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CHAPTER II:

TURCHILL OF ARDEN (d. ca. 1100)

IN THE TIME OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR (1066-1087)

 

 

CHAPTER II:
TURCHILL OF ARDEN (d. ca. 1100)
IN THE TIME OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR (1066-1087)

Introduction:

One of the scenes in the Bayeaux tapestry, which describes the Norman Conquest, is a group looking in wonder at the "hairy star" -- as Halley's Comet was then called -- which was recognized for the first time in 1066. It was, indeed, a fateful year.

Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) died on January 5, 1066 -- only a few days after the consecration of Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1065 -- the one truly significant contribution of his reign. With his dying breath he appointed his brother-in-law, Harold, Earl of Wessex, as his successor.

Harold's appointment immediately triggered the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy, who claimed that Edward had promised the throne of England to him. The Bayeaux tapestry also purports to record a "meeting" between William and Harold in which Harold is said to have agreed to this arrangement.

William bolstered his claim to the throne by a color of genealogical right -- if the fact that he was illegitimate to begin with is overlooked![1]

He based that claim on the fact that his great aunt was Emma of Normandy, the

 

 

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wife of two kings of Saxon England -- Ethelred the Unready and Canute the Dane, and mother of two other kings of Saxon England -- Hardacanute and Edward the Confessor. Harold, on the other hand, had an extremely tenuous

claim to the throne through his mother, a first cousin once removed of Canute. Of principal importance, however, was the fact that William had the support of Pope Alexander II (1061-1073) who looked for the same ecclesiastical reform in England which had been effected on parts of the Continent. Harold, on the other hand, had been consecrated as King by an Archbishop of Canterbury who had been appointed by a schismatic Pope.

Mercenaries from all over Europe came to join William. By August of 1066, 700 vessels and around 7, 000 men were ready to follow him to England. On September 28 the fleet came to anchor off the coast of England. Harold, whose troops had been sorely tried at the Battle of Stamford Bridge fighting off the invasion of King Harold Hardrada of Norway earlier that month, hastened south by forced marches to meet the invasion of William, and, on October 13, took up his position at Hastings. In the battle the following day, Harold and his brothers were slain. William was crowned at Westminster on Christmas Day, 1066.

 

 

There followed one of the most thorough land confiscations in history. The Saxons were taxed or thrown off their lands which were then given by William to his Norman knights. Dugdale, writing in 1730, says:

"An for his Crueltie to the native English, evident that he spared not the very Clergie, imprisoning Sigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, till he died, with many others; compelling many of the Nobilitie and others to forsake the Kingdom; forcing divers, as well Priests as Layman out of their possessions to betake themselves Woods and Deserts where they were constrained to live as Savages, whereof there was scarce a man left; all sorts of men reduced to such misery and servitude, that it was a disgrace to be accounted an Englishman".

A. Turchill of Arden - was he a "Quisling"[2]?

Pine, in his introduction to Burke's Landed Gentry, compares William the Conqueror's invasion to Hitler's invasions of the small European countries. And, in commenting on Domesday, says:

"One of the chief land owners was Turchill of War­wick, the son of Aelfwine, Sheriff of the shire in Edward The Confessor's reign. From him descended the Ardens in the present volume of Burke's Landed  Gentry. By what feats Turchill retained his lands, it is impossible to say, perhaps, horrible dictu, by a species of "Quisilingism". Certain it is that he held large possessions; . . . and that much of his land was formerly freely held formerly by Englishmen who had no doubt been dispossessed by William". (p. xl).

 

 

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Was Mr. Pine correct? I do not think so. The strong family and fealty relationship between the Arden family and the House of Mercia has been described in the preceding chapter. The House of Mercia was never enthusiastic about the accession of Harold as king and did not support Harold during the invasion of William. It was, therefore, quite natural for Turchill, because of his close relation to the House of Mercia, to have been indifferent whether William or Harold were king and to have ultimately supported William.

