Guestpost Monday: Sharon Bennett Connolly- Nicholaa de la Haye and me

Posted on October 23, 2023 by JuliaH

It’s a real delight to welcome Sharon Bennett Connolly to The History Jar as my first guest blogger. I love her blog, History the Interesting Bits and her books. Those of you who have attended my medieval classes will probably have at least one of her books on your own shelves including Heroines of the Medieval World and Ladies of the Magna Carta. I recently posted on History the Interesting Bits (https://historytheinterestingbits.com/2023/10/07/guest-post-the-kingmakers-women-by-julia-a-hickey/) and it turns out that we may have a bit of a mutual appreciation society going on which leaves me feeling very honoured as really do admire the way that Sharon has drawn women previously left to languish in the footnotes into the limelight. So without further ado over to Sharon…

Well, it has been quite a journey, but King John’s Right Hand Lady, my biography of Nicholaa de la Haye is now out in the world. My journey with Nicholaa started with a blog post in 2015, shortly after a day trip to Lincoln Castle with my son. Nicholaa’s story really caught my attention. From that day on, I devoured everything I could find on Nicholaa, scouring the internet for details of her life and the events in which she was involved. I bought a copy of Louise Wilkinson’s excellent study, Women in Thirteenth Century Lincolnshire, which included Nicholaa’s story. And when I started thinking about writing a book, Nicholaa came to mind. In 2016, I entered a competition with a publisher, to have my first book published and Nicholaa was one of the inspirations.

In Heroines of the Medieval World, I wanted to tell the stories of the most incredible women in medieval history and Nicholaa was certainly in my Top 10. And from that book, I started thinking that there was more scope to examine the women related to the Magna Carta story, especially Nicholaa and her contemporary, Matilda de Braose. The conflicting lives and experiences of these two women inspired Ladies of Magna Carta: Women of Influence in Thirteenth Century England; while Matilda became King John’s bitter enemy and ultimate victim, Nicholaa was a loyal ally, trusted to hold Lincoln Castle against the rebel barons, despite being a woman.

As I was researching Nicholaa’s story for Ladies of Magna Carta, I got very excited as I realised that I may have enough material for a full biography. I contacted my editor, expecting her to shut me down and say ‘no thanks, no one will be interested.’ But, instead, she said ‘go for it!’ And the project was born.

Nicholaa’s career spanned sixty years, four kings and two husbands and, in a time when men fought and women stayed home, Nicholaa de la Haye held Lincoln Castle against all-comers. In 1191, 1216 and 1217, it was Nicholaa who defended the besieged castle, earning herself the ironic praise that she acted ‘manfully’. Nicholaa gained prominence in the First Baron’s War, the civil war that followed the sealing of Magna Carta in 1215.

On one of King John’s visits to inspect Lincoln’s defences in 1216, a recently-widowed Nicholaa met him at the gates and presented the king with the keys to the castle, claiming she was too old and weary to continue in her duties. John refused to accept her resignation, instructing Nicholaa to keep hold of the castle until he ordered otherwise. Whether Nicholaa ever intended to give up Lincoln, or the event was staged so that John could demonstrate his continued trust in Nicholaa, is open to debate. I suspect it was the latter. John was in the midst of civil war and running short of allies. Nicholaa had already demonstrated her abilities at defending Lincoln, and her loyalty to John – he would have been hard put to replace her. However, the event gave John the opportunity to reinforce his trust in Nicholaa in front of his barons.

Intent on continuing the civil war, the rebel barons invited the king of France to take the throne of England. The king refused, but his son, Louis (the future Louis VIII), accepted the offer and was hailed as King of England in London in June 1216.

That summer, Nicholaa prevented another siege of Lincoln Castle by paying off a rebel army, led by Gilbert de Gant, who remained in occupation of the city of Lincoln but lifted the siege of the castle. As Louis consolidated his position in the south, John fell desperately ill, probably from dysentery and halted at Newark Castle, where he died on the night of 18/19 October 1216. King John valued her so much that, from his deathbed, he appointed her sheriff of Lincolnshire; Nicholaa was the first woman ever to be appointed as a county sheriff.

