From his son's page on the History of Parliament website:

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/re...

Sir Matthew Redmayne, who spent much of his earlier life campaigning in France, served from 1379 as joint warden of the march towards Scotland and later held office as constable of Roxburgh as well. Although he fell into enemy hands (for the second time in his life) after the battle of Otterburn in 1388, he was soon released and died a free man some two years later.

Such was Sir Matthew’s position in marcher society that he was able to marry (as his second wife) Joan, the grand daughter of Henry, 1st Lord Fitzhugh (d.1356), and widow of both William, Lord Greystoke (d.1359), and Anthony, Lord Lucy (d.1368). For a brief period he shared the wardenship of the march with his stepson, Ralph, Lord Greystoke, who was to prove a useful family contact among the northern nobility.

After the death of his elder son and namesake at some point in the early 1370s Sir Matthew began to involve his next heir, Richard, in his affairs. The young man had already been knighted when, in March 1376, he and his father offered financial guarantees that Robert Hawley would abide by an agreement with Edward III for ransoming the Aragonese nobleman, the count of Denia.

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From Greenfield's The Redmans of Levens and Harewood, 1905:

(full scanned text, resulting in numerous typos)

CHAPTER VIII.

Sir Matthew IV., Governor of Roxburgh and Berwick.

The fourth of these knightly Matthews was no less valorous than his predecessors, while the range and prominence of his activities were even greater than theirs. Wherever hard blows were to be exchanged, whether in distant Spain or on the family fighting ground, the Border, his stout arm could always be relied on. He raised armies and led them gallantly; he was governor of important castles ; he proclaimed truce to the King's enemies, and conducted delicate negotiations with them. And what time he was able to sheathe his sword, he filled the peace- ful offices of sheriff and knight of the shire with credit, and even found odd hours for the less exalted, but useful work of a magistrate in three counties.

Sir Matthew appears to have made his presence as a fighter felt on the Continent early in the sixties of this fourteenth centurj^; for in 1362, when King John of France was handing over the hostages in the custody of his son, the Dauphin, he refused point-blank to surrender Matthew de Redman, " who has inflicted much damage on the said Duchy (Burgundy) ; and him we do not desire to be in any way included in our present quittance."

For some years after this enforced residence in France the records yield little evidence of Matthew's military activity, but in 1370 he appears to have been with the army of Sir Robert Knolles who, a little later, swept the whole of the northern provinces of France, from Calais to the walls of Paris (Foedera, vol. iv., p. 899). Three years later Sir Matthew was at the Court of the King of Portu- gaj, probably on some diplomatic mission ; and in the same year (1373) we find him taking part under John of Gaunt, in France, in that disastrous campaign which resulted in Edward III. finding himself stripped of almost all his ancient possessions, except Bordeaux and Bayonne, and of all his conquests save Calais.

During this campaign Sir Matthew had the narrowest escape from capture by the French and Burgundians, at Ouchy le Chasteau, near Soissons, when foraging in com- pany with Thomas Lord Archer, Sir Thomas Spencer, and other knights. Two years later, when a truce was con- cluded with France, Sir Matthew was ordered by the King to proclaim it in Brittany (Rymer's Foedera iii., p. ii., p. 1034). In 1376 the good genius who had rescued him from the clutches of the French at Ouchy le Chasteau seems to have deserted him ; for we learn from the Rolls of Parliament (ii., 343 a.) that he was taken prisoner, and, unable to redeem himself, was compelled to ask Parliament to petition for his release.

In 1379, when his sword was no longer needed in France or Spain, where he seems to have spent several years in incessant fighting, chiefly under John of Gaunt, he was appointed, with Roger de Clifford, joint-warden of the West Marches and commanded to hasten, with all despatch, to the defence of Carlisle (Rot. Scot. v. 2., pp. 21, &c.) ; and he was one of several commissioners (including his fellow-warden, Clifford, John de Harrington, Hugh de Dacre, and other knights) empowered " to array and equip with arms all the men in Cumberland capable of defending it, so as to resist hostile invasion and the destruction of the Enghsh tongue, with power to compel people to con- tribute thereto" (Pat. Rolls Ric. II.).

