Earl John Plantagenet De WARENNE

   Another name for John was WARENNE Earl.

   Ancestral File Number: 8JDR-24.

   General Notes:

1st Earl of SURREY and SUSSEX, Earl of WARENNE.

BOOKS
A History of The Plantagenets, Vol II, The Magnificent Century, Thomas B Costain, 1951, Doubleday & Co
p162: "In 1247, a year after their mother's death, four of them arrived at Dover- William, Guy, Aymer, and Alice- the rest being too young to venture from home. They were in charge of the cardinal bishop of Sabina, who was going to England as papal legate; a healthy group of young people whose natural good looks were somewhat marred by the way they wrinkled their noses in disgust at the English climate, the people, and everything they could see of England itself.
"Instead of being annoyed by the responsibility thus heaped upon him, Henry was delighted with his young relatives and made it his concern (but not at his own expense) to provide for them handsomely. He married Alice to John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey..."
p263: "The next recruit in point of rank was John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, who had married Alice de Lusignan and was therefore the King's brother-in-law. He was in his early thirties and had been a member of the inner royal circle, even being chosen for the great honor of knighthood at the hands of Alfonso at Las Huelgas. An ardent royalist in the early stages ofthe struggle, he also had come under the influence of the baronial leader, and now he was at Oxford with a long train of knights and men-at-arms..."
p270: "As shrewd in his untamed early manhood as Simon at the peak of his powers, Edwardknew the weak spots in the baronial armor. He made the young men around Simon his special target. Roger de Leyburn was won back. That violent opportunist needed no more than a promise that the sins of the past would be forgiven to bring him into the royal camp. His influence being as strong as ever with the other members of the group, it was not long before Henry of Almaine and John de Warenne followed his example. The young Earl of Goucester, being of stouter fiber and owing his opinions to no other man, withdrew temporarily from the heat of things, leaving himself in a position to jump in either direction. Lesser members followed the trend, however, and appeared at Windsor to make their peace..."

