For nearly four centuries following the Norman Conquest, the de Handsacre family played a defining role in the life and structure of the parish of Handsacre.
Despite their long-standing prominence, the historical record of the de Handsacres is notable more for its silences than its substance. Contemporary records are frustratingly silent on many of the personal details we might wish to know today: births, marriages, and deaths that would help trace the line more clearly through the generations. Parish registers came too late to capture their earlier history, and in their absence, we must reconstruct their story from legal records, land grants, and the occasional surviving charter.
Even so, the fragments that do survive reveal more than just transactions—they offer glimpses into the individuals behind the name. From knights who took up arms in service of the king, to family members whose marriages brought new lands into the manor through dowries, the de Handsacres were not only landowners but active participants in the political and military life of medieval England. Here we trace their story through these surviving records—highlighting the people, events, and shifting fortunes that bound their legacy to the history of Armitage-with-Handsacre.
By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, just twenty years after the Norman Conquest, the English aristocracy had been almost entirely replaced. The thegns had, within a generation, largely lost their lands and status. Of the one thousand tenants-in-chief recorded in Domesday, only thirteen were English.
There are no surviving records identifying the Lord of the Manor of Handsacre before the Conquest. However, Domesday names his successor as Robert. This name is found occasionally in Anglo-Saxon England before the Conquest but in the main it was introduced into England by the Normans so it is almost certainly a Norman nobleman, whose primary language would have been French.
With the Norman takeover, naming conventions also changed. Hereditary surnames became more common, typically derived from locations (toponymic), occupations, or paternal lineage (patronymic). Around 1150, a Robert Fitz Noel (‘Fitz’ deriving from the Old French fils, meaning ‘son of’) founded Ranton Abbey in Staffordshire. He is believed to be a descendant of the Robert who held Handsacre in 1086 and had married the daughter of the Bishop of Chester. The deed establishing Ranton Abbey was witnessed by Hubert de Handsacre, Lord of the manor of Handsacre, who would have been his brother or cousin.
Given his links to the bishop, and that the baptismal font was made in the early to mid – 1100s it is likely that Hubert was the person responsible for building the stone church at or near the Hermitage overlooking the river Trent at the other end of the parish which centuries later led the creation of the village of Armitage.
Hubert’s son, also named Robert, was another witness to the founding of Ranton Abbey and he succeeded his father as Lord of the Manor in about 1170. Hubert had three additional sons—William, Walter, and Giles. Robert died childless so he was followed by his brother William in about 1185 who was also Lord of the Manor of Pipe Ridware. He was in turn succeeded by his brother, Walter.
A royal connection?
A royal connection always adds a touch of glamour to a family tree, and for the de Handsacre family, a supposed link to the Scottish crown has been repeated in various genealogies and local histories. The story goes that during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272), Sir William de Handsacre married Ada, the widow of Henry, Lord Hastings, and the daughter and heiress of David, Earl of Huntingdon—brother to William the Lion and grandson of King David I of Scotland.
This account first appears in Sampson Erdeswicke’s Survey of Staffordshire, a work compiled before his death in 1603 but not printed until the 18th century. Multiple versions of the Survey exist, and they do not always agree with one another. Nonetheless, every subsequent retelling seems to trace back to Erdeswicke’s original mention.
The historical record, however, exposes this version. Ada of Huntingdon did marry Sir Henry de Hastings, likely around 1224. She was alive as late as 1241 and died in the early months of 1242. Her husband outlived her by eight years, dying in 1250. She was therefore never a widow during her lifetime and could not have married Sir William de Handsacre. The romantic tale of a Scottish royal marriage may be appealing—but in this case, the timeline simply doesn’t fit.
William de Handsacre: A Rebel of the Second Barons’ War
The Second Barons’ War (1264–1267) was a civil conflict in England between the barons, led by Simon de Montfort, and the royalist forces of King Henry III. The barons sought to limit the king’s power by enforcing rule through a council rather than through his personal favourites. Initially, King Henry led the royalist forces himself, but later, his son, the future King Edward I, took command.
One of the barons’ supporters was William de Handsacre, who sided with de Montfort against the king. During the war, both factions engaged in widespread pillaging. William targeted royalists in his manor at Chorlton, Worcestershire, seizing goods and chattels from Thomas de Aderne.