Amid all the bustle and responsibility of these Border duties. Sir Matthew, who seems to have been tender of heart as well as stout of arm, found time for acts of friendliness and charity ; for on the 26th September of this year (i379) the King, Richard II., at Matthew's supplication, pardoned Thomas de Denethwayt for slaying one Elias Addison on the Sunday before St. Mark's day ; and in the following March he offered himself as one of the pledges for Thomas de Catreton, who, whilst keeper of the castle of St. Sauveur in Normandy, was charged with a treacherous betrayal of his trust in surrendering it to the French for money (Pat. Rolls, Ric. II.).

A few days later more work was thrust into Sir Matthew's willing and capable hands ; for, with Roger de Clifford, he was empowered to compel, by distress and imprisonment if necessary, all lay persons having lands and rents of in- heritance in the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland of the value of one hundred marks and upwards, to remain upon them ; and also to see that all the castles and fortalices within three or four leagues of the frontier are fortfied, repaired, suitably manned, and provisioned (Pat. Rolls, Ric. II.).

One might reasonably think that Sir Matthew's time was at last fully occupied with these manifold duties ; but as the busy man always seems to have the most leisure, so he added to his activities magisterial duties in Cumberland and Northumberland. In 1381, in addition to being ap- pointed sheriff of the county, he was entrusted with the responsible post of governor or captain of Roxburgh, " from the ist of May," in succession to the Earl of Nor-

6o REDMANS OF LEVENS AND HAREWOOD.

thumberland ; and we find protection granted " for John Gregory, chaplain, going to Scotland under Matthew de Redmane, warden of the castle of Roxburgh." By an ordinance of the same date he was appointed sheriff of the county of Roxburgh. (See Appendix).

In this year, too, although it is possible that Grafton has assigned a wrong date to the incident, he seems to have been for a time captain of Berwick ; and in this capacity he had the audacity to turn away the redoubtable John of Gaunt and his army from the gates.

In the 4 Richard II {1381), Grafton says: —

Sir Mathew Redmayn, Captain of Berwicke, refused to allow the Duke of Lancaster into the town. The Duke of Lancaster and his people went to Barwike wenyng to the Duke to have entered into the towne, for when he passed that way, he left all his provision behind him. But the capteyne of the towne, Sir Mathew Redmayn, denyed him to enter, and closed in the gates against him and his, saying he was so commanded by the Erie of Northumberland ; and wben the Duke heard these wordes, he was sore displeased and sayde " Howe commeth this to passe, Mathew Redmayn ? is there in Northumberland a greater sovereign than I am, which should let me passe this way where all my prouision is with you ? what mean- eth these newes ? "

" By my fayth, Sir," sayde the knight, " this is true that I say, and by the commandement of the King ; and Sir, this I do to you is right sore agaynst my will, but I must nedes do it and therefore for Goddes sake holde me excused for I am thus commanded upon paine of my life, that I shall not suffer you nor none of yours to enter into the towne." Then the Duke, not saying all that he thought, brake out of this matter, and sayde, " Sir Redmayn, what tydyngs out of England ? " and he sayde, he knew none, but that the countries were sore moued, and the King had sent to all this country to be in redinesse whensoever he should send. Then the Duke mused a little, and sodainly turned his horse, and bid the knight farewell, and so went to the castell of Rosebourgh, and the constable receyved him. (Grafton's Chronicle I., pp. 247-8).

REDMANS OF LEVENS. 6i

Sir Matthew appears to have stayed at Roxburgh no longer than a ) ear ; for in 1382 he is described as late warden of the castle, and, at this time, it may be interest- ing to note, as some evidence of his grov^fing importance, that he had " fifty-seven Serjeants in his retinue." He still, however, remained actively employed in the north of England, where the Scots provided ample exercise for many an English knight ; and in 1382 Sir Matthew, with John de Nevill, of Raby, and Roger de Clifford, was empowered to arrest and imprison certain persons who had broken truce and had " brought into England the goods of divers men of Scotland ; and to enquire in the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmor- land, who are their accomplices and cause restitution to be made."

In the following year (1383) he was called away from the Border to the scene of his earlier exploits in France, where he commanded a section of the Bishop of Norwich's army against the supporters of Pope Clement ; and, after a stout defence, was compelled to surrender Bourbourg to the French King. This appears to have been the last of Sir Matthew's warlike adventures over the sea, in which he seems to have had at least his share of the ill-luck which at that time pursued our armies.

