Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/372

 greatly incensed at this violence. Warenne fled to Reigate Castle. Edward pursued him thither and threatened him with a siege, whereupon Warenne yielded. On 6 July he submitted himself in Westminster Hall to the king's mercy, protesting that he had not acted from malice but from anger. A fine of ten thousand marks was exacted, and on 3 Aug. he was further purged by the oath of twenty-five knights at Winchester, where, on 4 Aug., the king issued his pardon (, i. 244–5). The death of Alan on 10 Aug. of a fever, brought about by his wounds, did not further complicate the matter, but it was thought a scandal that Warenne got off so lightly (London Annals, p. 81). The greater part of the fine was still unpaid at his death (cf. Cal. Patent Rolls, 1301–7, pp. 496–7;, pp. 233–5, and Winchester Annals, p. 109, give somewhat different versions of the Zouch affair). In 1270 he was rebuked by Archbishop Giffard for his exactions in Yorkshire (Letters from Northern Registers, p. 22).

After Henry III's death, Warenne on 20 Nov. 1272 took oaths of fealty to the absent Edward I (Winchester Annals, p. 112; Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 154). According to the Lewes chronicler he was one of four ‘custodes terræ’ (Sussex Arch. Coll. ii. 30). He resented the writs of quo warranto of 1278. When, in 1279, the justices asked Warenne by what warranty he held his franchises, he produced ‘an ancient and rusty sword,’ saying, ‘Here is my warranty. My ancestors, who came with William the Bastard, conquered their lands with the sword, and with the sword will I defend them against all who desire to seize them. For the king did not conquer his lands by himself, but our ancestors were his partners and helpers’ (, ii. 6). The entry in ‘Kirby's Quest’ (Kirby's Quest, p. 3, Surtees Soc.) that he holds Conisborough but ‘non dicit de quo nec per quod servitium,’ and the king's officials' complaint that his bailiffs would not permit them to enter his liberties, nor allow his tenants to answer or appear before them (ib. pp. 227, 231), show that he did not recede from this attitude. His claim of free warren and free chase in all his Sussex lands (Rot. Parl. i. 6 b) was equally uncompromising. Warenne's attitude so generally represented that of the greater baronage that Edward desisted. A letter from Archbishop Peckham to Warenne, expostulating with him for damaging his tenants by permitting an intolerable excess of game on his lands, shows that he was equally strict over his dependents (, Letters, i. 38–9; the Hundred Rolls speak of the ‘diabolical innumerable oppressions’ of his steward at Conisborough (, South Yorkshire, p. 108). After 1282 Warenne was often called earl of Sussex as well as of Surrey. This was when the death of Isabella, widow of Hugh de Albini, last earl of Sussex of that house, had left that earldom vacant. It is sometimes thought to point to a fresh creation of Warenne as earl of Sussex, or to a contest for that dignity with the Fitzalans, who were forced in the end to be content with the title of earls of Arundel ( Complete Peerage, i. 145;, p. 29).

Warenne took a conspicuous share in carrying out Edward I's Welsh policy. In 1277 and in 1282 he served personally in Edward's campaigns. He spent most of 1283 in Wales with the king, and on 30 Sept. was summoned to the parliament of Shrewsbury. On the death of the two sons of Gruffydd ab Madog [q. v.] in 1281, the king, after some unsuccessful experiments (Rotulus Walliæ, p. 42, privately printed by Sir T. Phillips), divided their lands between Roger Mortimer [see ] and Warenne, the former obtaining Chirk and the latter taking the more westerly lordship of Bromfield, with part of that of Yale. Warenne's grant was dated 7 Oct. 1282 (, i. 267). Henceforth, as lord of Bromfield and Yale, he became one of the most important of the Welsh marcher lords, building the castle of Dinas Bran on a hill overlooking the Dee valley. In 1287 he raised troops and fought against Rhys ap Maredudd (Parl. Writs, i. 252), being sent to Wales in June and ordered to remain in Bromfield till Rhys was subdued (ib. i. 253; cf. Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1281–92, p. 271). In 1292 he granted the king a fifteenth from his Welsh lordships on condition that it should not be made a precedent (ib. p. 500). In 1293 he urged his right to the custody during vacancies of those temporalities of the bishopric of St. Asaph which lay within Bromfield, but the claim was rejected (Rot. Parl. i. 93 b; and, i. 598–9). In 1294 again Warenne was despatched to relieve Bere Castle, threatened by Madog ab Llywelyn (Parl. Writs, i. 264). He repeatedly raised large numbers of Welsh foot from his lordships to serve against the Scots. On 7 Feb. 1301 he received the grant of the castle and town of Hope, in the modern Flint, at a rent of 40l. (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1292–1301, p. 576). It was not until 25 July 1302 that he did homage for Bromfield and Yale.

Warenne's share in Edward's Scottish policy was very conspicuous. In September