The tide of war shifted dramatically with the Battle of Lewes in 1264, where King Henry was defeated and taken prisoner alongside his son, Prince Edward, and his brother, Richard of Cornwall. However, in May 1265, Prince Edward escaped captivity at Hereford and rallied a new royalist army at Worcester. The conflict culminated in the decisive Battle of Evesham on August 4, 1265, where de Montfort and his son Henry were slain. King Henry, whom de Montfort had taken into the battle, was freed.
Following the royalist victory, many rebels fled to remote regions such as the Fens. William de Handsacre joined a rebel force hiding on the Isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire, not far from his holdings at Tyrington (East Torrington). Like many of de Montfort’s supporters, he was stripped of his lands, which were granted to James, Lord Audley, by order of the king.
While in hiding, William also faced legal action from Thomas de Aderne. However, since Lord Audley had already claimed his estates in Handsacre, Tipton, Worcestershire, and Lincolnshire, little remained for Aderne to recover—except for six oxen from Handsacre.
In an effort to restore stability, King Henry eventually issued the Dictum of Kenilworth, a peace settlement that allowed rebels to secure pardons and reclaim their confiscated lands upon payment of a heavy fine. William de Handsacre recovered his lands and five years later was one of four knights in Staffordshire who decided on the jury for several Staffordshire court cases
The feast of swans
William de Handsacre was the son of a knight, and like many boys of noble birth, his early life followed the traditional path of military training. From the age of seven to ten, he would have served as a page in a lord’s household, where he learned courtly manners, horsemanship, literacy, and basic combat skills. Around the age of fourteen, he would have progressed to the role of squire, serving a knight directly. As a squire, William would have been responsible for caring for his master’s armour, weapons, and horse, while receiving more advanced training in the arts of war. He would also have accompanied the knight into battle or to tournaments to gain valuable experience. Like many squires, William dreamed of one day being dubbed a knight himself—but this was far from guaranteed. Wealth, opportunity, skill, and the right patronage were all essential.
In early 1306, events in Scotland would change the course of William’s life. On 10 February, Robert the Bruce, one of Scotland’s leading nobles, murdered his rival John Comyn in Greyfriars Church, Dumfries. The killing—committed in a sacred place—shocked Christendom. For Edward I, it was both a personal betrayal and a sacrilegious outrage. Furious, he resolved to launch a renewed military campaign to subdue Scotland and rallied his nobles to the cause.
To inspire loyalty and strengthen his forces, Edward arranged a grand knighting ceremony—a mass dubbing of young men who would be bound to him through honour and chivalric duty. First and foremost was his son and heir, Prince Edward, the future Edward II. On 6 April 1306, the king commanded the sheriffs of every county to proclaim that all who wished to become knights should come to London before Whitsuntide. There, they would receive the vestments of knighthood as royal gifts—robes embroidered with gold, armour, weapons, and other symbols of their new status.
William de Handsacre was one of the 267 squires who accepted the summons. In May, he arrived in London with his retinue, family, and supporters. Accommodating this influx of young men and their entourages required extraordinary logistical effort. Over fifty carpenters were hired to construct temporary buildings in Westminster and beyond. New kitchen equipment was purchased, and provisions—sheep, oxen, pigs, and other foodstuffs—were brought in from surrounding regions. Most of the squires were housed at the Temple Church, the spiritual home of the Knights Templar. To make space for tents and pavilions, trees were felled and even parts of the churchyard walls were removed.
On the eve of Whitsunday, William joined his fellow squires in a vigil at the church. Tradition required silence, prayer, and meditation through the night, their swords placed upon the altar. But with over 250 young men packed into the church, solemn reflection proved elusive. The stillness was broken by whispers, laughter, even trumpet calls echoing in the dark.
On Whitsunday, 22 May 1306, the king privately dubbed Prince Edward a knight in the chapel of Westminster Palace. Then, in a grand procession, the royal party made their way to Westminster Abbey where the 267 squires—William amongst them—awaited their moment of glory. The young men had marched the two miles from the Temple to the Abbey, but the streets were choked with curious onlookers. Eventually, massive warhorses were used to clear a path through the crowd and restore order.
