Nesta (Agnes) FERCH OSBERN

  General Notes:

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The Tale of Mahel the Dispossessed
Bernard de Neufmarche was the first Norman to seize possession of this county of Brecknock from the suzerainty of the Welsh. He married Nest, the daughter of Nest, herself daughter of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, who for so long had oppressed all Wales by his tyranny. She took her name Nest from her mother, but the English changed it and called her Agnes.
Bernard had children by her, among them a distinguished knight called Mahel, who lost his paternal inheritance by an injustice as I shall tell you. His mother broke her marriage vow and fell in love with a certain knight, with whom she committed adultery. This became known, and her son Mahel assaulted her lover one night when he was returning from his mother. He gave him a severe beating, mutilated him, and packed him off in great disgrace.

The mother, disturbed by the remarkable uproar which ensued, and greatly grieved in her woman's heart, was filled with a burning desire for revenge. She fled to Henry, King of the English, and told him that her son Mahel was not Bernard's child, but the offspring of another man with whom she had been in love and with whom she had had secret and illicit intercourse. This she maintained rather from malice than because it was true, confirming it by an oath which she swore in person before the whole court. As a result of this oath, which was really perjury, King Henry, who was swayed more by prejudice than by reason, in 1121 gave Nest's elder daughter Sybil, whom she accepted as Bernard's child, in marriage to a distinguished young knight of his own family, Miles FitzWalter, constable of Gloucester, adding the lands of Brecknock as a marriage portion.

So this woman, at great loss to her personal modesty, and with the sacrifice of all decorum and self-respect, by this one shameful act deprived both her son of his inheritance and herself of her honour. She did this to reap revenge and to satisfy her anger.

In 1125 Bernard passed to his eternal reward, and Miles became Lord of Brecknock in his wife's name.

Nesta married Bernard DE NEUFMARCHÉ, son of Geoffrey DE NEUFMARCHÉ and Ada DE HUGLEVILLE. (Bernard DE NEUFMARCHÉ was born about 1050 in Le-Neuf-Marché-en-Lions, Normandy, France and died about 1125 in England.)