Devorguilla DE GALLOWAY [8073] ⁷⁹⁴

   FamilySearch ID: LTY7-XD3.

  General Notes:

*NOTE: this is NOT Dervorguilla of Galloway who married Nicholas II de Stuteville, the sister of her father*

Dervorguilla of Galloway (c. 1210 \endash 28 January 1290) was a 'lady of substance' in 13th century Scotland, the wife from 1223 of John, 5th Baron de Balliol, and mother of John I, a future king of Scotland.
The name Dervorguilla or Devorgilla was a Latinisation of the Gaelic Dearbhfhorghaill (alternative spellings, Derborgaill or Dearbhorghil).

Family
Dervorguilla was one of the three daughters and heiresses of the Gaelic prince Alan, Lord of Galloway. She was born to Alan's second wife Margaret of Huntingdon, who was the eldest daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon and Matilda (or Maud) of Chester. David in turn was the youngest brother to two Kings of Scotland, Malcolm IV and William the Lion. Thus, through her mother, Dervorguilla was descended from the Kings of Scotland, including David I.

Dervorguilla's father died in 1234 without a legitimate son (he had an illegitimate son Thomas). According to both Anglo-Norman feudal laws and to ancient Gaelic customs, Dervorguilla was one of his heiresses, her two sisters Helen and Christina being older and therefore senior. Because of this, Dervorguilla bequeathed lands in Galloway to her descendants, the Balliol and the Comyns. Dervorguilla's son John of Scotland was briefly a King of Scots too, known as Toom Tabard (Scots: 'puppet king' literally "empty coat").

Life
The Balliol family into which Devorguilla married was based at Barnard Castle in County Durham, England. Although the date of her birth is uncertain, her apparent age of 13 was by no means unusually early for betrothal and marriage at the time.

In 1263, her husband Sir John was required to make penance after a land dispute with Walter Kirkham, Bishop of Durham. Part of this took the very expensive form of founding a College for the poor at the University of Oxford. Sir John's own finances were less substantial than those of his wife, however, and long after his death it fell to Devorguilla to confirm the foundation, with the blessing of the same Bishop as well as the University hierarchy. She established a permanent endowment for the College in 1282, as well as its first formal Statutes. The college still retains the name Balliol College, where the history students' society is called the Devorguilla society and an annual seminar series featuring women in academia is called the Dervorguilla Seminar Series. While a Requiem Mass in Latin was sung at Balliol for the 700th anniversary of her death, it is believed that this was sung as a one-off, rather than having been marked in previous centuries.

Devorguilla founded a Cistercian Abbey 7 miles south of Dumfries and Galloway Scotland, in April 1273. It still stands as a picturesque ruin of red sandstone. It is claimed that she was also responsible for the establishment of the first library in Dundee.[1]

When Sir John died in 1269, Dervorguilla had his heart embalmed and kept in a casket of ivory bound with silver. The casket travelled with her for the rest of her life. In 1274\endash 5 John de Folkesworth arraigned an assize of novel disseisin against Devorguilla and others touching a tenement in Stibbington, Northamptonshire. In 1275\endash 6 Robert de Ferrers arraigned an assize of mort d'ancestor against her touching a messuage in Repton, Derbyshire. In 1280 Sir John de Balliol's executors, including Devorguilla, sued Alan Fitz Count regarding a debt of £100 claimed by the executors from Alan. In 1280 she was granted letters of attorney to Thomas de Hunsingore and another in England, she staying in Galloway. The same year Devorguilla, Margaret de Ferrers, Countess of Derby, Ellen, widow of Alan la Zouche, and Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and Elizabeth his wife sued Roger de Clifford and Isabel his wife and Roger de Leybourne and Idoine his wife regarding the manors of Wyntone, King's Meaburn, Appleby, and Brough-under-Stainmore, and a moiety of the manor of Kyrkby-Stephan, all in Westmorland. The same year Devorguilla sued John de Veer for a debt of £24. In 1280\endash 1 Laurence Duket arraigned an assize of novel disseisin again Devorguilla and others touching a hedge destroyed in Cotingham, Middlesex. In 1288 she reached agreement with John, Abbot of Ramsey, regarding a fishery in Ellington.

In her last years, the main line of the Royal House of Scotland was threatened by a lack of male heirs, and Devorguilla, who died just before the young heiress Margaret, the Maid of Norway, might, if she had outlived her, have been one of the claimants to her throne. Devorguilla was buried beside her husband at New Abbey, which was christened 'Sweetheart Abbey', the name which it retains to this day. The depredations suffered by the Abbey in subsequent periods have caused both graves to be lost. A replica is to be found in the covered south transept.

