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Individual Record for: John DE LACY (male)

Source:

bulkeley.txt

Notes:

Lord of Pontefract and Blackburnshire, MAGNA CARTA Surety.

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A portion of the information concerning Surety Baron JOHN de LACIE is as f ollows:

The Lacie strongholds on the Welsh border are Beeston, Chester and Halt on Castles. Beeston is now a crumbling ruin. It is hard even to identify t he keep, but it could be the large wall tower East of the gate house. T he Castle is perched on a height bounded on three sides by sheer drops, a nd a steep slope on the fourth. Its strength as a defense lay in its inacc essibility. There are two baileys, the innermost on a summit and the oth er situated on the sloping ground. The inner bailey was guarded on the app roachable side by a gate house, two wall towers and a ditch thirty-five fe et wide and thirty feet deep, which cut across the promontory. It is impor tant to note that the artificial ravine was fashioned two hundred fifty ye ars before blasting was known. The date of founding was in the 13th Centur y, and it was founded by Randolph de Blondevill, Earl of Chester.

Chester was the last City to yield to William the Conqueror, and the surre nder came in 1070. Once the Normans had the Castle, William's nephew, Hu gh Lupus, Palatine Earl of Chester, was appointed as head of the border pa trol.

Chester Castle was originally built by the first Norman Earl of Chester, a nd now consists of modern buildings, the assize-court, jail and barrack s. The one remaining Norman relic is "Julius Caesar's Tower," standi ng by the River. It is a square tower which has been used as a powder maga zine, but is scarcely recognizable as a Norman building, because it has be en recently recased in red stone. With the exception of this tower, anoth er of the round style, and adjacent buildings in the upper ward, the Cast le was dismantled at the end of the 18th Century. From Julius Caesar's Tow er one can see the ruins of Beeston Castle, which met a like fate in 164 6. Of Halton Castle nothing is left. But Lincoln Castle, on the other si de of the Island(l, is an important monument.

Lincoln was the fourth City of the Realm when the Normans invaded, a nd it seemed to William to be a logical site for a castle. The Domesday Bo ok states that one hundred sixty-six houses were torn down to make way f or it. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle held that on his return to York in 106 8, William erected the Castle on the site of a Roman fort. Since the la nd was rather flat, a great bank was built up around it. There are two mot tes, the larger one crowned by a polygonal shell wall, which may have be en built by Ralph de Gernon's widow. In 1140 King Stephen captured the Cas tle and, in 1216, the Surety Barons had charge of it.

JOHN de LACIE, the Surety, born 1192, seventh Baron of Halton Castle and h ereditary constable of Chester, was one of the earliest Barons to ta ke up arms at the time of Magna Charta. He was also appointed to see th at the new statutes were properly carried into effect and observed in t he counties of York and Nottingham. He was excommunicated by the Pope. Up on the accession of King Henry III, he joined a party of noblemen and ma de a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, rendering valuable service at the Sie ge of Damietta.

In 1232 Lacie was made Earl of Lincoln and, in 1240, governor of Chester a nd Beeston Castles. He died 22 July 1240, and was buried in the Cisterci an Abbey of Stanlaw in co. Chester. The monk, Matthew Paris, records: " On the 22d day of July, in this year (1240), which was St. Magdalen's Da y, John, Earl of Lincoln, after suffering from a long illness went the w ay of all flesh." His first wife was Alice, daughter of Gilbert 'd?Aquil a, but by her he had no issue. She died in 1215 and he married second, aft er his marked gallantry at the Siege of Damietta, Margaret, only daught er and heiress of Robert de Quincey, a fellow Crusader, who died in the Ho ly Land, eldest son of Saire de Quincey, the Surety. They had three childr en, Lady Margaret survived him and married second Walter Marshall, Ea rl of Pembroke.

Appreciation is expressed to Reed M. W. Wurts, one of the Heralds of the S ociety for furnishing the Baron?s Shield on this page.

Notes Source: bulkeley.txt

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