Shortly after John’s death, the rebels returned to Lincoln.

Although now her 60s, Nicholaa endured a siege that lasted close to seven months, resisting the English rebel barons and their French allies with all she had, and giving the regents for the new king, nine-year-old Henry III, time to gather their forces and come to her aid.

The siege ended in the Battle of Lincoln, also known as the Lincoln Fair, when 70-year-old William Marshal, known to history the Greatest Knight, spurred on by the chivalrous need to rescue a lady in distress – and to send the French packing – marched on Lincoln. The six-hour battle, fought in the tightly packed medieval streets of the city of Lincoln, was the turning point in the war. Within months of Marshal’s victory, the French had gone home, and the English rebels were swearing allegiance to Henry III.

The French chronicler Anonymous of Bethune described Nicholaa as ‘a very cunning, bad-hearted and vigorous old woman.’ Perhaps they were sore losers!

And how was Nicholaa thanked for such a stalwart defence of Lincoln Castle? Within four days of the battle her office as sheriff of Lincolnshire was given to William Longspée, Earl of Salisbury – the king’s uncle. Salisbury then seized the castle, evicting Nicholaa. Why? Because Salisbury’s son was married to Nicholaa’s granddaughter and the earl thought he should control the young couple’s inheritance. Did he really think Nicholaa would give up without a fight? Did he think seven months of siege had taken the fight out of her?

He should have known better.

Nicholaa appealed to the king and the privy council and got herself reinstated as constable of Lincoln Castle. She never got to be sheriff of Lincolnshire again, but at least she got her castle back. Not that Salisbury was one to give up either and there are various instances throughout the early 1220s of Salisbury trying to take the castle, through siege, subterfuge and persuasion. He tried everything! But Nicholaa would not give up – Salisbury would die first, which he did! And three months after Salisbury’s death, Nicholaa finally retired, resigning her custody of Lincoln Castle and settling on her manor at Swaton, Lincolnshire, where she died in 1230. She was buried in the local church, St Michael’s, where her tomb can still be seen today.

Nicholaa de la Haye was a staunch supporter of King John, remaining loyal to the very end, even after most of his knights and barons had deserted him. And I wanted to know why. Why did Nicholaa support John? Why did she not rebel like the rest of them? She must have known how heavy-handed and brutal John could be. She must have known the dreadful fate of Matilda de Braose – starved to death in one of John’s dungeons. So, what made her stay loyal?

To both King John and Henry III, she was ‘our beloved and faithful Nicholaa de la Haye.’

A truly remarkable lady, Nicholaa was the first woman to be appointed sheriff in her own right. Her strength and tenacity saved England at one of the lowest points in its history.

It is often said that the best thing John ever did was die when he did.

No.

The best thing he ever did was appoint Nicholaa as sheriff!

Nicholaa de la Haye is one woman in English history whose story needs to be told…

About the book:

King John’s Right Hand Lady: The Story of Nicholaa de la Haye by Sharon Bennett Connolly

In a time when men fought and women stayed home, Nicholaa de la Haye held Lincoln Castle against all-comers. Not once, but three times, earning herself the ironic praise that she acted ‘manfully’. Nicholaa gained prominence in the First Baron’s War, the civil war that followed the sealing of Magna Carta in 1215. Although recently widowed, and in her 60s, in 1217 Nicholaa endured a siege that lasted over three months, resisting the English rebel barons and their French allies. The siege ended in the battle known as the Lincoln Fair, when 70-year-old William Marshal, the Greatest Knight in Christendom, spurred on by the chivalrous need to rescue a lady in distress, came to Nicholaa’s aid. Nicholaa de la Haye was a staunch supporter of King John, remaining loyal to the very end, even after most of his knights and barons had deserted him. A truly remarkable lady, Nicholaa was the first woman to be appointed sheriff in her own right. Her strength and tenacity saved England at one of the lowest points in its history. Nicholaa de la Haye is one woman in English history whose story needs to be told…

mybook.to/Nicholaa

Sharon Bennett Connolly FRHistS is the best-selling author of 4 non-fiction history books, including Heroines of the Medieval World and Ladies of Magna Carta: Women of Influence in Thirteenth Century England. Her latest book, a biography, King John’s Right-Hand Lady: The Story of Nicholaa de la Haye, was published in May 2023. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Sharon has studied history academically and just for fun – and has even worked as a tour guide at a castle. She writes the popular history blog, www.historytheinterestingbits.com and regularly gives talks on women’s history. Sharon is a feature writer for All About History magazine and her TV work includes Australian Television’s ‘Who Do You Think You Are?‘

