The quiet lanes and ancient fields surrounding the Lincolnshire parish of Brattleby seem, at first glance, a world away from the high drama of crusades, civil war, and the turbulent Plantagenet court. Held at the time of the Domesday Survey of 1086 principally by the Bishop of Lincoln and the powerful magnate Gilbert de Gant, Brattleby’s history is one deeply embedded in the rhythm of English agricultural life and the affairs of the local gentry. Yet, the intricate web of lineage and landholding that defined medieval society ensures that no corner of the kingdom was truly isolated. Through the remarkable career of one of the era’s most formidable figures, William Longespée, Earl of Salisbury, this small corner of Lincolnshire finds itself directly connected to the royal blood of the House of Plantagenet, demonstrating how the story of a single man could bridge the gap between the throne of England and the soil of a local barony.
A Prince's Son: The Origins of William Longespée
William Longespée, or "Long-sword," was born around the year 1176, a product of one of King Henry II’s many extramarital liaisons. While the identity of his mother remains a subject of some historical debate, the most compelling evidence, advanced by historians like Nicholas Vincent, points to Ida de Tosny. Ida was the wife of Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk, one of the leading magnates of the realm. The king’s affair with the wife of a powerful earl was a dangerous game, but Henry II’s reign was defined by such audacious assertions of royal will. In 1176, Henry publicly acknowledged his paternity of William, granting him lands in Appleby, Lincolnshire. This early grant is the first tangible link between the future earl and the county that would later feature so prominently in his military career.
As a royal bastard, William occupied a privileged but precarious position. He could never inherit the throne, a reality underscored by the bitter succession crises that plagued Henry II's legitimate sons. However, acknowledged royal children were valuable assets. They could be endowed with lands, married to wealthy heiresses, and relied upon for loyalty in a way that ambitious, legitimate-born relatives often could not. They were extensions of royal power, untainted by a direct claim to the crown. William’s upbringing reflected this status; he was raised within the royal household, receiving the military and courtly training befitting a prince’s son. His sobriquet, "Longespée," which appears in records from the 1200s, was almost certainly a nod to his physical stature and martial prowess—a knightly attribute that would define his life.
The Great Heiress and the Earldom of Salisbury
A royal bastard’s fortune was made not by birthright, but by royal favour, and the ultimate expression of that favour was a strategic marriage. For William, this came in 1196 when King Richard I, his legitimate half-brother, arranged his marriage to the greatest heiress in England: Ela of Salisbury.
Ela’s story is a romance in itself. She was the only surviving child of William FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, a loyal baron who had served Henry II. Upon her father’s death in 1196, the young Ela became the Countess of Salisbury in her own right and a ward of the Crown. According to the later chronicle of Lacock Abbey, the priory she would one day found, Ela’s paternal uncle attempted to seize her inheritance and had her spirited away to Normandy for a forced marriage. She was reputedly rescued by a knight, William Talbot, who disguised himself as a pilgrim or harpist to find her, before bringing her back to England where Richard I took her under his protection.
The marriage of William Longespée and Ela of Salisbury was a masterstroke. By this single act, William, the landless royal son, became jure uxoris (by right of his wife) the 3rd Earl of Salisbury. He gained control of a vast patrimony, including the formidable castle at Old Sarum in Wiltshire and extensive estates across southern England. He was now a magnate of the first rank, catapulted into the highest echelon of the English aristocracy. The union was, by all accounts, a successful one. It produced four sons and at least four daughters, ensuring the continuation of their powerful new lineage and, crucially for our story, forging the blood links that would eventually extend to the lands neighbouring Brattleby.
A King’s Man: Longespée in the Service of John
Upon Richard’s death in 1199, the throne passed to William’s other half-brother, King John. Throughout John’s turbulent and often disastrous reign, William Longespée proved to be one of his most steadfast and competent supporters. Whereas many barons chafed under John’s arbitrary and extortionate rule, William remained a core member of the royalist party, his loyalty cemented by kinship and the royal favour that had secured his fortune.
