William de Ormesby

William de Ormesby
William de Ormesby
	Arms of William de Ormesby Gules, crusilly argent, a bend chequy or and azure. [1]
Personal details
Died	1317

Last updated May 05, 2019

William de Ormesby (died 1317) was a 13th-14th century English judge. He was the Justice of Scotland between 1296 and 1297 after the invasion of Scotland by England in 1296.

The Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General is the most senior judge in Scotland, the head of the judiciary, and the presiding judge of the College of Justice, the Court of Session, and the High Court of Justiciary. The Lord President holds the title of Lord Justice General of Scotland and the head of the High Court of Justiciary ex officio, as the two offices were combined in 1836. The Lord President has authority over any court established under Scots law, except for the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the Court of the Lord Lyon.

Life

His family originated from the village of Ormesby, in East Norfolk. On 10 April 1292 he was appointed, with Hugh de Cressingham and others as justice in eyre in the counties of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, with special injunctions to hear and determine complaints against the king's bailiffs and ministers. His commission was extended on 28 August to include Northumberland. In 1296 he became a justice in the court of king's bench. Ormesby met King Edward I of England at Berwick on the king's return from his triumphant progress through Scotland. At that meeting Ormesby was appointed Justice of Scotland. Edward I requested that Ormesby exact homage and fealty from the Scottish tenants in chief, which Ormesby carried out with unflinching severity and with no politic respect to persons, driving into exile all those who refused the oaths to Edward I.

Sir Hugh de Cressingham was the treasurer of the English administration in Scotland from 1296 to 1297. He was hated by the Scots and did not seem well liked even by the English. He was an advisor to John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. He suggested a full-scale attack across the bridge, which cost the English the battle and led to his death.

The Court of King's Bench, formally known as The Court of the King Before the King Himself, was an English court of common law in the English legal system. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century from the curia regis, initially following the monarch on his travels, the King's Bench finally joined the Court of Common Pleas and Exchequer of Pleas in Westminster Hall in 1318, making its last travels in 1421.

Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as The Lord Edward. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved from an early age in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons. In 1259, he briefly sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciliation with his father, however, he remained loyal throughout the subsequent armed conflict, known as the Second Barons' War. After the Battle of Lewes, Edward was hostage to the rebellious barons, but escaped after a few months and joined the fight against Simon de Montfort. Montfort was defeated at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and within two years the rebellion was extinguished. With England pacified, Edward joined the Ninth Crusade to the Holy Land. The crusade accomplished little, and Edward was on his way home in 1272 when he was informed that his father had died. Making a slow return, he reached England in 1274 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 19 August.

With the absence of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey and Hugh de Cressingham in England, Ormesby bore the chief weight of responsibility for Edward's harsh rule over the Scots. When William Wallace's revolt broke out in May 1297, Ormesby was attacked by Wallace at Scone. Ormesby who had been given warning at the last moment, succeeded in escaping, having to leave all his personal property. After the English defeat at the battle of Stirling Bridge on 11 September, Ormesby was appointed on 23 October to raise foot soldiers in Northumberland, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Nottinghamshire for the further campaign against the Scots. In March 1298 he was summoned to a council in London and continued duties at the king's bench. In 1305 he was also chief of the justices of trailbaston assigned for the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk.

John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey English Earl and general

John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey was a prominent English nobleman and military commander during the reigns of Henry III of England and Edward I of England. During the Second Barons' War he switched sides twice, ending up in support of the king, for whose capture he was present at Lewes in 1264. Warenne was later appointed a Guardian of Scotland and featured prominently in Edward I's wars in Scotland.

Sir William Wallace was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence.

The Battle of Stirling Bridge was a battle of the First War of Scottish Independence. On 11 September 1297, the forces of Andrew Moray and William Wallace defeated the combined English forces of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, and Hugh de Cressingham near Stirling, on the River Forth.

Ormesby continued to act as a judge under King Edward II of England, though it is not known whether he continued at the king's bench. William continued to be summoned with the judges to parliament until his death and served as justice of assize in the eastern counties, especially Norfolk and Suffolk. In April 1311, Ormesby was appointed with three others to act as justices of common pleas in the liberties of the bishopric of Durham. Ormesby died before 12 June 1317, which was the date his executors were ordered to send to the crown the rolls, writs, and other records in his possession as justice itinerant in the eastern counties. He was buried in the Benedictine monastery of St. Benet's, Hulme.

Edward II, also called Edward of Carnarvon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to the throne following the death of his elder brother Alphonso. Beginning in 1300, Edward accompanied his father on campaigns to pacify Scotland, and in 1306 was knighted in a grand ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Following his father's death, Edward succeeded to the throne in 1307. He married Isabella, the daughter of the powerful King Philip IV of France, in 1308, as part of a long-running effort to resolve tensions between the English and French crowns.

