Richard Mallory I or II of Kirkby-Mallory

This article formerly appeared as a knol and argues for the possibility of there being only one and not two Richard Mallorys of Kirkby-Mallory in the mid-12th century and the possibility that he was a younger half-brother of Anketil Mallory rather than an older brother. This fits into an argument made elsewhere that the father of the two brothers may have been a Robert Mallory who may, in turn, have been the son of Geoffrey Mallory of Botley.

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In the 12^th century, the earliest Mallory to appear in the records of the time is a Richard Mallory who was in the service of Robert Beaumont II, the Earl of Leicester. According to a well-written article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which has proven to be an invaluable jumping off point for further research, he is stated to have appeared as a witness to various charters of Robert de Beaumont II, Earl of Leicester in the 1130s and 40s. Though I do not doubt that this is most probably so, I have not yet been able to locate any published charter earlier than 1150 to which the full name of this particular Richard Mallory appears. It was, however, as one would expect, a charter of Robert de Beaumont II. Although the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography indicates the likelihood of two Richards, father and son, I feel this might be subject to different interpretation.

Specifically, one should first look at Agnes de Neufmarche (Novo Mercato) who confirms a grant of land made by Richard Mallory in Welton in an undated charter (Ancient Deeds, no. 7070). In this confirmation, mention is made of William Mallory being Richard’s son and heir. Agnes’s confirmation could have only been necessary if she were Richard’s wife and he held Welton by right of marriage through her. That she was the mother of a son Simon and was the daughter of William de Neufmarche is spelled out in yet another 13^th century document concerning a descendant of Simon. William de Neufmarche may be identified with the William who in the mid to late 1150s appears in a charter of Robert de Beaumont II together with Richard Mallory (see Calendar of Documents, France, vol. I, pp. 376-7).

That Agnes was also the mother of William Mallory, in addition to Simon, who inherited her manor of Welton can be inferred with certainty from the fact that the Mallory lords of Kirkby Mallory, who can be shown to be the descendants of William Mallory, continued to be the feudal overlords of the Mallory lords of Welton until the last Mallory lord of Kirkby Mallory gave Kirkby Mallory to the Abbey of St. Mary de Pratis of Leicester (see the Register of St. Mary de Pratis, Nichols, vol. iv, p. 762). That Agnes did not die until the mid-1170s is evident from the sudden appearance of William, Simon, and Ralph Mallory in the Pipe Rolls in the years 1174 to 1176. That Richard, the father, was still alive can be abundantly shown in the Pipe Rolls until William suddenly appears where Richard would have been expected in 1193.

William and Simon Mallory appear to have had at least two further brothers, Ralph, and Luke. That this Ralph Mallory could have been a brother of William can be shown by a grant of a small piece of land in around 1222-6 to Ralph Mallory of Kirkby Mallory, son of Richard, by Thomas Mareschal of Kirkby Mallory (See Commission on Historical Documents, Hastings, vol i, p. 52). That he must have been a younger son can be presumed by the fact that he inherited the lordship of none of the family manors, either through his father or mother. That Agnes de Neufmarche was also his mother can be presumed, if one assumes that he is the Ralph Mallory who witnessed a charter of Robert de Beaumont III, the Earl of Leicester sometime during the years 1168 to 1170 when Agnes and her husband Richard would have been both alive.

Yet another brother of William Mallory, Luke, can be shown to have existed through a grant of Richard Mallory II (son of William Mallory, grandson of Richard Mallory I) to his uncle Luke Mallory in from the reign of King John or early in the reign of Henry III (see Hastings, vol i, p. 52). Unlike Ralph, though likely to have also been a son of Agnes de Neufmarche, there is not enough evidence to presume this to be the case with any assurance of absolute certainty.

If one accepts that Agnes and Richard Mallory’s son, Ralph, would have had to have been of an age appropriate to have been a witness of a Beaumont charter in the years 1168 to 1170 and also that it is he who appears in the Pipe Rolls in 1174-5, the latest reasonable year for Ralph’s birth would have been in 1149. Assuming no other siblings in between and an ordinary average of two years space each between his birth and those of his two older brothers, it is unlikely for the second brother, Simon, to have been born after 1147 or the oldest brother, William, to have been born after 1145. This, in turn, would make it rather unlikely for Richard to have been born later than 1123.

Of course, Richard Mallory of the Pipe Rolls could have been born much earlier than 1123. The question is how much earlier. If one continues to assume an average two year spacing between children and assumes the possibility of a daughter having been the eldest child, another having been born between William and Simon and yet another between Simon and Ralph, then six years could be added to his probable age. If we assume that he began reproducing at 25 rather than 22, which, even in the middle ages, would have been a bit more common, then we could easily assume him to be another three years older. If we assumed Ralph to have been a bit more established than a still landless 21 year old would have been when it would seem he witnessed Robert de Beaumont III’s charter and add another three or four years to his age and pass this on to his father’s age, then Richard Mallory could easily be assumed to be as much as 13 years older than our latest reasonable date of birth estimate of 1123 would indicate. Thus, we can estimate, even if quite roughly, that the Richard Mallory who was the husband of Agnes de Neufmarche was likely to have been born sometime between 1110 and 1123. A birth at the earlier end of this range would leave him old enough to have been a witness of the charters of Robert de Beaumont II in the 1130s.

