Gilbert Basset

Gilbert Basset
Baron of Wycombe
Predecessor	Alan Basset
Successor	Fulk
Spouse(s)	Isabel
Issue Gilbert
Father	Alan Basset
Died	1241

Gilbert Basset (died 1241) was an English baronial leader during the reign of King Henry III.

Basset was the eldest son of Alan Basset, baron of Wycombe. About 1231 he appears to have negotiated a truce with Llewellyn of Wales on behalf of Henry III. Alan Basset appears to have died in 1232, and Gilbert succeeded him in his barony. According to Dugdale, he was made governor of St Briavels Castle and the Forest of Dean. He married Isabel, daughter of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and niece to the William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke—a fact which helps to explain his intimate relations with the Earls Marshal.

Gilbert Basset seems at once to have joined the popular party, then headed by Richard, Earl Marshal. When the barons were summoned to Oxford in June 1233 and refused to meet with the king's Poitevin relatives, he took a very prominent part in their councils; so much so that, according to Matthew Paris, Henry's wrath was specially kindled against him. For this conduct Basset forfeited a certain manor that he had received from King John; when he claimed it back from the king he was called a traitor, and threatened with hanging unless he left the court. At the same time Richard Suard, Gilbert's nephew by marriage, was seized by the king's orders and held captive—presumably as a hostage for his uncle's conduct.

When, on the advice of Stephen Segrave, Henry summoned Gilbert Basset and the confederated nobles to meet him at Gloucester in August 1233 and they refused to come, they were promptly outlawed, and orders were given for the destruction of the towns, castles, and parks belonging to them. In retaliation for this, Basset and Suard set fire to Stephen Segrave's villa of Alconbury, though the king himself was then staying at Huntingdon, some four miles distant.

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