Ralph Lovel, Lord of Castle Cary

RALPH LOVEL

GENEALOGY

The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History. The Ford Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford in Hilary Term 1977. By G. W. S. Barrow, F.B.A., (Oxford University Press, 1980), 232 pp. See pp. 183-4 for an account of the de Londres family. See pp. 184-5 for an account of the Lovell family

Ralph, Lovel, s. and h. according to the 1280 pedigree, in 1138 held Castle Cary against King Stephen, but was compelled to make peace with him(b-200) He m. Margaret, who was an heiress in co. Roxburgh, and possibly the barony of Hawick to the Lovels of Castle Cary. She presumably surv. him and m. Thomas de Loudon or London.(a-201) She d. between 1147 and 1164.(b-201)

(b-200) _Gesta Stephani_ (English Hist. Soc.), p. 43. No charter evidence has been found for the passing of Cary into the possession of the Lovels. At the time of Domesday it was held in chief by Walter or Walcelin de Douai, who d. at some time before 1107. William, who in that year became Bishop of Exeter, certified (_Bath Cartul._ Som. Rec. Soc., no. 36) that when he was archdeacon Robert de Bampton and Emma his mother, on the day of the burial of Walter, father of the said Robert, granted to Bath Priory, where Walter was buried, half the tithe of Cary, &c. Henry I d. 1 Dec. 1135, and in 1136 this Robert de Brampton gathered an armed band in his castle (of Bampton, Devon), and laid waste the neighbourhood. He was summoned to Stephen's court to answer the charge of rebellion, and adjudged to forfeit his castle and all his possessions (_Gesta Stephani_, p. 18 et seq.; Round, _Cal. Docs. France_, no. 1379).

Whether the escheat of Cary was then given to Lovel, who two years later held it against Stephen, and was afterwards pardoned, or whether Lovel, as partisan of the Empress Maud, and possibly castellan of the rebellious Robert de Bampton, continued to defy Stephen, is open to conjecture.

The theory that Robert's daughter Juliane carried his estates to William Paynel by marriage seems untenable in face of the following grant: Fulk Paganel of Bahantune, for the soul of his father William Paganel and his mother Juliana de Bahantune, and his wife Alda, and sons William and Fulk, and daughters Juliana and Christian, grants to Tickford Priory the church of Bridgwater, Somerset, _que ad donationem mean pertines et me paterna successione contingit_ (Dugdale, _Mon._, vol. v, p. 204, from Robert Glover's Collections, Miscell., lib. v, fo. 40a).
It is certain that Henry Lovel, who gave the advowson of Castle Cary to Bath Priory (_Somerset Fines_, Som. Rec. Soc., vol. i, p. 101), was a tenant in chief in Somerset in 1166; and surveys and inquisitions of the 13th and 14th centuries show that the Somerset fees of Walter de Douai had been divided between or had been acquired by Lovel, who held Cary, and Cogan, who held Bampton (see Cogan), while Gurney held Pawlett direct of the Crown. See also note "h" below.

(a-201) King William of Scotland confirmed to Jedburgh (circa 1165) a gift by Margaret wife of Thomas de Loudon or London, which had been ratified by the said Thomas and by Henry Luvel son of Margaret (_Nat. MSS. of Scotland_, vol. i, no. 38).

(b201) _Dryburgh reg._ (Bannatyne Club), p. 44. [Ref: CP VIII:200-1]

note from Curt Hofemann
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jweber&id...

Title: Complete Peerage of England Scotland Ireland Great Britain and the United Kingdom, by G. E Cokayne, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2000 Page: VIII:200-1