Margaret de Saint-Amand

JOAN MARGARET DESPENCER married JOHN DE SAINT-AMAND

Joan Margaret Despencer married John De Saint-Amand in 1313. SEE SAINT-AMAND LINEAGE

THE DEMISE OF THE DESPENCERS

On the 22nd of the reign of Edward I ( 1293) , Hugh, Jr. was made governor of Odiham Castle, co. Southampton and the same year had summons to attend the king at Portsmouth, prepared with horse and arms for an expedition into Gascony. In two years afterward he was at the battle of Dunbar, in Scotland, where the English arms triumphed, and the next year he was one of the commissioners accredited to treat of peace between the English monarch and the kings of the Romans and of France. In the 26th and 28th years of Edward (1297 & 1299) he was again engaged in the wars of Scotland, and was sent by his sovereign, with the Earl of Lincoln to the papal court, to complain of the Scots, and to entreat that his holiness would no longer favor them, as they had abused his confidence by falsehoods. To the very close of King Edward I's reign his lordship seems to have enjoyed the favor of that great prince, and had summons to parliament from him from June 23, 1295 to March 14, 1322, but it was after the accession of Edward's unhappy son, Edward II, that the Spencers attained that extraordinary eminence, from which, with their feeble-minded master (the king), they were eventually hurled into the gulph of irretrievable ruin. In the first years of Edward II's reign, we find the father and son (Hugh, Sr. and Hugh, Jr.) still engaged in the Scottish wars. In the 14th year of the king (1320), hearing of great animosities between young Spencer and Humphrey de Bohun , Earl of Hereford and Essex , and learning that they were collecting their followers in order to come to open combat, interfered, and strictly commanded Lord Hereford to forbear. About the same time, a dispute arising between the Earl of Hereford and John de Moubray regarding some lands in Wales, Hugh, Jr. seized possession of the estate, and kept it from both the litigants. This conduct, and similar proceedings on the part of Hugh, Sr., exciting the indignation of the barons, they formed a le ague against the favorites, and placing the king's cousin, Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster, at their head, marched, with banners flying , from Sherbourne to St. Alban's, whence they dispatched the bishops of Salisbury, Hereford, and Chichester, to the king with a demand that the Spencers should be banished; to which mission the king, however, giving an imperious reply in the negative, the irritated nobles continued their route to London: when Edward, at the instance of the queen, acquiesced; whereupon the barons summoned a parliament, in which the Spencers were banished from England; and the sentence was proclaimed in Westminister Hall. To this decision, Hugh, Sr. submitted and retired; but Hugh, Jr. lurked in divers places; sometimes on land, and sometimes at sea, and was fortunate enough to capture, during his exile, two vessels near Sandwich, laden with merchandise to the value of 40,000 pounds; after which, being recalled by the king, an army was raised, which encountered and defeated the baronial forces at Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire. In this action, wherein numbers were slain, the Earl of Lancaster being taken prisoner, was carried to his own castle at Pontefract, and there, after a summary trial (the Hugh, Sr. being one of the judges), beheaded. The Spencers now became more powerful than ever, and Hugh, Sr. was immediately created Earl of Winchester, the king loading him with grants of forfeited estates. He was about the same time constituted warden of the king's forests on the south of Trent. Hugh, Jr. obtained, like his father, immense grants from the lands forfeited after the battle of Boroughbridge; but not satisfied with those, and they were incredibly numerous, he extorted by force whatsoever else he pleased. Amongst other acts of lawless oppression, it is related that he seized upon the person of Elizabeth Comyn, a great heiress, the wife of Richard Talbot, in her house at Kennington, in Surrey, and detained her for twelve months in prison, until he compelled her to assign to him the manor of Painswike, in Gloucestershire, and the castle and manor of Goderich, in the marches of Wales; but this ill-obtained and ill-exercised power was not formed for permanent endurance, and a brief space only was necessary to bring it to a termination. The queen and the young prince, who had fled to France, and had been proclaimed traitors through the influence of the Spencers, ascertaining the feelings of the people, ventured to return; and landed at Harwich, with the noblemen and persons of eminence who had been exiled after the defeat at Boroughbridge, raised the royal standard, and soon found themselves at the head of a considerable force; when, marching upon Bristol, where the king and his favorites then were, they were received in the city with acclamation, and the Hugh, Sr. being seized (although in his 90th year), was brought in chains before the prince and the barons and received judgment of death, which was accordingly executed, by hanging the culprit upon a gallorus in the sight of the king and of his son, upon St. Dennis's day, in October 1326. It is said by some writers that the body was hung up with two strong cords for four days, and then cut into pieces, and given to the dogs. Hugh, Jr., with the king, effected his escape; but they were both, soon afterwards, taken and delivered to the queen, when the unfortunate monarch was consigned to Berkeley Castle, where he was basely murdered in 1327. Hugh, Jr. it appears, was impeached before parliament, and received sentence "to be drawn upon a hurdle, with trumps and trumpets, throughout all the city of Hereford", and there to be hanged and quartered, which sentence was executed on a gallows 50 feet high, upon St . Andrew' s eve, 1326 (20 Edward II). Thus terminated the careers of two of the most celebrated royal favorites in the annals of England. The two Baronies of Spencer and the Earl of Winchester expired with the demise of these two Spencers.

The Saint-Amand Connection Lines- http://www.fluckers.com/family/daspit/connect.html#JoanMargaret www.celtic-casimir.com

Margaret LE DESPENSER
Born: Abt 1292, Barton, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England Married: After Dec 1313

General Notes: He [John de St. Amand] married, in or after December 1313, Margaret, daughter of Hugh LE DESPENSER, afterwards EARL OF WINCHESTER, by Isabel, widow of Sir PATRICK DE CHAURCES, and daughter of William (DE BEAUCHAMP), EARL OF WARWICK, by Maud, sister and coheir of Sir Richard FITZJOHN [LORD FITZJOHN], and 1st daughter of Sir John FITZGEOFFREY. He died shortly before 15 January 1329/30 (f). [Complete Peerage XI:298-9, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]

Marriage Information: Margaret married Sir John DE ST. AMAND 2nd Baron de St. Amand of Woodhay, son of Amauri DE ST. AMAND of Grendon Underwood and Isabel, after Dec 1313. (Sir John DE ST. AMAND 2nd Baron de St. Amand of Woodhay was born before 1283 in Bloxham, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England and died before 15 Jan 1329-1330 in West Woodhay, Hungerford, Berkshire, England.)