In 1386 we find him actively engaged again in his own land where, with the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Earl of Northumberland, John, Lord Nevill, and other joint- commissioners, he was empowered to treat with the Scots for peace. (See Appendix). Sir Matthew's fighting days are now rapidly drawing to their close, though, as we shall see, he was still a right doughty knight. In 1388 he was commissioner of array for the county of Northumberland, as well as governor of Berwick. In the latter capacity it fell to his lot to take a conspicuous part in the battle of Otterbourne, the fight in which the hatred and jealousies of two nations found such fierce vent, and which minstrels and chroniclers alike have conspired to invest with a romantic interest which scarcely any other battle fought on British soil can claim.

Sir Matthew was one of the first to whom news was brought of that famous feast at Aberdeen where the Scottish lords and knights arranged that " they should all meet, with their puissance on the frontiers of Cumberland, at a castle in the high forest called Jedworth," for such a raid into England " as should be spoken of for twenty years after " ; and he took a leading and energetic part in raising the forces which assembled at Newcastle to resist the incursion.

Of the battle itself, fought with such tragic fierceness " by the fitful light of the moon," of its varying fortunes, its dramatic incidents and of the final rout of the English, the story is too well-known to need recital. That Sir Matthew bore himself right gallantly we know on abundant evidence. " And on the English party," Froissart says, " before that the Lord Percy was taken and after, there fought valiantly Sir Ralph Lumley, Sir Matthew Redman, Sir Thomas Ogle, Sir Thomas Grey, Sir Thomas Helton, Sir Thomas Abingdon — and divers others."

Sir Matthew was one of the leaders, with Sir Thomas and Sir Robert Umphreville, Sir Thomas Grey and Sir Robert Ogle, of the troops whom Hotspur, designing to catch the Scots in a net and effectually cut off their re- treat, sent to sweep round northward from the position occupied by them, and "hold them in y' they fled not awaye."

That this movement failed of its purpose was not in any way Sir Matthew's fault — the tide of fortune flowed finally and overwhelmingly against the Englishmen, and their leaders were captured or slain, " saving Sir Matthew Redman, captain of Berwick, who, when he knew no remedy nor recoverance, and saw his company fly from the Scots and yield them on every side, then he took his horse and departed to save himself."

But he was not to escape so easily ; and what later befell him is best told in Froissart's own words : —

I shall shew you of Sir Matthew Redman, who was on horseback to save himself, for he alone could not remedy the matter.

At his departing Sir James Lindsay was near to him and saw how Sir Matthew departed, and this Sir James, to win honour, followed in chase Sir Matthew Redman, and came so near to him that he might have stricken him with his spear, if he had listed. Then he said, " Ah ! Sir Knight, turn ; it is a shame thus to fly ; I am James Lindsay ; if ye wiU not turn I shall strike you on the back with my spear."

Sir Matthew spake no word, but struck his horse with the spurs sorer than he did before. In this manner he chased him more than three miles, and at last Sir Matthew Redman's horse foundered and fell under him. Then he stepped forth on the earth and drew out his sword, and took courage to defend himself; and the Scot thought to have stricken him on the breast, but Sir Matthew Redman swerved from the stroke and the spear-point entered into the earth.

Then Sir Matthew struck asunder the spear with his sword ; and when Sir James Lindsay saw how he had lost his spear, he cast away the truncheon and lighted afoot, and took a little battle-axe that he carried at his back, and handled with his one hand quickly and deliverly, in the which feat Scots be well expert ; and then he set at Sir Matthew, and he defended himself properly. Thus they tourneyed together, one with an axe and the other with a sword a long season, and no man to hinder them.

Finally Sir James Lindsay gave the knight such strokes, and held him so short, that he was put out of breath in such wise that he yielded himself and said, " Sir James Lindsay, I yield me to you."

" Well," quoth he, " and I am to receive you, rescue or no rescue ? " " I am content," quoth Redman, " so ye deal with me like a good companion." " I shall not fail that," quoth Lindsay, and so put up his axe.