A History of the Plantagenets, Vol III, The Three Edwards, Thomas B Costain, 1958, Doubleday & Co
p72: "The Scottish cause seemed hopeless...Edward had placed his own garrisons in all the strong castles of Scotland and had appointed a group of hard-fisted officials to administer the country: John de Warenne as governor..."
p79: "...[Wallace] threatened Stirling Castle, the gateway to the Highlands. This forced the English command to take action, and an army of fifty thousand foot and a thousand horse marched north under the command of the governor himself, John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey. Warenne was in the late sixties and had been fighting all his life. He had grown weary of warfare and he sat his saddle in bone-stiffened discomfort.He advanced to Stirling by slow stages...
p80:...[Warenne had] selected nevertheless the ideal place for the test of strength. The plan of battle he followed showed him to be a master tactician as well. The strength of his army was concealed in the thickets at the base of the Ochils, a steep ridge of hills on the north of the Forth. That river, curling slowly through Stirling except when tidewater enhanced its flow, was crossed by one bridge only, a structure of wood which allowed no more than two horsemen to cross abreast. The Scots were in a position here to swoop down on the English, if they attempted to cross the river where the ground was too swampy for cavalry action. If the tide of battle went against the defenders, they had an easy line of retreat over the rocky Ochils behind them. Here, then, the followers of Wallace, as skillfully disposed as any army could be, watched and waited.
"Warenne hugged the delusion that the Scots could be persuaded to give up the struggle and return to their homes. He made several efforts to persuade them and finally sent a pair of itinerant friars as emissaries to Wallace.
"`Carry back this answer,' said the Scottish commander. `We have not come for peace by to fight to liberate our country. Let them come when they wish. They will find us ready to fight them to their beards!'
"This precipitated a division of counsel in the English high command. Warenne was not aninspired general, but he was wise enough to distrust the situation. How could they tell how many wild clansmen were concealed at the base of the Ochils? It would take a full day for the English army to cross by that solitary bridge. Was it a wise operation to undertake in the face of a foe of unknown numbers? His inclination was to wait and see if a better way of crossing the tide-fed river presented itself. Some Scottish turncoats spoke of a ford farther up which could be used to turn the flank of theScots...But Cressingham, the treasurer, had come with the English army and was all for prompt measures...
"`There is no use, Sir Earl,' he said, `in drawing out this business any longer and wasting the king's revenues for nothing. Let usadvance and carry out our duty as we are bound to do.'
"The decision reached was to cross the bridge and attack the Scots on the other side. It has already been stated that the men Edward had left behind to finish his work were not great soldiers. Nothing could make this clearer than the course they had decided upon. A single glance at the bridge spanning the Forth at one of its deepest parts should have been enough to make them change their minds. Why was the bridge standing? "Wallace had been first on the ground, and there had been plenty of time to destroy this convenient method of crossing the rive...But there it stood, unharmed, comfortable to cross, with a wide stretch of land left open on the other side, and no enemy in sight...
"Successful strategy consists in fighting your battles at the time and place which offer the surest promise of a favorable issue. Wallace was a self-made soldier, with only brief experience in a small way to draw upon, but he was an instinctive master of strategy. He had decided, quite obviously, that this was the time and the place to offer battle to Governor Warenne and his large army. The bridge had been left intact as bait, to draw the attention of the enemy from the ford farther up the river where six men could cross abreast safely and where the terrain was not as favorable for defense. Fording a stream as variable and strong as the Forth was not an easy matter. How much simpler to take advantage of this bridge which the stupid Scots had neglected to destroy! Wallace had guessed right. He had gambled that the enemy would elect to use the the bridge and had made his dispositions accordingly...
"The sun was high when Warenneemerged. The bridge looked as secure as ever, the green haughs beyond were clear for a good mile, the thickets far back could not conceivably conceal any great number of Scots. The crossing began.
"What followed was a supreme test of the generalship of Wallace. He had to choose unerringly the right moment to strike. If he launched his attack too soon, he would succeed only in destroying a small part of the enemy and the main English forces would be left intact. If he waited toolong, the invaders would be able to establish a strong enough bridgehead to resist any attack and to enable the rest of the army to cross behind them.
"Wallace showed that he had patience as well as judgment. From his high place of concealment he watched the first horsemen come over the bridge at a sedate jog trot to test the security of the structure. When it became evident that nothing had been done to weaken it, the pace became faster. After the horsemen, who spread out fanwise...came the foot soldiers and the Welsh archers with extraordinarily long bows over their shoulders. Soon the lush green haugh was black with the human stream...
"The Scottish leader waited until eleven o'clock. By that time a very considerable part of the English army had crossed, but not enough to diminish his confidence that he could destroy them. He gave the long-awaited signal.
"The wild battle cry of the men from the Highland glens split the air. From behind the semicircle of thicket along the base of the Ochils came thousands of figures leaping in maddened fury, their robes drawn up around their waists to leave their brawny bare legs free...There seemed to be no end to them. They poured forth from the scant cover like nondescript articles from a magician's chest; ten, twenty thousand, and perhaps more. The boggy ground did not delay them, for they were in their bare feet. It seemed a matter of minutes only, after the order was given, for themto make contact with the enemy.
"Wallace had shrewdly grouped on his right the best trained of his men, who might reasonably be termed the `gall-oglauch' of the Scottish army. These troops struck the left flank of the English as they deployed from the bridge and went through them like a knife through a wheel of cheese. So instantly successful was this blow that they took control of the end of the bridge and no more of the English troops could get over. The efforts of those stillon the swaying structure had to be devoted to resisting the pressure of the files pressing on behind them, a struggle which resulted in most of them being shoved against the Scottish spears or forced over into the rising waters of the river below. The English who had succeeded in crossing were then driven into a bend of the river to the right of the bridge, and here they were either cut down or shoved into the river, which was now salt with the incoming tide. Few, if any, managed toswim across!
"Five thousand men died in less than that number of seconds. Many of the English leaders fell in the carnage, including Cressingham...
"The impotent Warenne sat his horse on the other back and saw his best soldiers beinghacked to pieces by the jubilant clansmen. Realizing that the battle was lost, he gave orders for the bridge to be burned, if possible, and for the army to retreat...

