Simon Fleming (died 1370) is the first Baron Slane whose holding of the title can be conclusively established.
Slane Castle, Co. Meath, Ireland
Fleming was a descendant of Archembald le Fleming of Bratton Fleming, Devon, who was alive in 1087. Archembald's grandson, Archembald fitz Stephen le Fleming, came to Ireland with King Henry II of England in 1171 and participated in Hugh de Lacy's plantation of the Kingdom of Mide. He was a great-great-grandfather of Simon. Simon was the son of Sir Baldwin Fleming, and Maud de Geneville, daughter of Simon de Geneville of Culmullin and Joan Fitz Leones. Simon de Geneville was a younger son of Geoffrey de Geneville, 1st Baron Geneville, Justiciar of Ireland.
Simon was a member of the Irish Parliament of 1370. He became the lord of Slane in 1335 on the death of his father. In 1346 he served as Commissioner of the Peace in County Meath. In 1352 Slane was declared forfeit to the Crown, but Simon recovered it three years later. He had been knighted before 1365. He was in close attendance on Lionel of Antwerp, younger son of King Edward III, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, during his years in Ireland. He spent much of his time in England, and acquired extensive lands in Devon and Cornwall (he was related by marriage to a number of prominent families in those counties, notably the Bassets and Champernownes).
In 1363–64 he was a prominent member of the "reform party", which campaigned against the widespread corruption and maladministration of the Irish Government: he was part of a powerful delegation sent by the Irish House of Commons to England to outline their grievances, and King Edward III appointed him to a royal commission to consider what reforms to government were necessary. The reform party had some success: in particular, they secured the removal from office, for a time, of Thomas de Burley, the notoriously corrupt Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
Simon married Cecily Champernowne, daughter of Sir Thomas Champernowne, of Modbury, Devon and his wife Eleanor de Rohart. The Champernownes were a distinguished and long-established Devonshire family: notable later members included Kat Ashley, née Champernowne, the much-loved governess of Queen Elizabeth I, and Sir Walter Raleigh, whose mother was a Champernowne.
Simon was succeeded by his son, Thomas (c. 1358 – c. 1434/1435), who with his own son Christopher cut a rather villainous path in the 1390s. He also had at least two daughters, Matilda, who married Luke Cusack, and Margaret, who married Sir William Basset of Tehidy, Cornwall.
de Lacy is the surname of an old Norman family which originated from Lassy, Calvados. The family took part in the Norman conquest of England and the later Norman invasion of Ireland. The name is first recorded for Hugh de Lacy (1020–1085). His sons, Walter and Ilbert, left Normandy and travelled to England with William the Conqueror. The awards of land by the Conqueror to the de Lacy sons led to two distinct branches of the family: the northern branch, centred on Blackburnshire and west Yorkshire was held by Ilbert's descendants; the southern branch of Marcher Lords, centred on Herefordshire and Shropshire, was held by Walter's descendants.
Baron Slane was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1370 for the Fleming family but forfeited in 1691.
Walter de Lacy was lord of Meath in Ireland. He was also a substantial land owner in Weobley, Herefordshire, in Ludlow, Shropshire, in Ewyas Lacy in the Welsh Marches, and several lands in Normandy. He was the eldest son of Hugh de Lacy, a leading Cambro-Norman baron in the Norman invasion of Ireland, and Rohese of Monmouth.
Halsbury is a historic manor in the parish of Parkham in North Devon, England. It is situated 2 miles north-east of the village of Parkham and 4 miles south-west of the town of Bideford. Halsbury was long a seat of the ancient Giffard family, a distant descendant of which was the celebrated lawyer Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1st Earl of Halsbury (1823–1921), who adopted the name Halsbury for his earldom and was the author of the essential legal reference books Halsbury's Statutes. Halsbury Barton, now a farmhouse, retains 16th- and 17th-century elements of the former manor house of the Giffard family. It was described in a record of 1560 as a "new dwelling house".