"Well, Sir," quoth Redman, " what will you now that I shall do ? I am your prisoner; ye have conquered me. I would gladly go again to Newcastle, and within fifteen days I shall come to you in Scotland where ye shall assign me." " I am content," quoth Lind- say, " ye shall promise by your faith to present yourself within these three weeks at Edinburgh, and wheresoever ye go, to repute yourself my prisoner." All this Sir Matthew sware and promised to fulfil. Then each of them took their horses and took leave of each other. Sir James returned, and his intent was to go to his own company the same way that he came, and Sir Matthew Redman to New- castle.

But Nemesis was quickly on the track of the valorous Scottish knight. He had ridden scarcely half-a-mile through the darkness and mist which had fallen since his encounter with Redman, when he ran into the very arms of the Bishop of Durham and five hundred of his men. Sir James might have escaped from his predicament had he not unhappily mistaken the enemy for his own com- pany, and " when he was among them," Froissart says, " one demanded of him who he was." " I am," quoth he, " Sir James Lindsay." The Bishop heard these words, and stepped to him and said, " Lindsay, ye are taken ; yield ye to me." And thus the proud victor of a few minutes earlier found himself a prisoner, and on his way to Newcastle in the wake of his own captive. The later meeting ot the two knights, under circumstances so un- expected and humorous is thus quaintly described by Froissart : —

After that Sir Matthew Redman was returned to Newcastle, and shewed to divers how he had been taken prisoner by Sir James Lindsay, then it was shewed to him how the Bishop of Durham bad taken the said Sir James Lindsay, and how that he was there in the town as his prisoner.

As soon as the Bishop was departed Sir Matthew Redman went to the Bishop's lodging to see his master, and there he found him in a study of thought, lying in a window, and said : — "What, Sir James Lindsay, what make you here ? " Then Sir James left his study and came forth to him and gave him good-morrow, and said, " By my faith. Sir Matthew, fortune hath brought me hither; for as soon as I was departed from you, I met by chance the Bishop of Durham, to whom I am prisoner as ye be to me. I believe ye shall not need come to Edinburgh to me to make your finance ; I think rather we shall make an exchange one for another if the Bishop be so con- tent."

"Well, sir," quoth Redman, "we shall accord right well together; ye shall dine this day with me ; the Bishop and our men be gone forth to fight with your men ; I cannot tell what shall fall ; we shall know at their return."

" I am content to dine with you," quoth Lindsay. Thus these two knights dined together at Newcastle.

Sir James, by the way, appears to have been unkindly treated by fate, for, instead of recovering his freedom like Sir Matthew Redman, he was still a prisoner on the 25th of September when King Richard issued an order at Cambridge " with the advice of his great Council, to the Earl of Northumberland, not to dismiss Lindsay either for pledge or ransom until further orders."

The story of Sir Matthew's prowess at Otterbourne is told in many of the ballads and chronicles which have brought the picture of this battle so graphically down to us through the centuries. In The Batayl of Otterbourne, from The Chronicle of John Hardyng, we read

He sent the lorde syr Thomas Vmfreuyle, His brother Robert and also sir Thomas Grey, And sir Mawe Redmayn beyond ye Scottes that whyle, To holde them in y' they fled not awaye : —

• * * *

The felde was his all yf y' he were take, The Vmfreuyle, Grey, Ogle and Redmayne Helde the felde hole, y' myght so for his sake, And knewe nothyng whetherwarde he was ga}^.

And in De Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, by Andrew of Wyntown : — " Schyr Mawe of the Redmane " figures conspicuously among the gallant knights to whom Androw pays tribute.

It must have been a very sad home-coming for Sir Matthew, for in addition to the story of a lost battle, a routed army and his own misadventure, he had to break the news to his wife that her brother, a gallant young knight who had probably fought under his own banner, bad fallen on the field.

Ther was slayne upon the Ynglysshe syde. For soth and sertenlye, A gentell knyght, Sir John Fitzhughe, Yt was the more petye.

In the year following the battle of Otterbourne Sir Matthew was peacefully engaged in his magisterial work in Northumberland, varied by an enquiry, with Thomas, Earl Marshal, and others, " as to places in Northumber- land burnt by the King's enemies of Scotland " ; and by a survey with Sir Thomas Umfraville and others, of certain vessels called "kiles," used for measuring sea-coal at Newcastle-on-Tyne and neighbourhood (Pat. Rolls, Ric. II., 1388-92) — useful and honourable occupations enough, but contrasting strangely with the flash of steel and the clang of armour which had for so many years been to him the breath of life.

