The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Latomer : or Latimer: for Le Latinier,[1] or interpreter. Four of these are among the barons mentioned in Domesday: David interpres, who held in Dorset; Hugo latinarius (elsewhere called Hugolinus interpres) who held in Hants and Somerset; Ralph Latimarus, who held in Essex; and Lewin Latinarius, who held in Herefordshire.
It is only with the third of these, Ralph, Secretary to the Conqueror, that we have here to do. Of him derived William le Latimer, who in 1165 held a knight's fee of Vesci in Yorkshire (Liber Niger): and another William, most likely the son of the first, who paid 100s. in 1190 to have a trial at law with Geoffrey de Valoins, who had taken possession of part of his park at Billenges. A third William was Sheriff of York and Constable of York Castle in 1254, and had at different times also the custody of Pickering, Cockermouth and Scarborough. He did "laudable service" to Henry III. during the Barons' War, and followed Edward I. throughout his martial career; first, in 1269, to the Holy Land, and then in all his campaigns in Wales, Scotland, and Gascony. The King rewarded him with a grant of Danby in Yorkshire, and a summons to parliament in 1299. He and his brother John married two sisters, the co-heirs of Walter Ledet, or de Braibroc, who divided his great Northamptonshire barony between them. His wife, Alice, was the elder, and brought with her, besides half the Honour of Warden, one moiety of the town, and the whole hundred of Corby. William IV., their son, took to wife another heiress, Lucia de Thweng, who, during one of his absences in the Scottish wars, was carried off from his Yorkshire manor house of Brunne, "with divers other goods, by certain unknown persons. Whereupon, the King sent his Precept to the Sheriff, to make strict search for her, throughout all that County; commanding him, that in case he did find her out, he should, if need were, raise the power of the County, and carry her back to Brunne." But the hue and cry was of no avail; the lady, having gone away of her own accord, could not be recovered; and the next we hear of her is her divorce, by sentence of the Court of Rome—a notable instance of the early disregard of the sacrament of marriage in a church that now pronounces it indissoluble. Lord Latimer married again: and had the "ill hap" of being taken prisoner at Bannockburn. He was followed by two more Williams, his son and his grandson: the latter being only six years old when he succeeded to the barony. This fourth Lord Latimer proved the last of the line. He was a soldier from his very boyhood, and passed his life almost uninterruptedly in the French wars, in which various gallant feats of arms are recorded of him. In 1364, "being with John de Montfort at the Siege of Doveroy, with scarce one thousand six hundred Men, he encountered with Charles de Bloys, who came to raise the Siege with no less than three thousand six hundred; And in a sharp Battle, slew him, with almost one thousand Knights and Esquires; taking Prisoners two Earls, twenty-seven Lords, and one thousand five hundred Men at Arms." He served as Constable of Becherel in Brittany, Lt. and Captain General to John Duke of Brittany and Captain and Governor of the town, castle and Viscountcy of St. Sauveur, and was successively Steward of the Household and the King's Chamberlain. But in 1376 he was "removed from all his trusts," and impeached by the House of Commons. He was accused of squandering and appropriating the King's treasure; the loss of the town of St. Sauveur and the castle of Becherel was laid to his charge, and he was sentenced to pay a fine of 20,000 marks. This, however, the King mercifully remitted, and soon after, the Lords and Commons both representing that he had been erased from the Privy Council and deprived of his offices by "untrue suggestions," he was reinstated—partly, it was said, by the favour of the Duke of Lancaster. Richard II. appointed him Captain of Calais, and sent him to treat of peace with Scotland. His last campaign was under Thomas of Woodstock, with whom he went to the siege of Nantes in 1380 as Constable of the host. He died the same year, leaving by his wife Lady Elizabeth Fitz Alan an only child, Elizabeth Latimer, his sole heiress. She was twice married—each time to a widower; for she became the second wife of John, Lord Nevill of Raby, and then of Robert, Lord Willoughby de Eresby; and by her first husband was the mother of three children, John, Elizabeth, and Margaret. John Nevill, who in her right was Lord Latimer, died childless in 1430; his sister Margaret likewise died s. p.; and thus Elizabeth, who had married her stepson Sir Thomas Willoughby, remained the only heir. But, within two years, the barony was granted, through the great power and predominance of the Nevills, to a grandson of Lord Nevill's by his first wife, Sir George Nevill, on whom a part of the estates had been settled, and though an utter stranger to the blood of Latimer, he held it without dispute or cavil till his death. However, in the time of his grandson and successor Richard, it was claimed by the great-grandson and heir of Sir Thomas Willoughby, Robert Lord Broke; when it was declared that Sir George had been created Lord Latimer by a new title; and Lord Broke "having a title of his own, was contented to conclude a match between their children; and Richard suffered a recovery on certain manors and lordships demanded by the Lord Broke."—Banks.
The second brother of the first Lord Latimer, John de Latimer, who had married the younger Ledet heiress, left at his death, in 1283, a son known as Thomas le Latimer Bochard, and summoned to parliament in 1299 as Lord Latimer of Braybrooke, to distinguish him from his uncle, who at the same time had summons as Lord Latimer of Danby. He built a castle on his mother's inheritance at Braybrooke, and founded a line of Northamptonshire barons, that ended with his three childless grandsons, who each in turn succeeded to the title. Sir Thomas, the second of these, was eminent among the leaders of the Lollards, but recanted before his death, and like Sir Lewis Clifford, expressed his deep penitence in his will. He declared himself, "a false Knyghte to God;" praying that He "would take so poore a present as my wrecchid Soule ys, into his merci, through the beseching of his blessed Modyr, and his holy Seynts." Edward, the last Lord, who died in 1411, bequeathed Braybrooke and all his other property to his sister's son, John Griffin.
Some descendants of the first Lord Latimer of Danby, survived till 1505 in Dorsetshire, where John, his younger son, had acquired the manor of Duntish through its heiress Joan de Gouis. Sir Nicholas, the last heir, was attainted in the reign of Edward IV., though the attainder was afterwards reversed. Edith Latimer, the wife of Sir John Mordaunt, was his only child.
The martyred Bishop Latimer was probably derived from a younger branch of this house, of which, as it had lapsed into obscurity, the pedigree is lost. His parents lived in Leicestershire, but had inherited none of the property held there during the fourteenth century by the Latimers of Braybrooke. "My father," he tells us, "was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of 3 or 4 pounds a year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled as much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for 100 sheep, and my mother milked 30 kine; he was able and did find the King a harness with himself and his horse while he came to the place that he should receive the King's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went to Blackheath Field. He kept me to school; he married my sisters with five pounds a piece, so that he brought them up in godliness and in the fear of God. He kept hospitality to his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor: and all this he did of the same farm, where he that now hath it payeth 16 pounds a year or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor."
"'Lyare was mi latymer,
Sloth & sleep mi bedyner.'
Sir John Maundeville, describing an eastern route, says (I am quoting Mr. Lower): 'And men allweys fynden Latyneres to go with them in the contrees and ferther beyonde in to tyme that men conne the language.'"—Bardsley's English Surnames. "The word Latimarius (whence the proper name Latimer; was first applied to one who understood Latin. Then it came to signify one who had acquired a knowledge of any other than his native language."—Eyton's Shropshire.