Swansea Castle
Philip de Braose was the first Lord of Builth and Radnor, their initial holding in the Welsh Marches. Philip seems to have gone on the 1st Crusade and returned in 1103. He built the Norman church of St Nicolas at Old Shoreham and founded the port of New Shoreham. His lands were confiscated by Henry I in 1110, due to his traitrous support of William, son of Robert Curthose but they were returned in 1112.
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Philip's son William was very fortunate in his marriage to Berta of Gloucester. All of her brothers died young without heirs so she brought a number of important lordships to the Braoses in 1166. These included Brecon and Abergavenny. William became Sheriff of Hereford in 1174. His interest in Sussex was maintained as he confirmed the grants of his father and grandfather for the maintenance of Sele Priory and extended St. Mary's, Shoreham.
William's son William inherited Bramber, Builth and Radnor from his father; Brecknock and Abergavenny through his mother. He was the strongest of the Marcher Lords involved in constant war with the Welsh and other lords. He was particularly hated by the Welsh for the massacre of three Welsh princes, their families and their men which took place during a feast at his castle of Abergavenny in 1175. He was sometimes known as the "Ogre of Abergavenny". One of the Normans' foremost warriors, he fought alongside King Richard at Chalus in 1199 (when Richard received his fatal wound).
William captured Arthur, Count of Brittany at Mirebeau in 1202 and was in charge of his imprisonment for King John. He was well rewarded in February 1203 with the grant of Gower. He may have had knowledge of the murder of Arthur and been bribed to silence by John with the city of Limerick in July. His honours reached their peak when he was made Sheriff of Herefordshire by John for 1206-7. He had held this office under Richard from 1192 to 1199.
His fall began almost immediately. William was stripped of his office as bailiff of Glamorgan and other custodies by King John in 1206/7. Later he was deprived of all his lands and, sought by John in Ireland, he returned to Wales and joined the Welsh Prince Llewelyn in rebellion. He fled to France in 1210 via Shoreham "in the habit of a beggar" and died in exile near Paris. Despite intending to be interred at St. John's, Brecon, he was buried in the Abbey of St. Victoire, Paris by Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, another of John's chief opponents who was also taking refuge there.
His son William did not accompany King Richard on Crusade but fought with King John against Philip of France in Normandy (1203/4). King John demanded William as a hostage for his father's loyalty in 1208. His mother Maud refused and they fled to the family estates in Ireland. In 1210 John prepared an expedition to Ireland. Maud and William escaped Ireland but were apprehended in Scotland. (William the father was in Wales at this time.) It is believed that Maud and William were starved to death at Windsor Castle.
Nicknamed "Tadody" by the Welsh when he was hidden in Gower as a child after King John had killed his father and grandmother, he was later in the custody of Engelard de Cigogny (castellan of Windsor) along with his brother Giles. Cigogny was ordered to give the two boys up to William de Harcourt in 1214. At this time John became separated from his brother. He was present at the signing of Magna Carta in 1215.
John disputed his uncle Reginald's claim to the Braose lands, sometimes resorting to arms. Llywelyn helped him to secure Gower (1219). In 1221, with the advice and permission of Llewelyn, he repaired his castle of Abertawy or Seinhenydd. He purchased the Rape of Bramber from Reginald and his son, William, in 1226. In that year John confirmed the family gifts to Sele Priory, near Bramber, and to the Abbey of St. Florent, Saumur, and added others. After the death of Reginald (1228) he became Lord of Skenfrith, Grosmont and Whitecastle, the three Marcher castles, by charter from the king but he lost these in 1230 to Hugh de Burgh at the same time as Gower became a subtenancy of de Burgh's Honour of Carmarthen and Cardigan. John was killed by a fall from his horse at Bramber in 1232.
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Reginald supported Giles in his rebellions against King John. They were both active against the King in the barons' war. Neither was present at the signing of Magna Carta because they were still rebels who refused to compromise. King John aquiesced to Reginald's claims to the de Braose estates in Wales in May 1216. He became Lord of Brecon, Abergavenny, Builth and other Marcher Lordships but was very much a vassal of Llewelyn Fawr, Prince of Gwynedd and now his father-in-law. Henry III restored Reginald to favour and the Bramber estates (confiscated from William by King John) in 1217. At this seeming betrayal, Rhys and Owain, Reginald's nephews who were princes of Deheubarth, were incensed and they took Builth (except the castle). Llewelyn Fawr also became angry and besieged Brecon. Reginald eventually surrendered to Llewelyn and gave up Seinhenydd (Swansea). By 1221 they were at war again with Llewelyn laying siege to Builth. The seige was relieved by Henry III's forces. From this time on Llewelyn tended to support the claims of Reginald's nephew John concerning the de Braose lands.
William succeeded his father as Lord of Abergavenny, Builth and other Marcher Lordships in 1227. Styled by the Welsh as "Black William" he was imprisoned by Llewelyn ap Iorwerth in 1229 during Hubert de Burgh's disastrous Kerry (Ceri) campaign. He was ransomed and released after a short captivity during which he agreed to cede Builth as a marriage portion for his daughter Isabel on her betrothal to David, son and heir of Llewelyn. The following Easter, Llewelyn discovered an intrigue between his wife, Joan, and William. Supported by a general clamour for his death, Llewelyn had William publicly hanged on 2nd May 1230.