His service was primarily military and administrative. He was appointed Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1199, a role he held for much of the reign, giving him immense power in the heartlands of his earldom. He served as Warden of the Welsh Marches and commanded royal armies in numerous campaigns. His most celebrated achievement, however, came at sea. In 1213, King Philip II of France was preparing a fleet at the port of Damme, in Flanders, for a full-scale invasion of England. John, facing widespread baronial discontent at home, entrusted the command of his own fleet to William Longespée.
On 30 May 1213, Longespée led the English ships in a surprise attack on the French fleet at anchor. The French army was ashore, plundering the surrounding countryside, leaving their ships lightly defended. Longespée’s forces captured over 300 vessels and burned a hundred more. It was a stunning victory, one of the greatest English naval triumphs of the Middle Ages, and it completely scuttled Philip’s invasion plans. The chronicler Roger of Wendover lauded the achievement, which temporarily bolstered John’s flagging prestige.
This success was followed by a devastating reversal. The next year, in 1214, Longespée commanded the right wing of the allied army under Emperor Otto IV at the pivotal Battle of Bouvines. Facing the French army of Philip II, the allied forces were decisively crushed. Longespée fought with renowned courage but was unhorsed, wounded, and taken prisoner by the Bishop of Beauvais. His capture was a severe blow to John's continental strategy and a personal humiliation for the earl. He remained a captive for nearly two years, only being released in a prisoner exchange for the captured French nobleman, Robert of Dreux.
The Barons' War and the Lincolnshire Climax: Magna Carta and the Battle of Lincoln
William returned to an England on the brink of civil war. The defeat at Bouvines had shattered John’s authority, and the disgruntled barons united to demand redress for their grievances. When this crisis culminated in the signing of Magna Carta at Runnymede in June 1215, William Longespée was not among the rebels. His name appears in the charter’s preamble as one of the king's loyal counsellors who advised him to accept the barons’ terms. His loyalty, even in the face of John’s tyranny, held firm.
However, the peace secured by Magna Carta was short-lived. War broke out again, and the rebel barons took the drastic step of inviting Prince Louis of France to take the English throne. John’s sudden death in October 1216, at Newark in neighbouring Nottinghamshire, changed the political calculus entirely. The royalist cause now rested on John’s nine-year-old son, Henry III, and a regency council led by the venerable knight, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke.
In the initial chaos following John's death, even Longespée’s loyalty wavered. Discouraged and perhaps seeing the French cause as ascendant, he briefly defected to Prince Louis in late 1216. It was a rare miscalculation. By the spring of 1217, seeing the tide turning back in favour of the native Plantagenet dynasty, he repented and rejoined the royalist camp. His return could not have been more timely, for the decisive confrontation of the war was about to take place in his old Lincolnshire stomping ground.
Prince Louis’s forces, allied with the rebel English barons, had seized much of eastern England. Their northern army, led by the Count of Perche and rebel magnates like Robert Fitzwalter, laid siege to the strategically vital Lincoln Castle, which was being held for the king by the remarkable castellan, Nicola de la Haye. William Marshal gathered the royalist army at Newark and marched to relieve the city. Among his chief commanders was the newly returned William Longespée.
On 20 May 1217, the royalist army executed a brilliant tactical manoeuvre. While a detachment created a diversion at the northern gate, the main force, including Longespée’s contingent, entered the city through a long-disused Roman gateway. The battle was fought not in the open fields, but in the narrow, steep streets of Lincoln. The royalists, enjoying superior numbers and the advantage of surprise, overwhelmed the French and rebel forces. The Count of Perche was killed, and the rebel leaders were captured en masse. The Battle of Lincoln was a catastrophic defeat for Prince Louis, effectively ending his bid for the English throne. For William Longespée, it was a moment of redemption and a reaffirmation of his status as one of the kingdom’s premier military leaders. His presence and command at Lincoln were the most direct and significant intersection of his personal story with the history of the county.
