Abt. 1275 – 1330
VILLAIN Married 1309 to Mathe Seguin de Rions (Abt. 1285 – ) The war of 1294 had also brought to the front a new Garcias Arnald de Navailles, 1 who, in the general confusion, was strong enough to reassert and retain what he no doubt claimed as the right of his ancestors. The English party did not, however, succumb without a very severe struggle. The letters patent of Edward I. acknowledged that those whom William Arnald represented had done him ‘ laudable service during his war in Gascony,’ and that he owed them 1,348, for the recovery of a portion of which he had assigned them lands at Sord and Poillon till it was paid ; 2 but these lands never came to them, for Edward II., immediately on his accession, granted them to others. Again, an official document of 1315 admits that these people had been ‘ disinherited and ruined ; ‘ and another that they were ‘ lately despoiled of their lands, possessions, and goods by the lord of Navailles, and exiled from the said place for their adherence to King Edward I. in the Gascon war.’ 3 The Gascon Bolls are now so full pf the complaints of this new William Arnald de Brocas, and the replies of the Crown, that no apology is necessary for following the matter a little further. Nothing can be more suggestive of the state of Gascony and of England, as well as of the causes which led to the subsequent rise of the De Brocas family.
It seems to have been taken as a matter of course that the lord of Navailles would have restored, at the peace of 1303, as he was bound to do, the lands pf these ejected loyalists. Nothing was further from his purpose. Edward I. was in the last agony of his Scottish troubles ; and when his son succeeded him, he showed his impotence from the very first. William Arnald was obliged to content himself with petitions. The Seneschal of Gascony had failed to carry out his orders to restore the De Brocas by force ; the affairs of the country were too much disordered. P40 de Brocas
He served the King of France during the Biscay War in 1297.