Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester
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Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester (c. 1170–November 3, 1219) was one of the leaders of the baronial rebellion against King John of England, and a major figure in both Scotland and England in the decades around the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
The family of de Quincy had arrived in England after the Norman Conquest, and took their name from Cuinchy in the Arrondissement of Béthune; the personal name "Saer" was used by them over several generations. Both names are variously spelled in primary sources and older modern works, the first name being sometimes rendered Saher or Seer, and the surname as Quency or Quenci.
The first recorded Saer de Quincy (known to historians as "Saer I") was lord of the manor of Long Buckby in Northamptonshire in the earlier twelfth century, and second husband of Matilda of St Liz, stepdaughter of King David I of Scotland. Their marriage produced two sons, Saer II and Robert de Quincy. It was Robert, the younger son, who was the father of the Saer de Quincy who eventually became Earl of Winchester.
Robert de Quincy seems to have inherited no English lands from his father, and pursued a knightly career in Scotland, where he is recorded from around 1160 as a close companion of his cousin, King William the Lion. By 1170 he had married Orabilis, heiress of the Scottish lordship of Leuchars and, through her, he became lord of an extensive complex of estates north of the border which included lands in Fife, Strathearn and Lothian.
Saer de Quincy, the son of Robert and Orabilis, was thus raised largely in Scotland. His absence from English records for the first decades of his life has led some modern historians to confuse him with his uncle, Saer II, who took part in the rebellion of Henry the Young King in 1173, when the future Earl of Winchester can have been no more than a toddler. Saer II's line ended without direct heirs, and his nephew and namesake would eventually inherit his estate, uniting his primary Scottish holdings with the family's Northamptonshire patrimony, and possibly some lands in France.
The subsequent rise of the Lord of Leuchars to prominence in England came through his marriage to Margaret, the younger sister of Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester and—surely no coincidence—the de Quincys' Fife neighbour, Roger de Beaumont, Bishop of St Andrews. In 1204, Earl Robert died, leaving Margaret as co-heiress of the vast earldom along with her elder sister. The estate was split in half, and after the final division was ratified in 1207, de Quincy was made Earl of Winchester.
Following his marriage, de Quincy became a prominent military and diplomatic figure in England, but he seems to have owed his importance to his personal status and connections rather than any close alliance with King John. One man with whom he does seem to have developed a close personal relationship is his cousin, Robert Fitzwalter, another grandson of Maud of St Liz by her first husband. They are first found together in 1203, as co-commanders of the garrison at the major fortress of Vaudreuil in Normandy; they were responsible for surrendering the castle without a fight to Philip II of France, fatally weakening the English position in northern France, but although popular opinion seems to have blamed them for the capitulation, a royal writ is extant stating that the castle was surrendered at King John's command, and both Saer and Fitzwalter had to endure personal humiliation and heavy ransoms at the hands of the French.
In Scotland, he was perhaps more successful. In 1211-12, the Earl of Winchester commanded an imposing retinue of a hundred knights and a hundred serjeants in William the Lion's campaign against the Mac William rebels, a force which some historians have suggested may have been the mercenary force from Brabant lent to the campaign by John.
In 1215, when the baronial rebellion broke out, Robert Fitzwalter became the military commander, and the Earl of Winchester joined him, acting as one of the chief negotiators with John; both cousins were among the 25 guarantors of the Magna Carta. De Quincy fought against John in the troubles that followed the signing of the Charter, and, again with Fitzwalter, travelled to France to invite Prince Louis of France to take the English throne. He and Fitzwalter were subsequently among the most committed and prominent supporters of Louis' candidature for the kingship, against both John and the infant Henry III.
When military defeat cleared the way for Henry III to take the throne, de Quincy went on crusade, perhaps in fulfillment of an earlier vow, and in 1219 he left to join the Fifth Crusade, then besieging Damietta. While in the east, he fell sick and died. He was buried in Acre, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, rather than in Egypt, and his heart was brought back and interred at Garendon Abbey near Loughborough, a house endowed by his wife's family.
By his wife Margaret de Beaumont he had three sons and a daughter:
- Robert (d. 1217). Some sources say he married Hawise, sister and co-heiress of Ranulf de Blundeville, earl of Chester. However, it is more likely Hawise married Saer's brother Robert;
- Roger, who succeeded his father as earl of Winchester (though he did not take formal possession of the earldom until after his mother's death);
- Robert de Quincy (second son of that name; d. 1257) who married Helen, daughter of the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great;
- Hawise, who married Hugh de Vere, 4th Earl of Oxford.
His arms were: Or, a fess gules, in chief a label of seven points azure.
| Preceded by: New Creation |
Earl of Winchester | Succeeded by: Roger de Quincy |
[edit] References
- Sidney Painter, "The House of Quency, 1136-1264", Medievalia et Humanistica, 11 (1957) 3-9; reprinted in his book Feudalism and Liberty
- Grant G. Simpson, “An Anglo-Scottish Baron of the Thirteenth century: the Acts of Roger de Quincy Earl of Winchester and Constable of Scotland” (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Edinburgh 1963).