Inside the Abbey, in front of the high altar, Prince Edward tapped William on the shoulder with a sword, speaking the ritual words: “Be thou a knight.” This symbolic blow, known as the accolade, marked William’s formal transformation. A belt, sword, and golden spurs were fastened to him. He was now Sir William de Handsacre.
After the ceremony came a magnificent banquet in the Great Hall of Westminster Palace. The highlight of the feast was the arrival of two white swans, adorned with golden chains—symbols of purity, loyalty, and the noble ideals of knighthood. Before the assembled company, King Edward swore an oath upon the swans to take revenge on Robert the Bruce and to pursue justice for the murder of Comyn. Prince Edward made a dramatic vow never to sleep in the same place twice until he reached Scotland. The newly made knights, including Sir William, also swore their loyalty and pledged themselves to the coming war.
It was a moment of high theatre and royal power—but for William de Handsacre, it was also the fulfilment of a personal dream and the beginning of a new chapter in his life: as a knight of the realm, sworn to serve crown, country, and chivalry.
Sir William de Handsacre and the Campaigns of 1345–1347
In February 1345, Ralph, Earl of Stafford, sailed for Gascony, newly appointed as Seneschal of Aquitaine. Within his retinue was Sir William de Handsacre. This force formed the vanguard of a campaign to reassert English control in Gascony. Ralph wasted no time, launching sieges against the towns of Blaye and Langon.
Soon, however, Stafford’s troops found themselves under siege at Aiguillon. The situation changed dramatically in August with the arrival of the main English army, led by Henry, Earl of Derby. The reinforced English force defeated the French in two major engagements at Bergerac and Auberoche. The scale of the English victory was such that Derby’s share of the ransoms and spoils was said to be four times the annual income of his estates. Sir William likely profited handsomely as well.
The following year, the Earl of Stafford joined Edward III’s army in Normandy. In July 1346, the king’s force sacked Caen before marching north toward the Low Countries, aiming to unite with Flemish allies. Edward cut a path of destruction through some of France’s wealthiest regions, reaching within two miles of Paris. French forces under King Philip VI shadowed the English, hoping to trap and annihilate them before they could retreat. But Edward crossed the River Somme and made a stand near the village of Crécy-en-Ponthieu.
At Crécy, the English, numbering between 10,000 and 15,000 men, faced an enormous French army said to be close to 100,000. The area was familiar ground—land inherited by Edward from his mother. He deployed his forces facing southeast on a sloping hillside, flanked by Wadicourt on the left and Crécy on the right. Defensive pits were dug in front of the line to break cavalry charges.
Sir William and his fellow knights fought dismounted, as men-at-arms. Beneath their mail armour, they wore padded gambesons for extra protection. Sir William’s helmet would have been an open-faced iron design, with chainmail attached to guard the throat, neck, and shoulders. His shield was likely of the heater type, shaped with a pointed base, constructed from thin wood and overlaid with leather.
Late in the afternoon, the English longbowmen opened the battle by routing the Genoese crossbowmen in French service. When the French cavalry charged, they suffered devastating losses under a hail of arrows. By the time they reached the English lines, their momentum had all but vanished. Still, the hand-to-hand combat that followed was described as “murderous, without pity, cruel, and very horrible.” Charge after charge failed. The battle raged until nearly midnight.
French casualties were staggering—more than the total number of English troops at the outset. Over 1,500 French noblemen were killed, and more than 2,200 heraldic coats were taken by the English as war trophies.
In the aftermath, Edward pressed northward and laid siege to Calais, a key strategic port close to the Flemish border. The siege began in September 1346 and lasted eleven months. When the town finally fell in August 1347, it became a vital English possession on the continent and remained so for over two hundred years.
Sir William de Handsacre had more than fulfilled his feudal duty. He returned not only with honour but almost certainly with wealth and status earned on the bloodied fields of Gascony and northern France.
Piebald Horses and Letters of Protection: A Family at War
In 1360, Sir Robert de Grendon married Eleanor, the widow of the Sir William de Handsacre who had fought at Crecy. Through this union, he acquired land and property in Handsacre and settled at Handsacre Hall. A year later, in September 1361, Sir Robert joined the Earl of Stafford’s retinue on a campaign to Ireland, accompanying Lionel, Earl of Ulster and son of Edward III. The expedition aimed to reassert English authority in the wake of Gaelic raids around Dublin.
