The De Folvilles
John De Folville, Lord of Ashby Folville had seven sons. After his death in 1310, his eldest son, John took over the estate. But his other six sons formed a notorious medieval gang that terrorized Leicestershire throughout the 1320s and 1330s.
The first of their crimes occurred on 29 January 1326, when a Master Roger Bellers was found murdered. His death was laid squarely at the door of “one Eustace de Folville and his brothers”.
Bellers was a greedy fellow, guilty of persecuting and threatening the De Folvilles, as well as many of his other neighbors. So this initial murder may have been tolerated if not secretly well received by locals and very much reminiscent of the just causes of Robin Hood. But it outlawed the De Folvilles.
However, in 1329, the King pardoned them – on the condition that they fought for him. This reconciliation with authority did not last. While part of the garrison of Leicester, the gang robbed the town burgesses. In 1330, the pardon was revoked.
The de Folvilles made such a nuisance of themselves that in 1331, the King’s justice Richard de Willoughby was sent to deal with them. Richard de Folville, “a wild and daring man and prone to acts of violence”, who was also the Rector of Teigh, kidnapped Willoughby and only released him after he paid his kidnappers 90 marks and swore an oath to “comply with their instructions” -which was presumably to protect them from outlawry.
Eustace de Folville, the eldest of the gang, managed to elude justice, dying a natural death in 1347 having served the King in the Hundred Years War. However, justice caught up with Richard de Folville when, in 1340, the ruthless rector and two of the gang were run to ground in Richard’s own church. A stand off occurred. Father De Folville killing one man with his bow before he was eventually dragged from the church and beheaded.
Because he was a priest, Richard’s death was deemed unlawful. So his killers had to do penance by praying for forgiveness outside all the neighboring churches before being publicly beaten with a rod!