Fire and Sword at Little Busby: Sir Nicholas Meynil and the Murder of William Mowbray

Abstract

This article is a study of lordship, conflict and some very unpleasant people, based on the record of a shocking crime presented at the 1293/4 Yorkshire eyre ‒ the murder of four members of the Mowbray family of Little Busby on the orders of a local magnate, Sir Nicholas Meynil of Whorlton. A fortunate wealth of sources, mainly in the form of court records, illuminates both the personalities involved and the issues that linked some and divided others, making it possible to trace their relationships in unusual detail. The killings apparently stemmed from Meynil’s determination to maintain his superiority in those parts of the North Riding where he was already the principal landowner. But that determination was intensified when it interacted with conflicts at a lower level of society, with quarrels involving the Mowbrays which precipitated another violent death and something close to a vendetta. In a wider perspective, the killings and their aftermath shed light on attitudes towards vengeance, and its position with regard to law, on the importance of the eyre as a means of controlling the activities of men like Meynil, and on royal priorities in the later years of Edward I’s reign.