Sunday, November 23, 2014

36. Final story of the our lineage to The Montagus spanning 400 years

Our initial joining with the Montagu family goes back about 15 generations.

Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury, 6th and 3rd Baron Montacute, 5th Baron Monthermer, and Count of Perche, KG (13 June 1388 – 3 November 1428) of Bisham in Berkshire, was an English nobleman and one of the most important English commanders during the Hundred Years' War.
Thomas and Eleanor!

He was the eldest son of John Montacute, 3rd Earl of Salisbury (d.1400), who was killed while plotting against King Henry IV in 1400, and his lands forfeited, later partly retrieved by Thomas.

 His mother was Maud Francis, daughter of Sir Adam Francis (born ca. 1334), Mayor of London.

Thomas was summoned to Parliament as Earl of Salisbury in 1409, although he was not formally invested as earl until 1421. In 1414 he was made a Knight of the Garter.

 In July 1415 he was one of the seven peers who tried Richard, Earl of Cambridge on charges of conspiring against King Henry V. Montacute then joined King Henry V in France, where he fought at the Siege of Harfleur and at the Battle of Agincourt. Montacute fought in various other campaigns in France in the following years.

 In 1419 he was appointed lieutenant-general of Normandy and created Count of Perche, part of Henry V's policy of creating Norman titles for his followers. He spent most of the rest of his life as a soldier in France, leading troops in the various skirmishes and sieges that were central to that part of the Hundred Years' War. In 1425 he captured the city of Le Mans and fought at the Siege of Orléans in 1428 at which he lost his life.

Eleanor de Holland
He married twice:
  • Firstly to Eleanor Holland, a sister and eventual co-heiress of Edmund Holland, 4th Earl of Kent, and daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent. By Eleanor he had a daughter, his only legitimate child:
    • Alice Montacute, who married Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, who succeeded his father-in-law jure uxoris as Earl of Salisbury.

  • Secondly to Alice Chaucer, daughter of Thomas Chaucer and grand-daughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

Death


On 27 October 1428 he was wounded during the Siege of Orléans, when a cannonball broke a window near to where he stood, and died a few days later.



Alice Montacute (1407 – bef. 9 December 1462) was an English noblewoman and the suo jure 5th Countess of Salisbury, 6th Baroness Monthermer, and 7th and 4th Baroness Montacute, having succeeded to the titles in 1428.

 Her husband, Richard Neville became 5th Earl of Salisbury by right of his marriage to Alice.

In fact all their children someone in the Royal lineage, and Richard Neville was the man who pulled the strings in the Royal Courts.


Alice was born in 1407, the daughter and only legitimate child, of Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury, and Eleanor Holland, who was the daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, and Lady Alice FitzAlan. 

The latter was a daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, and Eleanor of Lancaster.

In 1420, she married Richard Neville, who became the 5th Earl of Salisbury by right of his wife on the death of her father Thomas Montacute in 1428. Alice was thereafter styled as Countess of Salisbury.

The principal seat of the family was at Bisham Manor in Berkshire although their lands lay chiefly around Christchurch in Hampshire and Wiltshire.

She died some time before 9 December 1462 and was buried in the Montacute Mausoleum at Bisham Abbey.

Alice and Richard had ten children who survived infancy:

  • Lady Joan Neville (1423-9 September 1462), who married William FitzAlan, 16th Earl of Arundel.
  • Lady Cecily Neville (1424-28 July 1450), who married Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick.  She married King Richard III's father

Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (1428–1471), who married the heiress Anne Beauchamp, suo jure 16th Countess of Warwick.






They were parents to queen consort Anne Neville.
 Who married King Richard III

  • Lady Alice Neville (1430– after 1503), who married Henry FitzHugh, 5th Baron FitzHugh.
Their daughter, Elizabeth, married William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Kendal. The two were grandparents to Queen consort Catherine Parr, sixth wife of King Henry VIII.
  • John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu (1431–1471).
  • George Neville (1432–1476), who became Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England.
  • Lady Eleanor Neville (1438–1504), who married Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby.
  • Lady Katherine Neville (1442-1503/04), who married firstly William Bonville, 6th Baron of Harington, and secondly William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings. By her first husband, she was the mother of Cecily Bonville.
  • Thomas Neville (1443–1460), who was knighted in 1449 and died at the Battle of Wakefield.
  • Lady Margaret Neville (1444-20 November 1506), who married John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford.

