The Lords of Swineshead
The Bolle of Haugh pedigree
contains a claim that their line originated with an Alan of Swineshead, father of Thomas
Bole of Bole, who was the Lord of Swineshead.
See
The Question of the Bolle as
Lords of Swineshead.
For references and a detailed account of the real Lords of Swineshead,see the Gresle and la Warre families below.
In the following summary, the years in
brackets are the years they held the title.
The Lords of Swineshead
Sir Albert de
Gresley (ca. 1070-ca. 1100) (Lord of many manors in Lincolnshire including
Drayton Manor which included the area which would later become Swineshead)
Sir Robert de
Gresley (ca. 1100- ca. 1170) (inherited his father’s holdings) (founded
Swineshead Abbey in 1135; he's believed to have built the moated castle at
Manwar Ings
ref. establishing Swineshead as a separate estate which would
make him the
First Lord of Swineshead)
Sir Albert de
Grelley (ca. 1170 – ca. 1175) (heir to his father)
Sir Albert de
Grelley Jr. (ca. 1175 – 1181) (heir to his father)
Sir Robert de
Grelley (b. ca. 1174, minor heir to his father at age 7 in 1181, in wardship
of Uncle Gilbert Basset until he came of age in 1195, d. 1230)
Sir Thomas
Grelley (1230 – 1270) (heir to his father)
Under Prince
Edmund’s wardship of the minor Robert de Gresle (1270-1273)
Sir Robert de
Gresle (1273 - 1282)
Under the
King’s escheat (1282-1301)
Sir Thomas
Grelley (1301-1310) but had no heir himself (male or female)
Sir John la
Warre (1310-1347) by marriage to Sir Thomas Grelley’s sister and heir Joan
Grelley
Sir Roger la
Warre heir to his grandfather upon his coming of age in 1353 (1353-1370)
Sir John la
Warre (1370-1398) heir to his father
Sir Thomas la Warre (1398-1411) heir to his brother; he took up a religious life and granted the manor, lands and advowson of Swineshead to his Bishop in 1411.
See below for an account of their lives.
Swineshead is an old Anglo-Saxon word for a landing place on the Swin river
(Swin-heda) which in ancient times ran past a market place there and on into
the sea at Bicker Haven. It is
mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles of 675AD and 779AD.
It is not mentioned in the Domesday Book but was probably
included as part of the neighbouring Drayton manor, an estate of almost 2000 acres.
The Abbey of Swineshead
After England was conquered by the Normans in 1066, Sir Albert de Gresley of
Avranches, Manche, Normandy was granted land in Norfolk, Nottinghamshire and
Lincolnshire including
Drayton Manor which at that time included the Manors of Swineshead, Bicker
and Wigtoft. He was
succeeded by his son Sir Robert de Gresley (b. ca. 1067 d. ?) who founded
the abbey of Swineshead in 1135 originally under the Order of Savigny but it
was converted to the Cistercian Order in 1147.
Its founding grant was for only 240 acres but it acquired additional
land in the Swineshead estate, particularly in Bicker and Wigtoft, by
investment and gifts. In 1166
Henry II granted the monastery a charter confirming the Monks possession of
the lands received of the gift of Robert Grelley and Albert his son,
founders of the Monastery.
In 1316 Edward II granted the monastery a charter which confirmed the gifts
of land which they had received since their founding in 1135.
This gives us an interesting list of their holdings and their patrons
over the years. However, it
doesn’t date any of the gifts and we don’t even know if they are listed in
chronological order so any of these grants may have been made at any time
between 1135 and 1316. The
original document at the National Archives would likely contain much more
detail but we do have the catalogue entry for the charter as published in
Calendar of the Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Vol.
III, 1300-1326
While this charter is addressed to the ‘church of St Mary, Swynesheued’ it
seems to be referring to the church within the abbey rather than to the
parish church in the town. It
is strange that they were both dedicated to St Mary but it is clear that the
wording of the grant is to ‘the church of St Mary of Swineshead and the
monks serving God there…’, and then mentions the abbey explicitly as ‘…
the place within the willows in the marsh of Swineshead in which the
abbey was founded …’.
