Sir Richard Molyneux was the son of Sir Richard Molyneux b 1360 and his wife Ellen of Urswick.
He was the grandson of Jane de Holland who was the daughter of our Sir Robert de Holand with his marriage to Margaret de Hetton, and he was also on his paternal side the grandson of Sir William de Molyneux from his marriage to Margaret de Hetton! Gets confusing!
Sir Richard and Joan had many children:
Anna 1412 m Sir Robert de Neville
Catherine 1422 m Sir Robert Radcliffe
Richard III 1422 m Elizabeth Stanley Killed at Battle of Blore Heath with his father
Robert 1422
Thomas 1424 m Caherine de Cotton Our lineage
Elizabeth 1425 m Robert Preston and Gilbert de Southworth
Peter 1425
Margaret 1416 m Peter De Legh
We are now entering into that period of English History that created the setting for the War of the Roses.
So many of our ancestors were from the Lancashire Side and many fought at the Battle of Blore Heath.
The Battle of Blore Heath was one of the first major battles in the English Wars of the Roses. It was fought on 23 September 1459, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire, two miles east of the town of Market Drayton in Shropshire, England.
(We have visited these lands)!
Background
After the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, an uneasy peace held in England. Attempts at reconciliation between the houses of Lancaster and York enjoyed but marginal success. However, both sides became increasingly wary of each other and by 1459 were actively recruiting armed supporters.Queen Margaret of Anjou continued to raise support for King Henry VI amongst noblemen, distributing an emblem of a silver swan to knights and squires enlisted by her personally, whilst the Yorkist command under the Duke of York was finding plenty of anti-royal support despite the severe punishment for raising arms against the king.
The Yorkist force based at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire (led by the Earl of Salisbury) needed to link up with the main Yorkist army at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. As Salisbury marched south-west through the Midlands the queen ordered Lord Audley to intercept them.
Battle of Blore Heath
In June 1459, Queen MARGARET OF ANJOU
convened a Great Council at Coventry to consider charges of treason
against Richard PLANTAGENET, duke of York, and his chief allies Richard
NEVILLE, earl of Salisbury, and Richard NEVILLE, earl of Warwick, all
three of whom were excluded from the council summons.
Seeking to repeat
his success of 1455, when he had destroyed his enemies and taken custody
of HENRY VI at the Battle of ST. ALBANS, York began raising an army and
called the Nevilles to meet him with their own forces at Ludlow in
southern Shropshire.
Warwick
eluded Lancastrian efforts to intercept him and reached Ludlow with a
contingent from the CALAIS garrison, but Salisbury, coming from his seat
at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, encountered a Lancastrian force under
James TOUCHET, Lord Audley, on Blore Heath about halfway between the
towns of Newcastle-under-Lyme and Market Drayton.
Charged by the queen
with arresting Salisbury and preventing his army from joining York’s,
Audley, who had the larger force, led two unsuccessful cavalry charges
against the hastily entrenched Yorkist position in hopes of overrunning
the enemy line and seizing Salisbury before he could withdraw.When
Audley died in the second assault, the Lancastrian command fell to John
Dudley, Lord Dudley.
Because
almost no accounts of the battle have survived, the exact course of the
fighting thereafter is unclear. Dudley seems to have dismounted some of
his cavalry and brought them into action on foot. By late afternoon,
after three or four hours of combat, the remaining Lancastrian cavalry,
seeing their infantry give ground, left the field.
This loss of expected
cavalry support and the possible defection of some of its members to
the Yorkists caused the Lancastrian line to break. In the flight and
pursuit that followed, Lord Dudley was captured and various other
Lancastrian gentlemen were killed. With two other Lancastrian armies
still in the field, Salisbury quickly recalled his scattered force and
resumed the march to Ludlow, which he reached without further incident.
The first battle of the Wars of the Roses had taken place at St Albans in 1455, between the supporters of the House of Lancaster, King Henry VI, and those of the House of York. Although the Lancastrian forces had been defeated in the battle, the Yorkists had not attempted to usurp the throne. An uneasy peace existed between the two factions, finally erupting again into armed cnflict in 1459.