A History of the English Speaking People Winston S Churchill Vol I The Birth of Britain Dodd Mead & Co
p305: "Warenne, Earl of Surrey, was Edward's commander in the North. When the depredations of the Scottish rebels had become intolerable he advanced at the head of strong forces upon Stirling. At Stirling Bridge, near the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, in September 1297, he found himself in the presence of Wallace's army. Many Scotsmen were in the English service. One of these warned him of the dangers of trying to deploy beyond the long, narrow bridge and causeway which spanned the river. This knight pleaded calculations worthy of a modern staff officer. It would take eleven hours to move the army across the bridge, and what would happen, he asked, if the vaguard were attacked before the passage was completed? He spoke of a ford higher up, by which at least a flanking force could cross. But Earl Warenne would have none of these things. Wallace watched with measuring eye the accumulation of the English troops across the bridge, and at the right moment hurled his full force upon them, seized the bridgehead, and slaughtered the vanguard of five thousand men. Warenne evacuated the greater part of Scotland..."

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Vol X, Warenne, p547:
"The name of a family important in early English medieval history, which held the earldom of Surrey from 1088 to 1347. It originated in Normandy, and the first member to go to England, William de Warenne (died 1088), fought for his distant kinsman, King William I the Conqueror, at Hastings (1066) and was rewarded with grants of land in 13 counties, including Lewes in Sussex. William II created him earl of Surrey in 1088, but his immediate successors were usually styled earls Warenne ofde Warenne."

A History of the English Speaking People Winston S Churchill Vol I The Birth of Britain Dodd Mead & Co p280.
"Any long-term settlement could be left until the Parliament which he had summoned for 1265. The Earl [Montfort's] autocratic position was not popular, yet the country was in such a state of confusion that circumstances seemed to justify it. In the North and along the Welsh Marches the opposition was still strong and reckless; in France the Queen and the earls Hugh Bigod and Warenne intrigued for support; the Papacy backed the King..."

Political History of England 1216-1377, Vol III, T F Tout, AMS Press, 1905
p99: "...One June 11 [1258] the magnates once more assembled, this time at Oxford.A summons to fight the Welsh gave them an excuse to appear attended with their followers in arms. The royalist partisans nicknamed the gathering the Mad Parliament, but its proceedings were singularly business-like. A petition tion of twenty-nine articles was presented, in which the abuses of the [Henry III] administration were laid bare in detail. A commission of twenty-four was appointed who were to redress the grievances of the nation, and to draw up a new scheme of government. According to the compact Henry himself selected half this body. It was significant of the falling away of the mass of the ruling families from the monarchy, that six of Henry's twelve commissioners were churchmen, four were aliens, three were hisbrothers, one his brother-in-law, one his nephew, one his wife's uncle...The only earls that accepted his nomination were the Poitevin adventurer, John du Plessis, Earl of Warwick, and John of Warenne, who was pledged to a royalist policy by his marriage to Henry's half-sister, Alice of Lusignan...
"...In strong contrast to these creatures of court favour were the twelve nominees of the barons...
"...The twenty-four drew up a plan of reform which left little to be desiredin thoroughness. The Provisions of Oxford, as the new constitution was styled, were speedily laid before the barons and adopted...For the first time in our history the king was forced to stand aside from the discharge of his undoubted functions, and suffer them to be exercised by a committee of magnates. The conception of limited monarchy, which had been foreshadowed in the early struggles of Henry's long reign, was triumphantly vindicated, and, after weary years of waiting, the baronial victors demanded more than had ever been suggested by the most free interpretation of the Great Charter..."
p102: "...[1258] The Poitevins soon found that they could not maintain themselves in the face of the general hatred. On June 22 they fled from Oxford in the company of their ally, Earl Warenne. They rode straight for the coast, but failing to reach it, occupied Winchester, where they sought to maintain themselves in Aymer's castle of Wolvesey...Warenne abandoned the aliens, and the gladly accepted the terms offered to them by their foes..."
p162: "...[1282] Earl Warenne seized Bromfield and Yale. Each noble fought for his own hand, and Edward was forced to reward their services by immediately grantingto them their conquests, and thus created a new marcher interest which, later on, stood in the way of an effective settlement..."

ANCESTRAL FILE
Ancestral File Ver 4.10 9FPN-HP, Ver 4.19 8JDR-24.

   Marriage Information:

John married Alice De LUSIGNAN, daughter of Count Hugh De Lusignan LA MARCHE, X and Queen Isabella De Taillefer ENGLAND.