Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/84

Manny simply says that on 12 Sept. Sir Walter, in spite of a safe-conduct, was attacked near St. Jean d'Angely in Saintonge, that while his escort was captured and thrown into prison in that town, he himself escaped with difficulty. Derby, who was on his march to Poictiers, at once took St. Jean and released Manny's men. If we could credit Froissart (v. 143, 195-6), Edward entrusted the siege of Calais to him, placing the Earl of Warwick and Sir Ralph Stafford under his orders, and he induced the king to limit his vengeance, though he failed to save Eustache de St. Pierre and his companions (ib. pp. 198-210, 213-15). Avesbury (pp. 392, 396) only tells us that he was one of the five English representatives in the negotiations with the king of France during the last week of July, and that after Calais had fallen he with seven others concluded the truce of 28 Sept.

On 13 Nov. Manny was summoned to parliament as a baron, and received writs to parliament and council until January 1371 (App. to Report on Dignity of a Peer, pp. 574, 617, 622, 625, 627, 630, 647). He frequently appears as a trier of petitions, and is once mentioned as giving judgment in parliament on a traitor (Rot. Pari, it 164, 222, 268, 275, 283, 289, 294, 303, iii. 12). On 14 March 1348 Manny was once more appointed admiral of the fleet from the Thames to Berwick (Fœdera, iii. 156), and on 25 Sept. of the same year was commissioned, with the Earls of Lancaster and Suffolk and two others, to treat for peace with France (ib. p. l73). When the attempt to recover Calais by treachery on the night of 31 Dec. 1349 was frustrated, King Edward and the Black Prince, according to Froissart (v. 232-8, 248-9), honoured Manny by fighting under his banner, but of this the English authorities know nothing (, p. 408;, p. 103; , i. 273-4). He may have taken part in the sea-fight with the Spaniards off Winchelsea on 29 Aug. 1350 (, p. 120;, v. 258). During 1349-50 he received grants in Aquitaine, Berwick, and Oxfordshire, and is mentioned as marshal of the Marshalsey (Abbreviatio Rotul. Origin. ii. 199 ;, Baronage, ii. 149). In the summer of 1350 he held an inquest in Hertfordshire (Gesta Abbatum St. Albani, iii. 200), and in the autumn of that year and the spring of 1351 he was chosen, as a Hainaulter, to conduct negotiations respecting the affairs of the Low Countries with Margaret of Hainault and Holland, widow of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria (Fœdera, iii. 206, 220). Manny is said to have taken part in the Breton campaign of 1352 (, ii. 149).

Accompanying Edward to Artois in October 1355, he returned with him in order to save Berwick. After laying the king's wishes before a parliament at Westminster on 18 Nov., he was sent forward to relieve the castle of Berwick and begin the recovery of the town, whose walls he undermined with the help of men from the Forest of Dean (, pp. 429, 450; Rot. Parl. ii. 264 ; note to, p. 291). He Was staying at Westminster when the news of Poictiers reached England (, Issues, p. 166). On 17 Jan. 1359 he was sent to France and negotiated an extension of the truce, which expired on 13 April (Fœdera, iii. 417). When Edward invaded France in October 1359, Manny was on his staff; he was given the Garter vacated by the death of John, lord Grey of Rotherfield, on 1 Sept., and was presented by the Black Prince with 'a grisell palfrey' (, p. 120). He accompanied Edward in his march into Burgundy in January 1860, and on their return skirmished with some new-made knights at the very gates of Paris (, vi. 209, 213, 221, 224, 266-7). His name is among the guarantors of the treaty of Bretigni in May ; he was one of the guardians of King John at Calais until the payment of John's ransom on 25 Oct. (ib. pp. 277, 295-7;, p. 120), and on 20 Sept. he was appointed with others to decide upon the claims of Charles of Blois and John of Montfort (Fœdera, iii. 508). On 7 July 1362 he was appointed a commissioner to prorogue the truce with Charles of Blois for one year (tb. p. 662). At Quesnoy on 12 May in that year he had acknowledged receipt of nineteen thousand golden florins from Margaret, countess of Hainault, to whom he had lent considerable sums, and at the same time released her from all claims against her and her son Duke Albert, but the latter was still in Manny's debt at his death (, p. 121). He attended the king of Cyprus when he visited London to solicit English aid against the Turks (ib., vi. 884). In the autumn of 1364 he was with the king at Dover arranging with Louis of Flanders for the marriage of his daughter to Edmund of Cambridge, when the news of the victory of Auray arrived (ib. vii. 65). He was present in the council in 1366 which promised help to Pedro the Cruel (ib. p. 110). In 1368 he was ordered to Ireland (, xxii. 182). In August 1369 he was sent with John of Gaunt in his invasion of France as second in command, and Froissart relates an instance in which neglect of his advice robbed the army of an advantage (ib. vii. 423, 429). On 10 Nov. 1870 he was ordered, as lord of Merioneth, to fortify his castle, and on the 15th he was one