The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. II.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
-------*--------
Return to Index
Maleluse : for Maules, or Meulles; (Leland gives it Meulos:) from Meulles, near Orbec, in the arrondissement of Lisieux. Baldwin de Meules or de Molis, whose estates in Devonshire fill eleven columns of Domesday, was of the blood royal of Normandy, being the younger son of Gilbert Crespin, Earl of Brionne and of Eu, whose grandfather was Duke Richard Sans Peur. Count Gilbert, "illustrious alike in his fore-fathers and his descendants," had been one of the early guardians of the Conqueror, and was waylaid and murdered in 1040 as he was peaceably riding near Eschafour, expecting no evil. His two young sons, for whom a similar fate was apprehended, were conveyed by their friends to the court of Baldwin of Flanders, then "the common protector of banished men;" and his lands seized and appropriated. Count Baldwin harboured the fugitives for thirteen years; till, on the occasion of his daughter Matilda's marriage with Duke William, his son-in-law, at his intercession, restored to them the Norman fiefs that their father had held. Richard received Orbec and Bienfaite, and Baldwin Sap and Meules. Both brothers were in the Conqueror's army, and both are mentioned by Wace, the elder as
"Dam Richard ki tient Orbec,"[1]
and the younger as the "Sire de Sap."
This Sire de Sap, who received from his Royal kinsman the great barony of Oakhampton, comprising one hundred and sixty-four West country manors, and the Hereditary Shrievalty of Devon, is variously called in Chronicles Baldwin the Viscount, Baldwin the Sheriff, Baldwin of Exeter, Baldwin de Sap, Baldwin de Meules, Baldwin Fitz Gilbert, or Baldwin de Brionne, "to the bewilderment of readers unversed in Norman genealogy." The King further entrusted to him the custody of the dearly-won city of Exeter, and of the great castle that he was directed to build there, to make room for which as many as forty-eight houses had to be cleared away. He died at about the same time as his elder brother—before 1090; and a miraculous story is told in 1091 by one Walkeline (afterwards known as St. Aubin, Bishop of Angers), of his appearance after death. Walkelin, then a parish priest, had been sent for in the middle of the night to shrive a sick man; and on his way home, was alarmed at hearing the tramp of approaching soldiers, believing that he was about to encounter some of Robert de Belesme's men, marching to the siege of Courcy Castle. He prudently determined to keep out of sight; and attempted to hide himself under some medlar trees until they had gone by. But he was suddenly confronted by a giant bearing a mighty club, who cried in a voice of thunder: "Stand! Not a step further!" and the priest, frozen with terror, remained rooted to the spot; the grim club-bearer standing by his side. Then, in the bright moonlight, a long and lamentable procession passed before his wondering eyes; a procession of the dead, bemoaning the evil that they had done in their time. There were many he had known in life, both men and women; his own brother Robert; former neighbours and friends; great barons and Seigneurs; Bishops, Abbots, and priests—some who had been regarded as saints upon earth—yet all alike bowed down with anguish, groaning, and bewailing the excruciating torments of purgatory. Amidst the ghastly throng he recognised the dead faces of two great men that had not long before passed away, Richard and Baldwin, the sons of Count Gilbert of Brionne.
Baldwin had been twice married; but of his wives the Christian names only are known. Albreda, the first, was a kinswoman of the Conqueror's; "the King gave him his aunt's daughter to wife," as one of his sons states in a memorial addressed to the Duke of Normandy, and quoted by Ordericus; Emma, the second, was probably the "wife of Baldwin the Sheriff" that is entered in Domesday. He had three sons; Richard, his heir; Robert, who received in 1090 his grandfather's town and castle of Brionne; and William; besides three daughters, of whom Adeliza alone survived him.
Richard, generally known as Richard Fitz Baldwin, who succeeded as Baron of Oakhampton and Sheriff of Devon, died s. p. in 1137, and was first buried at Brightly, but by desire of his sister Adeliza subsequently transferred to Ford Abbey. She was his sole heiress, and in her own right Sheriffess of Exeter and Baroness of Oakhampton. She was the wife of Randolph Avenel, by whom she had an only child, Maud, who succeeded to her barony and was twice married; first to Robert d'Avranches; and secondly to another Robert, a bastard son of Henry I. By her first husband she had one daughter named Hawise; by the second another named Maud; "Which Daughters, by each Husband, being great Heirs, and in Minority at their respective Fathers' Deaths, were by King Henry II. committed to the Custody of Reginald de Courtenay. He therefore discerning the advantage he had by thus being their Guardian, took Hawyse (the elder) for his own Wife; and match'd Maude (the younger) to William de Courtenay his own Son by a former Wife."—Dugdale. No more complete or compendious arrangement could have been devised for securing the great Barony of Oakhampton to his posterity!
Another of the name, Roger de Meulles, who in 1086 held three manors in Devonshire under Baldwin the Viscount, founded a venerable West-country house that is still in existence. It is clear that he must have been a kinsman of his suzerain's, but there is no evidence to show that he was his son, as the family pedigree would lead us to believe. His posterity was seated in Cornwall as well as in Devon and Somerset, the name gradually lapsing into Moels, Mules, and Moyle. Dugdale mentions another Roger de Meules in the time of Stephen; but begins his account nearly one hundred years later with Nicolas, who married one of the co-heiresses of James de Newmarch, in whose right he possessed Cadbury and Sapeston in Somersetshire. He further received considerable grants in Devonshire from Henry III.; and "was in such high esteem with the King, that James his Son and Heire was by special Command admitted to have his Education with Prince Edward, Hugh de Giffard and Bernard de Savoy (his Tutors) being required to receive him, with one Servant, and to find him Necessaries." As "a stout and expert soldier," Nicolas was throughout his life employed in offices of trust and importance; having at different times served as Constable of eight royal castles, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Governor of the Channel Islands, and Seneschal of Gascony, where he gained a signal victory in 1243 over the King of Navarre, and took him prisoner on the field. His eldest son died before him; and the second, Roger, was his successor, and the father of John, a baron by writ in 1299, with whose three sons the line terminated. The last of them, John, fourth Lord Moels, died in 1377, leaving two daughters, Muriel, married to Sir Thomas Courtenay, and Margaret, Lady Botreaux, between whom the estates were divided and the barony fell into abeyance.
The present family of Mules is derived by Burke from a second son of Nicholas, second Lord Moels, who, as Dugdale expressly informs us, died s. p. 9 Ed. II. But, setting aside this impossible ancestor, they are lineally descended from Sir John Mules, living before the reign of Richard II., and married to the heiress of the Flavells, "who brought the manor of Ernsborough and a goodly patrimony to him," which afterwards passed away through heiresses.