De Lucy Family
King William the Conqueror granted the holding to his half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. The under-tenant was Fulbert de Lucy, who retained possession after Odo fell foul of the King. Fulbert, as part of his feudal duty, built a keep at Chilham (probably of wood) and provided some of the garrison at Dover Castle, where he built the Chilham Tower. Fulbert’s family adopted the name de Dover (being more important than Chilham).
In the 1170s, Fulbert, son of John de Dover, built the stone keep and fortifications, employing Ralph, master-mason to Henry II. Three decades later, Fulbert died, but as his heiress Roese was too young to marry, the castle reverted to the Crown under King John, who granted it in quick succession to Fulk (Foulke) de Bréant and then (after his acquittal for treason) to Thomas Peverell.
Meanwhile, Fulbert’s orphaned heiress Roese (1207–65), great-great-granddaughter of the first Fulbert, a ward of the Crown, was married to King John’s son, Richard fitzJohn (c1186–c1248), who thereupon was granted the Barony of Chilham and his wife’s family name of Dover.
In 1216, the castle was occupied briefly by the Dauphin, heir to the French throne. Having captured Canterbury, he was on his way to London to claim the English throne, which had been offered to him by rebellious barons. He was forestalled by the death of King John. The barons changed their minds and, favouring John’s infant son Henry, sent the foreign prince back home.
The authorities differ over what happened next. Some say that after Richard fitzJohn died, Roese was married again to another Richard, who adopted successively the names de Dover and then de Chilham. Others say that Richard de Dover and Richard de Chilham were two people – Roese’s son and grandson. All agree that the next in line was Isabel de Chilham. Brought up in the King’s Court, she was married to David de Strathbolgi, Earl of Atholl (c1240–70), a Scottish aristocrat and a leading ally of England in the Scottish Wars.
In 1270, Isabel, now châtelaine of Chilham, having lost father and husband in that same year, was married to an even more powerful Scot, Alexander de Baliol, Lord of Cavers, Grand Constable of Scotland under Edward I of England and cousin to John Baliol, Scotland’s puppet king. In 1280, a document known as the Kirkby Inquest gives the earliest written mention of the famous heronry at Chilham Castle.
After Alexander’s death, the castle reverted to Isabel’s child, John de Strathbolgi, 9th Earl of Atholl. A contemporary of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, Earl John played a major part in the Scottish Wars of Independence but, unlike his father, he fought against England.
Since he held lands in England and had sworn allegiance to King Edward I of England as Lord Paramount of Scotland, Earl John was regarded in England as a traitor. Captured at the castle of Kildrummy in Scotland, he was brought back to his Kentish territories for execution. To the pleadings of the Queen and English nobles for mercy for this high-born prisoner, the response of King Edward was to promise that, ‘his only privilege shall be to hang on a higher gallows than the rest, as his treasons have been more flagrant and numerous’. So at Canterbury, in 1307, where his mother Isabel lay buried in the cathedral, Earl John was hanged, drawn and quartered. His severed head was taken for display upon a pole at London Bridge, beside that of William Wallace.
Chilham reverted once again to the Crown, but within months, King Edward I followed Earl John to the grave. In 1312, his successor King Edward II granted Chilham with several additional holdings to a famous man of Kent and a sworn enemy of the Scots, Bartholomew ‘the rich Lord de Badlesmere’.
When Badlesmere’s lands were forfeited, as described below, possession of Chilham was restored briefly to the line of de Lucy in 1322, when King Edward II passed Chilham back to David de Strathbolgi, 10th Earl of Atholl, the son of the 9th Earl, son of John, the unhappy 9th Earl, mentioned above. David too fell victim to Scotland’s uncertain loyalties. Because his father-in-law, Red John de Comyn, had been murdered by Robert the Bruce, Earl David allied himself with the English. Doubtless the lordship of Chilham was his reward. Four years later, in 1326, he was killed on the field of battle. Chilham’s longest connection with one family, which had lasted over two centuries, stretching back to the Conquest, had finally come to an end.