Vol 1: The Bluets - Lackham Countryside Centre

The Bluets 43
III sacked his Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, who had been Regent after
William Marshal‘s death in 1219, and appointed the new Archbishop of
Canterbury, Peter des Roches in his stead. des Roche installed many
fellow French-Normans (as opposed to English-Normans) in positions of
power. One of these was Peter de Maulay and in February 1233 Henry
III took the Wiltshire manor of Upavon from Gilbert Basset and gave it
to de Maulay. As Carpenter points out
no-one was closer to Bishop Peter than de Maulay ; few
families were closer to the Marshals than the Bassets 163 .
Richard Marshal, only recently installed as Earl of Pembroke, could not
afford to desert one of his major vassals and supported Gilbert fully. He
had good reason to resist des Roches, who had
managed to get Richard‘s representative at court, William de
Rodune, dismissed and to replace all the English ministers of
King Henry III with foreign advisors. … and took the lands
of Gilbert Basset and Richard Siward 1 164 Richard‘s strong
supporters, and gave them to his own son Peter des Rievaux
165
and had also instructed that the Earl‘s messengers from France were to be
stopped and searched on entering the country.
The disposition of Upavon had been a royal decree, which meant
Richard was in rebellion against the king and his advisors. Rebellions
were not that uncommon in the medieval world; Dr. Crouch has noted
that
when medieval magnates put their castles in defence against
their king or lord it was not generally for the sort of
ideological reasons that the modern mind associates with
rebellion; it was more of an aristocratic protest riot…where a
magnate felt he was not getting the respect and the
privileges he regarded as his right, he was making an armed
163
Carpenter, D (2003) The Struggle for Mastery:The Penguin History ofBritain
1066-1284 p313
164
Richard Siward was Gilbert Basset‘s brother in law [Way, J (1839) Chronicle of
The Devizes p88]
165
http://www.castlewales.com/mar_chld.html