John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath, was an Earl in the peerage of England. He also succeeded to the titles of 12th Baron FitzWarin, Baron Daubeney and 4th Count of Eu.
James Audley, 2nd Baron Audley of Heighley Castle, Staffordshire, was an English peer. He was the son and heir of Nicholas Audley, 1st Baron Audley (1289–1316) by his wife Joan Martin, who was the daughter of William Martin, feudal baron of Barnstaple, and Marcher Lord of Kemes. She was posthumously the eventual sole heiress of her brother William FitzMartin to Barnstaple and Kemes.
Thomas Fleming (1358-1435), 2nd Baron Slane, was a member of the Parliament of Ireland from 1394-1395, and again from 1401-12. He is mainly remembered for kidnapping the senior judge Richard Rede, from whom he extorted a large ransom. He managed to escape punishment for the crime.
Christopher Fleming was an Irish nobleman, who was Lord High Treasurer of Ireland from 1514 until his death. He succeeded as 8th Baron Slane in 1492.
Thomas Fleming was an Irish peer, and a member of the Parliament of Ireland of 1585. He was the son of James Fleming, and great-grandson of James Fleming, 7th Baron Slane. His mother was Ismay Dillon, daughter of Sir Bartholomew Dillon, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland and his first wife Elizabeth Barnewall; after his father's death she remarried Sir Thomas Barnewall of Trimlestown.
Maud de Lacy, Baroness Geneville was a Norman-Irish noblewoman and wealthy heiress who inherited half the estates of her grandfather Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath, upon his death in 1241. The lordships of Trim and Ludlow passed to her second husband Sir Geoffrey de Geneville, 1st Baron Geneville by right of his marriage to her; although she helped to rule and administer the estates in an equal partnership. She is sometimes referred to as Matilda de Lacy.
Maurice FitzMaurice FitzGerald was an Irish magnate, soldier, and Justiciar of Ireland from 1272 to 1273. His family would come to epitomise the ideal of cultural synthesis in Ireland, becoming "more Irish than the Irish themselves", fusing Gaelic and Norman customs in Irish identity. "But others say he never enjoyed that lordship himself, but that it passed to the son and grandson of his eldest brother Gerald."
Sir James Butler of Polestown was a warlord in Yorkist Ireland.
Robert Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby de Broke, de jure 9th Baron Latimer, KG, of Brook, Westbury, Wiltshire, was one of the chief commanders of the royal forces of King Henry VII against the Cornish Rebellion of 1497.
Members of the Basset family were amongst the early Norman settlers in the Kingdom of England. It is currently one of the few ancient Norman families who has survived through the centuries in the paternal line. They originated at Montreuil-au-Houlme in the Duchy of Normandy.
The Lordship of Meath was an extensive seigneurial liberty in medieval Ireland that was awarded to Hugh de Lacy by King Henry II of England by the service of fifty knights and with almost royal authority. The Lordship was roughly co-extensive with the medieval kingdom of Meath. At its greatest extent, it included all of the modern counties of Fingal, Meath, Westmeath as well as parts of counties Cavan, Kildare, Longford, Louth and Offaly. The Lordship or fiefdom was imbued with privileges enjoyed in no other Irish liberty, including the four royal pleas of arson, forestalling, rape, and treasure trove.
The Manor of Bratton Fleming was a medieval manor estate in Bratton Fleming, Devon, England.
Sir John Dinham (1406–1458) was a knight from Devonshire, England. His principal seats were at Nutwell and Kingskerswell in South Devon and Hartland in North Devon.
Ash in the parish of Braunton in North Devon is a historic estate listed in the Domesday Book. The present mansion, known as The Ash Barton estate is a Grade II* listed building.
Budockshed is a historic estate in the parish of St Budeaux, near Plymouth in Devon, England.
The manor of Alverdiscott was a manor situated in north Devon, England, which included the village of Alverdiscott.
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