Note I John and the De Braoses

The story of John’s vengeance on the family of De Braose appears, in slightly varied forms, in almost every chronicle of the period. Ralph of Coggeshall (p. 164), Roger of Wendover (vol. iii. p. 235) and the Brut y Tywysogion (a. 1209) say the victims were “slain in Windsor castle”; the Annals of Dunstable and of Oseney (a. 1210), that they “died in prison,” without specifying where or how. The Barnwell Annalist (W. Coventry, vol. ii. p. 202) and the Annals of Margan, Tewkesbury, Waverley, Winchester, and Worcester (a. 1210) say they were starved to death. The Hist. des Ducs de Normandie (pp. 114–115) says they were imprisoned “el castiel del Corf,” with no food save “une garbe d’avoine e i bacon cru,” and describes with gruesome minuteness the attitudes in which, on the eleventh day, they were found dead. Ralph of Coggeshall makes the victims William de Braose’s wife and “sons” (filii); Roger of Wendover, his wife, eldest son, and that son’s wife; the Ann. Winton., wife and “younger” son; the Ann. Tewkesb., wife and “children” (liberi); while the Ann. Dunst. say: “Cepit [rex] Willelmum de Lacy, et Willelmum de Brause juniorem, et sororem ejus, et Matildem matrem ejus; qui in carcere post modum perierunt.” All the other writers speak only of the wife and one son, whom the Ann. Osen. call “Willelmus primogenitus ejus,” and the Ann. Wigorn. “haeres.” This latter version is undoubtedly the correct one as to the last point; of De Braose’s three sons, the eldest, William, alone was in John’s power; Giles, the second, was bishop of Hereford and safe beyond the sea, while the third, Reginald, had escaped capture, and lived to recover the greater part of the family heritage. One of the daughters—the wife of Hugh Mortimer—had been taken prisoner with her mother and eldest brother (Foedera, vol. i. pt. i. p. 107); but she did not share their fate, for she was set free in 1214 (Rot. Pat. vol. i. p. 122); and Roger of Wendover is certainly wrong about the younger William’s wife, who was still living in July 1220 (Royal Letters, ed. Shirley, vol. i. p. 136). The elder William died, an exile in France, about a year after this tragedy (R. Wend. vol. iii. p. 237).