In the closing years of the fourteenth century, the landscape of Lincolnshire might have appeared to an outsider as a world unto itself. Its vast fens, rolling wolds, and rich farmlands, punctuated by magnificent churches and bustling market towns like Lincoln and Boston, were the bedrock of England’s prosperity. The wealth of the county, derived from its unparalleled wool production, was tangible in the stone and glass of Lincoln Cathedral, a monument visible for miles across the flatlands. Yet, to assume this region was a quiet provincial backwater would be a profound misreading of the age. For the landed aristocracy of late medieval England, a county like Lincolnshire was not an insular home but a power base—a springboard for ambition on a national and, indeed, international stage.
The threads of power, patronage, and duty that bound a Lincolnshire magnate to his locality also pulled him towards the royal court at Westminster, the battlefields of France, and even the distant, sun-scorched shores of the Mediterranean. This article explores this international dimension through the lens of a family deeply rooted in the Lincolnshire soil: the House of Welles. By tracing the remarkable career of John de Welles, 5th Baron Welles (c. 1352–1421), we can see how the life of a single nobleman connected the fields surrounding the small manor of Brattleby to the great conflicts and cultural currents of his time, from chivalric contests on London Bridge to crusades in North Africa and the complex diplomacy of the Hundred Years' War.
The Foundations of Power: The Welles Family in Lincolnshire
To understand the world of Lord Welles, one must first appreciate the deep foundations of his family’s power. The Welles dynasty was of Norman extraction, arriving in England in the wake of the Conquest. By the twelfth century, they were established as significant tenants-in-chief in Lincolnshire, holding their primary seat at Well, near Alford. Their fortunes, like those of their peers, were built upon the careful management of land and the shrewd cultivation of political alliances.
Lincolnshire had long been a theatre of national importance. The Domesday Book of 1086 reveals a county of immense wealth and strategic value. While a small manor like Brattleby was recorded as being held by the powerful Abbot of Peterborough, its lay tenants and the great baronial families who held neighbouring fees formed a complex web of local governance. This landscape had witnessed pivotal moments in English history. The fierce Battle of Lincoln in 1141 was a decisive clash in the war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda. A century later, in 1217, another Battle of Lincoln—the so-called ‘Lincoln Fair’—proved crucial in expelling the French Prince Louis from England and securing the throne for the young Henry III. Lincolnshire’s barons, including predecessors of the great county families, were prominent among the rebels who forced King John to seal Magna Carta in 1215; the Lincoln copy of the charter remains one of the finest surviving exemplars.
By the late fourteenth century, the Welles family was pre-eminent in the county. John’s father, the 4th Baron, had served with distinction in the French wars under Edward III. John, succeeding to the title in 1361 while still a minor, inherited not just vast estates across Lincolnshire and beyond, but a legacy of military service and political influence. He controlled dozens of manors, providing him with the financial resources to maintain a large retinue of knights and men-at-arms, to engage in lavish aristocratic display, and to answer the king’s call to arms. The income from wool, grain, and rents, collected by reeves in villages like those surrounding Brattleby, was the engine that powered a baron’s ambition. It paid for the fine armour, the warhorses, and the passage on ships destined for foreign shores.
The Theatre of Chivalry: A Duel on London Bridge
In the late fourteenth century, the ethos of chivalry was a powerful cultural force, an aristocratic code that governed warfare, social conduct, and personal honour. A nobleman’s reputation was not merely a matter of wealth or land, but of his prowess in arms and his standing within this exclusive, international brotherhood of knights. An extraordinary event in May 1390 propelled Lord Welles to the forefront of this world.
At the time, relations between England and Scotland were fraught with the tension of intermittent warfare. During a session of the English parliament, fuelled by the bravado of his fellow lords, Welles, then serving as Richard II’s ambassador to Scotland, reputedly declared, “Let words have no place; if ye know not the chivalry and valiant deeds of Englishmen, appoint me a day and a place where ye list, and ye shall have experience.” This audacious challenge, a classic chivalric boast, was taken up by Sir David Lindsay of Glen Esk, a renowned Scottish knight who would later become the 1st Earl of Crawford.
The formal duel, or "passage of arms," was arranged to be held on St. George’s Day on the iconic London Bridge. It was a spectacle of the highest order, attended by King Richard II himself and a vast throng of Londoners. Such events were international media moments. Chronicles on both sides of the border, including the Scottish account by Andrew of Wyntoun, recorded the proceedings in vivid detail. Lord Welles and Sir David Lindsay, encased in magnificent plate armour, charged each other with lances at full gallop. In the first two courses, both knights kept their seats, their lances shattering on their opponent’s shield. It was a display of exceptional horsemanship and strength.
