William de Tracy - Battle Abbey Roll Genealogy

Battle Abbey Roll Genealogy

The Duchess of Cleveland in her work "The Battle Abbey Roll" gives the following account of the wider de Tracy family:

"De Tracy: from the castle and barony of Tracy, near Vire, arrondissement of Caen. "The Sire de Traci" is named in Wace's account of the Battle of Hastings. J. R. Planche stated: "The family does not appear to have been of much importance in England before the time of Stephen, who bestowed upon Henry de Tracy the Honour of Barnstaple in Devonshire; but the first of the name we hear of is Turgis or Turgisius de Tracy who, with William de la Ferte, was defeated and driven out of Maine by Fulk de Rechin, Count of Anjou, in 1073: and who was therefore in all probability the Sire de Traci in the army of Hastings." Henry de Traci is said to have been the only man in Devonshire who stood firm to Stephen against the Empress Maud. He was succeeded in his barony by his son, his grandson, and his great-grandson, but the latter, who died in 1273, left only a daughter, Eve, married to Guy de Brienne. William de Tracy, who became notorious as one of the murderers of Thomas a Becket (see Fitz Urse), had extensive estates in Devonshire and Gloucestershire, and was the second son of John de Sudeley and Grace de Traci, heiress of another William, believed to be a natural son of Henry I. He probably succeeded to his mother's inheritance, as he took her name, and is described by the monkish chroniclers as a brave soldier, but of parricidal wickedness. After the bloody tragedy at Canterbury, he and his three accomplices sought refuge at Knaresborough Castle, from whence they went to throw themselves at the feet of Pope Alexander III at Rome. He sentenced them to expiate their sin in the Holy Land, and they accordingly set out together on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Dean Stanley related the legend: "Tracy alone, it is said, was never able to accomplish his vow. The crime of having struck the first blow — primus percussor — was avenged by the winds of heaven, which always drove him back. According to one story, he never left England. According to another, and, as we shall see, more correct version, he reached the coast of Calabria, and was seized at Cosenza with a dreadful disorder, which caused him to tear the flesh from his bones with his own hands, calling, 'Mercy, St. Thomas!' and there he died miserably, after having made his confession to the bishop of the place. His fate was long remembered among his descendants in Gloucestershire, and gave rise to the distich that: 'The Tracys have always the wind in their faces'. Such is the legend". But William de Tracy certainly did not die in Calabria. There is evidence to show that he actually set out on his pilgrimage, and he probably got as far as Cosenza; for, in the charter by which, he grants Doccombe to the Chapter of Canterbury, as an oblation to make some amends for his crime, the first of the witnesses is described as Abbot of Euphemia. "There can be little doubt that this Abbey of St. Euphemia was the celebrated convent of that name in Calabria, not twenty miles from Cosenza, and about sixty miles north of the Straits of Messina. Thus it would seem most likely that he was detained by a severe illness at Cosenza, and believing himself to be on his deathbed, sought to make atonement to the Church by this deed of gift. It is plain that he must have lived to return home. Within four years of the murder he appears as Justiciary of Normandy; he was present at Falaise in 1174 when William, King of Scotland, did homage to Henry II, and in 1176 was succeeded in his office by the Bishop of Winchester. This is the last authentic notice of him. There exists, however, a generally received tradition that he retired to his estates in the West of England, where "he lived a private life when wind and weather turned against him", and according to the local history of his native county of Gloucester, reached the good old age of ninety. His residence was at Mortehoe, close to Woollacombe Bay, and the worthy folks of Devonshire aver that his tormented spirit may, even now, be heard moaning and lamenting on the Woollacombe sands, where it is doomed to wander restlessly to and fro, toiling to "make bundles of sand, and wisps of the same" for all time to come. They also believe that for a fortnight after the murder, he lay concealed in the Crookham Cavern, on the coast between Morthoe and Ilfracombe, and that his daughter, the only person entrusted with the secret, used to steal out thither at night to bring him food. He was, it is said, buried at Morthoe, where an effigy, by some believed to be his, remains in the church. But even in his grave he was not left in peace. "Morthoe," says Westcote, "is the place where for a time he rested at ease; untill some ill-affected persons seeking for treasure, but disappointed thereof, stole the leaden sheets he lay in, leaving him in danger to take cold." Woollacomb-Tracy, Bovey-Tracy, Nymet-Tracy, Newton Tracy, and Bradford-Tracy, still bear his name in Devonshire. His daughter (an only child,) married Sir Gervase Courtenay, and their son Oliver called himself De Tracy, as did all his descendants. They were prosperous country gentlemen, seated at Toddington in Gloucestershire, and constantly to be met with on the lists of Sheriffs and knights of the shire. Sir William Tracy, who died about 1530, was one of the earliest champions of the Reformation, and having declared in his will, "I bestow no part of my goods to that Intent, that any man shall say or do to help my Soul, for therein I trust only to the promises of Christ," the document was condemned in the Bishop of London's Court, and his body taken out of the grave and burned by the Chancellor of Worcester. From his eldest son, William, came the Irish Viscounts Tracy; and Richard, the second—whom he had endowed with the manor of Stanway, a part of the domain of Tewkesbury Abbey granted to him by the Crown—was the ancestor of five baronets of the name. The last died in 1677, and Stanway passed to Ferdinando, second son of the third Viscount Tracy, and through Ferdinando's granddaughter to the Earls of Wemyss. The elder line lasted for something less than another century and a quarter. Though Sir John Tracy of Toddington received in 1642 the title of Viscount Tracy of Rathcoole in Ireland, it does not appear that they were ever resident in that country, nor did they once intermarry with the Irish. The last and eighth Viscount left an only child, Henrietta, who on his death in 1797, inherited Toddington, and married her cousin, Charles Hanbury, who took her name and arms, and was created Baron Sudeley of Toddington in 1838. The family is now, however, extinct, and more than one claimant for the Viscountcy has laid his case before the House of Lords. Tracies, in the parish of Newington, bears the name of its owners "in very early times," whose coat of arms "had a near affinity to that of the Tracys of Gloucestershire."—Hasted's Kent.