♂Thomas Mowbray

Thomas Mowbray^W (22 March 1366/7 or 1367/8 – 22 September 1399) was an English nobleman, Earl Marshal^W and first Duke of Norfolk, who was banished by Richard II^W after a quarrel with the Duke of Hereford and died in exile. He was the eighteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Isabel Mowbray (died 1452).

Early life and marriages

Thomas was a younger son of John de Mowbray and Elizabeth de Segrave. In 1383 his older brother John, Earl of Nottingham, died, and Thomas became his heir; he was created Earl of Nottingham on 12 February 1382/3. Soon afterwards he married Elizabeth le Strange, Lady Strange of Blackmere, a girl born on 6 December 1373. She died on 23 August 1383, and they had no children.

His second wife was Elizabeth de Arundel, the young widow of William de Montagu and a daughter of Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel. They married at Arundel Castle in July 1384, in the presence of the king and queen. Her marriage portion included the manor of Wing, in Buckinghamshire.

Earl Marshal and duke

Thomas was granted the office of Marshal of England for life on 30 June 1385, and on 12 January 1385/6 a charter gave him the title of Earl Marshal for himself and his male heirs. In 1387 he served under his father-in-law in the naval victory over the French, Spanish and Flemish fleets off Margate^W, and in 1394 he went with the king to Ireland. He was a Knight of the Garter, Captain of Calais and Warden of the East March, and in 1396 he had license to found a house of Carthusian^W monks at Epworth, in Lincolnshire. On 29 September 1397 he was created Duke of Norfolk.

Exile and death

In 1398 Henry, Duke of Hereford, accused him of treasonable words said to have been spoken between them in conversation in December 1397. The quarrel ended in September 1398 with the king banishing both dukes. Thomas’s lands were seized until the debts of his government of Calais were paid, and he was given license to travel to Germany, Bohemia and Hungary and to go overseas on pilgrimage. Thomas died of pestilence at Venice on 22 September 1399 and was buried there in the abbey of St. George. Eight days after his death Hereford was declared king in Parliament. On 6 October 1399 Parliament annulled the creation of Thomas’s dukedom, and on 13 October Hereford was crowned as Henry IV^W.

The family

The couple had two sons, Thomas and John, and three daughters, Elizabeth, Isabel and Margaret. Their elder son, Thomas^W, was born on 17 September 1385. He was drawn into the Scrope conspiracy of 1405, was captured in the priory of Monks Kirkby, in Warwickshire, and was executed without trial on 8 June 1405. The younger son, John^W, later became the second Duke of Norfolk.

Notes

Sources

Thomas’s birth, offices, marriages, exile, death and burial, and the children of his marriage to Elizabeth de Arundel, are from Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry (2005), pp. 338 and 602–603; his titles and his daughter Isabel’s place in the family are also in Richardson’s Plantagenet Ancestry, 2nd edition (2011), vol. 1, p. 256. The date of the banishment and Henry of Hereford’s accession are from Magna Carta Ancestry, p. 489. These are printed genealogies of the medieval nobility. Sir Bernard Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage (1869) also names Isabel as the duke’s daughter and Elizabeth as his wife.

Dates

Richardson gives his birth as 22 March 1366/7 or 1367/8, from his age of 33 in 1399; the double year reflects the old New Year of 25 March. Richardson’s “Almain” for the first country he had license to visit is the old English name for Germany.