King Henry II (1133 - 1189)

Afer the death of William the Conqueror's son, William Rufus, there was civil war in England with two cousins claiming the throne, Matilda and Stephen who were both grandchildren of William the Conqueror.

  

Langar's lord of the manor, William Peverel the Younger supported Stephen as king. Not a good move!

 

After King Stephen died in 1154, Matilda's son, Henry became king. He took all the manors off William Peverel and kept them for himself. 

 

Gerbod de Escalt (dates unknown)

Henry II later gave the manor of Langar to Gerbod de Escalt who also owned other manors in the East Midlands. His name 'Escalt' may come from the French name of the River Scheldt which flows through modern Belgium and the Netherlands. When William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, he was not only accompanied by Norman lords, but also by lords from France, Brittany (now part of France) and Flanders (modern Belgium and the Netherlands). They too were given English manors as a reward for their part in his success. 

Gerbod was later given more lands by the King as a reward for his support during the Revolt of 1173-4 when the King's wife, sons and rebel barons unsuccessfully tried to overthrow him.

  

Sir Gerard de Rodes (1154 - 1189)

Born in France, Sir Gerard was the grandson of Gerbod de Escalt above. He was given Langar and Barnstone (and other manors) by Henry II's son, King Richard the Lionheart in 1190. 

 

Sir Ralph de Rodes (c1180 - 1241),

son of Gerard above and his wife Berta, inherited Langar and Barnstone.  Ralph got permission from the Prior of Lenton Abbey, who was responsible for St Andrew's church, to have a chapel in his hall as long as the priest was chosen by the rector of Langar. So we do know that there was a Langar Hall here then, although nobody knows anything about it.

 

 

A visit to Langar by King John

 

Sir Ralph de Rodes was a supporter of King John.

This was a good move. John was a tough king and it was safer to be on his side. 

But King John was unpopular.

  

John's older brother, King Richard the Lionheart, spent very little time in England. He spent most of his time and all the country's money fighting in the Crusades in the Holy Land. (The Crusades 1096 - 1291 were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started by European kings to recapture the holy places in Palestine/modern Israel.)

 

While King Richard was out of the country, the lords and barons of England became very powerful. However, when Richard died and John became king, he was determined to show who was boss. King John travelled round the country with his army collecting taxes and showing his power. This made him very unpopular with the barons who plotted against him. 

 

No sooner had King John signed the Magna Carta than he changed his mind and determined to punish the barons who had forced him to sign it. 

 

King John set out on his travels. 

← The map shows King John's travels around the country. Although he had palaces at Westminster and Windsor, he was hardly ever there. Most of his time was spent travelling round England collecting taxes and making sure that the barons did as they were told. 

 

King John's Diary 

The King and his closest followers stayed at Langar Hall and Sir Ralph had to feed them and look after them as a king would expect. 

 

And the priests, bodyguards, secretaries, servants, cooks, horsemen, wagon drivers, the army and their wives had to camp in the fields around Langar Hall for the night. The little village was swamped. The villagers had never seen so many people in one place. 

William d'Aubigny of Belvoir Castle was one of the 25 barons who had made King John sign the Magna Carta. 

 

However, William was not there. He had already been captured by the king's men in the south of England and was being held a prisoner. John threatened that William would be starved to death unless his men surrendered the castle. 

 

 

On 29 December, William d'Aubigny's knights and soldiers at Belvoir Castle were allowed to go free and King John's men took the castle. Then the king and his army moved north.

 

Much to the relief of Sir Ralph de Rodes!

 

 

King John and his army marched around England during 1216 - up to Scotland, down to East Anglia and back up to Nottinghamshire fining the rebel barons, arresting people and seizing their castles and lands. 

 

The barons were losing control and so they invited Prince Louis of France to be the King of England. Louis landed in Kent with his French army and marched to London, fighting battles with John's army all the way. 

  

In October King John was at Newark Castle. There he took ill and during a terrible thunderstorm on the night of October 19th, the King died.