When Sarah Rogers married Charles Montague 400 years later, I wonder if she knew that the family connections spanned so many families, so many lives, and contained so much history?

There are probably other Montagues who have married into our family, as quite often in Medieval times it was common to have 5 or 6 marriage, affairs, and countless children!

And there we leave the Montagu family.



Alice's grandfather Sir John Montacute 3rd Earl of Salisbury   (beheaded)

Notes: Knight of the Garter. Lord Montagu [1299], Lord Monthermer [1309], and Lord Montagu [1357], nephew and heir, being son and heir of the Earl's younger brother John (sum. to Parl. in 1357), by Margaret, according to modern doctrine suo jure Baroness Monthermer, daughter and heir of Thomas (De Monthermer), Lord Monthermer (d. 1340).

 He succeeded his father, 25 Feb 1389/90, when he was aged 39, and his mother, 24 Mar 1394/5. In 1369 he was knighted by the Earl of Cambridge in the field at Bourdeilles, and in 1383 was the King's Knight. In the 15th year of Richard II he obtained leave to serve in Prussia.

He was sum. to Parl. 23 Nov 1392 to 30 Nov 1396, as Lord Montagu (1357); and, as Earl of Salisbury, to the succeeding Parl. of Richard II (18 Jul and 15 Oct 1397, and 19 Aug 1399) and to the 1st Parl. of Henry IV (30 Sep 1399). Chief Commissioner of array in Herts, 1385.

In 1392 he was one of the King's supporters against the Appellants of 1387; K.G.; and one of the executive committee of the adjourned Parl. to whom the business remaining uncompleted was committed. In Sep 1398 Marshal of England; in Oct a commissioner to receive the Queen's dower, and envoy to Paris, upon the rumour of the proposed marriage of Hereford to Marie De Berri

Keeper of Trowbridge Castle, and commissioner to treat of peace with Scotland, in Mar 1398/9. In May he accompanied Richard to Ireland; but he was sent back, in advance of the King, to raise forces with which to meet the invading Hereford. Later they joined company in England.

This Earl of Salisbury was the only temporal Nobleman, who remained firm to King Richard's interest AFT the invasion of the Duke of Lancaster. With the other Lords Appellant of 1397, he was committed to the Tower 20 Oct 1399; on the 29th in Parl. he was challenged by Lord Morley upon his defence and accepted the challenge, and the matter was referred to the Constable and Marshal. 

He joined the conspiracy of the Earls of Kent and Huntingdon to murder Henry IV and his sons at Windsor, at a Christmas mumming; but the King was warned and the conspirators marched across England proclaiming that King Richard was alive. 

At Cirencester the people rose against them, and beheaded the Earls of Kent and Salisbury , 5 Jan 1399/1400. 

He was attained of treason in Parl. Mar 1400/1; but this judgement was reversed in 1461.  That allowed the titles to be carried forward.

He married, before 4 May 1383, Maud, relict of John, son of Andrew Aubrey (d. 1380/1), widow (having been 2nd wife) of Sir Alan Buxhall of Sussex, Dorset and Staffs (d. 2 Nov 1381), and daughter of Adam Francis, Mayor of London, 1352-54, M.P. for London in 7 Parl., 1352-69, by Agnes, daughter and coheir of William Champnes' [Visitation of Kent, Harl. Soc., vol. lxxv, p. 31]. 

He died (as above) and was buried at Cirencester. His widow, for whom robes of the Garter were prepared, had a grant, in Feb 1398/9, of the manor of Stokenham, Devon. 

She died in 1424, before 5 Aug. His body was buried at Bisham Abbey (which his ancestor the first Earl had founded) by the side of the second Earl of Salisbury , having been removed thither by order of his widow.

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