In September the Earl of Salisbury, was marching south from Yorkshire, with an army of some 3,000 – 5,000, to join with the Duke of York who was at Ludlow, while Salisbury's son, the Earl of Warwick, was heading from London to Warwickshire. Meanwhile the King was raising an army in the Midlands, whilst the Queen, Margaret of Anjou, was at Eccleston (Cheshire).
Margaret instructed Lord Audley, who was at Market Drayton with a recently raised force of between 8,000 – 14,000 troops, to intercept and arrest Salisbury before he could join Forces with the Duke of York.
On the morning of 23 September the two armies approached each other on the road leading east from Market Drayton, and on Blore Heath the two forces engaged. The Battle of Blore Heath was a decisive victory for the Yorkists. However, the advantage was short-lived as less than three weeks later York deserted his army at Ludford Bridge and fled to Ireland; Salisbury and Warwick fled to Calais and the Yorkist army surrendered to the king.
The battlefield, which in 1459 had been largely open, is now fully enclosed agricultural land, though it has not been affected by modern development or other destruction. The wood upon which the left flank of the Yorkist army was anchored is of lesser extent than at the time of the battle, and the road pattern has also changed since the medieval period.
Access around the battlefield is possible by public footpath and by a small lane that runs from Blore to the A53, though the A53 is a busy road and unsuitable for parking or walking. The Audley Cross is on private land and is not accessible.
The Molyneux family established itself at Sefton at the very beginning of the 12th century, and over the years acquired the manors of Ellel, Litherland, Larbrick and Euxton, together with properties in the Lancashire villages of Linacre, Lydiate, Newsham and Thornton.
Sir William Molyneux, a comrade-in-arms of the Black Prince, distinguished himself in the wars in France and Spain, and was knighted for his valour at the battle of Nájera.
His son, Richard, cannot have been more than four years old when he died, in 1372, leaving a widow, Agnes, who received the customary third of his possessions and took another husband soon afterwards. The rest of his property passed, with the marriage and wardship of the young heir, into the hands of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, the feudal overlord.
The latter promptly sold all his rights for 400 marks to two of his own employees, the boy’s kinsman, Sir Thomas Molyneux of Cuerdale, who was feodary of Gaunt’s estates in Lancashire, and Matthew Ashton, the treasurer of his household. Half of the money was to be paid in instalments, but Molyneux (who eventually changed his allegiance to Richard II’s favourite, Robert de Vere) evidently thought better of the arrangement, and in 1378 he sold his share to a local landowner named Edmund Laurence
Richard probably came of age in June 1389, since he then acted as a trustee of certain holdings in Sefton and also agreed to offer sureties on behalf of the farmer of other estates temporarily in Gaunt’s custody. It was not, however, until the following February that he officially entered his own inheritance
No more is heard of Richard Molyneux until 1392, when Gaunt retained him formally at a fee of ten marks a year. Like many other members of the ducal affinity, Richard was prepared to risk his patron’s displeasure by hunting illegally in the parks and forests of the duchy of Lancaster, secure, no doubt, in the knowledge that he would eventually be pardoned, as indeed proved the case. Gaunt was clearly disposed to favour the young man, probably because of the loyal service already shown him by the latter’s uncles, Sir Richard* and Sir Henry Hoghton*, as well as other influential local administrators related to his mother.
At all events, not long afterwards he granted him the lease of herbage at Toxteth for a rent of 24 marks a year. Molyneux may have married by this date, for it was in 1394 that he made two major settlements of almost all the property then in his hands, together with the reversion of land in the wapentakes of West Derbyshire and Amounderness which he hoped to inherit.
His wife, Ellen, was the daughter of Sir Robert Urswyk, a dominant figure among the Lancashire gentry who had, moreover, acquired great prestige in Gaunt’s service. Urswyk clearly used his position to ensure that his son-in-law was returned with him to the January Parliament of 1397, this being the eleventh occasion on which he himself took a seat in the Commons.
Yet for all his attachment to Gaunt, which was, of course, strengthened even further by his marriage, Molyneux felt an even greater sense of commitment to Richard II and the court party. The King was already then consolidating his position ready to move against the Lords Appellant of 1388, and it is easy to see why, on 14 Feb., just two days after the Commons rose, Molyneux was made sheriff of Lancashire.