Included in the company was John de Handsacre, Sir Robert’s stepson, serving as a squire. He rode a piebald horse—a striking sight amidst the more uniformly coloured mounts. By 1364, John had been replaced by another of Eleanor’s sons, Simon, who would later be knighted. The struggle to subdue the Gaelic clans continued into the latter part of the decade. In 1369, Sir Simon returned to Ireland and received a Letter of Protection from the Earl of Pembroke, a mark of official service and the dangers inherent in the Crown’s efforts to secure the island.
The End of the Line: The Turbulent Legacy of Sir Simon Handsacre
Sir Simon Handsacre died in late 1373 or early 1374, leaving behind his widow, Lady Isabella, and three young daughters: Isabella, Elizabeth, and Alianora (also known as Eleanor). With no surviving male heir, the family’s considerable estates became the focus of a fierce power struggle.
At stake were the valuable manors of Handsacre in Staffordshire, Charlton in Worcestershire, Higham on the Hill in Leicestershire, a quarter share of Repton in Derbyshire, and a third share of East Torrington and Hardwick in Lincolnshire. All three daughters were minors, and their marriage rights—essentially, the right to decide who they would marry—were lucrative assets. Their control promised influence over land and lineage, and soon powerful figures vied for possession.
Among those asserting claims were the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and none other than Joan of Kent, the widow of the Black Prince and the first Princess of Wales. The bishop acted first, asserting his rights by abducting the eldest daughter, young Isabella, with the aid of his men. However, Lady Isabella responded swiftly, dispatching her own retainers to rescue the girl.
Rather astonishingly, the bishop sued Lady Isabella for abducting her own child. Yet before the case could come to court, Joan of Kent took matters into her own hands. She arranged for young Isabella, then only about ten years old, to be removed to the home of Laurence de Frodeley (also known as Laurence Forster of Frodeley) at Pipe Ridware.
Not to be outdone, the bishop sold the marriage rights of all three girls to the Archdeacon of Coventry. The Archdeacon, in turn, sent his own men to Pipe Ridware, kidnapped Isabella yet again, and also managed to seize Elizabeth and Eleanor.
He wasted no time. All three girls were soon either married or promised in marriage, no doubt earning the Archdeacon a handsome reward. Isabella was promised to Laurence de Frodeley, Elizabeth to Roger Colmon, and Eleanor to Richard Dynley.
Lady Isabella, meanwhile, had remarried. Her new husband, John Scachelok, brought legal action against her own daughters to claim a third of the estate as his wife’s dower rights. He succeeded. Now, the daughters’ property was legally controlled by their new husbands, who soon fell into bitter disputes over how to divide the estate.
By 1385, twelve years after Sir Simon’s death, the quarrels remained unresolved. Tensions reached their breaking point the following year.
On Sunday, 29 January 1386, Laurence de Frodeley and four accomplices entered the church of St Magdalene in Handsacre and murdered Roger Colmon. The act was a flagrant violation of both the law and the sanctity of the church. Frodeley was declared an outlaw, but for the next ten years, he somehow managed to evade justice.
In the years that followed, the estate continued to fracture. The manor of Charlton in Worcestershire passed to the Dynley family, while Elizabeth’s second husband, Peter Melburn, claimed her portion of the inheritance. When Elizabeth died in 1397, Laurence de Frodeley returned to the legal fray.
He successfully secured a royal pardon the following year and, at long last, inherited his portion of the estate. Despite his earlier crimes, Laurence de Frodeley had emerged as Lord of the Manor of Handsacre.
This tangled saga of the Handsacre inheritance reveals the raw power struggles that often accompanied noble deaths in medieval England. With no male heir to safeguard the family’s legacy, the fate of Sir Simon’s estate was left to a chaotic contest of lawsuits, kidnappings, forced marriages—and even murder.
It was, truly, the end of the Handsacre line—but not the end of their story.
The Skirmish by the Trent
Although the legend was invented by Charles Chadwick in the 1790s, it has become firmly embedded in local tradition and is often repeated as historical fact.