On the third course, however, disaster struck for the English champion. Lindsay’s lance hit Welles squarely on the helm, and, as Wyntoun’s chronicle dramatically describes it, he was lifted from his saddle and thrown heavily to the ground, appearing lifeless. The crowd, fearing their champion was slain, began to murmur against the Scot. But Lindsay, embodying the chivalric ideal, quickly dismounted and rushed to Welles’s side, holding his head and helping him as he was revived. Though he had lost the contest, Welles was not disgraced. He had engaged a worthy opponent in a feat of arms before the king and had borne his defeat with honour. The event cemented his reputation not just in England, but across the martial courts of Europe. It demonstrated that a baron from Lincolnshire could compete on the most prestigious stage of international chivalry.
The Call of the Crusade: The Barbary Expedition
The same year as his famous duel, 1390, Lord Welles embarked on an even more exotic and dangerous enterprise: a crusade to the coast of North Africa. This was the so-called Mahdia Crusade, or Barbary Expedition, an archetypal example of the international character of late medieval warfare.
The expedition was instigated not by the Pope, but by the maritime Republic of Genoa. The Genoese sought to suppress the Barbary corsairs operating from the city of Mahdia in what is now Tunisia, part of the Hafsid Sultanate. To give their commercial venture the legitimacy and military muscle it needed, they framed it as a holy war, securing the blessing of the Avignon Pope Clement VII and recruiting a formidable army of European knights. The overall command was given to Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, one of the most respected princes of France.
Despite the ongoing Hundred Years' War (then in a period of truce), a significant English contingent answered the call, driven by a mixture of piety, a thirst for adventure, and the desire for chivalric renown. Lord Welles was among them, along with other notable English aristocrats, including Henry Bolingbroke’s half-brother, John Beaufort. They joined a truly multinational force of French, Flemish, and Genoese soldiers. For Welles, this was an opportunity to expunge any lingering embarrassment from his defeat on London Bridge and to win honour fighting the "infidel."
The crusader army landed near Mahdia in the summer of 1390 and laid siege to the city. The campaign, however, was a catalogue of frustrations. The European knights, clad in heavy armour, were ill-suited to the intense North African heat. Their siege tactics proved ineffective against Mahdia’s strong fortifications and determined garrison, which was soon reinforced by a Hafsid relief army. Disease began to ravage the Christian camp, and bickering broke out between the national contingents. After nine weeks of fruitless siege, the crusaders accepted a negotiated settlement. They withdrew in exchange for a ten-year truce and a financial indemnity from the rulers of Mahdia.
Though a military failure, the Barbary Crusade is immensely significant. It shows a Lincolnshire baron like John de Welles operating comfortably within a pan-European military context, fighting alongside his ostensible enemies, the French, against a common foe in a distant land. His participation was a testament to the shared aristocratic culture that transcended national boundaries, binding the knightly classes of Europe together in common pursuits of honour and faith.
A Prince's Odyssey and a Kingdom's Crisis
While Lord Welles was fighting in North Africa, another great Lincolnshire landowner was beginning an even more ambitious series of journeys. Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby and Hereford, and later Duke of Lancaster—the future King Henry IV—was the wealthiest magnate in England. His vast estates, constituting the Duchy of Lancaster, included huge swathes of Lincolnshire, making him the county’s dominant political force.
In 1390, banished from court after his involvement with the Lords Appellant against Richard II, Bolingbroke embarked on a crusade with the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania and Prussia. Two years later, in 1392, he set out on a far grander undertaking: a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This journey took him across central Europe to Venice, from where he sailed to the Holy Land. At this time, Palestine and Egypt were under the control of the powerful Mamluk Sultanate, ruled from Cairo by Sultan Barquq.
For an English prince to travel through these lands required careful diplomacy and considerable expense. Bolingbroke’s detailed account books, which remarkably survive, record payments for safe-conducts from Mamluk officials and for guides to lead him from Jaffa to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the River Jordan. This is the direct, verifiable connection between the English aristocracy and the rulers of Egypt mentioned in the original brief. It was not a military conflict but a complex interaction of pilgrimage and diplomacy, an Englishman navigating the political realities of the Mamluk empire. Bolingbroke's journey was the talk of the courts of Europe, a feat of logistics and piety that greatly enhanced his prestige.
These international adventures played out against a backdrop of escalating crisis at home. King Richard II’s rule was becoming increasingly autocratic. In 1397, he struck back at the Lords Appellant, executing, exiling, or imprisoning those who had challenged his authority years earlier. Lord Welles, whose family had been aligned with the Appellants, navigated this perilous political landscape with care. When Richard II exiled Henry Bolingbroke in 1398 and, upon the death of his father John of Gaunt in 1399, confiscated the entire Duchy of Lancaster, it was a step too far.
In the summer of 1399, Bolingbroke returned from exile, landing at Ravenspur in Yorkshire. He claimed he only sought the return of his rightful inheritance, and magnates from across the north, including the powerful Percy family and retainers of the Lancastrian estates in Lincolnshire, flocked to his banner. The tide of support was overwhelming. Lord Welles was among those who quickly endorsed Henry’s cause. Richard II’s authority crumbled, and by September, he had been deposed. Henry Bolingbroke was acclaimed King Henry IV. For his loyalty, Lord Welles was rewarded with positions of trust and influence in the new Lancastrian regime. His international experience and proven loyalty made him a valuable asset.
