Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Loryng, Nigel
LORYNG, Sir NIGEL or NELE (d. 1386), soldier, was son of Roger Loryng of Chalgrave, Bedfordshire, by Cassandra, daughter of Reginald Perot. He apparently entered the royal service at an early age. On 6 Oct. 1335 he was granted a pension of 5l., and had further grants from the king on 24 Sept. 1338 and in 1339 (Pat. Roll, 9, 12, and 13 Edw. III, ap. Ashmole). He fought with distinction at the battle of Sluys on 24 June 1340 (Froissart, ii. 223), and was rewarded with the honour of knighthood and a pension of 20l. yearly. In 1342 he served in Brittany under Sir Walter de Manny [q. v.], and when the order of the Garter was instituted on 23 April 1344 Loryng was one of the original knights, occupying the tenth stall on the prince's side. On 23 Feb. 1345 he went with Michael Northburgh [q. v.] on a mission to the pope to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with a daughter of the Duke of Brabant (Fœdera, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 32). Later in this and in the following year he served under Henry, earl of Derby, in Aquitaine. On 16 Dec. 1350 he was one of the commissioners appointed to treat concerning the payments due to the king for the government of the Low Countries (ib. p. 212). In 1353 he accompanied the Prince of Wales to Aquitaine, and a few years later became his chamberlain. He served in the campaign of Poitiers in 1356, and distinguished himself in the skirmish before Romorantin on 29 Aug. After the battle on 19 Sept. he was sent home to England with the news of the victory (Baker, p. 155, ed. Thompson). In November 1359 Loryng accompanied the king on his expedition into France, which was followed by the treaty of Bretigny on 25 May 1360. He was one of the guardians of the truce on 7 May, and on 20 Aug. was one of the commissioners appointed to redress the violations of it (Fœdera, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 507).
In 1364 Loryng went out to Aquitaine in the train of the Prince of Wales. He was one of the four knights whom the prince sent to England in 1366 to obtain the king's opinion on the Spanish expedition, but returned to France in time to join the army at the beginning of the following year. At the battle of Najara on 3 April he fought in the prince's division. Loryng was one of the knights whom the prince despatched at the end of June from Valladolid to Seville in order to urge Dom Pedro to send the assistance he had promised. In 1369 he served under Sir Robert Knolles [q. v.] in his expedition into the Agenois, at the siege of Domme, and in the following year, under John Hastings, second earl of Pembroke [q. v.], in Poitou.
Loryng subsequently returned to England, and resided on his ancestral estate at Chalgrave, where, in 1365, he had obtained leave to enclose a park. He died on 18 March 1385–6, and was buried in Dunstable Priory Church, of which he was a benefactor. Loryng also founded a chantry in Chalgrave Church, and contributed to building the cloister at St. Albans. There is a miniature representing him in his robes as a knight of the Garter in Cotton. MS. Nero D. vii. f. 105 b; this is engraved in Strutt's ‘Dresses,’ vol. ii. plate cviii., and in Beltz's ‘Memorials of the Garter,’ p. 68. Loryng married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Ralph Beauple of Cnubeston, Devonshire, by whom he had two daughters. Isabel, the elder, married, first, William Coggan, and, secondly, Robert, lord Haryngton, and her tomb still exists in Porlock Church, Somerset. Margaret, Loryng's younger daughter, married Thomas Peyvre of Toddington, Bedfordshire. Through the former Loryng was an ancestor of the late Duke of Buckingham, and through the latter of the late Duke of Cleveland and the Earl of Sandwich. An alleged cousin and namesake of Loryng is introduced in Mr. A. Conan Doyle's novel ‘The White Company’ (1891).
[Froissart's Chronicles, ed. Luce for Soc. Hist. de la France; Fœdera, Record ed.; Ashmole's Order of the Garter, pp. 700–1; Beltz's Memorials of the Order of the Garter, pp. 65–9.]