♂Gilbert de Lacy

Gilbert de Lacy (flourished 1150) was the fourth Baron Lacy, a twelfth-century baron who fought on both sides of the civil war of King Stephen’s reign^W and later joined the Knights Templar^W and went to the Holy Land. He was an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by three separate lines of descent, all through his son Hugh de Lacy (died 1186): her twenty-fourth great-grandfather by one line and her twenty-fifth great-grandfather by the other two.

Family and the civil war

Gilbert was the son of Emma, a daughter of Walter de Lacy^W, the first Baron Lacy; his father’s name is not known. When his uncle Hugh de Lacy died, the family’s estates were taken into the king’s hands, but Gilbert took the Lacy name. In the war between Stephen and the Empress Matilda^W he first fought for the empress, and in 1138 he tried to capture Bath on her behalf. By 1146 he had gone over to the king, perhaps because the empress had left his enemy Joce de Dinan in possession of Ludlow Castle^W. So far as the early part of the romance of Fouke le Fitz Waryn^W holds any truth, Gilbert, and not his grandson Walter, is its hero.

The Templar

Gilbert won the favor of Henry II and recovered his uncle’s lands, and in 1158 he was excused the “donum”, a payment owed to the king. A little later he joined the Templars and went to the Holy Land, where he is said to have become preceptor of the order in the county of Tripoli^W and to have fought in the successful expedition against Nur al-Din^W in 1163. He gave the Templars twelve hides of land and one virgate in Guttinges, and five burgages in Winchcombe, and he was remembered as a prudent man and a skillful soldier. By 1163 his son Hugh was in possession of his lands.

Lines of descent

All three lines run through his son Hugh de Lacy (died 1186) and come down on the father’s side of Nancy Jane Blanchard, through her father, Kenneth Blanchard (1897–1975). They meet again in Wesley Blanchard (1844–1908), whose parents, Joseph Knapp Blanchard (1820–1885) and Elizabeth Trueworthy Blanchard (1825–1884), both descended from Gilbert, and in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents, Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825), both descended from him too.

Notes

Sources

Gilbert’s life is told inside C. L. Kingsford’s article “Lacy, Hugh de (d. 1186)” in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 31 (1892), which calls him “Gilbert de Lacy (fl. 1150), fourth baron Lacy”, the son of “Emma, daughter of Walter de Lacy, first baron”, and adds: “His father’s name is not known.” The same article says Hugh “was no doubt the son, and not, as has sometimes been stated, a younger brother, of Gilbert de Lacy”, and gives the attempt on Bath in 1138 (citing the Gesta Stephani^W), the change of sides by 1146, the excused “donum” of 1158, his gifts to the Templars, and his command in the county of Tripoli in “Geoffrey of Angoulême’s successful expedition against Noureddin in 1163” (citing William of Tyre^W). The reason offered for his change of sides, and the link to the Fouke le Fitz Waryn romance, are Kingsford’s own suggestions.

The later Gilbert de Lacy

A second Gilbert de Lacy, of Ewyas Lacy, who married Isabel le Bigod and died in 1230, was this Gilbert’s great-grandson, a son of Walter de Lacy (died 1241). The Complete Peerage and Richardson’s Magna Carta Ancestry name that younger man, not this one.