According to the tale:
Sir Robert Mavesyn, a loyal supporter of King Henry IV, was travelling to join the royal forces at the Battle of Shrewsbury when he encountered Sir William Handsacre, who was on his way to support the rebel army led by Henry “Harry Hotspur” Percy of Northumberland. A skirmish took place on the banks of the River Trent, during which Mavesyn killed Handsacre. Mavesyn himself was later killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403.
In a romantic twist, the saga claims that the forbidden love between Handsacre’s son, William, and Mavesyn’s daughter, Margaret—long opposed by both fathers—was finally allowed to flourish following the deaths of their parents. Their union supposedly ended the bitter feud between the two families.
As the romance gained popularity, it was further embellished. The location of the skirmish was said to be a specific field beside the Trent, marked by two great oak trees known as Gog and Magog. These trees became local landmarks and even featured on early 20th-century postcards. The legend’s hold on local imagination was such that it inspired a play entitled The Two Houses: A Staffordshire Tragedy.
However, historical records give a different account. Sir Simon Handsacre, the last male of the direct Handsacre line, died around 1376—almost thirty years before the Battle of Shrewsbury. His daughter, Isabella, married Laurence de Frodeley, who never adopted the Handsacre name. Laurence was killed in 1399 during a dispute over a mill, reportedly by men acting for the Mavesyn family—five years before the supposed skirmish.
Laurence and Isabella’s son, William, later adopted the name de Handsacre and had a son, also named William, who did indeed marry Margaret Mavesyn, daughter of Sir Robert, around 1410. However, this marriage did not bring about peace between the families. Inheritance disputes followed and remained unresolved until 1452—nearly half a century after the Battle of Shrewsbury.
The tale of the skirmish by the Trent, while rooted in fiction, continues to resonate as a piece of local folklore—an enduring blend of romance, rivalry, and historical imagination.
“We Happy Few”: William de Handsacre and the Road to Agincourt
When Henry V landed in Normandy in August 1415 with over 2,000 men-at-arms and 9,000 archers, and among the nobles in Henry’s army was Sir Edmund Ferrers of Chartley. Sir Edmund had been embroiled in a violent dispute with his neighbour, Erdeswicke, which was only resolved by royal intervention. Accompanying the King to France formed part of his penance.
In his retinue were several men-at-arms – including William de Handsacre, (son of Laurence and Isabella) – and a number of archers. For much of the campaign, they likely fought on foot as dismounted men-at-arms, a common tactic during sieges and muddy terrain. The initial siege of Harfleur lasted longer than anticipated, with the army suffering heavy losses from disease, desertion, and dysentery—then known as the ‘Bloody Flux’. Nobles and common soldiers alike were struck down, and many were allowed to return home once the siege ended.
Despite this, Henry pressed on. Rather than sail to Calais, he chose to march his weakened army overland through hostile French territory. By then, Sir Edmund’s retinue was reduced to just William de Handsacre, four other men-at-arms, and nine archers. The English force numbered only about 6,000; the French army opposing them was three to five times larger. After a long detour to cross the River Somme, the two forces met near the village of Agincourt. The English had marched nearly 200 miles without sufficient food or shelter.
On St Crispin’s Day, (25th October), Henry positioned his army on a freshly ploughed, muddy field flanked by woods. In the centre stood 900 men-at-arms, clad in plate and mail – including William de Handsacre – arrayed four deep, shoulder to shoulder. On the flanks, English longbowmen drove sharpened wooden stakes into the ground to repel cavalry.
As French knights charged into the narrow front, they were met by a storm of arrows before reaching the English line. The churned mud, tight formation, and relentless archery led to a decisive and astonishing English victory in under three hours.
Henry V may never have uttered the famous words “We happy few, we band of brothers” – a line penned by Shakespeare nearly two centuries later – but whatever he did say before battle was heard, and remembered, by William de Handsacre.
Though William survived Agincourt, his legacy in Handsacre was short-lived. He had two daughters but no sons, and the family name disappeared from the village in subsequent generations. Over the next several centuries, the parish’s centre of gravity shifted steadily toward Armitage, as Handsacre declined in prominence.