Hugh Bigod (Justiciar)

Hugh Bigod (Justiciar)

Hugh Bigod (c. 1211 – 1266) was Justiciar of England from 1258 to 1260. He was a younger son of Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk.

In 1258 the Provisions of Oxford established a baronial government of which Hugh's elder brother Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk was a leading member, and Hugh was appointed Chief Justiciar. He also had wardship of the Tower of London, and, briefly, of Dover Castle. But at the end of 1260 or in early 1261 he resigned these offices, apparently due to dissatisfaction with the new government. Thus in 1263 he joined the royalists, and was present on that side at the Battle of Lewes.

In 1243 Hugh married Joan de Stuteville, and together they had at least eight children. Their eldest son Roger, subsequently became Earl of Norfolk. There is no contemporary evidence for the assertion, first recorded in the seventeenth century, that he had an earlier wife called Joanna Burnard (or Burnet or Burnell); if indeed a Hugh Bigod married Joanna, it probably was his father that did so.