In 1251 the Sheriff of Dorset, Henry of Earley, was replaced by Elias de Rabayn. Elias was a Poitevin and had only arrived at the English court in 1248, probably in the entourage of Henry III’s Lusignan half-brothers. He soon made his presence felt in Dorset.
The king granted Elias the wardship of the lands and two daughters of Stephen of Bayeux, an old man who had just inherited a barony in Lincolnshire and two manors in Dorset. Just before he died, Stephen was ‘persuaded’ by the king to marry one of his daughters, Maud, to Elias. The entire estate was then settled on the couple and the other daughter, Joan, disinherited. Joan was sent to Sixhills convent in Lincolnshire, a favourite dumping ground for unwanted female gentlefolk. In 1253 she was abducted by Elias and smuggled off abroad, to be married to a Poitevin nobleman. She never saw England again, though her son later returned to try and claim his inheritance.
It may be that Henry appointed Elias as Sheriff of Dorset to stifle local opposition to his marriage. The new sheriff didn’t help matters by screwing down hard on the locals: he and his deputy, Walter Burges, were accused of extortion. In February 1253 Walter was violently assaulted by the people of Shaftesbury, a rare experience for Henry III’s sheriffs and unprecedented in Dorset. Elias and Walter also engaged in a power struggle with the Earl of Gloucester, and began to stockpile weapons at Corfe Castle.
Another of the king’s half-brothers, Aymer de Lusignan, also threw his weight around in Dorset. As bishop-elect of Winchester, Aymer grabbed the port of Weymouth, the manor of Wyke and the island of Portland, in the teeth of protests from local landowners. Aymer also got permission to fortify Portland by a royal licence obtained from a council packed with his friends, while his bailiff squeezed tolls from local shipping. His activities were condemned in the Petition of the Barons:
“No-one shall be allowed to fortify a castle upon a harbour, or upon an island within a harbour, unless by the consent of the council of the whole realm of England.”
By the early 1260s Dorset was ready to boil over. All the protesters lacked was a leader. Step forward Adam Gurdun. In June 1263 the justices in eyre at Sherborne in Dorset reported they dared not leave the town, for “the enemies of the lord king were going with flags flying through the country plundering loyal subjects”.
The ‘loyal subjects’ were the king’s supporters in the region. Adam’s revolt had begun.
No comments:
Post a Comment