♂Hugh de Lacy

Hugh de Lacy (died 1186) was an Anglo-Norman baron who held Ewyas and Weobley in Herefordshire and went on to become one of the conquerors of Ireland and Lord of Meath^W. He was an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by three separate lines of descent, all through his son Walter de Lacy (died 1241): her twenty-third great-grandfather by one line and her twenty-fourth great-grandfather by the other two.

In England and Ireland

Hugh is said to have been a son of Gilbert de Lacy, the fourth Baron Lacy. By 1166 he was lord of Ewyas and Weobley, where Roger de Ebroicis held four knights’ fees of him and Walter de Ebroicis three.

He took part in the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland^W and made Meath his own, handing out its lands to his followers. By his charter he gave his kinsman Gilbert de Nugent the land of Delvin, all that an Irish family had held there before the conquest; the grant is said to have been made in 1171 and to have covered some 20,000 acres. Twice he was chief governor of Ireland, the second time in 1179, and in 1181 John, constable of Chester, and others were sent over to remove him from office.

Marriages and death

Hugh’s first wife was Rose de Monmouth. Hugh and Rose had two sons, Walter and Hugh, and a daughter, Elayne, who married Richard de Beaufo. He later married a daughter of Roderic O’Connor^W and had a son by her, William Gorm; another son, Gilbert, and two daughters are said to have been his as well, by one wife or the other.

He is said to have been murdered on 25 July 1186. His elder son, Walter, followed him as Lord of Meath.

The family

Their younger son, Hugh de Lacy^W, settled in Ulster after his father’s death and became the chief opponent of John de Courcy^W, lord of Ulster, whom he defeated and took prisoner early in 1204. In May 1205 he was made Earl of Ulster, which is said to be the earliest Anglo-Norman title in Ireland of which any record survives. He was driven out of Ireland in 1210, came back about 1218, and died late in 1242 or early in 1243; he was buried in the church of the Dominican friars at Carrickfergus.

Lines of descent

All three lines run through his son Walter de Lacy (died 1241) 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 Hugh and Rose, and in Sarah Dudley (1795–1839), whose parents, Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844) and Anna Smith (1764–1825), both descended from them too.

Notes

Sources

Hugh’s parentage and his children are from C. L. Kingsford’s article “Lacy, Hugh de (d. 1186)” in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 31 (1892), which says he “was no doubt the son, and not, as has sometimes been stated, a younger brother, of Gilbert de Lacy”, and calls Gilbert the fourth baron Lacy. The same article gives his marriage to the daughter of Roderic O’Connor, their son William Gorm, and a son Gilbert and two daughters “by which wife is not clear”. Kingsford’s article on his son, “Lacy, Walter de (d. 1241)”, names Walter’s mother as “Roysya de Monemue (Monmouth)”.

The Complete Peerage, 1st ed., vol. 8 (1898), Ulster, p. 4, calls Hugh Lord of the palatine Honor of Meath and “one of the Conquerors of Ireland”, gives his two terms as chief governor, the second in 1179, and his murder on 25 July 1186, and names Rose de Monmouth as his first wife. The year 1186 is also Kingsford’s; the day is the Complete Peerage’s.

Lands in England and Ireland

The knights’ fees of 1166 are from the Complete Peerage, 2nd ed., vol. 4 (1916), p. 302, note, which calls him “Hugh de Lacy of Ewyas and Weobley, co. Hereford”. The Delvin charter is quoted in Latin in the same volume, p. 170; the Complete Peerage, 1st ed., vol. 3 (1890), p. 55, gives the year 1171 and the 20,000 acres. His removal from office in 1181 is from S. P. H. Statham, “Later Descendants of Domesday Holders of Land”, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society 49 (1927).

The Earl of Ulster

The younger Hugh’s career is from the Complete Peerage, 1st ed., vol. 8, Ulster, p. 4, which quotes Kingsford’s description of the earldom as the “earliest creation of an Anglo-Norman dignity in Ireland, of which there is any extant record.”