William had already taken on many of the duties of the lordship from his father when the inheritance was granted to him by the king on March 1, 1291. Their favourite residence in Gower was Oystermouth castle.
True to his father's tradition, young William had law suits that had been rumbling on for years. In 1299 the Bishop of Llandaff succeeded in a plea to the king, who ordered William to answer for his misdeeds before the court and the royal justices. In 1306 William's tenants in Gower sought justice from the king, having taken the drastic step of deserting their lands. They accused their lord of failing to protect them and their rights. His neglect and mismanagement had disgraced the marcher lordships. William was forced to issue charters of rights for the burgesses of Swansea and his tenants in Gower.
Another case reached boiling point in 1307. William was ordered in court to give eight hundred marks to his father's third wife and widow, Mary de Roos. William mounted the bar in fury and bitterly insulted the judge. The king ordered him to walk from Westminster to the exchequer without his sword belt and with his head uncovered, to seek the judge's pardon. He was then put in the Tower of London for contempt of court. William was all but bankrupt and forced to sell his lands to pay his debts.
Edward I called out the feudal host in 1277 and began a determined series of campaigns to conquer Wales. His Welsh wars continued for twenty five years and brought an end to Welsh independence. William gained his early military education as a squire to Reginald de Grey, lord of Ruthin, who fought in Wales. William's father took men from Bramber and Gower to fight Llewelyn, the last great prince of Wales, who was killed in 1282. The siege of Emlyn (near Cardigan) in January 1288 illustrates what an enormous commitment the lords of Gower made to the Welsh wars.
William was still his father's heir when he fought to subdue Rhys ap Maredudd that winter. He had seven mounted knights and sixty three foot soldiers in his personal following. He raised another three heavy and eighteen light horse, two mounted and nineteen foot crossbowmen, and 400 foot soldiers. The army used hundreds of woodmen from the Forest of Dean to hack a path through the wooded mountains.
William also had an enormous siege engine. It was hauled across the difficult winter terrain on four carts, pulled by forty oxen which were later increased to sixty. He employed men to pick up 480 rocks on the beach below Cardigan and take them by sea and up the river Teify to Llechryd. From there the stones were carried by 120 pack horses. The siege engine needed blacksmiths, mechanics, twenty four woodcutters to make a bridge for the assault, two master workmen and large quantities of pig fat to grease it. It was escorted by twenty horse and 463 foot soldiers, who were also William de Braose's men.
The siege began on New Year's Day and was over by January 20. Detailed administrative records of the siege still exist. They show that not one man was lost by the English force. Presumably the great siege engine and its 480 rocks wore down the Welsh defenders of Emlyn castle and persuaded them to surrender peaceably.
As the English crown subdued Wales, the autonomy of the marcher lords was inevitably the next royal target. Under Edward II William de Braose was the unwitting cause of a bloody showdown, after which the marcher lords were never to recover their former glory.
Tragedy accompanied the demise of the de Braose barony. William and his first wife, known only from surviving records as Agnes, had a son William. This son, the de Braose heir, died in 1320. William married his second wife, the heiress Elizabeth de Sully, in 1317 but she remained childless. William's oldest daughter Joan married James de Bohun of Midhurst in about 1295, but she too died before her father in 1323.
In 1297 William had won the valuable wardship of John de Mowbray from the king in honour of his loyal service in Flanders. William betrothed ten year old John to his six year old daughter Alina and the young couple later became William's heirs. Gower was Alina's future inheritance but politics in the marches of Wales became increasingly hostile.
In 1320, after the death of his son, William sold the reversion of Gower to the earl of Hereford, Humphrey de Bohun, who wanted it for his son after Alina's death. William attempted some spectacular double dealings with his other warlike neighbours. While Humphry de Bohun, Roger Mortimer of Chirk and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore each claimed to have received charters confirming their purchase of Gower from William, Edward II promoted his self seeking favourite, Hugh Despenser. John de Mowbray decided to settle the issue by seizing Gower himself. All hell broke loose.
The king ordered the confiscation of Gower on October 26, 1320, because William had not sought a royal licence to "alienate" it to John de Mowbray. He sent a force to take it but at the little chapel of Saint Thomas, by Swansea castle, armed men were ready to prevent the seizure. Men of the king's own household returned on November 13 with a larger and more successful force. This was a challenge to the marcher lords' cherished autonomy. They rose in revolt. In August 1321 a baronial coalition in parliament banished Hugh Despenser and his father. John de Mowbray regained Gower.
Six months later a royalist resurgence prompted the Despensers' return. At the battle of Boroughbridge in March 1322 the royalists carried the day and the terrible slaughter on the rebel side was exacerbated by the executions which followed. John de Mowbray was drawn by three horses and hung at York. His body was left there in chains for three years. Alina had fled by boat to Ilfracombe in Devon but her hiding place was discovered. She and her son John were thrown into the Tower of London.
William was a broken man, forced to give his last remaining lands to the king for a life annuity. The outcome of Boroughbridge left him £10,000 in debt to Hugh Despenser. In his efforts to gain his daughter's freedom William submitted to the conniving schemes of the Despensers and relinquished almost everything he owned. From the Tower Alina described him as "frantic and not in good memory ". He never lived to see her free.
William died in 1326, ironically the year the Despensers were executed. The king was deposed the following January. Alina married Richard de Peshale, whom she met when they were prisoners together in the Tower, and together they held Gower until her death in 1331. Bramber passed to her son John de Mowbray.
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