#margaret malefaunt

[une-sanz-pluis]

In most years between 1440 and 1447 Duke Humphrey spent time in south Wales, where he was not only lord of Pembroke and other lordships in the region but also (since February 1440) justiciar of the royal counties of Carmarthen and Cardigan; he had a contingent interest in stabilising Gower and in controlling the local tenantry involved in Margaret Malefaunt’s abduction, including the Mansel family and the Turbervilles, who had connived in Lewys Leyshon’s plans. This is the likely context of a mutilated and fragmentary receiver’s account of expenses incurred in Swansea in the autumn of 1440. This account relates to arrangements made for a visit to Swansea castle by the lord and lady of Gower and the duke of Gloucester in September and October 1440. Norfolk was accompanied by Sir Henry Inglose and other of his councillors, including John Andrew, his steward. Repairs by local craftsmen were made to doors, windows and rooms in the castle and to the castle stables; furniture was constructed and stores of food acquired from the lord’s tenants and coal for heating; clothing was bought for his henxmen and household servants and for the lady and her servants; new equipment and parchment were bought for the exchequer and chancery chamber in the castle, while purchases of pewter plates were ordered from Bristol. In short, measures were taken to refurbish and strengthen Swansea castle as a military and administrative headquarters and as a temporary residence not only for the duke and duchess of Norfolk but also for the king’s uncle on his way to or from his Pembrokeshire lordships and Carmarthen and Cardigan, where he held meetings of the great sessions in each year between 1440 and 1444.

Ralph A. Griffiths, "Lordship and the Social Elite in the Lordship of Gower during the Wars of the Roses", The Fifteenth Century XVIII (The Boydell Press 2020)