The French Cauldron: Renewed Conflict and Final Service
John de Welles’s career spanned the reigns of three kings and the dramatic transition from the last Plantagenet to the first Lancastrian. His final years were dedicated to serving the dynasty he had helped bring to power, a service that once again saw him engaged in the great conflict with France.
Under Henry IV, the truce with France frayed. Lord Welles was employed on sensitive diplomatic missions, his international experience making him an ideal envoy. In 1403, as documented in the Patent Rolls, he was appointed as one of the ambassadors to treat with the French concerning violations of the truce. He later served on commissions to negotiate with the Duke of Burgundy and representatives of Flanders. This was the other side of international relations: not the glorious charge of the tournament or crusade, but the patient, frustrating work of diplomacy, attempting to hold together a fragile peace.
When Henry V ascended the throne in 1413, he renewed English claims to the French crown with terrifying ambition. The Hundred Years' War entered its most dramatic phase. Lord Welles, now in his sixties, was an elder statesman, but his family was fully committed to the Lancastrian war effort. While too old for the rigours of the Agincourt campaign of 1415, his counsel and authority in Lincolnshire would have been vital for raising troops and funds for the king’s armies. His final recorded service was in 1417, when he was once more engaged in diplomatic negotiations with French ambassadors.
John de Welles, 5th Baron, died in 1421, a respected veteran of court, council, and foreign field. He was buried not in some grand London church, but in the heart of his family's power, at the church of the Whitefriars (Carmelites) in London, an order he patronized. His life encapsulates the multifaceted world of the late medieval English baron.
Conclusion: A Lincolnshire Legacy in a Global Context
The story of John de Welles is a powerful counter-narrative to the idea of medieval England as an isolated island kingdom. Here was a man whose identity was forged in Lincolnshire, whose power was derived from its soil, and whose local influence was absolute. The rents from manors in the orbit of places like Brattleby funded a life of extraordinary scope. That life saw him jousting before his king on London Bridge, besieging a fortress on the Barbary Coast, and navigating the treacherous currents of diplomacy with the French.
His world was interconnected with that of his sovereign and kinsman, Henry Bolingbroke, whose own journeys took him into the very heart of the Mamluk Sultanate. The life of a great Lincolnshire baron was not a choice between the local and the international; it was an indivisible whole. He was at once the lord of Well and a knight of Christendom, a justice of the peace in Lindsey and an ambassador of the English crown. His career demonstrates that the reach of the medieval aristocracy was truly global, and that from the quiet fields of a Lincolnshire barony, a nobleman’s influence could indeed extend from the banks of the Witham to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Sources & Further Reading
Primary Sources:
Domesday Book: A Complete Translation. (London: Penguin, 2003). For the entry for Brattleby (Bratelbi) in Lincolnshire. Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Preserved in the Public Record Office. Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. (London: HMSO). These are invaluable for tracing official appointments and commissions, such as Welles’s diplomatic roles. Wyntoun, Andrew of. The Original Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntoun. Edited by F. J. Amours. (Scottish Text Society, 1903-14). Contains a detailed, if partisan, account of the duel between Welles and Lindsay. The Expedition to Barbary in 1390. Attributed to a Monk of St. Denis, in Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denys, contenant le règne de Charles VI de 1380 à 1422. Edited by M. L. Bellaguet. (Paris, 1839). Toulmin-Smith, Lucy, ed. Expeditions to Prussia and the Holy Land made by Henry Earl of Derby (afterwards King Henry IV) in the years 1390-1 and 1392-3*. (Camden Society, 1894). The definitive edition of Bolingbroke’s travel accounts.
Secondary Sources:
Barber, Richard. The Knight and Chivalry. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995). Provides excellent context on the culture of chivalry, tournaments, and crusading. Cokayne, G. E. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Vol. XII, Part II. (London: St. Catherine Press, 1959). For the genealogy and succession of the Barons Welles. Goodman, Anthony. John of Gaunt: The Exercise of Princely Power in Fourteenth-Century Europe. (Harlow: Longman, 1992). Essential for understanding the political world in which Welles and Bolingbroke operated. Given-Wilson, Chris. Henry IV. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016). The most recent scholarly biography, with excellent detail on Henry’s early life and crusades. Mortimer, Ian. The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King. (London: Jonathan Cape, 2007). A highly readable account of the usurpation and its aftermath. Saul, Nigel. Richard II. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997). The standard modern biography of the king, providing context for the political turmoil of the 1390s. Sumption, Jonathan. The Hundred Years War, Vol. IV: Cursed Kings. (London: Faber & Faber, 2015). For the broader context of the war with France in the early fifteenth century. Tyerman, Christopher. England and the Crusades, 1095-1588. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). Contains a chapter covering later crusading efforts, including the Barbary expedition. A History of the County of Lincoln: Volume 2* (Victoria County History). Edited by William Page (London, 1906). Provides overarching historical and ecclesiastical context for the county.