VALENCE, DE (Medieval Ireland)

The connection of the de Valence family with Ireland began in 1247 when William de Valence (d. 1296), the Poitevin half-brother of Henry III, married Joan, daughter of Joan de Munchensy and heiress to one-fifth of the Marshal lordship of Leinster. By this marriage William, lord of Montignac and other lands in France in his own right, became lord of Wexford in Ireland and gained the lands of the earldom of Pembroke in Wales, as well as lands in England. William’s career was focused on the English court; and he served Henry III and Edward I as a counselor and envoy, roles that his son, Aymer, was to fulfill for Edward II. William was particularly interested in increasing his lands and rights in the earldom of Pembroke, the official title to which he coveted.

William was, nevertheless, also interested in his lands in Wexford. These constituted between six and thirteen percent of William de Valence’s total annual income of about £2,500. It was perhaps in order to acquire a local ally to facilitate the maintenance of his Irish interests that William married his daughter, Agnes, to Gerald Fitz Maurice, one of the Geraldine lords of Offaly and a member of one of the most important settler families in Ireland. Although he did not make the trip, William considered traveling to Ireland in early 1272 regarding the purchase of the custody of the lands, with marriage of the heirs, of Gerald Fitz Maurice, a potential rival to the claims of his daughter, Agnes. Thirty years later, the absentee Agnes was still tenacious in her pursuit of her rights in Ireland.


On the death of William in 1296 the management of Wexford fell to Joan, countess of Pembroke, who was succeeded by her son, Aymer de Valence, the earl of Pembroke, in 1307. Aymer does not appear to have been very interested in his lordship of Wexford. Tran scripts of legal records show that he (and Joan) were interested in maintaining their rights in Ireland, but that neither were particularly litigious in this respect. Wexford contributed just over ten percent of Aymer’s total annual landed income of £3,160, but it was not only financial considerations that decided where the earl’s focus lay. Aymer, as one of the few magnates who demonstrated continuous loyalty to Edward II, was heavily involved in English politics. His lands in France made him particularly valuable to Edward II as a diplomat on the continent. Indeed, it was his service as an envoy to Avignon in 1316 that accounted for his absence from the list of absentees summoned to the defense of the lordship of Ireland, in response to the Bruce invasion.

On his childless death in 1324, Aymer’s estates were divided between his nephew and two nieces. His wife, Mary de Sancto Paulo, Countess of Pembroke, held dower lands in Ireland, which she was summoned to defend in 1331 and, again, in 1361. The interest of the de Valence family proper in Ireland, however, had already ended in 1324.

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