Warrior for Christ: Longespée on Crusade
With the kingdom pacified and the young Henry III secure on his throne, England’s great lords once again turned their eyes to the broader stage of Christendom. The Fifth Crusade had been called to retake Jerusalem by first attacking the heart of the Ayyubid Sultanate in Egypt. For a man like Longespée, whose entire life was a testament to the chivalric ideals of martial prowess and pious duty, taking the cross was a natural and honourable undertaking.
In 1219, accompanied by a contingent of English knights, he sailed for the Holy Land. He joined the crusading army that was besieging the port city of Damietta, the gateway to the Nile. The siege was a brutal, protracted affair, lasting over a year and marked by disease, starvation, and fierce fighting. The chroniclers record Longespée’s presence, highlighting the contribution of the English knights. When Damietta finally fell in November 1219, it was a major, albeit temporary, victory for the crusaders. William remained with the army in Egypt until 1221, participating in the ill-fated march on Cairo which ended in a humbling defeat and the surrender of Damietta back to the Sultan. He returned to England, his reputation as a warrior for Christ enhanced, having fulfilled his vow and participated in one of the central dramas of his age.
The Longespée Legacy: From Salisbury to the Lincolnshire Soil
William Longespée’s direct involvement with Lincolnshire was primarily military—an early land grant at Appleby, his command at the Battle of Lincoln. He never held the Barony of Brattleby itself, nor do records show him possessing major estates in its immediate vicinity. The critical link, the one that weaves his Plantagenet bloodline into the local fabric of North Lincolnshire, comes through his descendants. This is a classic example of how, in medieval England, dynastic alliances mattered as much as direct landholding.
William and Ela had a large family, and their children made a series of influential marriages. Their eldest son, William Longespée II, followed in his father’s footsteps as a renowned knight, ultimately dying on crusade in Egypt at the Battle of Mansurah in 1250. This William II had married Idoine de Camville, and their daughter, Ela Longespée the younger (d. 1298), made a marriage of immense local significance.
Around 1244, Ela Longespée married James de Audley (c. 1220–1272), a powerful Marcher lord whose family was rapidly accumulating estates across England. The Audleys were major players in the politics of Henry III’s reign, and their portfolio of lands included significant holdings in Lincolnshire. Notably, the Audleys held the manor of Redbourne, a parish situated just a few miles south-west of Brattleby, as well as lands at Saxilby, a stone's throw away. Through this marriage, the property and influence of the Audley family in North Lincolnshire became infused with the royal blood of the Plantagenets, descended directly from Henry II through his son William Longespée and his granddaughter Ela.
The connection did not stop there. The descendants of Ela Longespée and James de Audley continued to be major figures in the region. Their great-granddaughter, Joan de Audley, married the Staffordshire knight Sir John Tuchet, bringing the Audley lands—and the ancestral link to Longespée—into the Tuchet family, who would later become Barons Audley. The Inquisitions Post Mortem, invaluable records detailing the landholdings of deceased tenants-in-chief, show the Audley family's continuing presence and influence in the wapentakes of Well and Lawress, the very administrative hundreds that contained Brattleby and its neighbours.
Thus, while William Longespée himself may never have set foot in Brattleby, his legacy arrived at its doorstep within two generations. The local gentry and peasantry of parishes like Brattleby, Scampton, and Ingham would have been keenly aware of their powerful neighbours at Redbourne. They would have paid dues, attended manorial courts, and served in local levies under the authority of lords who carried in their veins the blood of William Longespée and, through him, the Plantagenet kings. The local history of the Barony of Brattleby, therefore, becomes inextricably linked to the national story, not by direct ownership, but by the powerful gravitational pull of a neighbouring lineage born of a king.
