William I de Cantilupe (c. 1159 - 7 April 1239) (anciently Cantelow, Cantelou, Canteloupe, etc., Latinised to de Cantilupo) [2] 1st feudal baron of Eaton (Bray) in Bedfordshire, England, was an Anglo-Norman royal administrator who served as steward of the household to King John and as Baron of the Exchequer.
He was born in about 1159 in Buckinghamshire, [ citation needed ] the son of Walter de Cantilupe, recorded in 1166 as a minor landowner in Essex and Lincolnshire, who was a younger brother of Fulk de Cantilupe (died 1217/18), Sheriff of Berkshire in 1200/1. [3]
The de Cantilupe family which came to England at some time after the Norman Conquest of 1066 originated at one of several similarly named manors in Normandy, from which they took their name: Canteloup in Calvados, 11 miles east of Caen [4] or Chanteloup in Bréhal, [5] Manche, or Canteloup in Manche east of Cherbourg on the tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula.
In 1198 Cantilupe was steward to John, Count of Mortain, the future King John, in which year his uncle Fulk de Cantilupe was also a member of John's household. From 1200 to 1204 he served as Sheriff of Worcestershire and in 1204 as Under-Sheriff of Herefordshire. In 1205 he took part in the ineffectual expedition to Poitou. In 1207, he was Sheriff of Worcestershire, serving until the end of the John's reign in 1216. In 1209, following his appointment as Sheriff of Warwickshire and Sheriff of Leicestershire, his main residence became Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire. [6]
Cantilupe was granted several manors formerly held by rebel barons during 1215–16, at the time of the signing of Magna Carta in 1215. He was commissioned by John to negotiate the return of such rebels to peaceable relations. He served as gaoler of baronial hostages, which action probably gained him the description by the contemporary chronicler Roger of Wendover as one of John's "evil counsellors". [7]
In 1204, Cantilupe was granted the Warwickshire manor of Aston, to which as was usual for the purpose of differentiation, was appended his family name, now Aston Cantlow. This manor had previously been held by William de Tankerville "the Chamberlain" before it escheated to the crown. [8]
In 1205 Cantilupe was granted the manor of Eaton, [9] in Bedfordshire, (from the 16th-century "Eaton Bray") which became the caput of the Cantilupe feudal barony, where he built a castle described by the monks of nearby Dunstable Priory in the Annals of Dunstable as being "a serious danger to Dunstable and the neighbourhood". [10] The grant was for knight-service of one knight and was in exchange for the manor of Great Coxwell, Berkshire, which had been granted to him previously [11] but the grant was deemed compromised. [12] Eaton had been held at the time of William the Conqueror by the latter's uterine half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, but later escheated to the crown.
Following the death of King John in 1216, many of the royal appointees to governorships of royal castles were reluctant to hand over their castles to the regency council which governed during the minority of his son, Henry III. They believed themselves obliged to hold their castles until Henry should have achieved 14 years of age, [13] when he would be able to follow his own policy. [14] These many refusals met with a forceful response from the council.
In 1217, under the regency council, during which year he was a Baron of the Exchequer, Cantilupe was at the siege of Mountsorrel Castle, Leicestershire, which was razed to the ground, and was also at the Second Battle of Lincoln. He served the council at the siege of Bedford in 1224. [6] He later served in Wales (1228 and 1231) and Brittany (1230).
He married Mazilia (or Marcelin/Mascelin) de Braci, daughter and heiress of Adulf de Braci of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, [15] who brought him that manor and others in Kent, and by whom he had issue including:
Cantilupe died on 7 April 1239 [27] and was buried at Studley Priory, Warwickshire.
Among the many manors held by Cantilupe were:[ citation needed ]
Eaton Bray is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. It is situated about three miles south-west of the town of Dunstable and is part of a semi-rural area which extends into the parish of Edlesborough. In the 2011 United Kingdom census the population of the parish was recorded as 2,585.
Thomas de Cantilupe was Lord Chancellor of England and Bishop of Hereford. He was canonised in 1320 by Pope John XXII.
William III de Cantilupe was the 3rd feudal baron of Eaton Bray in Bedfordshire, and jure uxoris was feudal baron of Totnes in Devon and Lord of Abergavenny. His chief residences were at Calne in Wiltshire and Aston Cantlow, in Warwickshire, until he inherited Abergavenny Castle and the other estates of that lordship.
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William II de Cantilupe, 2nd feudal baron of Eaton Bray in Bedfordshire, was an Anglo-Norman magnate.
William III de Beauchamp of Elmley Castle in Worcestershire, was an English Baron and hereditary Sheriff of Worcestershire.
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The manor of Broad Hempston was a historic manor situated in Devon, England, about 4 miles north of Totnes. The present village known as Broadhempston was the chief settlement within the manor and remains the location of the ancient parish church of St Peter and St Paul.
The feudal barony of Eaton Bray in Bedfordshire was an English feudal barony founded in 1205 when the manor of Eaton was granted by King John to his household steward William I de Cantilupe (d.1239), together with many others, including Aston in Warwickshire. In 1221 Cantilupe built a castle at Eaton, which became the caput of his feudal barony and was described by the monks of nearby Dunstable Priory in the Annals of Dunstable as being "a serious danger to Dunstable and the neighbourhood". The grant was for knight-service of one knight and was in exchange for the manor of Great Coxwell, Berkshire, which had been granted to him previously but the grant was deemed compromised. Eaton had been held at the time of William the Conqueror by the latter's uterine half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, but later escheated to the crown.
Baron Cantilupe was a title created in the peerage of England by writ on 29 December 1299 addressed to Willelmo de Canti Lupo or Cauntelo,.
William de Cantilupe, 1st Baron Cantilupe (1262-1308) of Greasley Castle in Nottinghamshire and of Ravensthorpe Castle in the parish of Boltby, North Yorkshire, was created Baron Cantilupe in 1299 by King Edward I. He was one of the magnates who signed and sealed the Barons' Letter of 1301 to the pope and was present at the Siege of Caerlaverock Castle in Scotland in 1300, when his armorials were blazoned in Norman-French verse in the Caerlaverock Roll.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Luard, Henry Richards (1886). "Cantelupe, William de (died 1239)". In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 8. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 454.