Successors
Dervorguilla and John de Balliol had issue:
- Sir Hugh de Balliol, who died without issue before 10 April 1271.[2]
- Alan de Balliol, who died without issue.[2]
- Sir Alexander de Balliol, who died without issue before 13 November 1278.[2][3]
- King John of Scotland, successful competitor for the Crown in 1292.[2]
- Cecily de Balliol, who married John de Burgh, Knt., of Walkern, Hertfordshire.[2]
- Ada de Balliol, who married in 1266, William de Lindsay, of Lamberton.[2][4]
- William de Balliol, "Le Scott," who issued John LeScott. Some sources say it is probable he was a distant cousin of this Balliol line, not a son of John and Dervonguilla. [5]
- Margaret (died unmarried)
- Eleanor de Balliol, who married John II Comyn, Lord of Badenoch.[2][6]
- Maud, who married Sir Bryan FitzAlan, Lord FitzAlan, of Bedale, Knt., (d. 1 June 1306),[7][8][9] who succeeded the Earl of Surrey as Guardian and Keeper of Scotland for Edward I of England.

Owing to the deaths of her elder three sons, all of whom were childless, Dervorguilla's fourth and youngest surviving son John of Scotland asserted a claim to the crown in 1290 when Queen Margaret died. He won in arbitration against the rival Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale in 1292, and subsequently was King of Scotland for four years (1292\endash 96).

Aunt and niece
She should not be confused with her father's sister,[10] Dervorguilla of Galloway, heiress of Whissendine, who married Nicholas II de Stuteville. Her daughter Joan de Stuteville married 1stly Sir Hugh Wake, Lord of Bourne and 2ndly Hugh Bigod (Justiciar). Her other daughter Margaret married William de Mastac but died young.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dervorguilla_of_Galloway

Remarks Born the daughter of Alan de Galloway, Lord of Galloway and Margaret de Huntingdon between 1210 and 1225, she married John de Balliol in 1233. The couple had at least eight children, including John Balliol, crowned King of Scotland on 30 November 1292. John Balliol founded Balliol College, Oxford around 1263. After his death in 1268, Dervorguilla continued the college by providing capital, and in 1282 formulated the statutes of the college. She founded Sweetheart Abbey in 1275 in memory of her husband. When she died, her husband's embalmed heart in an ivory and silver casket was buried beside her, in her tomb, in front of the high altar of the abbey chapel.

The founders of Balliol College and their families

Balliol College (one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, UK) Misunderstandings about the founders of the College and their families abound and it may be useful to refute some which have been repeated so often that 'it is sometimes difficult to persuade correspondents that there is nothing in them.

The Balliol family had no association with the College after Dervorguilla's lifetime and, unlike other ancient foundations, the College was never responsible for giving privileges to the parents of its founders. The College's historical collections do not contain any primary sources on the Balliol family and, therefore, we cannot provide genealogy services to those who wish to explore their own possible lineage to the founders of the College.

The college was not founded by John Balliol, King of Scotland 1292-1296, but by his father, John Balliol, and was consolidated by the latter's widow, Dervorguilla of Galloway.

John [de] Bal[l]iol, founder of the college around 1263, was the head of a family which had been prominent landowners in England and France for several generations. Its main seat in England was Barnard Castle, named after a former head of the family in England, Bernard. In France, the family's main home was at Bailleul-en-Vimeu, in Picardy, hence the name Bal[l]iol. There are several places called Bailleul in France and Belgium; some of them are much more substantial than Bailleul-en-Vimeu: they have nothing to do with the family of the founder or with John Balliol, king of Scotland, despite sometimes contrary assertions. In particular, the founder's family was not from Normandy. Some of these other Bailleuls also gave birth to eponymous families. 1

The imposing ruins of Barnard Castle survive in the town of Teesdale near Durham, also called Barnard Castle: they have been the subject of extensive study and excavation.2

The main castle of Balliol in Picardy was located on the heights south of Bailleul-en-Vimeu. No superstructure survives, but the massive earthworks on which it rested still lie in the dense Bailleul woods (estate of the Château Coquerel estate). An expedition partly under the auspices of the College surveyed and surveyed the site from 1923 to 1935.

The claim of John Balliol, King of Scotland to the Crown of Scotland, has nothing to do with his father, John Balliol, founder of the College, but it arose from Dervorguilla. She was a daughter of Alan, Lord of Galloway, and Margaret, daughter of David Earl of Huntingdon, grandson of King David I of Scotland. 4

John Balliol, founder of the College, died in 1268. His place of death is not known. His heart was removed, embalmed and guarded by

Devorguilla married John DE BALLIOL [8072] [MRIN: 5832], son of Hugh DE BALLIOL Of Bywell [8076] and Cecily DE FONTAINES [8077], in 1233 in Durham, England.¹⁹¹⁷ (John DE BALLIOL [8072] was born in 1200 in Castle Bernard, Gainford, Durham, England ⁷⁹⁴, christened in 1212 in Barnard Castle, Gainsford England,⁷⁹⁴ died on 25 October 1268 in Barnard Castle, Durham, England ⁷⁹⁴ and was buried on 25 October 1268 in New Abbey, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland ⁷⁹⁴.)