 

The barons' problems were over.  

 

After the death of King John there was no need for Prince Louis of France to be king of England. The next king would be John's 9-year-old son, Henry. Being young, the barons would have control of him. The barons paid Louis £5,000,000 (value in modern money) to go back to France. (Three years later, his father died and he became King Louis VIII of France.) 

 

The scum of France ravage

the Vale of Belvoir.

 

There were hundreds of Prince Louis's soldiers in the East Midlands; they were heading towards Lincoln for a battle. Roger of Wendover, the monk in charge of the Priory of Belvoir, wrote an account of the events: 

 

The army of Louis pillaged all the cemeteries and churches on their march. They marched to Lincoln through the valley of Belvoir and there everything fell into the hands of these robbers because the soldiers of the French kingdom were the refuse and scum of that country. They left nothing at all untouched and their poverty and their wretchedness was so great that they had not enough bodily clothing to cover their nakedness.

  

Nobody knows if the French soldiers came to Langar or Barnstone to rob and steal, but no doubt the people here were very relieved when the French army was defeated and retreated back to France.

 

  

Sir Gerard de Rodes (1216 - 1272),

son of Sir Ralph above, inherited the manors of Langar and Barnstone.

 

John de Rodes (dates unknown),

second son of Sir Gerard above, inherited the manors. 

 

 Sir Robert de Tibetot (c1228 - c1298)

(The surname is originally French and pronounced Tib-toe; it is often spelled Tibtoft or Tiptoft.)

  

A swap - 

  

In 1285 John de Rodes (above) exchanged Langar and Barnestone with Sir Robert de Tibetot for the manors of Clifton and Wilford. Langar and Barnestone then belonged jointly to Sir Robert, to his wife Eva de Chaworth and his son Pain (or Pagan).  

 

Robert Tibetot was born in Wymondham, Leicestershire of a family of French origin who had lived there since the 12th century. He was a close friend of King Henry III’s son, Prince Edward (later King Edward I) who gave him the manor of Nettlestead, Suffolk in 1263. Robert was buried there in 1298.

 

It may have been Sir Robert de Tibetot who rebuilt Langar Hall when he became the lord of the manor. Although the Tibetots had various manors in England, Langar became their main home. (See Langar Hall.)

 

(The manors of Langar and Barnestone were passed down through Sir Robert's descendants from father to son to brother to wife to cousin for 533 years until 1818 when they were sold to a rich Victorian industrialist.)

 

  

 

At this time there was conflict between Henry III (Prince Edward’s father) and the English barons who thought the king was becoming too powerful. The conflict turned into a civil war during which Sir Robert was firmly on the king’s side. This was the Second Barons' War.

  

Henry III was defeated by the barons in battle at Lewes in Sussex in 1264 and both the king and Prince Edward were captured. Sir Robert de Tibetot joined in a raid to rescue them but he was unsuccessful.

  

The leader of the rebel barons, Simon de Montfort Earl of Leicester then moved Prince Edward from castle to castle. But de Montfort’s men should have kept a closer eye on the prince. While under house arrest at Hereford, the prince challenged his captors to a horse race. Edward chose the fastest horse and galloped off to freedom!

  

The next year Robert de Tibetot joined the king at Evesham, facing Simon de Montfort and the rebel barons in battle. King Henry won the day. In the months after the battle, Sir Robert took on the job of giving back lands seized by de Montfort and to their rightful owners. He was rewarded for his hard work: Robert was given a large house in the City of London, as well as manors in Norfolk, Warwickshire and Lincolnshire and he was made the Governor of Porchester Castle.

  

The Crusades

In 1271 Sir Robert de Tibetot went with Prince Edward on the Ninth Crusade (and the last) to the Holy Land. The aim was to take Jerusalem and other holy Christian places from the Muslims. It was unsuccessful.

 

While there, Edward’s father, Henry III died and Edward returned to England to become King Edward I. Sir Robert must have continued to make a good impression as he was then made Governor of Nottingham Castle, Justice of South Wales, and Governor of the castles of Carmarthen and Cardigan. 

