# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mandeville, William de

​MANDEVILLE or MAGNA VILLA, WILLIAM de, third Earl of Essex and Earl or Count of Aumale (d. 1189), third son of Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex [q. v.], by his wife Rohese, daughter of Aubrey de Vere (d. 1141), great chamberlain (Round), spent his youth at the court of the Count of Flanders, and received knighthood from Philip, afterwards count (d. 1191). On the death of his brother, Earl Geoffrey, in 1166, he came over to England, was well received by Henry II, and succeeded his brother as Earl of Essex and in his estates. After visiting his mother, who was incensed against the monks of Walden Abbey, Essex, her husband's foundation, because they had succeeded against her will in obtaining the body of her son, Earl I Geoffrey, and had buried it in their church, William went to Walden to pray at his brother's tomb. He showed himself highly displeased with the monks, made them give up his brother's best charger and arms, which they had received as a mortuary offering, and complained bitterly that his father had given them the patronage of the churches on his fiefs, so that he had not a single benefice wherewith to reward one of his clerks. The convent gave him gifts in order to pacify him (Monasticon, iv. 143). He was constantly in attendance on the king, and was therefore much out of England. He was with Henry, at Limoges and elsewhere, in the spring of 1173, and swore to the agreement between the king and the Count of Maurienne. Later in the year he was still with Henry, and remaining faithful to him when the rebellion broke out, was one of the leaders of the royal army when in August Louis VII was invading Normandy. In a skirmish between the English and French knights between Gisors and Trie, he took Ingelram of Trie prisoner. He attested the agreement between Henry and the king of Scots at Falaise in October 1174, was present at the submission of the younger Henry to his father at Bur on 1 April 1175, and returning to England, probably with the king, was at the court at Windsor in October, and attested the treaty with the king of Connaught (Benedict, i. 60, 82, 99, 103). In March 1177 he attended the court at Westminster, and was one of the witnesses to the king's 'Spanish award.' Later in the year he took the cross, joined his old companion, Philip, count of Flanders, who had paid a visit to England, and set out with him on a crusade, taking with him the prior of Walden as his chaplain. Having joined forces at Jerusalem with the Knights Templars and Hospitallers and Reginald of Chatillon, Philip and the earl laid siege to the castle of Harenc, and at the end of a month, on the approach of Saladin, allowed the garrison to ransom themselves. On 25 Nov. the Christians gained the great victory of Ramlah. The ransom paid to Philip and the earl was found to consist of base metals. They left Jerusalem after Easter 1178, and on 8 Oct. the earl returned to England, bringing with him a large number of silken hangings, which he distributed among the churches on his fiefs. He visited Walden, and was received with honour, having given the house some of the finest of his silk (Monasticon, iv. 144).
The earl was again in company with Philip, of Flanders in 1179, and joined him in attending Louis VII when he came to England to visit the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury. On 14 Jan. 1180 he married, at his castle of Pleshey, Essex, Havice, daughter and heiress of William, count or earl of Aumale (d. 1179), and received from the king the county of Aumale and all that pertained to it on both sides of the Channel, with the title of Aumale (Diceto, i. 3). From this date he is described sometimes by the title of Aumale and sometimes by that of Essex. In 1182 he was sent by Henry on an embassy to the Emperor Frederic I, to intercede for Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony. When war broke out between Hainault, supported by Philip of France and Flanders, Earl William was called upon by the Count of Flanders to go to his aid, and he obeyed the call (ib. ii. 32, where the count is described as the 'dominus' of Earl William, which makes it certain that the earl must have held some fief of the count). In October 1186 he was twice sent as ambassador to Philip with reference to a truce between the two kings. Finding that Philip was threatening Gisors, Henry sent Earl William from England to defend it, and, coming over to Normandy shortly afterwards, was met by the earl at Aumale about the end of February 1187, and gave him the command of a division of his army. In common with the king and many other lords, he took the cross in January 1188 (Ralph of Coggeshall, p. 23). In the late summer a French army, that was ravaging the Norman border, under the command of the Bishop of Beauvais, burned his castle of Aumale. He marched with the king across the border, took part with Richard of ​Poitou in a battle at Mantes, burnt St. Clair in the Vexin, and destroyed a fine plantation that the French king had made there. William was with the king during his last days, accompanied him in his flight from Le Mans in June 1 189, and at his request joined William FitzRalph in swearing that if ill came to Henry they would give up the Norman castles to none save his son John (Vita Galfridi, vol. i. c. 4). At the coronation of Richard I the earl carried the crown in his hands, walking immediately before Richard. A few days later, at the council at Pipewell, Northamptonshire, the king appointed him chief justiciar jointly with Bishop Hugh of Durham. At a council at London the earl took an oath on the king's behalf, before the French ambassador, that Richard would meet the French king the following spring. He then went into Normandy on the king's business, and died without issue at Rouen on 14 Nov. 1189 (Diceto, ii. 73). He was buried in the abbey of Mortemer, near Aumale, his heart, according to one account, being sent to Walden (Monast. iv. 140, but comp. p. 145).
Mandeville was a gallant and warlike man, 'as loyal as his father was faithless' (Norgate). Besides making a grant to Walden (ib. iv. 149), he founded a house for Augustinian canons called Stoneley, at Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire (ib. vi. 477), gave the manor of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire, to the Knights Hospitallers (ib. p. 801; Hospitallers in England, pp. 78, 230), and lands to Reading Abbey (Monasticon, iv. 35), and to the nuns of Clerkenwell (ib. p. 83), and tithes to the priory of Colne, Essex (ib. p. 102). His widow survived him, and married for her second husband William de Fortibus (d. 1195), bringing him the earldom of Aumale or Albemarle, held by his son William (d. 1242). After the death in 1213 of the Countess Havice's third husband, Baldwin de Bethune, who held the earldom for life (jure uxoris) (Doyle; Stubbs ap. Hoveden, iii. 306 n., comp. Benedict, ii. 92 n.), the county of Aumale was given by Philip of France to Reginald, count of Boulogne (Gulielmus Armoricus ap. Recueil, xvii. 100).
[Benedict's Gesta Hen. II et Ric. I, vols. i. ii. (Rolls Ser.); Roger de Hoveden, vols. ii. iii. (Rolls Ser.); R. de Diceto, vols. i. ii. (Rolls Ser.); R. de Coggeshall, pp. 23, 26 (Rolls Ser.); Gervase Cant. i. 262, 347; Giraldus Cambr. Vita Galfridi, ap Opp. iv. 369 (Rolls Ser.); Gulielmus Armoricus ap. Recueil des Hist. xvii. 100; Dugdale's Monasticon, esp. iv. 134 sqq., sub tit. 'Walden Abbey' a history of the Mandeville family; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 204; Doyle's Official Baronage, i. 24, 682; Round's Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp.81, 242, 390; Norgate's Angevin Kings, ii. 144, 260, 279, 282.]
W. H.