St Benet's Abbey was a medieval monastery of the Order of Saint Benedict, also known as St Benet's at Holme or Hulme. It was situated on the River Bure within the Broads in Norfolk, England. St Benet is a medieval English version of the name of St Benedict of Nursia, hailed as the founder of western monasticism. At the period of the Dissolution of the Monasteries the abbey's possessions were in effect seized by the crown and assigned to the diocese of Norwich. Though the monastery was supposed to continue as a community, within a few years at least the monks had dispersed. Today there remain only ruins.

Marriage and issue

William is known to have married Sybilla, the widow of Roger Loveday.

Citations

↑ Foster, p. 187.

Related Research Articles

The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.

John Balliol, known derisively as Toom Tabard was King of Scots from 1292 to 1296. Little is known of his early life. After the death of Margaret, Maid of Norway, Scotland entered an interregnum during which several competitors for the Crown of Scotland put forward claims. Balliol was chosen from among them as the new King of Scotland by a group of selected noblemen headed by King Edward I of England.

Andrew Moray, also known as Andrew de Moray, Andrew of Moray, or Andrew Murray, an esquire, was prominent in the Scottish Wars of Independence. He led the rising in north Scotland in the summer of 1297 against the occupation by King Edward I of England, successfully regaining control of the area for King John Balliol. He subsequently merged his forces with those led by William Wallace and jointly led the combined army to victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. Moray was mortally wounded in the fighting, dying at an unknown date and place later that year.

The First War of Scottish Independence was the initial chapter of engagements in a series of warring periods between English and Scottish forces lasting from the invasion by England in 1296 until the de jure restoration of Scottish independence with the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328. De facto independence was established in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn. England attempted to establish its authority over Scotland while the Scots fought to keep English rule and authority out of Scotland.

Sir John de Benstede KB (c.1275 –1323/4) was a prominent member of the English royal household in the late 13th and early 14th century. He was Prebendary of Sandiacre from 3 February 1297 until, presumably, 1308, when he married. He was also King's Secretary, and he served variously as keeper of the Great Seal and controller of the wardrobe. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1305-1306, and as a royal judge from 1309 onwards.

Gartnait of Mar, Earl of Mar – Gartnait mac Domhnall, 8th Mormaer of Mar, was a Scottish noble during the first War of Scottish Independence (1296–1328). His name is sometimes rendered as Gartney or Gratney. A son of Domhnall I, Earl of Mar, and his wife, Elen ferch Llywelyn, Gartnait of Mar died in about 1305.

Sir William Douglas "le Hardi", Lord of Douglas was a Scottish nobleman and warlord.

Ralph de Monthermer, 1st Baron Monthermer, Earl of Gloucester, Hertford, and Atholl was an English nobleman, who was the son-in-law of King Edward I. His clandestine marriage to the King's widowed daughter Joan greatly offended her father, but he was quickly persuaded to pardon Ralph.

Events from the 1290s in England.

Sir Roger Brabazon was an English lawyer, and Chief Justice of the King's Bench from 1296 to 1316. Little is known of his background, he was the son of William le Brabazon, and may have been born at Mowsley in Leicestershire in or before 1247. Sir Roger was in the service of Edmund of Lancaster from 1275, and through Edmund's patronage he started receiving judicial commissions from the mid-1280s. In 1290, after Ralph de Hengham had been dismissed from the King's Bench, Brabazon was hired as a junior justice.

John Segrave, 2nd Baron Segrave (1256–1325) was an English commander in the First War of Scottish Independence.

Robert de Umfraville, 8th Earl of Angus, of Prudhoe, Chollerton, Harbottle, and Whelpington, Northumberland was an Anglo-Norman baron in Northumberland and the eighth Earl of Angus.

Richard de Abyndon, Abendon, or Abingdon was an English judge.

John Bacon was an English judge.

Ralph Fitzwilliam, was a baron.

Walter de Huntercombe, 1st Baron Huntercombe (1247–1313) was an English military commander during the Wars of Scottish Independence and a Governor of Edinburgh Castle.

Simon de Montagu, 1st Baron Montagu was summoned to Parliament by writ and thereby became the 1st Baron Montagu. He was the ancestor of the great Montagu family, Earls of Salisbury.

John de Hausted was a 13th-14th century English nobleman who fought in both the Anglo-French War and in the First War of Scottish Independence.

The English invasion of Scotland of 1296 was a military campaign undertaken by Edward I of England in retaliation to the Scottish treaty with France and the renouncing of fealty of John, King of Scotland and Scottish raids into Northern England.

References

Foster, Joseph. Some Feudal Coats of Arms (1902), Oxford, London, J. Parker & Co.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Ormesby, William de". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

The public domain consists of all the creative works to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable.

The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Foster, p. 187.

William de Ormesby
Arms of William de Ormesby Gules, crusilly argent, a bend chequy or and azure.^[1]
Personal details
Died	1317