Sir William Molyneux’s long association with the King’s father, the Black Prince, and his grandfather, Edward III (who was said to have ‘loved him as a friend’), must have drawn his own son towards the Court; and the death of the latter’s kinsman and former guardian, Sir Thomas Molyneux, in 1387, while fighting in the royal army against the Lords Appellant at Radcot Bridge, cannot have been forgotten or forgiven by him either.
Molyneux’s early death, on 27 Dec. 1397, spared him further involvement in the King’s relentless drive towards absolutism, as well as the inevitable alienation from his staunchly Lancastrian kinsfolk and neighbours which would have followed. His son and heir, Richard, was then still a baby, and for the next 20 years the Molyneux estates once again passed into the custody of others.
In April 1398, Sir John Stanley obtained the wardship and marriage of the heir, who much later pursued an implacable vendetta against his son, (Sir) John*, perhaps because of their mismanagement of his affairs. Molyneux is said to have had a second son, Robert, whose main claim to fame now rests in his capture, in 1448, by the Turks.
His widow, Ellen, shared with her
father, Sir Robert Urswyk, the task of executing his will; and as late
as 1401 she was still engaged in trying to recover outstanding debts.
She went on to marry two more husbands, her second being Sir James Haryngton*, and her third the Cheshire landowner, Sir John Savage.The title Earl of Sefton was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1771 for the 8th Viscount Molyneux. The Earls of Sefton held the subsidiary titles Viscount Molyneux, of Maryborough in the Queen's County (created 1628), in the Peerage of Ireland, and (from the 2nd Earl onwards) Baron Sefton, of Croxteth in the County Palatine of Lancaster (created 1831), in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
The Molyneux's powerful allegiances led to an acquisition of lands and wealth throughout the period 1100–1700 when the family were Lords of the manor at Sefton.
Molyneux family history
The ancestors of the Molyneaux family who arrived in England around the time of the Norman Conquest of 1066 bore the name "de Molines". They came from Molineaux-sur-Seine, near Rouen, in Normandy where they were guardians of Château de Robert-le-Diable also known as Château de Moulineaux. They settled in Lancashire and were granted lands by Duke William of Normandy, their liege Lord, for their distinguished assistance at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
They can be shown to have held a large moated manor and St. Helen's Church at Sefton without interruption from about 1100 to 1700 before they moved to Croxteth Hall.
Of the Molyneux family, Sir Richard (d.1290) and Sir William Molyneux
(d.1320), knights of the Crusades, are entombed within the church, and
are its oldest inhabitants. Their effigies now lie beneath an arch
moulding set into the wall in the Molyneux chapel, which is outside of
the 14th-century church walls. The family belongs to haplogroup , which is about 30,000 years old tracing its roots to Scandinavia.
Over the centuries, several deviations of the name Molyneaux have emerged. As the English language changed and incorporated elements of other European languages such as Norman French and Latin, even literate people regularly changed the spelling of their names. Scribes and monks in the Middle Ages spelled names as they sounded, so it is common to find several variations that refer to a single person. The variations of the name include Molinex, Mullinix, Mullenneix, Mullineaux, Molinieux, Molinaux, Molineaux, Mollineaux, Molineux, and several others.[1] Laterly, many variations were due to misspellings in American or other country's immigration services. Although Anglo-Norman surnames like Molyneaux are characterized by many spelling variations, the name Molyneux has prevailed with the modern trend towards standardisation.
