In common with many of our old titled names, Sir John de Willoughby its first possessor in this country was a Norman knight to whom the Conqueror gave the manor of Willoughby in Lincolnshire.[2] His descendant Sir William in the reign of Henry III. married Alice daughter and coheiress of John Bec or Beke of Eresby, summoned to Parliament as Baron Beke of Eresby 1295-6. He was succeeded by his son Robert, who inherited at the decease of his grand-uncle Anthony Beke, Bishop of Durham, the great possessions of that prelate, and 7 Edward II., was summoned to Parliament as Baron Willoughby de Eresby.
His great-grandson was Robert, fourth Lord Willoughby; he married first Alice daughter of Sir William Skipwith, and secondly Margaret daughter of William, Lord Zouch, who died in 1391.[3] His third son Sir Thomas by Alice Skipwith, married Elizabeth daughter of John de Nevill, Lord Nevill of Raby, and Elizabeth Latimer his second wife, only daughter of William, fourth Lord Latimer of the first creation, who died in 1388. Sir Thomas was succeeded by his son Sir John Willoughby, who married Joan Welby, described as an heiress, and their son was the Sir John Willoughby, who married Anne daughter of Sir Edmond Cheney, of Broke, Wilts; whose son was Sir Robert Willoughby, the first Lord Willoughby de Broke, and subject of our little memoir. There were three other sons, William of Turners-Piddle, Dorset, who died in 1512, and was buried at Bere-Regis; Thomas, who married Isabel Bedyke of Silton, Dorset, died 1523, and ordered his body to be buried in the church there; and Edward, Dean of Exeter Cathedral, and Canon of St. George's, Windsor, who died in 1508. Also two daughters, Cicely, Abbess of Wilton, who died in 1528, and Elizabeth, married to William Carrant, of Toomer in Henstridge, Somerset.
Thus far for the coming of the knight; our next care will be to trace, as far as means available enable us, his progress and actions during the eventful days in which he lived. The strife between the contending factions of the Red and White Roses, in his younger years was strongly predominant, and so thoroughly had the fierce rivalry for supreme power permeated society, that probably it was almost impossible to remain neutral, while men so blindly, yet withal so devotedly, risked their lives and fortunes in partizanship with the contending claimants of the divine right. To choose a side was an absolute necessity,—
"Under which king, Bezonian? speak or die!"
was the question of the hour, and had to be answered with all its contingent risk. In the west country the adherents of the Red Rose seemed to have the preponderance, the detestable craft and cruelty of Richard III. doubtless had its effect of estranging from sympathy with him, all except just those who were allied to his rule by the hollow tie of self-interest, and the usual glamour of adhering to the powers that be, no matter how arrived at or constituted, or what its actions were.
The first important social function we find Sir Robert Willoughby discharging, is that of Sheriff of Devon, 21 Edward IV., 1481, being the year preceding the one in which his friend Sir Giles Daubeney held the same office. And then, in harmony with the prevailing distracted state of public affairs we have described, we next observe him in active sympathy with the claims of the Red Rose, and consequent enlistment in the cause of the Earl of Richmond, in the company of a large number of west country gentlemen, the Marquis of Dorset (representative of Bonville), Giles Daubeney, the Courtenays, John Cheney, Walter Hungerford, and others, in their rising and march to Salisbury, in order to effect a junction with, and aid the movement in Wales of the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham, in 1483. But the extraordinary swollen state of the Severn—"an inundation so remarkable that for a hundred years afterward it was called the Great Water, or Buckingham's Water, said to have lasted ten days, and that men, women, and children were carried away in their beds by the violence of it"—placed a barrier between their forces from effecting a junction, leaving the unfortunate Stafford in Richard's power, who forthwith consigned him to the scaffold at Salisbury, and sent Sir Robert and his companions in speedy flight to the south coast, and thence 'beyond seas' over to Richmond in Brittany, thereby escaping a similar sanguinary fate, which would have been remorselessly meted out to them. For this defection his lands were seized, and Broke and Suthwyke were bestowed by Richard on his favourite Sir Richard Radcliffe.
Our clue as to his movements, for a short time, becomes one of surmise rather than of actual proof. At the dispersal of Buckingham's followers, Sir Robert and his attainted companions fled to Brittany, and he remained probably with them at Vannes or the neighbourhood, until the Earl of Richmond set out on his final expedition from Harfleur to Milford-Haven. This he doubtless accompanied, although no special mention is made of his name, nor as to his taking part in the engagement at Bosworth, where however he must have been present from circumstances that followed. Dugdale says "he was a successful sharer in the benefit of that great victory," another thing to that of sharing its danger.
A much more important event however, identifying the presence of Sir Robert at Bosworth, or immediately near, and shewing the confidence the victor placed in him, was Richmond despatching the knight, the day after the battle, and before Henry left Leicester, with a detachment of horse to the castle of Sheriff-Hutton in Yorkshire, to convoy the unfortunate Earl of Warwick (son of the Duke of Clarence and nephew of Edward IV.), then a prisoner there, to the still safer and more dangerous custody of the Tower of London, only to emerge eventually from thence to his death on the scaffold.
This mission is thus described by the old chronicler Hall. Henry in order
"to obsist the first likely mischiefe, sent before his departure from Leycestre Sir Robert Willoghby knight to the maner of Sheryhutton in the County of Yorke for Edward Plantagenet Erle of Warwike sonne and heire to George Duke of Clarence then beyng of the age of xv yeres, whom Kyng Richard had kept there as a prisoner durynge the tyme of his vsurped reigne. Sir Robert Willoghby accordynge to hys commission receaved of the conestable of the castle the Erle Edward, and him conueighed to London, where the youngelynge borne to perpetual calamitie was incontynent in the towre of London putt under safe and sure custody."