Gilbert Denys

Sir Gilbert Denys (c. 1350–1422) of Siston, Gloucestershire, was a soldier, and later an administrator. He was knighted by January 1385, and was twice knight of the shire for Gloucestershire constituency, in 1390 and 1395 and served as Sheriff of Gloucestershire 1393-4. He founded the family which provided more Sheriffs of Gloucestershire than any other.

Gilbert Denys was probably born in about 1350 in Glamorgan, South Wales, probably the son of John Denys of Waterton, in the lordship of Coity. The latter is referred to as Johan Denys de Watirton in a charter of 1379 being leased land by Margam Abbey at Bonvilston during the wardship of John Norreis, son and heir of John Norreis of Lachecastel. In 1415 Sir Gilbert Denys is recorded as renting land in Waterton from the late Lord of Coity, Sir Roger Berkerolles. The Denys family are recorded in ancient Glamorgan charters, the earliest mention being in 1258, when Willelmo le Denys witnessed a charter effecting an exchange by Gilbert de Turberville, Lord of Coity, of lands in Newcastle, Glamorgan, with Margam Abbey. The Glamorgan antiquarian Clark (d.1898), supported by the Denys pedigree in the "Golden Grove Book" believed this William Denys to have originated in Gloucestershire and to have married a Turberville.

In about 1379 Denys obtained the hand in marriage of a Gloucestershire heiress, Margaret Corbet, and became thereby a man of wealth and influence. Margaret had been born a triplet in about 1352, and both her brothers had died young in succession, leaving her the sole heir of the large Corbet landholdings in Gloucestershire and elsewhere. John the eldest had died in 1370 and William in 1377. Their father William, husband of Emma Oddingseles, had died while his children were young, predeceasing his own father, Sir Peter Corbet(d.1362). The manors held by Sir Peter Corbet on his death in 1362, which descended to his grandchildren in succession, John, William and Margaret were as follows: Hope-juxta-Caus, Shropshire, a remnant manor from the great Corbet honour, or virtually autonomous lordship established under William I at Caus Castle. Lawrenny in Pembrokeshire, (held from the Carew family) remnant of the family's large Welsh holdings, most of which had been earlier settled on Corbet male lines. The Corbet lands in Gloucestershire were as follows: Siston, held from the Bishops of Bath and Wells, and Alveston and Earthcott Green, both held in chief from the King. The possession of these tenancies-in-chief meant that should they ever descend into the hands of a female heiress, the King could repossess them and install his own favoured tenant who would thenceforth owe royal knight service and would be obliged to become a local administrator of the royal government. Margaret had been married off to a Pembrokeshire man, William Wyriott of Orielton, probably with the intention of consolidating Lawrenny with the Wyriott lands. Yet in 1379, only two years after her brother William's death aged 25, her husband William Wyriott died also, leaving Margaret as a female tenant-in-chief, a very precarious position for her. She could only remarry by royal licence, effectively giving the King the right of veto over her free choice or she could relinquish her family manors to live with a husband of her choice, probably in relative poverty and social obscurity. Within a short time after Wyriott's death, Margaret had accepted Gilbert Denys as her husband. The two were contemporaries, and the marriage proved on a personal level to be successful, as Denys asked in his will to be buried next to Margaret. The marriage, like most of the period, is unlikely to have been the result of a romance but rather arranged by some powerful figure at Court who wished to see Denys rise in the world. Insufficient evidence exists to identify who this patron of Denys might have been, but pure speculation might suggest John of Gaunt.

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