Nicholas de Crioll

Nicholas de Crioll (Cryoyll, Kerrial or Kyriel) (died c. February 1272), of a family seated in Kent, was Constable of Dover Castle and Keeper of the Coast during the early 1260s. His kinsman Bertram de Criol (died 1256) had distinguished himself in these offices during the preceding 20 years and both were near predecessors of the eminent Warden of the Cinque Ports, Stephen de Pencester (of Penshurst).

Although Nicholas de Crioll is often taken to be (and may well have been) a son of Bertram de Criol, the fact is not overtly stated. In 1242 King Henry granted the manor of Croxton, Leicestershire, to Bertram. The place was of special significance to the king as his father King John's heart was buried in Croxton Abbey, and he made many acts of patronage towards it. By 1246 the manor had passed (no doubt in token of a near kinship) to Nicholas de Crioll, who was granted a market and fair there, and the village took its name Croxton Kerrial from the Crioll or Kyriel family's connection with it. Bertram de Criol's son Sir John de Criol (died 1264) is, however, referred to as his "son and heir", and John had a younger brother Sir Simon de Criol (died 1267), his fellow-juror in the inquisition upon Thomas de Normanville in 1245-46: Nicholas de Crioll is sometimes in their company as a fellow witness, and is clearly associated with them, but the relationship is not explained.

Croxton Abbey was a Premonstratensian house, and the tenure of the neighbouring manor by Nicholas de Crioll may be connected with the tradition of patronage towards the Premonstratensians in the family of his wife, Joan de Auberville. She was heir to the senior line of the de Auberville inheritance, only daughter of William de Auberville (the younger), son of Hugh, and grandson of William de Auberville (the elder) and his wife Matilda, daughter of Ranulf de Glanville and Bertha de Valoines. William the elder had assisted Ranulf in the foundation of Leiston Abbey in Suffolk in 1182, and himself founded Langdon Abbey in Kent, near the de Auberville seat of Westenhanger, in 1191, a grant which was confirmed by his fee-lord Simon de Averenches, Lord of Folkestone. Both were Premonstratensian houses. The de Criol family, which in Bertram gave long and distinguished service in the Constabulary of Dover Castle, were patrons also of St Radegund's Abbey at Bradsole.

Robert de Auberville (brother of Joan's grandfather Hugh), after being among the rebel barons captured by King John at Rochester Castle late in 1215, served King Henry loyally as Constable of Hastings Castle during the 1220s. He was given authority jointly with Bertram de Criol for the defence of the ports between Sandwich and Portsmouth in 1229, and was replaced in that role by Henry de Sandwich (de Sandwico), Warden of Sandwich, in 1230: John de Gatesden, succeeding Robert as Constable of Hastings, then took on a larger command. Joan de Auberville was first married to Henry de Sandwich, and was his widow when she married Nicholas de Crioll. In this way the de Auberville possessions, including Westenhanger, came into the de Crioll family.

Nicholas is described as "vadlettus", a royal servant, in orders requiring him to hunt for deer in the park at Clere (Highclere, Hampshire) in 1243, at Guildford in 1244, and at Havering in 1245. The Croxton market grant followed, and in 1248 he received a gift of two does from the park at Elham near Folkestone, from the king. In that year he received a summons for himself and two knights to be in London on 21 August to go into Gascony on the King's service. He was in Gascony with Bertram de Criol from Easter 1249 for four months, upon a mission to deliver funds to the viceroy Simon de Montfort.

He was among those who crossed with the king to Gascony in 1253, and again in 1254 in company with his serjeant William de Waleton. His name heads the list of men summoned to Chester on 9 August 1257 for the service of the king and Edward his son in Wales. This assembly was to support King Henry's response (which proved ineffectual) to the English defeat at the Battle of Cadfan by the Welsh under Llywelyn ap Gruffudd earlier in the same year. In May 1260 de Crioll appears as Constable of Dover Castle. He was entrusted with the safekeeping of great sums of the King's money delivered to him from France by Aubrey de Fiscamp and William de Axemuth, the King's clerks. Arrangements were to be made for the delivery of some part of it to the king, for the payment of £1000, and for the safe retention of the remainder at Dover.

A year later an important ecclesiastical inquisition was held at Otford Palace to determine the true heirs to the estate (sometime considered a barony) of Eynsford, Kent, following the death, in the archbishop's wardship, of William de Eynsford the 7th lord. It was claimed in two moieties by Nicholas de Crioll and William Herengod. With the extinction of the descent from William the 5th lord (great-grandfather of the deceased) their claim lay in the descent from his sisters Joan, who married Hugh de Auberville (grandfather of Joan, wife of Nicholas) and Beatrice, who by marriage to Stephen Herengod was mother to the co-claimant. This defeated a counter-claim from an elder branch of the family which had never held seisin, and was decided in favour of de Crioll and Herengod.

In June 1263 the king committed to Nicholas de Crioll the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, with instructions to Robert de Glastonia, Constable of Dover Castle, to provide him with quarters at the Castle when he should return there. The barons and bailiffs of Dover, Hastings, Romney, Hythe and Sandwich were required "to provide by his counsel two or three of the most approved men for the security and defence of the port[s] by sea and land against any adversaries or rebels." In September 1263 de Crioll received a mandate to take charge of the county of Kent and the Hundred of Middleton in the absence of a Sheriff, and to deliver the issues for munitions to the Constable of Dover.