Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/223

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Mowbray
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Mowbray


fall of the ministry. In May he was moved into the Vengeance, one of the fleet under Lord Howe at the relief of Gibraltar and the rencounter off Cape Spartel in October. It was Moutray's solitary experience of a battle. In February 1783 (just before the peace) he was appointed, in place of Sir John Laforey [q. v.], resident commissioner of the navy at Antigua, a civil appointment held on half-pay and giving the holder no executive rank or authority. Notwithstanding this, on 29 Dec. 1784, Sir Richard Hughes [q. v.] directed Moutray to hoist a broad pennant in the absence of the flag and to exercise the functions of senior officer. Nelson, coming to Antigua shortly afterwards, refused to acknowledge Moutray's authority, which Moutray, on his part, did not insist on. The matter was referred to the admiralty, who replied that the appointment was abolished, and it was therefore unnecessary to lay down any rule (Nicolas, Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson, i. 118 et seq.; Laughton, Letters and Despatches of Lord Nelson, pp. 29-31). Moutray was accordingly recalled; he died at Bath a few months later, 22 Nov. 1785, and was buried in the Abbey Church (Gent. Mag. 1785, ii. 1008, 1788, i. 189). His wife, who appears to have been many years younger than himself, was with him at Antigua, where she won the affectionate friendship of Nelson and Collingwood, both young captains on the station. This friendship continued through Nelson's life, and after Trafalgar Collingwood sent her an account of Nelson's death (Nicolas, vii. 238). She had one son, James, a lieutenant in the navy, who died of fever at the siege of Calvi in 1794 (ib. i. 486).

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. vi. 331; commission and warrant books and other documents in the Public Eecord Office.]

MOWBRAY, JOHN (I) de, eighth Baron Mowbray (1286–1322), was great-grandson of William de Mowbray, fourth baron [q. v.], and son of Roger (III) de Mowbray, seventh baron (1266–1298). The latter in 1282 had entailed his lordships of Thirsk, Kirkby-Malzeard, Burton-in-Lonsdale, Hovingham, Melton Mowbray, and Epworth, with the whole Isle of Axholme, upon the heirs of his body, with remainder to Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and his heirs; he was summoned to the Shrewsbury 'parliament' of 1283 which condemned David of Wales, and to the parliaments of 1294-6, and died at Ghent in 1297 (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 126; Monast. Angl. vi. 320; Rep. on Dignity of a Peer, App. pp. 54, 65, 71, 76-7; cf. Grainge, Vale of Mowbray, pp. 360-3). He was buried at Fountains Abbey, where his effigy is still preserved. John's mother was Roysia, sister of Gilbert, earl of Gloucester and Clare, who is strangely identified by Dugdale with the Earl Gilbert who died in 1230 (Baronage, i. 209; cf. Monast. Angl. vi. 320). The inclusion of the Lacys in the Mowbray entail lends some probability to the conjecture that she was a daughter of Richard, earl of Gloucester (d. 1262), and Maud, aunt of Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln.

John de Mowbray, who was born on 2 Nov. 1286, was a boy of eleven at his father's death, and Edward immediately granted his ' marriage to William de Brewes (Braose or Brewose), lord of Bramber and Gower, who married him in 1298 at Swansea to Alicia (or Alina), the elder of his two daughters (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 126, 421; Calendarium Genealogicum, p. 555; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 358). With the uneasy inheritance of Gower went Bramber and other Sussex manors.

He was very early called upon to perform the duties of a northern baron in the Scottish wars. In June 1301 he received a summons to attend Edward, prince of Wales, to Carlisle (Rep. on Dignity of. a Peer, App. p. 138). Five years later he served throughout the last Scottish expedition of the old king, Edward I, who before starting gave him livery of his lands, though he was not yet of age, and dubbed him knight, with the Prince of Wales and some three hundred other young men of noble families, at Westminster on Whitsunday 22 May 1306 (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 126).

Returning after the king's death, Mowbray was summoned to Edward II's first parliament at Northampton in October 1307, and henceforward received a summons to all the parliaments of the reign down to that of July 1321 (Rep. on Dignity of a Peer, App. pp. 174, 308). After attending the king's coronation in the February following he was ordered to Scotland in August, a summons repeated every summer for the next three years (ib. pp. 177, 181, 192-3, 202, 207). In 1311 he came into possession of the lands of his grandmother, Maud, who had inherited the best part of the lands of her father, William de Beauchamp of Bedford, including Bedford Castle (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 126, 224).

In the first great crisis of the reign Mowbray was faithful to the king, possibly through jealousy of his neighbour, Henry de Percy, who had disputed his custody of the Forest of Galtres outside York (Cal. of Close Rolls, 1307–13, p. 514). As keeper of the county and city of York he was ordered on 31 July