A HISTORY OF SURREY 



his fellow justices in Guildford, saying that he held his lands and rights 

 by a title of undated antiquity, a tempore a quo non extat memoria, by the 

 traditional grant that is of William Rufus, but with no original charter 

 to be shown. De Warenne was much employed by Edward I. in the 

 Welsh and Scotch wars, partly perhaps to keep him quiet, partly because 

 he was allied to the royal house by descent, marriage and previous 

 political connexion just as the royal connexion Aymer de Valence, 

 Earl of Pembroke, was also employed. Baliol and Bruce were too much 

 like rebellious great barons for any or every great baron to be employed 

 alone against them. The earl was made guardian and lieutenant of 

 Scotland in 1296, but in 1297 was badly defeated by Wallace at 

 Stirling. 



The rival house of de Clare was meanwhile being drawn closer to 

 the king. De Clare had married Alice de Lusignan, granddaughter to 

 Isabella d'Angouleme, King John's wife, and when he divorced her he 

 was married to Joan of Acre, Edward's own daughter. Their son, Gil- 

 bert de Clare Earl of Gloucester, fell at Bannockburn, 1314, and the de 

 Clare inheritance, in Surrey as elsewhere, passed to his three sisters and 

 co-heiresses. Two of them were twice, the third thrice, married. The 

 two elder were each married to favourites of their uncle, Edward II. 

 to Hugh le Despencer and Piers Gaveston. The second after- 

 wards married Hugh de Audley, whose daughter marrying Ralph de 

 Stafford brought part of the Surrey inheritance to the Staffords, after- 

 wards Dukes of Buckingham. But the wide lands that had descended 

 from Richard de Tonbridge and been augmented by his successors were 

 broken up for good and all in 1314. 



In 1347 John de Warenne, grandson to the earl of Edward I.'s time, 

 died with no legitimate children. His sister was married to Edmund 

 Earl of Arundel, 1 and their son Richard took the de Warenne estates 

 intact into his hands on his mother's death in 1361. The de Warennes 

 were thus succeeded by a yet more powerful house with their chief seat 

 in Sussex, and the effect upon the county of Surrey may be considered 

 as the drawing still closer of that administrative union with Sussex which 

 had begun with the endowment of the de Warennes. 2 The Earls of 

 Arundel and Surrey were Commissioners of Array, Justices of the Peace, 

 Wardens of the Counties, and heads of extraordinary commissions for 

 Surrey and Sussex together till the death of Thomas in 1415 with no 

 children. The Arundel inheritance then went to a cousin not descended 

 from the de Warennes ; the de Warenne inheritance passed to Thomas's 

 three sisters and co-heiresses. Two great-grandsons of one of them, 

 Elizabeth, were successively created Earls of Surrey. John Mowbray, 

 Duke of Norfolk, was the first in 1451 ; Thomas Howard, son to John 

 Howard, Duke of Norfolk, was the second in 1483. Subsequent inter- 

 marriage in the sixteenth century brought back the reunion of some of 

 the de Warenne lands in Surrey with the earldom of Arundel ; and the 



1 Commonly called Fitz Alan, but the real designation of the family then was de Arundel. 

 9 The last two de Warenne Earls of Surrey were also Earls of Sussex since 1282. 



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