Thomas the traitor

Some proper history-meat. Attached is an entry from the second continuum of the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester. Florence died in 1118 but his work was completed by two successive scribes. The second continuum is the work of an anonymous monk of the abbey of Bury St Edmunds.

The entry concerns Thomas de Turberville, once a household knight of Edward I. In 1295 he was captured by the French at Rions, and agreed to defect to Philip IV. He returned to England and set about trying to arrange a simultaneous uprising against Edward in Wales and Scotland, which would coincide with a French invasion of England. As a reward, Philip allegedly promised Turberville the principality of Wales for himself and his heirs.

The entry doesn’t actually say that Turberville claimed the principality, rather he was offered it by the French. The question is whether Turberville had some kind of blood link to the Welsh princes. He was probably a member of the Turbervilles of Crickhowell, a Marcher family. There may have been some mixed ancestry, since by the thirteenth century that was the norm on the March. Exactly what, I don’t know.

In his letters to the French, intercepted by Edward’s agents, Turberville claimed to have a contact in Glamorgan named Morgan. Morgan, he wrote, had promised to raise the Welsh against Edward when the French landed. This must have been Morgan ap Maredudd, the only Welsh landholder in Glamorgan with the power and status to raise an army of Welshmen. The exact words of the letter are:

“And know that we think that we have enough to do against those of Scotland; and if those of Scotland rise against the King of England, the Welsh will rise also. And this I have well contrived, and Morgan has fully covenanted with me to that effect.”

It seems Turberville was duped: accounts in the British Library show that Morgan was on the English king’s payroll as a spy and agent provocateur. He may have been employed in this role for decades. Morgan was among the last of Dafydd ap Gruffudd’s supporters in 1283, and unlike the rest escaped any form of punishment. In September 1295, after Thomas was arrested and delivered up to Edward’s inquisitors, Morgan again got off scot-free.