Hugh de Morvile
There are several historical
British persons with the name
Hugh (or
Hugo)
de Morvile (
Moreville,
Morville).
# A
Hugh de Moreville (born circa
1053) is said to have come over with
William the Conqueror. But Professor Barrow states that his name was not Hugh, but
Richard: "The commune of Morville in the canton of Bricquebec is about four km south of Valognes, about 25 km south of Cherbourg. This family, evidently of knightly rank, was proprietorial enough to take a surname from the village belonging to the same class of minor but substantial gentry or petty nobility as the Bruces who lived not too far from them. It seems probable that the father of the first Hugh de Morville and William was the Richard de Morville who witnessed charters by Richard de Redvers of Montebourg and the church of St.Mary in the castle of Néhou in the early twelfth century."#
Hugh de Morville, son of the above, held manors in co.
Rutland and
Northamptonshire.
David I King of Scots, it seems, granted to Hugh de Morville the Lordship of
Westmoreland proper, that is, Westmoreland north of Shap Fell and the Howgill Fells, with its centre at
Appleby on the upper Eden. He was King David's "chief man of business", and he subsequently acquired great estates in southern
Scotland and became, before 1140, Constable of Scotland. Towards the end of that King's reign Hugh de Morville founded
Dryburgh Abbey in
Roxburghshire. "He obtained land and lordships which placed him in the very first rank of the Anglo-Norman nobility. These comprised
Lauderdale together with detached estates at Saltoun, Nenthorn and Newton Don, at Dryburgh on the
River Tweed opposite Old
Melrose, Scotland, and probably also at
Heriot, Midlothian. In the west of Scotland he was given the whole of
Cunninghame, the northernmost third of
Ayrshire. Lauderdale, with a Crown castle below Lauder, was held, it seems, for six knights' service; Cunningham possibly for two, with a castle at
Irvine." Hugh de Morville died in
1162 and was interred in Dryburgh Abbey, of which, with
Kilwinning Abbey, he was the founder. He was a brother of Simon de Moreville who had come into possession of Burgh-on-Sands (now
Burgh by Sands) by right of his wife Ada de Engaine. Their other brother was William, alive in 1124 when he was described as "a landowner in
Dorset". Hugh married Beatrice, daughter of Robert de Beauchamp. This lady was the heiress of Houghton Conquest. Thye had two sons: Richard de Morville (d.1189), also Constable of Scotland, (left issue), and # The most famous
Hugh de Morville, Lord of Westmoreland (inherited from his father). Thought to be the eldest son, he was a principal player in the assassination by four English knights of
Thomas á Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury in
1170. He subsequently fell out of favour with the king and was forfeited (1174) when the Lordship of Westmoreland passed to his sister (some sources say niece), Maud. He appears in the service of
Henry II from
1158. After the Archbishop's murder, Hugh and his associates at first took refuge in
Knaresborough Castle; afterwards the king sent them to obtain absolution from
Pope Alexander III. It is said that all four were enjoined to go on pilgrimage to the
Holy Land, but it is not known whether they made it there. Hugh made his expiation in this way. The date of his death is unknown, but it was in or before
1202/
3, when his English lands were in the hands of co-heiresses.#A
Hugh de Morville stood hostage for
Richard I of England in
1194 when the king had been captured by
Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven claimed he got his source book for his poem
Lanzelet from this individual, who may be the same person as number 3 above, or related to him.
* Barrow, F.B.A., Professor G.W.S.
The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History,
Oxford University Press, 1980, pps:70-71n.
* Eyton, Robert William,
Itinery of Henry II.
* Ramsay, James Henry,
Angevin England.
* Ritchie, R.L.Graeme,
The Normans in Scotland,
Edinburgh University Press, 1954.
