c. 1287/9 – 24 November 1326
Hugh le Despenser, 1st Baron le Despenser (c. 1287/9[1] – 24 November 1326), also referred to as “the Younger Despenser“,[2] was the son and heir of Hugh le Despenser, Earl of Winchester (the Elder Despenser) by his wife Isabella de Beauchamp, daughter of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick.[3] He rose to national prominence as royal chamberlain and a favourite of Edward II of England. Despenser made many enemies amongst the nobility of England. After the overthrow of Edward, this eventually led to his being charged with high treason and, ultimately, hanged, drawn and quartered.
The family de Brocas is a very old family that may have helped in the transition of Gascony from a Roman province to a medieval state. Place names in arrondissement of St. Sever, Mont de Marsan, and canton de Labrit (D’Albret). In no less than four neighbouring localities La Reole and Ryons in Guienne, Sault and St. Sever in Gascony proper they were important enough to find a place which can be traced in contemporary records, and they may have been settled at the second Brocas, near St. Sever, from a very early date. The family were of sufficient position in 1268 to be considerable benefactors of the Monastery of St. Sever, which marks their connection with that city very soon after we first hear of them at Saut, and before they are expelled from the latter place by the lord of Navailles.
At the above date we have the following names : Arnald William de Brocas, and his mother, Guiraut de Brocas ; they are of gentle birth, and their gift is publicly recognised by the sons and heirs- -William Arnald and Arnald William. On the whole, we may fairly pronounce that we are in presence, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, of a large branch of the clan settled at three neighbouring places St. Sever, Brocas, and Saut; and they are people of importance. One of them, Peter Arnald (youngest brother, killed before my story), was a knight.
In August 1242, the very first year recorded in the Gascon Rolls, we find the following amongst the acts of Henry III., who had just been defeated by Louis IX., and had fled to Bordeaux in precipitate haste. The king makes an order by which he holds himself bound to pay ‘ William Arnald de Brocarz and Arnaldino de Brocarz ‘ 439 marks, 6s. 3d., for ‘ the redemption of the lands of Saut which had been invaded ‘ (p. 145). The order is docketed, Pro ii burgensibus de Saut.’ A year later the treasurer is ordered to pay this sum (p. 241). In 1253, when the king is once again in Gascony, he orders his bailiff to attend to the complaint of William Arnald de Saut, that while he was employed in the king’s service at Bordeaux, tempore hostilitatis nobis nccessario, ‘ his younger brother, Peter Arnald, had seized, and still holds, his [William Arnold’s] castle of Saut’ (p. 359). The bailiff is now ordered, ‘ since it is unjust that this officer should lose his rights because he was employed in our service,’ to take the castle into the king’s hands, if he can do so without disturbance of the land, and to see justice done to William Arnald * in our Court.’ Next day the king orders that the ‘ knights and sergeants ‘ in the garrison at Saut should receive their pay, which had been withheld. This Peter Arnald comes before us once more at Bayonne, during Simon de Montfort’s Lieutenancy. One of the complaints of the Bayonne ‘ Communitas ‘ against Simon is that he had slain Peter Arnald de Saut, knight, during the truce made between the kings of England and Navarre. 1
The de Brocas clan were extremely loyal to