It’s very interesting that there is not one Bolle reference in the charter.
If the Bolles were landowners and
parishioners in Swineshead before 1316 they would have been expected to have
made some contribution to the abbey’s support, certainly after the death of
a family member. The Bolle land
at Holfleet, while technically still in Swineshead parish, was right on the
line between Swineshead parish and Wigtoft parish and was actually closer to
Wigtoft where we find the earliest Bolles connections.
See
The Roots of the Bolle of Swineshead
The Grelley Family, Lords of Manchester and Swineshead
Shortly
after the Norman conquest of England, William the Conqueror granted Albert
Greslet (Grelley) a large area of lands and manors in Lincolnshire, Rutland
and Nottinghamshire. In 1135 Albert's son Robert co-founded the Abbey
of Swineshead with his son Albert. Albert married Agnes
FitzNigel by which marriage Albert inherited the Barony of Manchester.
His son Albert Jr. (juvenis) succeeded him but died by 1182 leaving
his wife, Isabel Basset, an heir of the late Thomas Basset of Headington,
Oxfordshire, deceased; a minor son Robert aged 7 (11 in 1185 per Pipe Rolls
ref.), and three daughters in the care
of their Uncle Gilbert Basset.
Robert came of age in 1195 and assumed control of his lands.
He was stated to be the Lord of Swineshead in the Great Inventory of
Lincolnshire in 1212.
Robert was one of the barons who
opposed King John’s absolute power over them and the treatment they had
received during the recent war with France.
When King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta in June 1215,
Robert was one of the barons who put up his lands as a guarantee of the
noble’s side honoring the terms of the
Magna Carta.
When neither side honoured the agreement King John seized the
guarantor’s lands including Robert’s.
The First Baron’s War then broke out in November 1215 with the barons
being aided by the Kings of France and of Scotland.
In 1216 King John stayed overnight
at Swineshead Abbey when leading his army from King’s Lynn to meet an
invasion from King Alexander II of Scotland.
The history books tell us that officially King John died near there
from either dysentery from drinking the bad local water or too many peaches
(Roger of Wendover’s
account of the events) during his campaign against the
barons in the north. However, in
some accounts from that period, during dinner at Swineshead Abbey that
evening he was poisoned by a monk, Brother Simon, who had spiked the King’s
wine with poison from a toad. As
the King had food tasters, Brother Simon drank some of the wine himself
before serving the King and then retired to his room where he obtained
absolution from the Abbot of Swineshead and died, presumably after taking
the remainder of the poison. The
King became sick that night but marched on towards Newark while his
condition continued to worsen and where he died seven days after his meal at
Swineshead. It is believed by
some that Brother Simon was a Knight Templar who had been sent to
assassinate the King due to his taxation of the church orders and in support
of the Barons War. Another local
tradition in Nottingham is that the monk was actually Friar Tuck who was
taking his revenge on King John for the death of Maid Marian.
Shakespeare repeats the allegation that a monk at Swineshead poisoned
the King in his play King John but nothing has ever been proven.
Robert Grelley would not have been
at Swineshead when the King stopped there as he would have been off with his
men (possibly including a Bolle or two) with the Rebel Baron’s army.
The King having seized Robert’s lands the year before.
My personal theory is that the king was already sick with a stomach
ailment when he arrived at the abbey and the Abbot, preferring their founder
and generous patron to the stingy king, may have decided to help him along
his way.
After King John’s death the rebels
made peace with his successor and the Magna Carta was re-instated with a few
of the still more oppressive clauses which John had insisted on having been
removed. Robert’s possessions in
Oxford, Rutland, Lincoln, Lancaster, Norwich and Suffolk were re-confirmed
by King Henry III in 1218. Sir
Robert married a daughter of Henry de Longchamp through whom he obtained the
Lordships of Moslingham and Weston in Norfolk.
He died in 1230 and was succeeded by Sir Thomas Grelley (1199-1270).
Thomas’ only son Peter (1225-1261) had pre-deceased him and his minor
heir, his grandson Robert de Gresle (Grelly, Grelle or Gresley), became the
ward of the King in 1270 until his full age in 1273 when he became Baron of
Manchester and Lord of Swineshead (as well as the Lord of many other
manors).
