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  "description": "The Folville brothers caused havoc and mayhem in Leicestershire for over a decade",
  "path": "/meet-the-notorious-14th-century-folville-family/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-05T04:00:59.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.leicester.news",
  "tags": [
    "__Click here for membership__",
    "_Edward II_",
    "__Click here for membership__",
    "_E.L.G. Stones_",
    "_“as if they had been cattle or oxen”_",
    "_Piers Plowman_",
    "__Click here for membership__"
  ],
  "textContent": "This story was published by ****the Leicester Gazette**** : a local, independent newspaper about Leicestershire. 1,000 people have already joined our mailing list. Just use that button below to ****sign up for free.****\n\n__No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Want to support our work?____Click here for membership__ __.__\n\nSubscribe for free\n\nThe murder of an unpopular Leicestershire nobleman 700 years ago caused a sensation which stretched far beyond the county’s borders. It also proved to be the catalyst for a serious crime wave involving several members of the same family. The Folville brothers caused havoc and mayhem in the county for over a decade, but were they local folk heroes standing up for the rights of the poor or merely violent criminals who stole and murdered to achieve their own ends?\n\nThe early 14th century reign of _Edward II_ was marred by political and civil unrest. The monarch’s reliance on close personal advisors, such as Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser, brought him into conflict with the country’s leading landowners. It also resulted in the collapse of his marriage to his wife, Isabella, who took revenge by siding with one of Edward’s most powerful opponents, Roger Mortimer.\n\nLife probably proved challenging for large sections of Leicestershire society during this period, not helped by the fact that one of the era’s most divisive characters, Sir Roger de Beler, owned lands in north Leicestershire, near Melton Mowbray.\n\nDe Beler had originally sided with one of the King’s rivals, the Earl of Lancaster, before switching allegiance to royal favourite, Hugh Despenser, when external factors made it politically expedient for him to do so. De Beler’s reward was to be appointed as a Baron of the Exchequer, an important judicial role which he used to further both Despenser’s and his own financial interests in Leicestershire and elsewhere.\n\nThis inevitably led de Beler into bitter conflict with other local landowners including the Folville family, whose estate of Ashby Folville was only about six miles from his own in Kirby Bellars. As the firstborn son, John Folville had inherited the entire estate in the early 1300s. This left six younger brothers with little choice other than to find their own way in the world or rely on him for financial support.\n\nIn mid-January 1326, de Beler had just set out from home on horseback to have dinner with an associate in Leicester when he was ambushed by a large gang of men and stabbed to death. The murder of such an important man prompted a thorough investigation and records from the time reveal that warrants were subsequently issued for the arrest of more than a dozen suspects.\n\nFour of the Folville brothers were named as suspects including the second and fourth eldest, Eustace and Richard. The latter’s inclusion on a list of potential murder suspects may appear surprising, bearing in mind his role as rector of the small country parish of Teigh. During the medieval period, however, the decision to join the priesthood was sometimes taken for financial rather than spiritual reasons and, in this case, Richard had been given the post by his brother, John.\n\nIn a history of Edward II’s reign written half a century or so later, Henry Knighton described Eustace Folville unequivocally as the man “who slew… Beler”. Insufficient documentary evidence survives today to know what exactly happened that night and, indeed, there may have never been sufficient proof to state with any certainty who struck the final blow. However, it is interesting that a respected Leicester clergyman like Knighton, who was the canon of St. Mary’s Abbey, apportioned the blame to Folville, as this reveals a lot about the family’s subsequent reputation within the local community.\n\nWith the king’s men in hot pursuit, the Folville brothers escaped justice by fleeing to France. Mortimer and Queen Isabella happened to be on the French mainland at the same time on an official diplomatic mission. They were also already plotting to overthrow Edward II and when their invasion force set sail for England later that same year, the enterprising Folvilles were on board. The coup proved successful and, as a reward for their efforts, the Leicestershire brothers received official pardons for their part in de Beler’s murder.\n\n## Be part of the story\n\nJoin our free mailing list to get local news and tips in your inbox every week.\n\nSubscribe for free\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\n__No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Want to support our work?____Click here for membership__ __.__\n\nIn early 1327, the luckless king’s 14-year-old son, Edward, succeeded to the throne but Mortimer remained in control behind the scenes. This change of regime did little to halt the lawlessness and violence that blighted English society during this era. It did, however, offer a golden opportunity for men who had backed Mortimer, like the younger Folville brothers, to line their own pockets.