Hugh de Morville, Lord of Westmoreland

Sir Hugh de Morville (died c. 1202) was an Anglo-Norman knight who served King Henry II of England in the late 12th century. He is chiefly famous as one of the assassins of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170. He held the title Lord of Westmorland, which he inherited from his father, Hugh de Morville, Lord of Cunningham and Lauderdale.

Hugh is thought to have been his father's eldest son. He appears in the service of King Henry from 1158. University of Edinburgh historian Geoffrey W. S. Barrow identifies two charters given by the younger Hugh in his capacity as Lord of Westmorland, one being read aloud to his court at his castle of Appleby on the upper River Eden. One of the witnesses was Harvard de Malnurs, Constable of Knaresborough Castle. This rare surname may refer to a hamlet in Maine now called La Malnoyere at La Rouaudière. Reginald de Beauchamp, who witnessed both charters, may be a relative of Hugh's mother Beatrice de Beauchamp.

Another mentioned, Peter de Lacelas, appears to be a kinsman of Gerard de Lacelles and his son Alan, who were firmly established as tenants of the de Morvilles in Westmorland. Alan de Lascelles was captured with his lord at the siege of Alnwick Castle in July 1174. Lascelles has a Beauchamp rather than a Morville association, for Loucelles, whence the name was derived, is one of a small group of parishes between Bayeux and Caen from which the Beauchamps of Bedford drew their vassals of knightly rank.

Hugh de Morville and three other of King Henry II's knights, Reginald Fitzurse, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton (or de Brito), plotted Thomas Becket's murder after interpreting the king's angry words (supposedly "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?") as a command. They assassinated the archbishop in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 and after Henry advised them to flee to Scotland they subsequently took refuge in de Morville's Knaresborough Castle.

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