The reason why the House of Mercia did not support Harold of Wessex as King of England lies in a long and bitter rivalry between the two houses which stretched back for three generations. The principal characters in this drama were as follows:

Harold's father, Earl Godwin of Wessex, was a man of obscure origin[3] who married well and also somehow obtained the favor of King Canute (1016-1035). In the year 1021 Canute simply dismissed Thorkill, Earl of Wessex, and appointed Godwin in his stead. Among Godwin's children were Edith, who subsequently married Edward the Confessor; Swegen, outlawed by Edward for his outrageous felonies; Tosdig, who subsequently became Earl of Northumberland, was dethroned in a revolt by the people, and subsequently joined King Hardrada in his invasion of England against his own

brother, Harold; and a son, Harold, the successor of his father as Earl of Wessex, and later the successor to Edward the Confessor as King of England.

Opposing the House of Wessex was the House of Mercia. We have already met in the last chapter, Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his fair wife, the Countess Godiva. Leofric also owed his position to Canute, having been appointed Earl some time prior to 1035. When he died in 1057, he was succeeded by his son Aelfgar who, in turn, died in 1062. Among Aelfgar's children were Leverunia, who married Turchill of Arden; Edwin who succeeded Aelfgar as Earl of Mercia in 1062 and whom Rous says was the first husband of Margaret, the daughter of Turchill; Morcar, who, upon the revolt of the people of Northumberland over Tosdig's rule, was elected Earl of Northumber­land; and Alditha, whose second husband was Harold, King of England.

The rivalry between the two houses began when Canute died in November, 1035. At a meeting in Oxford in 1036, Leofric of Mercia suggested that Harold, Canute's illegitimate son by Elgifrig of Mercia, succeed Canute -- a suggestion which was opposed by Godwin of Wessex, who supported Hardacanute, Canute's son by Emma of Normandy. Leofric won out and Harold ruled for a short time until his death in 1040 when he was succeeded by Hardacanute who promptly revenged himself upon Leofric by burning the city of Worcester following an uprising in that city against a heavy tax levied against the city!

At the death of Hardacanute, two years later in 1042, Edward the Confessor, who had been living in exile in Normandy for 24 years, was acclaimed king. Edward was the next in line of the non-Danish kings as the son of Emma and Ethelred (Chart IA). His elder brother, Arthur, had been killed in 1035 by Godwin when Arthur indicated an interest in the throne. The reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), is in large part a story of the tension between the Earls of Wessex and Mercia who, along with Siward, Earl of Northumbria, comprised the three great earldoms of the kingdom.

Leofric and Godwin started off Edward's reign peacefully. Together with Edward the Confessor, they marched to the castle of Emma of Normandy and dispossessed her of her wealth -- hardly a very saintly thing for Edward, later St. Edward, to do to his mother. But friction was not long in coming. Godwin, over Leofric's vigorous opposition, was successful in marrying his daughter to Edward, thus tying the throne closely to the House of Wessex.

This influence allowed Godwin to secure pardons for his son Swegen for two monstrous crimes -- one of which was seducing an abbess!

But Godwin went too far. In 1051 he felt powerful enough to flatly refuse to obey an order of Edward, and gathered forces against the

king. Edward promptly turned to Leofric of Mercia and Siward of Northumbria for support. They responded, rushing to London with their forces. Godwin, faced with an array of great force, went into exile. The following year, however, he returned, this time with heavy support from a large part of the country whose nationalistic instincts rebelled against the increasing Norman influences over Edward. Thereafter Godwin's influence over Edward was almost supreme.