But we have been led away by the fascination of Sir Matthew's career as a fighter from the domestic and other peaceful phases of his life. One of his earliest appearances in the records was as a witness in 1364 to a release by " Agnes, relict of Ralph," of her right in certain lands (Hist. MSS. Commission — Rep. 10, part 4 — Major Bagot's Levens Hall Papers) ; and six years later, in 1370, Mat- thew and Lucy, his (first) wife, are defendants in a suit brought by Thomas de Yealand and Elena, his wife, to recover possession of three messuages, eighty acres of land, &c., in Levens {Abbr. Rot. Orig., vol. ii., p. 310). In 1376 it was found after the death of Joan de Coupland that Matthew de Redman, of Over Levens, held of the said Joan a moiety of the vill of Quinfell, and divers tenements in Selside.

Sir Matthew was twice married, (i) to " Lucy," whose identity has so far defied elucidation, and (2) to Joan, daughter of Henry, Lord Fitzhugh, who, before wedding Sir Matthew, had already been twice a wife, first of Wil- liam, fourth Lord Greystoke, and secondly of Anthony, third Lord de Lucy, who died in 1368, and by whom she had an infant daughter who died in the following year.

As widow of the wealthy Lord Lucy, Joan was a well- dowered bride, and, among other large possessions, brought to Sir Matthew the castle and manor of Langele, in Nor- thumberland, a third part of the Barony of Egremund, with the advowson of Ulvedale and the manors of Aspatrik and Braythwayt.

In 1378 the Patent Rolls disclose "a licence for Ralph, Baron de Greystock (Joan's son), Matthew de Redemane Kt and Joan, his wife, to grant the town and lordship of Angerton, Co. Northumberland, held in chief, to William de Greystock Esq"'^., the said Ralph's brother, for life"; and five years later, in 1383, there was a licence to transfer to Henry, first Earl of Northumberland, and Matilda, his wife, " the castle and manor of Langeley, Co. Northum- berland, a moiety of the manor of Aspatrik, and a third part of the Barony of Egermond, Co. Northumberland, with the advowson of Ulvedale, after the death of Joan, wife of Matthew de Redmayne knight."

Henry, the first Earl of Northumberland, had married Matilda, only sister of Anthony de Lucy, Joan's second husband ; and on the death of Joan, her dower-lands reverted to Matilda and her husband, on condition that he, the Earl of Northumberland, should bear the arms of Percy, — or, with a lion rampant azure, quartered with those of Lucy, viz. : gtdes, with three lucies, argent.

The following pedigree will perhaps make this transac- tion clear : —

ANTHONY = JOAN (FlTZHUGH) = (3) SIR MATTHEW MATILDA = HENRY, 3rd Baron I widow of William, Redman. Earl of Lord Greystoke. Northumberland.

Joan, d. 1369.

Sir Matthew appears to have had two sons and one daughter. O his elder son, Matthew, the records disclose little beyond the fact that on April i, 1369, he had a pass to Ireland with William de Windsor ; and it seems cer- tain that he died in the lifetime of his father, leaving his younger brother, Richard, to assume the headship of the family, and by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of the first Lord Aldeburgh, to transfer the chief activities of the family from Levens, which had been its headquarters for more than two centuries, to Harewood in Yorkshire.

Sir Matthew's daughter, Felicia, the only one traceable, married Sir John, son of Ralph, Lord Lumley, who fell at the battle of Baugy, in Anjou, in 1421. From this union the present Earl of Scarborough and many of our nobles of to-day derive their origin. Her great-grandson, Thomas, wed Elizabeth Plantagenet, the daughter of King Edward IV. by the Lady Elizabeth Lucy.

Sir Matthew Redman was one of the witnesses in the historical dispute between Lord Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor as to the right to bear "azure a bend or " ; in which he gave important evidence as to Scrope's second marriage with the lady of Pulford. Sir Matthew died circa 1390, and was succeeded by his son Richard, who was destined to shed still more lustre on the name of Redman.

It is interesting to note that in his will, dated 1407^ Richard Burgh, who married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Roos, of Kendal, bequeathed the sum of thirteen marks to two chantry priests for the celebration for one year, of masses for the souls of Richard, King of England, the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas, Lord Clifford, and Sir Matthew Redman. (Test. Ebor. Sur. Soc, i., 348).

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