A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



country ; but besides external wars there was discontent and rebellion 

 within the realm. As Prince of Wales Edward had developed a great 

 affection for a dashing young Gascon squire, Piers Gaveston ; indeed 

 during his banishment from his father's court in the summer of 1304, 

 when he spent some time in Sussex, where he maintained a stud of 

 horses at Ditchling, his chief regret was for the absence of his favourite/ 

 On his accession he immediately began to shower his favours upon 

 Piers, bestowing upon him amongst other things the city of Chichester,* 

 until at last the English nobles united their forces to destroy the upstart. 

 The Earl of Arundel was one of the leaders in this movement, but the 

 Earl of Warenne was with difficulty persuaded to take part against the 

 King.^ The removal of one favourite only made room for others, and 

 the place of Piers Gaveston was soon filled by the Despensers, to the 

 younger of whom, son of the Earl of Winchester, the King granted 

 the town of Shoreham* ; the earl himself, in 1324, obtained from 

 Alina Mowbray a grant of the reversion of the castle and honor of 

 Bramber on the death of her father William Braose, the tenant for life.^ 

 It was a dispute over the purchase of William Braose's Welsh estates 

 that led to the rebellion of the Earls of Hereford and Lancaster. This 

 rising ended in complete failure and involved several Sussex men in the 

 ruin which overtook its leaders. Bartholomew de Badlesmere, who held 

 a number of manors in this county, had fortified his castle of Leeds in 

 Kent against the King, so that in October 1321 a royal summons was 

 issued to the men of Essex, Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex to assemble 

 for the capture of Leeds castle.* When it fell its constable Thomas 

 Colepepper, a member of a family of note in Kent and Sussex and 

 himself a landowner in the latter county, was sentenced and executed 

 at Winchelsea' ; while, besides Bartholomew de Badlesmere, Francis de 

 Audeham and Bartholomew Ashburnham, both belonging to Sussex, 

 were condemned for treason. ° Several other Sussex men lost their 

 estates, and it seems that the whole county was somewhat disaffiscted, as 

 in February 1322 the commonalty of knights and esquires of Sussex 

 were fined >C2oo because some of them had failed to come to the place 

 assigned them.' This probably refers to the summons already men- 

 tioned, unless it be connected with the assembling of the King's army 

 at Cirencester in the previous December, to which Surrey and Sussex 

 were ordered to send five hundred foot under John Dabernoun, Peter 

 fitz-Reynold and John de Boudon." 



The accession of Edward III. put the kingdom for a while into 

 the power of Queen Isabella and her favourite Roger Mortimer, till in 

 1330 the young King took the government into his own hands and 

 seized and executed Mortimer, issuing at the same time commissions of 

 array to resist the King's rebels to the mayor of Chichester and Bartho- 



' Suss. Arch. Coll. ii. 2 Chart. R. i Edw. II. no. 24. 



3 T. Walsingham, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 130, 131. * Pat. i Edw. III. p. 2, m. 18. 



s Pat. 17 Edw. II. p. 2, m. 9, 6. « Rymer, Fcedera (Rolls ed.), ii. 457. 



' Pat. 15 Ew. II. p. 2, m. 24d. s ibid. ; and Chanc. Misc. R. 17-4. 



9 Pat. 15 Edw. II. p. 2, m. 31. >» Ibid. p. I, m. 7. 

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