The influence of the House of Mercia was at its nadir. In 1055 a charge of treason was brought against Aelfgar, the son of Leofric of Mercia. Aelfgar, was outlawed -- no one knows why. He fled to the court of Gruffydd app. Llewelyn (1039-1063), King of Wales -- a longtime friend of the Mercians who had supported him in his efforts to obtain almost all of Wales (a position never again reached by any Welsh chieftain). Later in the same year, Aelfgar and Gruffydd invaded England in an attack resulting in the sacking of the city of Hereford.[4] Harold, who had succeeded his father, Godwin, as Earl of Wessex at his death in 1053, marched to attack Aelfgar. Some sort of an agreement was reached wherein Aelfgar's banishment was rescinded and he was allowed to succeed his father, Leofric, as Earl of Mercia upon the latter's death in 1057. But in 

 

 

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1058 we find that Aelfgar was banished again and restored later only with the help of his friend, the King of Wales. Aelfgar died shortly thereafter in 1062 and was succeeded by his son Edwin, Earl of Mercia.

The next area of tension between the two houses, was in Northumbria. In 1055 Siward of Northumbria died. Under the influence of Harold, Edward overlooked Siward's son and appointed Tosdig, Harold's brother, to the earldom. In 1065, however, Northumbria rebelled against Tosdig and even the influence of Harold was not sufficient to prevent the election of Morcar, brother of Edwin, Earl of Mercia, as Earl of Northumbria.

Tosdig, with hatred in his heard towards Harold, his brother, fled to Normandy and returned later with King Hardrada in the first of the two prong invasion which Harold was required to meet upon his accession to the throne of England.

In view of all that has been recited, it should be obvious why the House of Mercia was hardly enthusiastic about Harold's succession by the House of Mercia. It comprised, for that House, the succession of a king with no blood relation whatever to any of the non-Danish kings of England, and from a rival house of equal rank with that of Mercia. Although the Earls Edwin and Morcar accepted Harold's accession as a fait  accompli, and, indeed, permitted Harold to marry their sister, Alditha, in the early months of his reign,[5]  They could not express any strong endorsement for Harold over William.

 

 

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The immediate threat after the accession of Harold, however, was an invasion of Northumbria in the summer of 1066 by King Hardrada of Norway and Tosdig. Earl Edwin of Mercia rushed to the aid of his brother Earl Morcar of Northumbria. They were badly beaten on September 4, 1066, at the Battle of Fulford, but, in turn, decisively defeated the invaders at the subsequent battle of Stamford Bridge on September 8, 1066, with the assistance of King Harold. As noted earlier, Turchill's father, .Alwin, accompanied his lord, the Earl of Mercia, on this campaign, and was killed at Stanford Bridge.

Even this aid by Harold, as well as his efforts at conciliation in marrying the sister of Edwin and Morcar, was insufficient to wipe out the long rivalry of the two houses. When Harold turned south to meet William the Conqueror at Hastings, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria simply withdrew themselves from the conflict, leaving Harold to his fate.

Surely in view of the foregoing, Pine's attempt to suggest that Turchill was a "Quisling" is totally uncalled for.[6]  Turchill, and his father, Alwin, supported the House of Mercia, which, in turn, did not support the accession of Harold, a representative of a non-royal, rival house, to the throne.

Turchill simply shared the indifference of a significant segment of the English population as to whether Harold or William were King.[7]

B. William the Conqueror's visit to Warwick in 1068

There was, apparently, some resistance to William by many Mercians, in spite of the neutrality of Earl Edwin.[8]  In 1068, some two years after Hastings, William marched north to eliminate all such resistance to this throne. Sometime during that year he reached Warwick.

Warwick was an old Saxon town, burned in one of the early Danish raids, and rebuilt by Aethelflaed, daughter of King Alfred and called "Lady of the Mercians" in the 10th century.[9] It was she who raised the great mound at Warwick upon which she built a dungeon or keep. It is recorded that in 1068 Turchill of Arden held this keep.

