Name Hugh Morville, | Died 1162 | |
Hugh de Morville (died 1162) of Appleby in Westmorland, England, hereditary Constable of Scotland, was a Norman knight who made his fortune in the service of David FitzMalcolm (d.1153), Prince of the Cumbrians, later King of Scotland.
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Origins
Hugh came from Morville in the Cotentin Peninsula, in northern France. His parentage is unclear, but according to Barrow his father was probably Richard de Morville who in the early twelfth century witnessed charters made by Richard de Redvers relating to Montebourg and the church of St. Mary in the castle of Néhou.
In service of David of Scotland
Prince David of Scotland held Cotentin in northern France, given to him by King Henry I of England some time after 1106. Soon after, Hugh de Morville joined David's small military retinue in France. In 1113, following his marriage, Prince David waas made Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton, and also became Prince of the Cumbrians, having forced his brother King Alexander I to hand over territory in southern Scotland David achieved this with the help of his French followers
David endowed Hugh with the estates of Bozeat and Whissendine, within his Huntingdon earldom as his wife's dowery. During David's conquest of northern England after 1136, Hugh was also given the lordship of Appleby, essentially northern Westmorland. These lands later formed the feudal barony of Appleby.
After the death of Edward, Constable of Scotland, almost certainly in 1138 at the Battle of the Standard, Hugh was awarded that office. In addition "he obtained land and lordships which placed him in the very first rank of the Anglo-Norman nobility in Scotland. These comprised the Lordship of the Regality of Lauderdale, together with detached estates at Saltoun, Haddingtonshire, Nenthorn and Newton Don, Berwickshire, at Dryburgh on the Tweed opposite Old Melrose, and probably also at Heriot in Midlothian. In the west of Scotland he was given the whole of the Lordship of Cunningham, the northernmost third of Ayrshire. Lauderdale, with a castle at Lauder, was held, it seems, for six knights' service; Cunningham possibly for two, with a castle at Irvine." In 1316-20 Cunningham was granted to Robert Stewart for three knight's service.
In 1150 Hugh made a further mark on the history of southern Scotland by founding Dryburgh Abbey for Premonstratensian canons regular, where he died as a canon in 1162.
Marriage & progeny
Hugh married Beatrice de Beauchamp, the heiress of the manor of Houghton Conquest in Bedfordshire. She is presumed to be a daughter of Robert de Beauchamp (died pre-1130) (son of Hugh de Beauchamp), but no contemporary documents survive which record her parentage. By Beatrice he had at least two sons and two daughters, including:
Death & burial
Hugh eventually retired as a canon to his foundation at Dryburgh Abbey, where he soon died in 1162. An ancient memorial to him in the south wall is said to mark his burial-place. His death has been recorded to be in 1204. If he participated in Thomas Becket's death in 1170 he could not have died 1162.