Page:History of Norfolk 5.djvu/243



Thomas Mowbray, his brother, who was Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Nottingham, Baron Mowbray, Segrave, Braose, and Gower; Knight of the Garter, and as Coke upon Littleton saith, the first Earl-Marshal that styled himself Earl-Marshal of England; his christian name was Thomas, in respect to Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury. He was so much in the King's favour, as to be created with his title of Earl of Notingham, to which honour he was advanced the very day his grandmother Margaret (the heiress of Brotherton) was created Dutchess; but as his greatness was founded in blood, so he soon after irrecoverably fell; for being accused by Henry of Bolinbroke, for words spoken indecently of the King, whom he said, notwithstanding his fair pretences and oaths, meant to oppress the Duke of Lancaster and others: that Prince, though he had so great a favour for him, for being active in the destruction of Richard Earl of Arundel, his father-in-law, and Thomas of Wodstock Duke of Glocester, as to create him Duke of Norfolk, and give him his father-in-law's forfeited estate, yet he committed him prisoner to Windsor castle, and a challenge or camp-ordeal ensued between them, when the Duke came to the place appointed for the combat, wiith his horse caparisoned with crimson velvet, embroidered with silver lions and mulberry-trees: but the King then prohibited the combat, banished Henry called Earl of Hereford for 10 years, and the Duke for life; and this happened on the very day twelvemonth, that he had been accessory to the murder of the Duke of Gloucester; Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary were allotted for his exile; pursuant to which sentence he departed, but never returned, for as he came from Jerusalem, he died of the plague at Venice, in the year 1400, 1st Henry IV. seized of this manor, with the court called the Knyghten court, thereto belonging, and Elizabeth his widow inherited them, and afterwards remarried to Sir Gerard de Ufflete, Knt. who held them till her death in 1424.

The Knyghten Court
Belonging to this manor was the ancient court, to which all those great men, that held their several manors, lands, and tenements, of the Bygods honour, were obliged to do suit and service, and pay castle-ward for the guard of the Earl's castle at Norwich, every three