Links:

Blog: https://historytheinterestingbits.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thehistorybits/

Twitter: @Thehistorybits

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sharonbennettconnolly/?hl=en

Amazon: http://viewauthor.at/SharonBennettConnolly

Podcast: A Slice of Medieval (https://soundcloud.com/user-142525904)

Witchcraft, scandal and the Duke of Buckingham

Posted on January 20, 2018 by JuliaH

george villiers.jpg George Villiers, pictured left, was not the scion of a powerful family but he had received the kind of education, at his mother’s insistence, that a courtier required. His good looks had attracted James I’s attention. This was enough to ensure that the enemies of Robert Carr, the king’s then favourite, paid to raise George to the post of the King’s cup bearer. The rest as they say, is history.

By 1619 George was the Marquis of Buckingham and in search of a wife. Families looked at their unmarried daughters and wondered if the investment of a bride would improve their own fortunes. However, Buckingham and his mother Mary Beaumont already had a bride in mind.

Lady Katherine Manners was the daughter of the 6^th Earl of Rutland. She was the earl’s sole heir. Her older brothers, Henry and Francis, had died in mysterious circumstances. The whole family fell ill in 1613 after dismissing a woman and her two daughters from their service. Henry died. Three years later nine women were hanged in Leicestershire having been found guilty of bewitching a child. Then in 1618 Francis also died and the Manners family sought the arrest of the three women and the monument to the two boys makes it clear that the earl held witchcraft responsible for the death of the boys, “Two sons – both died in infancy by wicked practice and sorcery”.

The three women became known as the Belvoir Witches. Joan Flower, the mother protested her innocence from her arrest and during her imprisonment in Lincoln but her daughter Margaret confessed that Joan was a witch and her other daughter Philippa said that they were all witches. Joan died in prison and was buried at a crossroads, Margaret was hanged and in some versions of the story Philippa escaped from jail.

Tracey Borman offers a different theory. She records that the Flower women were employed as servants prior to a visit by King James I but that they were unpopular with Belvoir’s other servants and accused of pilfering. Borman goes on to note that the women had a reputation for herbal cures and late night entertaining – of males. They, she argues, were convenient scapegoats. In fact the boys had been murdered on the orders of George Villiers.

There is some evidence to suggest that by 1618 George Villiers, a Lincolnshire landowner, had his eyes set on a wealthy prize – which if she became a sole heiress would become even wealthy. Most historians consider that on the death of her brothers Katherine Manners became the wealthiest heiress in the country with estates in Yorkshire and Northamptonshire as well as her mother’s dower estates that came from the Knyvet family.

Katherine was considered a plain woman but more alarming so far as King James I was concerned, she was a Catholic. Both those factors aside Katherine’s father was against the proposed match. He knew about George Villiers. He had seen the king’s favourite at court and seen the way that the king and George fondled one another in public. Nor was Rutland terribly amused by the fact that George wanted a hefty dowry along with the plain heiress. For the time being the wedding was off.
But then in March 1620 Mary Beaumont, George’s mother visited the Countess of Rutland when the earl was away from home. She invited Katherine to dine with her, promising to bring her back home that evening. The countess of Rutland, Katherine’s step-mother, agreed.

Mary entertained Katherine in her lodgings in Whitehall but did not send the girl home. She claimed that Katherine was ill and could not return home. To make matters worse, George who had also been invited to dine, failed to return to his own lodgings which were within walking distance. Poor Katherine was ruined. She had stayed over night in the home of an unmarried man who had slept under the same roof. The earl of Rutland was furious. He refused to allow Katherine to return home and now found himself insisting that Villiers marry his daughter because her reputation was so badly tarnished. The scandal was so great that the lavish wedding that you might expect never happened. It was a private occasion witnessed only by the earl and the King on the 16 May 1620.

