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Falkes de Breaute

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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FALKES DE BREAUTE (d. 1226), one of the foreign mercenaries of King John of England, from whom he received in marriage the heiress of the earldom of Devon. On the outbreak of the Barons' War (1215) the king gave him the sheriffdoms of six midland shires and the custody of many castles. He fulfilled his military duties with as much skill as cruelty. The royalists owed to his daring the decisive victory of Lincoln (1217). But after the death of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, Falkes joined the feudal opposition in conspiring against Hubert de Burgh. Deprived in 1223 of most of his honours, he was drawn into a rebellion by the imprudence of his brother, who captured a royal justice and threw him into prison (1224). Falkes was allowed to go into exile after his submission, and endeavoured to obtain a pardon through the mediation of Pope Honorius III. But this was refused, and Falkes died at St Cyriac in 1226.

See Shirley, Royal Letters, vol. i.; the Patent and Close Rolls; Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. i. pp. 54 0 -545. (H. W. C. D.)