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From: "Peter Stewart" < >
Subject: Re: Evidence re. the identity of Alan Fitz Roland'as first wife, _____ de Lacy
Date: 26 Sep 2005 22:02:58 -0700
References: <9577484.1127777011386.JavaMail.root@elwamui-polski.atl.sa.earthlink.net> <1127787297.377668.180490@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <U_2_e.15757$0E5.9068@news-server.bigpond.net.au> <1127795331.082021.132810@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>


Douglas Richardson wrote:
> Peter Stewart wrote:
>
> There appears to be no evidence that John de Lacy was ever called
> > "John de Chester" after 1194, when his father Roger adopted the surname
> > "Lacy".
>
> Dear Peter ~
>
> My research shows that John de Lacy (died 1240), Constable of Chester,
> later Earl of Lincoln, was known as John de Chester as late as 1214:
>
> Date: Michaelmas 1214. Sub Yorkshire.
> "Johannes de Cestr' r.c. de MM et DCCC li. pro habendis terris que
> fuerunt patris sui . sicut continetur ibidem. In thes. Nichil."
> [Reference: Patricia M. Barnes ed. The Great Roll of the Pipe for the
> Sixteenth Year of the Reign of King John, Michaelmas 1214 (Pipe Roll
> Soc. n.s. 35) (1962): 93].

How are you certain that this refers to John de Lacy rather than to a
namesake first cousin of his? Is his father actually named, Roger
rather than Richard?

> I should also note that John de Lacy's two brothers, Roger and Robert,
> witnessed John de Lacy's charter dated before 1232 as "Roger and Robert
> de Chester, knights" [Reference: Richard Holmes, ed. The Chartulary of
> St. John of Pontefract (Yorkshire Arch. Soc. Record Series 25) (1899):
> 38-39].

Where did "before 1232" come from? The document appears to be undated
if this had to be given as an editorial gloss. Of course, 1194 is
"before 1232" anyway.

> So it would appear that the surname "de Chester" continued to be
> employed by male members of this family for some time after the family
> adopted the surname, Lacy.

That is my point - Roger the Constable's three brothers for starters,
including Richard de Chester, continued to use this. We have the same
evidence you allow to prove that Alan of Galloway's first wife was from
this family to show that Richard (de Chester) was her father and that
she had a brother named John.

The only difficulties with this so far, on my limited attention to the
problem, are your insistence that Kippax belonged in the relevant
generation only to Richard's elder brother Roger, and that Alan of
Galloway's wife was sister rather than daughter of Roger misnamed
Richard; but you have not proved either point.

I don't yet see any reason to be so sure that the name Richard was
given wrongly, or that bits & pieces of the Lacy inheritance were not
shared to some extent amongst the four brothers, with Kippax falling to
Richard and passing with the marriage of his daughter to Alan of
Galloway, later temporarily and unsuccessfully disputed by her cousin
John de Lacy, earl of Lincoln.

Peter Stewart


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