Sir William Martin 1st Baron of Combe Martin

  General Notes:

~Weis' Ancestral Roots. . ., 71:33, 122:32. ¹⁶⁰

~The Plantagenet Ancestry,William Henry Turton, 1968, pg. 119 ⁴⁵⁰

~Baronia Anglica concentrata, Vol. I, p. 101 ⁸¹⁴

  Noted events in his life were:

• Dates & Events. ¹⁴¹
William Martin, grandson and heir being son and heir of Nicholas son of Nicholas, by Maud de Briene. He was aged 25 in 1282, and received livery of his inheritance 1 Apr 1282, having done homage. He was about the same time charged to have no dealings with the Welsh rebels, and in this and subsequent years was frequently summoned to do military service against the Welsh, being ordered to dwell continually in the Welsh marches. He was summoned for service also against the Scots, and for service overseas in Gascony.

In 1283 he was summoned to the assembly at Shrewsbury. He was summoned to Parliament from 24 Jun 1295 to 24 Sep 1324, by writs directed Willelmo Martyn, whereby he is held to have become Lord Martin, and was present in Parliament as a Trier of Petitions in 1320. In 1293, the King gave him a charter for a fair at Marwood, and free warren at Dartington and Combe Martin in Devon, and West Lydford in Somerset. Troops were to be raised in Kemeys in 1294. He was serving in Gascony 1295-97.

In September 1297, while staying at Ghent on the King's service, he made an agreement with John de Hastinges, lord of Abergavenny. According to this agreement, William, son and heir of John de Hastinges, was to marry Eleanor, elder daughter of William Martin, and Edmund, son and heir of William Martin, to marry Jonette or Joan, elder daughter of John de Hastinges. This was confirmed by the King on 3 Nov 1297, on which date William Martin also had licence to demise £100 worth of land to whomsoever he wished of the King's allegiance. On 10 April 1298 he was granted custodies and marriages to the value of £510, whenever they should fall in, in recompense for his losses in a storm at sea while coming with the King from Flanders.

In February 1300/1, as Dominus de Camesio, William Martin joined in the Barons' letter to the Pope. In June of the same year, orders were issued for the payment of the wages of the foot soldiers that he and others were bringing to Carlisle. In that same and later years he was a commissioner of oyer and terminer in Devon, &c. In 1304, he was one of the commissioners to treat with the Scots. In 1305, the King gave him custody of the lands of the heirs of Henry de la Pomeroy and their marriages. In the same year he was appointed a justice of Trailbaston. In December 1307 he was one of the keepers of the peace in Devon during the King's absence beyond seas. He was summoned to attend the Coronation of Edward II on 25 Feb 1307/8, and was present on 9 February when the great seal was delivered to the Chancellor.

In September 1308, after the death of Geoffrey Canville, Lord Canville, he succeeded to the inheritance of his mother, Maud de Brian. In addition to summonses to Parliament, he was summoned to Councils in 1309 and in May 1324. In 1309 and 1310, he was required to raise 200 foot soldiers in his lordships of Kemeys and, Dyfid. In 1309, he joined in the Barons' letter to the Pope on abuses. In 1310, he was chosen as one of the fifteen ordainers to draw up ordinances for the reform of the kingdom. He was conservator of the peace for Devon in 1314. On 19 Febr 1314/5, he was appointed justice of West and South Wales and keeper of the castle of Carmarthen and other of the King's castles there, which office he held till 24 Jun 1316.

In 1317, William was one of those appointed to check any illegal confederacies in Devon, and in 1318 he was made a member of the standing royal council. In November 1318, the sheriff of Devon was ordered to hire two ships, at Martin's expense, to convey victuals and other necessaries to him and his men, who were going to serve the King in the Marches of Scotland. Hugh de Courtenay and William Martin were, November 1321, ordered to attack any who might rise against the King in Cornwall and Devon, assembling all horse and foot there. At the same time he was one of the conservators of the peace in Gower, and was ordered to abstain from the meeting of the "Good Peers" at Doncaster, which had been convened by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster. In the following February, he was ordered to lead his forces to Coventry to resist the Earl of Lancaster.

William married, before January 1281/2, Eleanor, widow of Sir John de Mohun, and daughter of Sir Reynold Fitz Piers. He died before 8 October 1324, when the writ to the escheator was issued.

~Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, (Martin) Vol. VIII, p. 535-537

William married Eleanor Fitz Reginald, daughter of Sir Reginald Fitz Piers Lord of Brecknock and Alice de Stanford, before 1 Jan 1281-1282 in Barnstaple, Devon, England.⁸²¹ (Eleanor Fitz Reginald was born about 1252 in Blaen Llyfni, Brecknockshire, Wales and died before 8 Oct 1324.)