When William arrived at Warwick he eyed the work of Ethelfelda and decided to build a castle there as a point of consolidation of his gains in Mercia. William ordered Turchill to build a great castle -- now known as the Warwick Castle. The chronicle reads that

"by commanundment by King William was the castel of Warwick enlargid, and from the enlargying were pollyd down among order xxvi housys that wre tenantyes to the hows of monkys of Couentye as is wryte playne in Domusday boke. "

Although Turchill was charged with building Warwick Castle, he did not become its tenant. Instead, William turned over the Castle to Henry de Newburgh (d. 1123) whom we shall meet shortly as the first Earl of Warwick.

Turchill did, however, retain the Conqueror's favor in other ways. During the next two decades he was awarded by the king substantial grants of land so that by Domesday, in 1087, he held 52 lordships in Warwick­shire and stood out more than any other Englishmen in Domesday.

C. Turchill of Arden and Domesday

When one first goes to Domesday, it is nothing but indecipherable hieroglyphics. Scholars, however, have worked long and hard in translating it into "modern English". Even that "modern English", however, remains "Greek" without a knowledge of the extraordinarily complicated land system which William instituted and which formed the basis for the feudal system of the Middle Ages. And so a word, first, about this matter.

The basis for the feudal system of William was that every man had a "lord" and held land, or rights, by reason of services to that "lord". Some of the lands were held directly under the tenancy of the King, as was frequently the case of Turchill. Such a tenant could, until the statute of Quia Emptores in 1291, sub-infeudate the land to others in which case he

became the "mesne" lord between the king and his subtenant, or vassal.

For example, Turchill's brothers held lands as sub-tenants of his. It was only after Quia Emptores that all land was held directly from the King.

The basic land unit was the "manor" frequently called the "lordship". Initially the manor was coterminus with the "knight's fee" -- an acreage of land sufficient to support one knight (usually 400 acres) for which he was required to provide 5 days a year military service to the King. As we shall see later, the "knight's fee" could be split to as much as a 1/20th interest therein - which would be 1/4th of 1 day a year's service to the king; It had its lands under tenancy to others. (One species of "tenants" were called "bordars," whose service consisted of keeping the lord in small provisions.) It had its "demesne", or land utilized to support the lord of the manor himself. It had its villeins -- who in 1087 were practically slaves, bought and sold with the land; and serfs, who differed only in that they were bound to the land but were not the absolute property of the lord. It had its meadows and woodlands. If it had a stream, it had a mill - a most important source of income to the lord since all tenants were required to use their lord's mill to grind corn. The measure of the land was a "hide" -- as much land as could be worked with one plow which, of course, varied from shire to shire depending upon the nature of the soil, and varying as much as from 60 to 120 acres. One-fourth a hide was a "yardland" or "verugate". A less accurate estimate was a "plough" -- the amount of land that could be ploughed in one year.

With this background we can now proceed to look at Domesday, and more particularly to the vast lands held by Turchill.

There are 41 persons listed in Domesday for "Warwicscire". It begins with William the Conqueror himself, of course, and his lands run on and on and on. By this time (1087) he had confiscated much of the land of Warwickshire, including the lands of Edwin, Earl of Mercia. Edwin, although initially "neutral", as noted above, had made a couple of half-hearted attempts to indicate he didn't intend to be run by William (as he wasn't by Edward the Confessor) and was taken into "protective custody" by William. Edwin was required to follow William around where William could always keep an eye on him. Edwin finally "escaped" but was killed while trying to flee to Scotland. William then seized all of his lands.

Next in line in Domesday are the holdings of 4 bishops, 6 abbeys (most of which, as have been noted, held lands granted to them by Leofric and Godiva), 3 earls, the Countess Godiva (pages 43-4 above), the Count de Meuland (who was with William at Hastings and was the older brother of Henry de New­burgh, first Earl of Warwick), and then Turchill of Arden whose holdings, as has already been noted, "stand out more conspicuously in  Domesday than (those) of any other Englishman".