During Robert’s minority from 1270
to 1273 the Swineshead estate was put under the king’s
escheat and the
wardship of Robert and his lands was assigned to the king’s son Edmund.
In July 1271 the King appointed William de Clifford to the Church
of
Swinesheved and someone
would have been appointed as the local steward or attorney for the estate
but the Lordship of the estate would have been under Edmund until Robert’s
full age. He could have granted
that manor to someone (as he granted Manchester manor to Walter de Percy)
but I can’t find any record that he did.
Robert Grelley died Feb. 15, 1282 in
Lancashire leaving as his heir Thomas, a minor; Amadeus de Savoy held his
wardship and had custody of the Manor of Manchester.
The inquisition post mortem of Robert Grelley in 1282 listed his
lands in Lincolnshire as Casthorp, Swineshead and the Church of Wiketoft all
appurtenant to the Manor of Sixhill; of Heynton near Sixhill and of Bekeby,
Bernetheby, Bracebrigge and Chanwick all appurtenant to the Manor of
Sixhill.
Thomas on his
majority in 1301 became Lord of Swineshead, he died 1310 having had no
children; his sister Joan (1281-1353) being his heir and having m. Sir John
la Warre in 1294 in Manchester, Sir John became Lord of Swineshead through
Joan in 1310.
The la Warre Family, Lords of Manchester and Swineshead
John de
Tregoz, Lord of Ewyas, Wales (now Hereford) died in 1300, his heir grandson
John la Warre, aged 24 (son of his eldest daughter Clarice la Warre deceased
and Roger la Warre deceased) held land in Somerset, Hereford, Wiltshire,
Wales, Northampton, Surrey, Salop. but not in Lincolnshire.
John la Warre
m. Joan daughter of Sir Robert de Grelle (estates in Manchester and Guerdley
in Lancashire and in Swineshead, Sixhills and Bloxholm in Lincolnshire) in
1294. John la Warre acquired the
manor and advowson of Swineshead from Sir Robert (through her brother) in
1310.
By 1316 John la Warre was returned Seventh Lord of Manchester in the county of Lancaster, of Swineshead and Great Casterton in the county of Lincolnshire and of Wakerley in the county of Northampton. John la Warre d. 1347; succeeded by his grandson Roger (age 18, the son of John de la Warre and Margaret, daughter of Robert de Holand) as Lord of Swineshead in 1353. Roger’s son John was his heir in 1370. Roger and John are believed to have been buried in the churchyard of the Abbey of Swineshead. John’s heir was his half-brother Thomas la Warre in 1398 who would be the last Lord of Swineshead as he chose a religious life. In 1411 Thomas granted and quitclaimed the manor, lands and advowson of Swineshead to his Bishop. ref.
When Thomas died and was buried in Swineshead on May 7, 1427 his much depleted estate, which still included the Manor of Brislington in Somerset, the Manor of Wakerley, Northamptonshire and the Manor of Sixhills, Lincolnshire, went to his nephew Sir Reginald West.
Swineshead Abbey in Henry VIII’s Dissolution of Church Lands
The revenue
of Swineshead Abbey in 1534 was less than £200; it therefore fell under the
first Act of Suppression. The abbot, John Haddingham, received a pension of
£24 a year. The monks, ten in number, were paid off in the usual way, with
20s apiece and ' capacities.' No
complaint is recorded against the house at the time of suppression. It was
dissolved simply because its revenue was less than £200 a year.
The original
endowment of Swineshead Abbey consisted of 240 acres in the same vill, with
certain mills and fisheries, and a moiety of the church of Cotgrave,
Nottinghamshire. The temporalities of the house were worth £121 16s. 10d.
per annum in 1291. The
abbot was returned in 1303 and 1346 as holding half a knight's fee of
William son of Robert in Casthorpe. In 1534 the income of Swineshead Abbey
was £167 15s 3½d clear. At
the dissolution the crown bailiff's report gives a total of £184 17s 8½ d,
including the rectory of Cotgrave and the manors of Gosberton and Quadryng,
Great and Little Hale, Cotgrave, and Hardwick Grange.