To check out all our ancestors who were involved in fighting in this period at
http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/bloreheath.htm
Index of Encyclopedia Entries:
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Prices of Items in Medieval England
Edward II
Piers Gaveston
Thomas, Earl of Lancaster
Roger Mortimer, Earl of March
Hundred Years' War (1337-1453)
Edward III
The Battle of Crécy, 1346
Edward, Black Prince of Wales
Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
Edmund of Langley, Duke of York
Thomas of Woodstock, Gloucester
Richard of York, E. of Cambridge
Richard Fitzalan, 3. Earl of Arundel
Roger Mortimer, 2nd Earl of March
The Good Parliament, 1376
Richard II
Lords Appellant, 1388
Richard Fitzalan, 4. Earl of Arundel
Archbishop Thomas Arundel
Thomas de Beauchamp, E. Warwick
Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford
Ralph Neville, E. of Westmorland
Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk
Edmund Mortimer, 3. Earl of March
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John Holland, Duke of Exeter
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Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland
Sir Henry Percy, "Harry Hotspur"
Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester
Owen Glendower
The Battle of Shrewsbury, 1403
Archbishop Richard Scrope
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Thomas Fitzalan, 5. Earl of Arundel
Henry V
Thomas, Duke of Clarence
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Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury
Richard, Earl of Cambridge
Henry, Baron Scrope of Masham
William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk
Thomas Montacute, E. Salisbury
Richard Beauchamp, E. of Warwick
Henry Beauchamp, Duke of Warwick
Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter
Cardinal Henry Beaufort
John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset
Sir John Fastolf
John Holland, 2. Duke of Exeter
Archbishop John Stafford
Archbishop John Kemp
Catherine of Valois
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John Fitzalan, 7. Earl of Arundel
John, Lord Tiptoft
Charles VII, King of France
Joan of Arc
Louis XI, King of France
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy
The Battle of Castillon, 1453
The Wars of the Roses 1455-1485
Causes of the Wars of the Roses
The House of Lancaster
The House of York
The House of Beaufort
The House of Neville
The First Battle of St. Albans, 1455
The Battle of Blore Heath, 1459
The Rout of Ludford, 1459
The Battle of Northampton, 1460
The Battle of Wakefield, 1460
The Battle of Mortimer's Cross, 1461
The 2nd Battle of St. Albans, 1461
The Battle of Towton, 1461
The Battle of Hedgeley Moor, 1464
The Battle of Hexham, 1464
The Battle of Edgecote, 1469
The Battle of Losecoat Field, 1470
The Battle of Barnet, 1471
The Battle of Tewkesbury, 1471
The Treaty of Pecquigny, 1475
The Battle of Bosworth Field, 1485
The Battle of Stoke Field, 1487
Henry VI
Margaret of Anjou
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
Edward IV
Elizabeth Woodville
Richard Woodville, 1. Earl Rivers
Anthony Woodville, 2. Earl Rivers
Jane Shore
Edward V
Richard III
George, Duke of Clarence
Ralph Neville, 2. Earl of Westmorland
Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick
Edward Neville, Baron Bergavenny
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Robert Neville, Bishop of Salisbury
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George Neville, Archbishop of York
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Henry Beaufort, 3. Duke of Somerset
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Margaret Beaufort
Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond
Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke
Humphrey Stafford, D. Buckingham
Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham
Humphrey Stafford, E. of Devon
Thomas, Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby
Sir William Stanley
Archbishop Thomas Bourchier
Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex
John Mowbray, 3. Duke of Norfolk
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John Howard, Duke of Norfolk
Henry Percy, 2. E. Northumberland
Henry Percy, 3. E. Northumberland
Henry Percy, 4. E. Northumberland
William, Lord Hastings
Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter
William Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel
William Herbert, 1. Earl of Pembroke
John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford
John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford
Thomas de Clifford, 8. Baron Clifford
John de Clifford, 9. Baron Clifford
John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester
Thomas Grey, 1. Marquis Dorset
Sir Andrew Trollop
Archbishop John Morton
Edward Plantagenet, E. of Warwick
John Talbot, 2. E. Shrewsbury
John Talbot, 3. E. Shrewsbury
John de la Pole, 2. Duke of Suffolk
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Richard de la Pole
John Sutton, Baron Dudley
James Butler, 5. Earl of Ormonde
Sir James Tyrell
Edmund Grey, first Earl of Kent
George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent
John, 5th Baron Scrope of Bolton
James Touchet, 7th Baron Audley
Walter Blount, Lord Mountjoy
Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns
Thomas, Lord Scales
John, Lord Lovel and Holand
Francis Lovell, Viscount Lovell
Sir Richard Ratcliffe
William Catesby
Ralph, 4th Lord Cromwell
Jack Cade's Rebellion, 1450
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