One additional possible piece of evidence which, though less reliably applicable than what has so far been presented, is, nevertheless, suggestive. It comes from two 12th century charters from the Crusader controlled Holy Land dating to 1158 and 1164 which have a Ralph Mallory (Mellore in 1158 & Maulore in 1164) as a witness (see Revue de l'Orient Latin, edited by Melchior Vogue and Charles Henri Auguste Schefer, vol. 11, 1907, p. 181). If we make the somewhat dangerous assumption that both charters are witnessed by the third son of Richard Mallory and Agnes de Neufmarche, then we would expect Ralph to have been born no later than 1137 and his oldest brother William no later than 1135, but possibly as early as 1131. This, in turn, would generate a likely birth year for Richard of somewhere between 1110 and 1114.

No evidence is conclusive, but taken together, a birth year of 1112, give or take two years, would appear to represent a working hypothesis as to his age. This argument, of course, would assume that the charter evidence is applicable to one Richard Mallory and not two and would also assume that the Ralph Mallory of 1158 was Richard's third son. It would have the advantage of making it unnecessary to assume that a special relationship for Richard Mallory with Robert de Beaumont II would have formed the basis for an equally close relationship between any of Richard's children and Robert de Beaumont III after Richard’s probable death in either 1192 or 1193 when he may well have been around 80 years of age.

As for Agnes de Neufmarche, if we assume her third son Ralph to have been the witness of a deed in the Holy Land in 1158, then it would be hard to imagine her as being born later than 1120. It would, likewise, be unlikely that she was much older than her husband for whom 1110 would seem to be a likely earliest birth year. The tendency for men to marry younger women would indicate the reasonableness of a presumption of her being somewhat younger. Taking a birth year, thus, of 1115, give or take five years, as a working hypothesis would appear to be reasonable, though if her third son, Ralph, were not to be identified with the Ralph of the Holy Land, then 1120 give or take 10 years might better express what it is possible to say regarding her possible birth year. As mentioned above, she seems to have passed away around 1175, when Welton would have passed to her second son, Simon, under the overlordship of his brother William.

That Richard Mallory possessed Kirkby Mallory in his own right is clear from the fact that the Neufmarche family is never recorded as having held lands there and that his eldest son and heir was in direct possession of this manor rather than Welton which, as is mentioned above, came to the Mallorys by the marriage of Richard to Agnes de Neufmarche. That Kirkby Mallory came to Richard Mallory by inheritance rather than as a gift would seem to be a logical explanation as it would seem that he possessed in his own right a range of lands in both Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, but not in Warwickshire. Concerning the manor, itself, in the Doomsday Book, 2.5 carucates of land in Kirkby Mallory was listed as being held of the king directly by Hugh de Grentemaisnel and one carucate being held by the same Hugh of the abbot of Coventry St Mary who held of the king. In the early years of the 12^th century, Robert de Beaumont I, Earl of Leicester, came into possession of the Grentemaisnel lands. Whether Kirkby Mallory was already a Mallory possession at this time or not is impossible to know, though it cannot have been so before the Doomsday Book in 1086 and is unlikely to have come into Mallory hands through a grant to Richard, himself, but rather to his father, who it will be argued elsewhere may have been a somewhat nebulous Robert Mallore.

Concerning Richard's family, he is normally considered to have been the older brother of Anketil Mallory who fought for the Earl of Leicester against Henry II in 1174. This is because Richard's name appears before that of Anketil’s in the one charter where the two names appear together as brothers (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust MS DR10/192) and which dates to the early third quarter of the 12th century. Also, based on an unsubstantiated family tree appearing in Nichols Leicestershire, the assumption was made that Richard and his descendants were the feudal overlords of Walton-on-the-Wold, a manor possessed by Anketil and his descendants. In fact, the most reliable evidence regarding feudal over-lordship by Richard and his descendants (the records of St Mary de Pratis of Leicester) is conspicuous by the total absence of any properties possessed by Anketil’s line (Botley, Walton-on-the-Wold, and Tachebrook-Mallory). As Botley, for reasons argued elsewhere, appears to have come into Mallory hands before either Kirkby Mallory or Welton did to Richard and certainly before Anketil or his descendants acquired their other major possessions, it would seem that it may very well have been Anketill who was the elder brother and not Richard.

There is other less direct evidence in support of Anketil's seniority. If one accepts the Robert Mallory mentioned in 1155-60 as a son of Anketil Mallory on a grant to the nuns of Nuneaton as being the older known son of Richard Mallory’s brother Anketil (the other being Henry, the relationships between the two brothers and the fatherbeing attested in the Pipe Rolls), then Robert Mallory would have been born before 1138 at the latest and Anketil Mallory before 1116. This is seven years earlier than the latest probable birth year of Richard Mallory, which, though not proving seniority, is suggestive.

One suggestion might be that the father of Anketil and Richard Mallory married twice in the first two decades of the 12^th century and that, while Anketil, being the elder, inherited Botley from his father, Richard inherited Kirkby Mallory from his mother, who would have been this particular Mallory’s second wife. This hypothetical lady, in terms of chronology, would appear to have been married to Richard's father around 1110, and might have done so at the instance of the first (from 1107) of the Beaumont earls of Leicester. Barring the availability of previously unexplored early records, however, all one can safely say is that even the best theoretical reconstruction is no more than that and subject to fairly radical reworking with each new bit of evidence uncovered.