\n\nA former professor of Medieval History, _E.L.G. Stones_, produced a fascinating research paper regarding the activities of the Folville family, uncovering references in court records to at least three murders, a rape and three robberies committed by Eustace Folville in the period from 1327 to 1330 alone. This includes one particularly infamous incident, in 1629, when he, along with three of his brothers, made an audacious raid on Leicester itself, stealing around £200 worth of goods from its citizens (equivalent to at least £150,000 today). Yet, they were never brought to justice and apparently remained above the law because of their connections to those in power.\n\nThe Folvilles’ benefactor, Roger Mortimer, did finally fall out of favour upon Edward III’s coming-of-age and was executed in late 1330. Even this, though, proved to have little impact on the Leicestershire gang’s activities.\n\nIn January 1332, they were involved in the audacious kidnap of a high-ranking local judge, Sir Richard Willoughby, as he travelled on the road from Melton Mowbray to Grantham. To avoid detection, the kidnappers took Willoughby into Lincolnshire where they moved him from wood to wood until he was eventually released upon a huge ransom payment of 1300 marks.\n\nWilloughby was well favoured in royal circles and was later appointed to the important post of chief justice of the King’s Bench. Like de Beler before him, though, Willoughby proved a controversial figure with a reputation for using his influential position as a way of lining his own pockets. He would eventually be dismissed from his role as chief justice for reportedly selling the laws of the land _“as if they had been cattle or oxen”_.\n\nHalf a century or so later, William Langland wrote his epic poem,___Piers Plowman_, in protest at the inequality and corruption then widespread in English society. This work is notable for containing the first reference in print to Robin Hood, but the author also alludes to the Leicestershire brothers in a phrase which is roughly translated from the original Medieval English as “fetch it from false men with Folvilles Law”. This implies that, like Robin Hood, they too were operating their own form of justice (the so-called “Folvilles Law”) to better the lives of the poor by rightfully stealing from the corrupt rich (“false men”).\n\nThe Folville gang’s supporters were wont to justify their actions as recompense for the unfair treatment they and others had received at the hands of men like de Beler and Willoughby. It is difficult, though, to square this idealised image of the Folvilles with the extreme violence they habitually employed to achieve their aims, nor their apparent willingness to act as criminals for hire. In 1331, for instance, the brothers are known to have been paid the then significant sum of £20 by two clerics to vandalise a watermill belonging to a rival monastery.\n\nAs had happened with the murder of de Beler six years earlier, the Willoughby case attracted interest at the highest level because of his connections to the royal court. The Coterel brothers, who ran their own crime syndicate in neighbouring Derbyshire, were discovered to have aided the Folvilles in Willoughby’s kidnap but all the main perpetrators once again evaded justice.\n\nThe incident did, however, prompt a parliamentary debate regarding a crackdown on the activities of these rogue gangs of disaffected members of the ruling classes. Suggested reforms to the legal system had, however, been barely set in motion before the government’s attention was diverted by England’s ongoing wars with Scotland and France.\n\nThe Folville brothers used the youthful king’s appetite for military action to their own advantage on more than one occasion by signing up for his army. This enabled them to obtain a royal pardon when it appeared that they might otherwise finally face justice for their various misdemeanours. For that reason, Eustace Folville joined the king’s army in France towards the end of the 1330s.\n\nHis younger brother, Richard, may well have spent some time there too, but subsequently returned to England and, in 1340, a warrant was issued for his arrest. He had successfully used his position as a clergyman to protect himself over the years, but this time his luck deserted him. Despite taking sanctuary in his own church in Teigh, he was dragged out into the churchyard by a local keeper of the peace, named Sir Robert Colville, and beheaded on the spot. Richard was reportedly accompanied by several unnamed followers, some of whom suffered a similar bloody fate and may even have included one or more of his brothers. Eustace, however, continued to evade justice and eventually died from natural causes in 1346.\n\nAs illustrated by William Langland, the Folville brothers continued to be portrayed in some quarters as noble freedom fighters on a quest to seek justice for the oppressed of the society long after their deaths. Yet, it is always dangerous to glorify violence, not least because of the innocent victims who inevitably end up being caught in its crossfire. This remains as true of gang warfare in the modern era as it did in the turbulent world of 14th century England.\n\n****If you enjoyed this article and want more great local journalism, here’s how to get it.****\n\nWe publish investigations, news features and human interest stories that go beyond the headlines. Our journalism is fact-based and rigorous, and we prize good writing over clickbait and sensationalism.\n\nOur readers get all our stories directly in their inbox every Monday morning via our free weekly newsletter. ****Use that button below to sign up for free.****\n\n__No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Want to support our work?____Click here for membership__ __.__\n\nSubscribe for free",
  "title": "Meet the notorious 14th century Folville family",
  "updatedAt": "2026-02-05T04:00:59.000Z"
}