peerages, 1831 •Magna Carta Barons and their Descendants, pgs. 159, 241, 269, 270, 292 •Virginia Heraldica, pgs. 66, 69, 87, 88 •Ancestral Papers #119, of the National Society of Runnymeade •Wurt's Magna Carta •The Carter Family
      Reports and Papers of the Architectural and Archaeological Societies of the Counties of Lincoln and Northampton (Savill and Edwards, London, 1852-3) Vol. 2, Page 93
      http://www.whalleyabbey.co.uk/