An End of an Era: Death and Devotion
William Longespée’s final years were spent back in England, serving as a trusted counsellor during Henry III’s minority. In early 1226, after returning from Gascony on the king’s business, he fell gravely ill at his castle of Old Sarum. He died on 7 March 1226 and was buried in Salisbury’s new cathedral, which was then under construction. He was the first person to be entombed in the magnificent structure he had helped to found.
His death was so sudden that rumours, gleefully recorded by the chronicler Matthew Paris, immediately began to circulate. The finger of suspicion was pointed at the powerful justiciar, Hubert de Burgh, who supposedly had Longespée poisoned at a banquet. While there is no concrete evidence to support this claim—a sudden, violent illness was a common feature of medieval life—the rumour itself speaks to Longespée’s stature and the high-stakes politics of the era.
His magnificent tomb and effigy remain in the nave of Salisbury Cathedral to this day, one of the finest examples of early 13th-century funerary art in England. The effigy depicts him as the ideal knight: clad in mail, his hand on his sword, his shield bearing the six azure lions rampant on a silver field that he had adopted as his coat of arms.
His wife, Ela, outlived him by thirty-five years. A formidable woman in her own right, she served as Sheriff of Wiltshire after his death before retiring from the world. In 1232, she founded two religious houses in memory of her husband: Lacock Abbey for Augustinian canonesses and Henton Priory for Carthusian monks. She eventually took the veil herself, becoming the second abbess of Lacock in 1240 and governing it with distinction until her death in 1261.
The story of William Longespée is a microcosm of the Angevin world. Born of a king’s passion, his life was forged in war, politics, and piety. He was a loyal son, a formidable soldier, a crusader, and the founder of a dynasty. While his career unfolded on the grandest of stages—from the battlefields of France to the deserts of Egypt—his legacy, passed down through the blood of his descendants, became woven into the very fabric of local English society. For the Barony of Brattleby, the connection is not one of lordship but of proximity and power, a reminder that in the deeply interconnected world of medieval England, the shadow-sm of the royal family fell far and wide, touching even the quietest corners of the Lincolnshire landscape.
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Sources & Further Reading
Primary Sources: Domesday Book: A Complete Translation. (London: Penguin, 2003). For the 1086 status of Brattleby (Bratelbie). The Chronicle of Roger of Wendover. Ed. and trans. J.A. Giles. (London: H.G. Bohn, 1849). Provides accounts of the Battle of Damme and the First Barons' War. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora. Ed. H.R. Luard, 7 vols., Rolls Series (London, 1872-83). Contains detailed, if sometimes biased, narratives of Longespée's career and death. Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Henry III. (London: HMSO, 1901-). Details royal appointments and grants, including those concerning Longespée and his family. Book of Fees (Testa de Nevill). (London: HMSO, 1920-31). Records feudal tenures, useful for tracing family landholdings in Lincolnshire. Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem*. (London: HMSO, 1904-). Essential for tracking the estates of the Audley family in Lincolnshire after their marriage to the Longespée heiress.
Secondary Sources: Bowles, W.L., and Nichols, J.G., Annals and Antiquities of Lacock Abbey (London, 1835). Contains a traditional, though romanticised, account of Ela of Salisbury’s early life. Carpenter, David. The Minority of Henry III. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). The definitive account of the period of Longespée's final years and the Battle of Lincoln. Carr, A.D. 'Audley, James (d. 1272)'. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (Oxford University Press, 2004). Painter, Sidney. The Reign of King John. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1949). A classic overview of the political context of Longespée's service to John. Strickland, Matthew. 'Longespée, William, third earl of Salisbury (b. in or before 1167, d. 1226)'. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (Oxford University Press, 2004). The key modern biographical sketch. Vincent, Nicholas. Peter des Roches: An Alien in English Politics, 1205-1238. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Contains valuable analysis of the factions at court during the reigns of John and Henry III. Warren, W. L. King John. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978). The standard modern biography of Longespée's half-brother and king.