Margaret de Quincy, Countess of Lincoln

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"Margaret de Quincy" redirects here. For the Countess of Derby, see Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester.

Margaret de Quincy
Countess of Lincoln suo jure
Countess of Pembroke
Hawise of Chester

Countess of Lincoln suo jure

Margaret de Quincy,

John de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln, by whom she had two children. He was created 2nd Earl of Lincoln by right of his marriage to Margaret. Margaret has been described as "one of the two towering female figures of the mid-13th century".[1]

Family

Margaret was born in about 1206, the daughter and only child of Robert de Quincy and Hawise of Chester, herself the co-heiress of her uncle Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester. Hawise became suo jure Countess of Chester in April 1231 when her brother resigned the title in her favour.

Her paternal grandfather,

Cistercian monk.[citation needed
]

Life

On 23 November 1232, Margaret and her husband

John de Lacy, Baron of Pontefract were formally invested by King Henry III as Countess and Earl of Lincoln. In April 1231 her maternal uncle Ranulf de Blondeville, 1st Earl of Lincoln had made an inter vivos gift, after receiving dispensation from the crown, of the Earldom of Lincoln to her mother Hawise. Her uncle granted her mother the title by a formal charter under his seal which was confirmed by King Henry III. Her mother was formally invested as suo jure 1st Countess of Lincoln on 27 October 1232 the day after her uncle's death. Likewise, her mother Hawise of Chester received permission from King Henry III
to grant the Earldom of Lincoln jointly to Margaret and her husband John, and less than a month later a second formal investiture took place, but this time for Margaret and her husband John de Lacy. Margaret became 2nd Countess of Lincoln suo jure (in her own right) and John de Lacy became 2nd Earl of Lincoln by right of his wife. (John de Lacy is mistakenly called the 1st Earl of Lincoln in many references.)

In 1238, Margaret and her husband paid King Henry the large sum of 5,000 pounds to obtain his agreement to the marriage of their daughter Maud to Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, 2nd Earl of Gloucester.

On 22 July 1240, her first husband John de Lacy died. Although he was nominally succeeded by their only son Edmund de Lacy (c.1227-1258) for titles and lands that included Baron of Pontefract, Baron of Halton, and Constable of Chester, Margaret at first controlled the estates in lieu of her son who was still in his minority and being brought up at the court of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence. In 1243, Margaret inherited the manor of Grantchester on the death of her mother Hawise. [2]

Edmund was allowed to succeed to his titles and estates at the age of 18. Edmund was also Margaret's heir to the Earldom of Lincoln and also her other extensive estates that included the third of the Earldom of Pembroke that she had inherited from her second husband in 1248. Edmund was never able to become Earl of Lincoln, however, as he predeceased his mother by eight years.

As the widowed Countess of Lincoln suo jure, Margaret was brought into contact with some of the most important people in the county of Lincolnshire. Among these included Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, the most significant intellectual in England at the time who recognised Margaret's position as Countess of Lincoln to be legitimate and important, and he viewed Margaret as both patron and peer. He dedicated Les Reules Seynt Robert, his treatise on estate and household management, to her.[3]

Margaret died in 1266 and left her estates to her grandson, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln.[4]

Marriages and issue

Sometime before 21 June 1221, Margaret married as his second wife, her first husband

John de Lacy of Pontefract.[5] The purpose of the alliance was to bring the rich Lincoln and Bolingbroke inheritance of her mother to the de Lacy family.[6]
John's first marriage to Alice de l'Aigle had not produced issue; although John and Margaret together had two children:

She married secondly on 6 January 1242, Walter Marshal, 5th Earl of Pembroke, Lord of Striguil, Lord of Leinster,

Earl Marshal of England, one of the ten children of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke. This marriage, like those of his four brothers, did not produce any children; therefore when he died at Goodrich Castle on 24 November 1245, Margaret inherited a third of the Earldom of Pembroke as well as the properties and lordship of Kildare
.

Her dower third outweighed any of the individual holdings of the 13 different co-heirs of the five Marshal sisters which meant she would end up controlling more of the earldom of Pembroke and lordship of

wardship of Henry who was Margaret's heir, and the relationship between the two women appeared to have been cordial.[9]

Death and legacy

Margaret was a careful overseer of her property and tenants, and gracious in her dealings with her son's children, neighbours and tenants.

Cistercian monastery.[11] Margaret died in March 1266[12] at Hampstead. Her death was recorded in the Annals of Worcester and in the Annals of Winchester.[citation needed] She was buried in The Order of St. John Cemetery, Farringdon, London
.

Margaret was described as "one of the two towering female figures of the mid-13th century"; the other being Ela, Countess of Salisbury.[1]

Peerage of England
Preceded by
Hawise of Chester

Countess of Lincoln suo jure
 from 1232 to 1240 together with her spouse
John de Lacy, 2nd Earl of Lincoln
jure uxoris
Countess of Lincoln
suo jure
1232–c.1266 		Succeeded by
Henry de Lacy

3rd Earl of Lincoln

Notes

  1. ^ a b Mitchell 2003, p. 42.
  2. ^ "Parishes: Grantchester Pages 198-214 A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 5. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1973". British History Online.
  3. ^ Mitchell 2003, p. 32.
  4. ^ "Parishes: Grantchester Pages 198-214 A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 5. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1973". British History Online.
  5. ^ Carpenter 1990, p. 103.
  6. ^ Carpenter 2003, p. 421.
  7. ^ Wilkinson 2016, p. 155.
  8. ^ Mitchell 2003, p. 33.
  9. ^ Mitchell 2003, p. 34-35.
  10. ^ Mitchell 2003, p. 39.
  11. ^ Mitchell 2003, p. 40.
  12. ^ Wilkinson, p. 65, at Google Books

References

  • Carpenter, David A. (1990). The Minority of Henry III. University of California Press.
  • Carpenter, David A. (2003). The Struggle For Mastery: Britain 1066-1284. Oxford University Press.
  • Mitchell, Linda Elizabeth (2003). Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Politics in England 1225-1350. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Wilkinson, Louise J. (2016). "Reformers and Royalists: Aristocratic Women in Politics, 1258-1267". In Jobson, Adrian (ed.). Baronial Reform and Revolution in England, 1258-1267. The Boydell Press. pp. 152–166.
  • Wilkinson, Louise J. (2000) "Pawn and Political Player: Observations on the Life of a Thirteenth-Century Countess" Historical Research Vol. 73 No. 181, pp. 105-123.
  • Wilkinson, Louise J. (2007): Women in Thirteenth-Century Lincolnshire. Boydell Press, Woodbridge.
    ISBN 978-0-86193-285-6 (Women in Thirteenth-Century Lincolnshire at Google Books
    )
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