Take the manor of Curdsworth, for example, which lies about 8 miles from Birmingham on the Birmingham to Kingsbury road and which re­mained in the Arden family for almost 700 years. Domesday says:

"Turchill holds of the king Credeworde (Curdsworth). There are 4 hides. There is land for 7 ploughs. In the demesne are 3 ploughs and three serfs; and there are 12 villeins and 7 borders with 5 ploughs. There are 16 acres of medow; woodland half a league long, and as much broad. It was worth 40 shillings; now 50 shillings. Ulwin held it. "

"Ulwin" was the unlucky Saxon from whom the land was seized by William before being given to Turchill.

An example both of Turchill's generosity and of his sub-tenancy is revealed by another entry in Domesday:

"Of Turchill the Church of St. Mary in Warwick holds 1 hide in Moitone (a hamlet in the parish of St. Nicolas, Warwick). There are 4 acres of meadow. It was valued at 5 shillings. It is now worth 10 shillings. Earl Edwin held it. "

All in all over 52 knights' fees are listed for Turchill including such manors in Warwickshire subsequently appearing in this Arden history, as Bickenhall, Ryton on Dunsmore (which Turchill's father, Alwin, held during the reign of Edward the Confessor, having purchased it from one "Ailman" with the "king's license"), Ladbroke and Redbourn.

D. Turchill's Family

We know from Domesday that Turchill had two brothers -- Gudmond and Chebelbert, both of whom held property from him. Gudmond, for example, held the manor of Packington. Domesday duly reports that it was first held by "Alwiadus a Saxon" (Alwin the Sheriff) from whom it descended to Turchill. The property is described as "4 hides valued at xxx sh. , having two

mills rated at 11 shs., and woods extending to a mile in length, and as much in breadth."

We know that Turchill's second wife was Leverunia, the daughter of Aelfgar, Earl of Mercia about whom much has been said above.

There is some doubt about the name of his first wife (from whom the Arden's claim descent). Burke leaves it blank, but French, principally relying upon Drummond and the Visitation of 1619, makes at least a plausible case that it was the Countess of Perche, the widow of Arnulph, Earl of Perche. Perche, of course, is a region of France bordering upon the present-day province of Normandy and, therefore, the Earl of Perche was presumably one of William's men.[10] It may well be that Turchill's marriage to this Norman lady was an added factor in helping him retain, and increase, his lands.

Turchill had four children:

Siward of Arden, the eldest son, is the leading character of the next chapter of this work.

Peter, a younger son, became a monk at the famous monastery at Thorney, in Cambridgeshire, founded by Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, as a Benedictine monastery in 972, and heavily assisted by Leofric of Mercia.

Ralph (Radulph) was a third son whose descendants assumed the name of Hampden. This Ralph, or perhaps his son, may be the Ralph de Arden who was a justice itinerant in 5 Stephen. Another of the same name

is recorded as having the same position in 35 Henry II. The justice itinerant were the progenitors of the common law -- an institution inaugurated by Henry I (1100-1135) which gives him an immortal place among the English kings. Dugdale, French and Drummond, relying on the Visitation of Warwick of 1619, state that Turchill's daughter, Margaret, married Henry de Newburgh (d. 1123), the 1st Earl of Warwick.[11]          Newburgh was the lord of Newbourg in Normandy, and son of Roger de Beaumont. There is no proof that he came over with William and fought at Hastings, but his elder brother did -­the Count de Meuland, whose extensive land holdings in Domesday in Warwick­shire have already been noted. In 1068, after Turchill had rebuilt the Castle at Warwick, William gave it to Henry de Newburgh to hold. Newburgh also inherited the vast estates of his brother, the Count de Meuland.       His greatest advancement, however, came during the reign of William II (1087-1100) when, as noted in the Ency. Brit. under the "Earls of Warwick", he was created the 1st Earl of War­wick. He and Margaret, daughter of Turchill, were thus the progenitors of the great Earls of Warwick; whose fortunes, in turn, were inextricably intertwined with the House of Arden.