   

Sir Robert Tibetot was one of the king’s key men in the conquest of Wales and later fought against the Scots and the French. He remained in royal service in southern France until the end of 1297. Sir Robert came back to England the following year and died peacefully in his bed at his manor in Nettlestead in Suffolk. He was 70.

 

Sir Pain, 1st Baron Tibetot (before 1281 - 1314), son of Sir Robert above and Eva de Chaworth.

 

Born at Carmarthen Castle in Wales, Sir Robert's son, Pain (or Pagan) also became a fighting man. He was made 1st Baron Tibetot by King Edward I. Sir Pain fought against the Scots with King Edward II and was killed aged 34 at the disastrous Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 along with ten thousand English soldiers.

 

Sir John, 2nd Baron Tibetot (1313 - c1367), son of Sir Pain above.

When Sir Pain was killed, his son John was under age, so King Edward put his manors in the care of Bartholomew de Badlesmere. Bartholomew married young John to his own daughter Margaret. In 1338 Sir John brought his own soldiers to fight with Edward III in Flanders and France at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. He was later appointed Keeper of Berwick-upon-Tweed guarding the English border with Scotland. 

 

Sir Robert, 3rd Baron Tibetot (before 1341 - 1372), son of Sir John and Margaret de Badlesmere, born and died at Nettlestead, Suffolk.

Robert was granted the manors of Langar and Barnstone by King Edward III in 1349. Robert married Margaret, the daughter of William de Ayncourt who gave birth to three daughters, one of whom, yet another Margaret became lord of the manors.

 

Margaret Tibetot (1366 - before 1431),

daughter of Sir Robert above and Margaret de Ayncourt. Margaret Tibetot was Sir Robert's oldest daughter and was born at Langar Hall in 1366.

 

She married Sir Roger le Scrope, 2nd Baron Scrope (born before 1370 - died 1403) in about 1390, who was the son of King Richard II's Lord Chancellor. Margaret and Sir Roger owned the manors jointly and rebuilt Langar Hall in stone and looking like a castle. (See Langar Hall.)

 

- Scrope is pronounced 'scroop' -

  

These were dangerous times - Sir Roger was the younger son and became Lord Scrope only when his older brother was beheaded for fighting against King Henry IV. Sir Roger was a member of a wealthy family and lived at Bolton Castle in Yorkshire which had been rebuilt by his father and was the main home for the Scrope family. Sir Roger died only four months after his father and the title passed to his son, below.

 

Sir Richard Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope (1393 - 1420),

son of Sir Roger and Margaret Tibetot above. He was born at Bolton Castle in Yorkshire. Richard became Lord Scrope at the age of 9 on his father's death in 1402 and was looked after by Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmoreland. He married Margaret Neville, daughter of the Earl of Westmoreland in 1413.

 

Sir Richard was a soldier and took 15 of his own soldiers and 45 archers to the Battle of Agincourt (Hundred Years War) to fight the French alongside King Henry V. The English were victorious.

In the attack on the French port of Harfleur, Sir Richard was commander of part of the English naval fleet. He was later based at Kingston-upon-Hull with 120 soldiers and 240 archers defending the north-east coast of England against the Scots. 

Richard Scrope was killed at the Siege of Rouen (Hundred Years War) in 1420 and his body was brought back to be buried at the church of St Agatha at Easby Abbey, Yorkshire.

 

Sir Henry Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope (1418 - 1458),

son of Sir Richard above and Margaret Neville. He was born and died at Bolton Castle.

Henry was only 2 years old when his father died and his affairs were looked after by his uncle Sir Richard Neville. Henry married his cousin Elizabeth le Scrope, daughter of Sir John, Lord Scrope of Masham and Elizabeth Chaworth. He worked mostly in Yorkshire for King Henry V and Henry VI raising taxes but also served in the army on the western border with Scotland.

  

Click here!

For earlier Lords of

the Manor, click here.