| Notes |
- Almost certainly a member of the family of Nigel de Aubigny.
Albany : from Aubigny, near Periers, in the Cotentin ; now divided into the two parishes of St. Martin and St. Christophe d'Aubigny. Nigel de Aubigny or de Albini destined to be the founder of one of the most illustrious houses in England is the only one of this name entered in Domesday. He held a great barony in the counties of Buckingham, Leicester, Bedford, and Warwick ; and belonged to a family that had been attached to the household of the Conqueror's father, Duke Robert. He was the grandson of William d'Aubigny, who had
married a sister of the traitor Grimault du Plessis; and the son of Roger Pincerna, by his wife, Amicia de Moubrai. Nigel was the youngest of their children ; and early involved in the rebellion of the Norman barons against their Duke, through his brother William, who was actively engaged in it. Both were forced to take refuge in Brittany, and William never obtained his pardon ; but Nigel's brilliant valour in the Angevin war regained him the Duke's favour, and he rose high in his good graces. Wace speaks of him as " Boteiller d'Aubigny,"
but in reality this title never belonged to him. He was Bow-bearer to William Rufus, and unshaken in his allegiance to him and his successor. It was Henry I. who first "girt him with the sword of knighthood ; and he spared riot to adventure his life in his quarrel in the most perilous encounters." No better or braver soldier was to be found in the kingdom : none more renowned for his feats of arms. At the battle of Tinchebrai he encountered Robert Curthose, hand to hand, slew his horse, and brought him prisoner to the King. For this service
he received the forfeited estates of Robert Front-de-Boeuf : and it is computed that he then held one hundred and twenty manors in England, and as many more in Normandy,* including the great domain once Earl Mowbray's that had come to him with his wife. Her hand, according to Dugdale, was the guerdon he received for taking by assault a castle that Henry was then besieging in Normandy, and which he was the first to enter, and deliver into the King's
Nigel de Albini reached a very great age, and died in 1138, having lived under four different Kings of England. In his last days he became a monk of Bee, the Abbey where his ancestors had been buried, and he himself was laid to rest.
|
Bassett Family Association Database
- 1254