Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/377

Turnham 1189, when he fired Le Mans to defend it from Philip Augustus (. ii. 363). Richard I, on his accession, imprisoned Stephen de Marzai and compelled him to surrender the royal treasure of which he had charge (ib. iii. 3). Richard of Devizes (pp. 6-7, Engl. Hist. Soc.), who calls him Stephen de Marzai, says that he was imprisoned at Winchester, and had to pay a heavy fine for his release. William of Newburgh relates that he had been raised from a humble position by Henry II, and was after his release continued in authority by Richard I. Stephen, believing that Richard would never return, and relying on the fallacious prophecy of a wizard, exercised his power in an arbitrary fashion. The wizard foretold that he would die 'in pluma,' and Stephen met his death at a fortress of that name shortly before Richard's return in 1193 (Chron. Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ii. 424-6). He is styled Stephen de Turonis by Hoveden and in official documents, Stephen Tirconensis or de Turonis in the 'Gesta Henrici' (, ii. 67, 71).

Stephen de Turnham was elder son of Robert de Turnham, a knight of Kent, who founded Combwell Priory in the reign of Henry II (, Hist. Kent, ii. 494, iv. 236). Robert de Turnham [q. v.] was his younger brother. He is first mentioned on 11 Feb. 1188 as witness to a charter at Geddington, and in July 1189, like Stephen de Turonis, was at Chinon (, Itinerary, pp. 285, 297; cf. Epistolæ Cantuarienses, p. 166). He went on the third crusade, and while at Palestine once caught Balian of Ibelin and Reginald of Sidon coming from an interview with Saladin (Itinerarium Regis Ricardi, pp. 299, 337). In 1193 he escorted Berengaria and Joan of Sicily to Rome on their way back from Palestine (Rog. Hov. iii. 228). In the last two years of Richard's reign he occurs as one of the justices before whom fines were levied, and as a justice itinerant in the counties of Essex, Hertford, and Surrey. He continued to act in the same capacity during the first four years of the next reign (, Hist. Exch. i. 565, 733-7, 743; Feet of Fines, 7-8 Richard I, 195, Pipe Rolls Soc.) From 1197 to 1199 he had custody of the archbishop of York, was sheriff of Wiltshire in 1199, and on 22 Nov. 1200 was one of the witnesses to the homage of the king of Scots at Lincoln ( iv. 92, 142). In 1204 he was discharged from all accounts by a fine of one thousand marks (Cal. Rot. Pat. p. 41). But he continued to enjoy John's favour, and had charge of Eleanor of Brittany in 1204. There are various notices of Stephen de Turnham in the royal service down to 1213, when he appears to have had charge of the king's son Henry (Cal. Rot. Claus. i. 121, 123).

He married Edelina, daughter and heiress of Ranulph de Broc. One of the estates he acquired with her he held by the service of 'Ostiarius Cameræ Regis.' He died in 1215, leaving by his wife four daughters. He confirmed and increased his father's benefaction to Combwell Priory (, Monast. Angl. vi. 413). [Authorities cited; Foss's Judges of England.]

 TURNOR, CHRISTOPHER (1607–1675), judge, born on 6 Dec. 1607, was eldest son of Christopher Turnor of Milton Erneys or Ernest, Bedfordshire (a scion of the old family of Turnor of Haverhill, Suffolk, and Parndon, Essex), by Ellen, daughter of Thomas Samm of Pirton, Hertfordshire. He graduated B.A. in 1630 from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, proceeded M.A. in 1633, and subsequently gave a donation towards the rebuilding of the college chapel, begun in 1668. In November 1633 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, where he was elected a bencher in 1654. On 7 March 1638-9 he was appointed jointly with William Watkins receiver-general of South Wales. During the civil war he adhered to the king, and on the Restoration he was made serjeant-at-law, third baron of the exchequer, knighted (4, 7, 16 July 1660), and placed on the commission for the trial of the regicides (October). At the Gloucester autumn assizes in 1661 he displayed a degree of circumspection unusual in that age. One William Harrison was missing under suspicious circumstances, and John Perry swore that his mother Joan and his brother, Richard Perry, had murdered him. The grand jury found a true bill, but Turnor refused to try the case until Harrison's body should be produced. Sir Robert Hyde, before whom the same case came at the next Lent assizes, was less cautious. He allowed the case to proceed, the jury convicted the prisoners, and they were executed; but some years afterwards their innocence was established by Harrison's reappearance. Turnor surrendered the receivership of South Wales on 16 June 1662. At York in the winter of 1663-4 he opened the commission under which several puritans implicated in the northern plot suffered death (, Report of divers Cases in the Pleas of the Crown in the Reign of Charles II, p. 19;, York, p. 175). In the  B B 2