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Michael Linton's Bayeux Tapestry: 1066 - A Medieval Mosaic and Puzzles

Medieval Mosaic







This electronic edition
was prepared by
Michael A. Linton, 2007

Morleian Maine :

I believe that here, as in the case of Mountmartin Yners (see Introduction, p. xiii.), a letter has accidentally disappeared, and that we should read "Morlei and Maine." There are thirteen instances of names thus joined together in. Holinshed's copy, though for the sake of convenience, I have always separated them, and shall do so now.

The Morleys were a Norfolk family; and two of the name—Ingulf and Morell de Morley—witness the foundation charter of Windham Priory in the time of Henry I. They first come into notice during the reign of Edward I., when Sir William de Morley, who had served in the Scottish wars, was summoned to parliament as a baron. His son Sir Robert, named by Edward III. Admiral of the Fleet from the Thames mouth Northwards, was the gallant commander that won the greatest victory ever yet obtained over the French at sea; "the like Sea-fight having never before been seen." This was on Easter Day, 1341, when Lord Morley attacked and well nigh annihilated the enemy's fleet off Sluys in Flanders; and the following year "sayling with that Fleet unto Normandy, and other Ships from the Cinque-ports, he burnt Fourscore Ships of the Normans, with three Port-Towns, and other Villages." Twice again—in 1348 and 1355—he was in command of the victorious Northern fleet; nor were his services less freely rendered on shore. They extended over a period of thirty-two years, during which he participated in the glories of Cressy, for his first campaign in France was undertaken in 1327, and the eighth and last in 1359. He died while attending the King thither again in the following year, being then Constable of the Tower. He was twice married. His first wife, Hawise, sister and heir of John le Mareschal, had brought him the hereditary office of Marshal of Ireland and the barony of Rie, comprising the hundreds of Eynsford and Fourhow, with other estates in Norfolk, besides lands in Essex and Herts. Two of her manors, Swanton-Morley in Norfolk, and Hallingbury-Morley in Essex, still bear his name. His second wife was Joan de Tyes; and by each marriage he had a son: 1. Sir William, Marshal of Ireland in his mother's right; 2. Sir Robert, "styled cousin and heir of Sir Robert de Montalt, formerly Steward of Chester," and twice mentioned in the French wars, whose line expired with his great-granddaughter Margaret, the wife of Thomas Radcliffe.

His eldest son and his grandson, successively Barons Morley, were, like him, engaged in the King's service in France; and the grandson, Sir Thomas, fourth Lord, arriving at Calais in 1380 "with divers other English Lords, rode with his Banner display'd" in full feudal state. But to this banner it would appear there was another claimant. "In 1395," Blomfield tells us, "there was a Cause in the Court of Chivalry between Sir John Lovell, Plaintiff, and this Sir Thomas, concerning the arms of Morley, Argent a Lion Sable, claimed by Lovell as heir to the Lords Burnell, who bore the said Arms; Maud, sister and heir of Sir Edmund Burnell, having married John, Lord Lovell, his grandfather. Lord Morley pleaded that the Arms belonged to his Ancestors from the Conquest, time out of mind, without Impeachment, except by Nicholas Lord Burnell at the siege of Calais, who claimed against Sir Robert de Morley his Ancestor; to whom the Arms were adjudged by the Constable and Marshal, and that they had borne them ever since. It seems certain, however, that the ancient arms of the Morleys were Argent a Lion Sable, sometimes double-queued, and are those of Roger de Cressi, assumed by the Morleys, who inherited from him." Morant gives them Argent, a lion passant between two bars Sable, thereon, three bezants. The Burnell lion was crowned.

The next in succession, a second Sir Thomas, was retained to serve Henry V. with ten men-at-arms, and thirty archers; "and being with him in France, at the time of his death, bore one of the Banners of Saints which were carried at his solemn Funeral." He was the father of Robert, sixth and last Lord Morley, who died in 1442, leaving as his sole heiress a baby daughter, Alianor, little more than ten months old. She carried the barony to William Lovell, the second son of William, Lord Lovell and Holland, and it passed to their son Henry, who died s. p., "unhappily slain at Dixmuyde in Flanders in 1489;" and then to their daughter Alice, the wife of Sir William Parker, standard-bearer to Richard III. Her son was summoned to parliament as Lord Morley in 1555; and his line continued till 1686. The old barony then fell into abeyance. Dugdale, I should observe, always spells the name "Morle."

There was, it appears, a Welsh family that bore it; for Williams, in his History of Monmouth, tells us that "the daughter and heir of Sir John Morley of Raglan married Thomas Gwillym-ap-Jenkin, and brought Raglan and a great estate belonging to it."

The title of Earl of Morley was granted in 1815 to Lord Boringdon, descended from a very old Devonshire family that bore the name of Parker, but was wholly unconnected by blood with the earlier Lords Morley, and bore different arms.