GLOUCESTER. 43 dignity [of the Earldom of Gloucester] was to him and Ail heirs, the title, appears to have been considered as extinct. See fuller particulars sub " Audley," Barouy, cr. 1317, forfeited 1511. Dukedom. Thomas (P laxtagexet), slyled "of Woodstock," 6th and J. 1 385 >'- st - 8 - of King Edward III., by Pbilippa, da. of William, Count ' of Holland and Hainault, was b. 7 Jan. 1355/6, at the manor j.,q7 house, Oxford, and having m. (he had been affianced in 1371) 0JI - Eleanor, 1st da. and coheir( b ) of Humphrey (de Bouun), Earl of Hereford, Essex, and ok Northampton, and Lord High Constable, by Joan, da. of Richard (Fitzalan), Eaiil of Arundel, was on 10 June 137(5, appointed " Constable of England," and was by writ 1 Dec. following directed ' T/iomrc de Woilcatok, Conslabulur. AngL" sum. to Pari. He appears in his wife's right to have had the style of EARL OF ESSEX( C ) (one of the Earldoms( a ) of his father in law) in which county her estates chiefly lay. He was knighted by the Kiug, his father, 23 April 1377, and shortly afterwards was cr., 15 July 1377, at the corona- tion of Hichard II. (at which he bore the sceptre and dove) EARL OF BUCKING- HAM, which creation was subsequently confirmed by a Royal charter with consent of Pari., the limitation being to the grantee and his heirs. K.G., 13S0 ; and was on 6 Aug. 1385, cr. DUKE OF GLOUCESTER and invested by girding, &c.(=) He was, however, sum. to the next Pari. 3 Sep. (1335), 21 Ric. I., as DUKE OF ALBEMARLE or AUMARLEt') but ever afterwards was sum. (only) as Duke of Gloucester. He presided, as Constable, over the Court of Chivalry during the celebrated Scrope and Grosvenor controversy, 1386-90; was chief of "the Lords appellant" in 1387-8S, procuring the banishment of the King's favourites and generally opposing his policy. He was made Ch. Gov. of Ireland, 1393-94, receiving the King there in Oct. 1393. He was, however, by the King's command decoyed from his castle at Pleshy, co. Essex ; arrested in the Royal presence and transported to Calais where he was murdered by smothering (8 ?) Sep. 1397, in his 42d year. He was on the 25th declared in Pari, to have been guilty of treason, whereby all /us honours were forfeited. He was bur. with state at Pleshy College but afterwards removed to Westm. Abbey.(s) His widow, for whom robes of the order of the Oartcr had been prepared in 1384, as Countess of Buckingham, and in 1386, as Duchess of Gloucester, became a nun in the Abbey of Barking, where she d. 2 Oct. 1399, and was bur. in Westm. Abbey. Her will dat. 6 Aug. 1399. [Humf-iirey Plantagenet, styled Eaul of Buckingham, only s. and h., was debarred by his father's attainder from inheriting his lands and honours. He was imprisoned at Trim, in Ireland, from 1397 to 1399, in which year he d. unm. (of the plague) at Chester (or as some say Coventry) and was bur. in the Abbey of Waldeu, co. Suffolk.] Tiiomas (Le Despencer), Lord Le Despencer, great grandson of Hugh, Loud Le Desfencer (1314-26), sometimes spoken of as Eahi, of Gloucester^* 1 ) by Eleanor, 1st sister and coheir of Gilbert (de Clare), Eaiil of Gloucester aboveuamed, was b. 22 Sep. 1373 ; sue. his father two years later, and having upheld (*) " Courthope," p. 214, tub "Gloucester." () Mary, the 2d and yst. coheir, was wife of King Henry IV. (°) See vol. iii, p. 282, note " b," for his style of " Due de Qloceslre, Comte d' Essex el (k Buckingham." ( d ) Uc is often called "Earl of Northampton," another of the (three) Earldoms of his wife's father. Brook says " hee was made Earle of Buckingham and Northamp- ton " which last, Vincent only questions as a " creation, adding that he would " not labour to deprive him of [it] for I confesse he had it," &c. In spite, however, of Vincent it would seem that he did not have it and was not styled by it. (°) The form thereof is set out in " Saudford," p. 231, quoting from Selden's " Titles of Honour." ( r ) With this exception neither he nor his sou appear to have ever been recognised under the title of Albemarle, (s) A good account of hini is in Beltz's " Order of the Garter," pp. 269-274. ( h ) See p. 42. Earldom. X. 1397, to 1399.