It is difficult to know whether Katherine connived with Villiers and his mother in her own ruin. She certainly appeared to dote on her husband even if he did not love her in return. Nor did she lead a very happy life with George. She hated the way he lived his life at court, his relationship with the king and the fact that George didn’t stop having mistresses just because he was married. Come to think of it much of Europe was scandalised by George’s behaviour, especially when he travelled to France in 1625 and became besotted with the French queen Anne of Austria – as in Dumas’s story of The Three Musketeers.

Katherine had converted to Protestantism before the marriage but returned to Catholicism during the course of her married life and if her letters are anything to go by she did not simply accept George’s infidelities, sometimes using her health and emotions as a way of trying to control her husband’s behaviour.

george_villiers_duke_of_buckingham_and_family_1628-1-1024x702.jpg

Life cannot have become any easier for Katherine when George, a Duke since 1623, became the target of national hostility because of Charles I’s foreign policy. George was widely assumed to be responsible for the assorted disasters that beset the English. Parliament attempted to arrest him in 1626. It was only his friendship with the king that saved him. Two years later George was killed by John Felton in Portsmouth.

During the next seven years Katherine could only watch as her four children with George were adopted into the royal family to be raised with Charles I’s children. In 1635, much to the king’s fury she married the 2^nd earl of Antrim, Randall McDonnell, a man six years her junior. Eventually Katherine convinced Charles that she had married for love and that Randall had no intention of disinheriting her children.

Katherine_Manners_Duchess_of_Buckingham_in_Mourning.jpg

She died in 1649.

John’s last days

Posted on October 15, 2015 by JuliaH

John’s worst fault perhaps was that he was an unlucky king. The mercenaries he’d amassed to challenge his barons in 1215 were scatted and drowned during autumn storms at sea. Things went from bad to worse for him after that. By the following year John was fleeing from castle to castle with King Louis VIII in hot pursuit. He’d lost London and Winchester. The french seemed to be everywhere and it was the fact that they pursued John into Cambridgeshire that sent John north to Lincolnshire where he followed a scorched earth policy and relieved Lincoln which was being besieged by the revolting barons. John chased them off but failed to intercept King Alexander `ii of Scotland who was making the most of the chaos in England. John’s letter record the fact that he was in Lincoln on September 22nd. He inspected the castle and made its custodian, the indefatigable Nichola de la Haye Sheriff of Lincolnshire in her own right (I feel a post on her coming on even as I type).

From Lincoln John travelled back towards East Anglia via Grimsby, Louth, Boston and Spalding. He arrived in Bishop’s Lynn on October 9th. Historians cannot be sure what John was planning but Lynn was an important port and John arranged to have supplies sent to his northern castles. It is reasonable to assume that he was planning a campaign in the north. John was taken ill whilst in Lynn. Ralph of Coggeshall assumed it was gluttony. Morris makes the very good point that at 49 the king had been setting a ferocious pace. He could simply have been exhausted.

In any event John set out once again for Lincolnshire on the 12th October. He travelled via Wisbech whilst his baggage appears to have taken a different and rather more disastrous route near Sutton Bridge. He spent that night in Swineshead Abbey where famously he ate rather too many peaches, pears and cider becoming ever more ill. Bereft of his household belongings and his treasures he arrived at the Bishop of Lincoln’s castle at Sleaford on the 14th October where he stayed overnight. On the 15th he wrote to Pope Honorius III (Innocent had died in July) that he was suffering from an ‘incurable infirmity.’ John took the opportunity to put his kingdom under the Church’s protection. This was a stratagem that he hoped would save England from Louis for Prince Henry who would shortly become King Henry III.

By then he was too ill to ride, so John was carried by litter to Newark – a journey of some twenty or so miles. He arrived at Newark on the 16th of October. He wrote his will and that night the king died having given Margaret de Lucy who was the daughter of William and Matilda de Braoze, permission to found a Hospital of St John along with land for its foundation in memory of her mother and brother who’d starved to death in Windsor. John’s will along with his tomb can be seen in Worcester Cathedral.