The earldom of Warwick continued in the House of Newburgh for 5 gene­rations when it passed by marriage to the House of Beauchamp. The applicable portion of Rous' Roll setting forth the Newburgh Earls follows this page. The earls succeeding (1) Henry de Newburgh (d.1123) were: (2) Roger de Newburgh

(d. 1153), who adhered to the Empress Maud in the Civil War with Stephen and founded St. Michael's Hospital for Lepers; (3) William de Newburgh who died in a Crusade in 1184; (4) Walleran, the brother of William (d.1205); (5) Henry who supported King John in the revolt of the barons (d. 1229); and (6) Thomas (d. 1242), who left the earldom to his sister, Margaret, who married John de Plessitis who took the title by right of his wife in 1247 and became the first Beauchamp Earl of Warwick.

Rous' Roll also confirms the marriage of Margaret, daughter of Turchill, to Henry de Newburgh, the first post-Conquest Earl of Warwick. (See p.67). It also states that prior to that marriage, Margaret had been married to Earl Edwin of Mercia. Rous was not sure of this fact, however, and merely stated that such a marriage was "thought" to have been so. In the absence of any independent confirmation of this fact, a significant omission in view of the importance of the position held by Edwin, I have not assumed the accuracy of that assumption.[12].

E. Seizure of all Turchill's lands

At the time William II created Henry de Newburgh Earl of Warwick, he also seized the bulk of Turchill's estates and turned them over to Henry. As the Ency. Brit. states under "Earls of Warwick", Henry de Newburgh was created Earl of Warwick and received a "part of the great estates of the Saxon, Thurchill of Arden, in Warwickshire". It was probably at that time, in line with the happy Norman custom of turning over Saxon widows or daughters to Normans along with confiscated lands to give a color of "right" to the acquisition, that Margaret married Henry de Newburgh. 

The Visitation of 1619 (p. 31, supra) records this fall of Turchill as follows: ''. . . yet they [the Ardens] were continually vexed by the Normans untill they were forced to give a greater parte to the Earls of Warwick and to hold the rest of them by knights service from which tyme they lived, in good accord with the Earls and in quiet as the rest."[13]

On what specific ground Turchill's house was deprived of lands by William II -- a large part of which were granted to Turchill by William's father, the Conqueror -- is, of course, unknown. We can only assume that the greed of William II -- a most unattractive character -- was simply stretched to the breaking point when he saw all that good land in non-Norman hands. In any event, 80 years after Domesday we find Turchill's grandsons, Henry and Hugh,

holding no lands directly of the king, and only 5 knights fees each of the Earl of Warwick -- a vast comedown from the 52 knights’ fees of Turchill in  Domesday.

Henry de Newburgh's cupidity matched that of William II. He even went after lands Turchill had once owned, but had given away to the Abbey

of Abingdon. In one of the earliest English cases the Abbey successfully defended a suit against Henry with regard to lands at Hill and Chesterton in Warwickshire

by producing a charter of William I confirming the grant as follows:

"Turkillus quidom de Anglus, valde inter suos nobilis, in partibus Ardene mansitans, abbates familaartate et fratrum dun nonnunquam uteretur, de partrimonio suo terras duobus in locis ecclesiae Abbendoniae consent. "

F. Death of Turchill

We do not know the date of Turchill's death, but it must have been sometime after 1100, when Henry I, the youngest son of William the Conqueror and brother of William II, ascended the throne. It is recorded in that year that Henry gave lands at Rieton upon Dunsmore, in county Warwick to Turchill. This property had originally been part of a grant by Earl Leofric to the Prior of Coventry in 1043, and later was owned by Alwin, Turchill's father and by Turchill himself at the time of Domesday, Accordingly, the "gift." was really a return of lands which had been seized from Turchill by William II.

We do not know the reason for this grant by Henry I to Turchill. It is too much to hope that the grant was an expression by Henry of some form of regret for the seizure of Turchill's lands by his brother William. Rufus.

 

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