Like that of the house of Harcourt, with which that of Malet de Graville has been allied in early Norman times, this is one of the oldest Norse names on record, and has been written Malet and Mallet indifferently; and is found associated with events of historical importance and interest, in England and France, which are comprised between the 11th and 16th centuries. Its first bearer was one of those hardy freebooters, who quitted the North with Rollo, and, as one of his chief captains, obtained large grants of land in Normandy; whose immediate descendants, becoming lords of the great and powerful Sirauté de Graville, near Harfleur, founded one of the great Norman houses, which became distinguished in both England and France.
Settled in Grouville
According to the ancient tradition of the family now treated of, one of its junior branches also flourished in the insular portion of the duchy, in Jersey, in the eastern parish of Grouville, (or, as it was anciently written, Groville,) where it held lands and a Seigneurie from the earliest times, on many portions of which it bestowed the hereditary patronymic, which is still retained, after the lapse of many centuries.
The Manor-House, from the first period to the commencement of the 17th century, bore the name of the Maison de Mallet, and, among other compounds of the surname, may be mentioned the Moulin de Malet, an early dependency of this Seigneurie, situated at the foot of the Mont Malet, which forms the western extremity of the short range of hills extending to the neighbouring village of Gorey, and still retains its original name of La Malletiere, the corruption, most probably, of Mallet Terre or Terre de Mallet.
A rent of 50 sols, due on the Moulin de Malet, affords a remarkable instance of the extreme antiquity of some of the insular crown dues; it was conferred, with others in the island, by the Conqueror and his spouse, Matilda, on the Abbey of La Trinité, at Caen, built by the latter, and also known as the "Abbaye aux dames", and was claimed in 1180 from Robert Malet, Seigneur of La Malletiere. At the Reformation it was transferred to the Crown, to which it is still due, and is, perhaps, an unique case of a money rent continuously paid, during eight centuries, on a property, unchanged in any particular, save that of proprietorship.
The fief, held in capite of the Dukes of Normandy, likewise still bears from this family, for which it was created, the name of Fief de Mallet, or de La Malletiere, and was held in 1170 by Robert Malet, from whom the present branch[es] derives [their] descent.
Feudal service
Some claim appears to have been made upon this early seigneur connected with his property or feudal service, the precise nature of which it is now impossible to determine, but which would seem to have involved him in some temporary difficulty, as this fief has been classed among the forfaitures, or escheats to the Crown, not infrequent at this period, in consequence of the return of Jersey seigneurs to French allegiance and interests, resulting from the final separation of the Channel Islands from their parent duchy. Whatever may have been the nature of this difficulty, it is certain that the period of its occurrence was nearly 25 years anterior to the Edict des Normands; that Robert Malet held his fief and lands in the reign of John; and that they were possessed by the elder branch [late 20th century research has shown that the elder branch of Malets lost their fief sometime between 1274 and 1309 to the de la Hougue family. However, cadet branches survived, one of which regained the fief, it seems by marriage with a de la Hougue heiress, in the mid-15th century. It was finally lost to the family in 1604].
In the Extente of 1331, Guille de la Hougue is [therefore] mentioned as holding the Fief de La Malletiere, but the probability is [this was written before the Société Jersiaise had published in 1903, its Rolls of the Assizes (1309). These Rolls, 297, show that in 1309 Hamelin de la Hougue was Seigneur de la Malletiere, in right of his wife. She was probably a Malet. Hamelin`s heir, no doubt his son, was the fief`s holder in 1331, Guille de la Hougue, whose family retained ownership of the fief for over a century and a half] that he was a Malet who also held the adjoining fief and had assumed the name of La Hougue [now discredited]. Such changes in surnames were far from uncommon in ancient times.
Wace on William Mallet
Wace, the insular poet, records at length the prowess of William Mallet, whose bravery contributed greatly to the victory of Hastings, and whose services were rewarded with immense grants of lands and manors taken from the vanquished Saxons :
- Guillame ke l’en dit Mallet,
- Hardiement entrels fe met;
- Od I'efpee ki resflambie;
- As Engleiz rent dure efcremie ;
- Mais fon efcu lui eftroerent,
- Et fon cheval foz lui toerent,
- Et il meifme euflent mort,
- Quant vint 11 Sire de Montfort,
- Et 'Dam Willame de Vez-Pont;
- Od granz maifnies ke il ont,
- Le refcontrent hardiement.
- Mult i perdirent de lor gent;
- Mallet firent monter maneiz,
- Sor un deftrier tot freiz.'
- Roman de Rou.
King John's hostage
After the loss of the Duchy of Normandy, in 1204, hostages were ordered to be taken by John from the Channel Islands, as a measure of precaution, and to enforce the adhesion of the inhabitants of these slender remains of this great domain to his crown and government; and among those chosen from the chief families of Jersey was William Malet, son of the beforenamed Robert, who fulfilled this condition on behalf of his father, who appears to have been incapacitated, by age or sickess probably, from discharging this honourable and onerous duty.
He was detained six years in England, and was placed, alone, under the charge and safeguard of Henry Blond, mitred abbot of the great and wealthy monastic house of Benedictines, at Gloucester, dedicated to St Peter.
Lands under seizure
The liberation of these insular hostages, who had repaired to England in 1208, took place in 1214. But, on his return to Jersey, William Malet found his father dead and his lands and Seigneurie under seizure by the Bailly of the island, Hasculfus de Suleny. He, therefore, petitioned the Crown, as one of its tenants in chief, and Henry III (who, during the course of his long reign, manifested an extreme desire to preserve the Channel Islands by encouraging the good-will and attachment of their inhabitants, and spared no pains, whether by large and repeated grants of supplies of arms and munitions for their defence, or by lending a ready ear to the complaints and petitions for redress laid before him by them) ordered a Commission of Inquiry to be issued under Philip de Albini, Warden of the islands, and, on proof of irregularity of procedure, immediate restitution to be made.
Fifty years after, this Seigneurie (as appears from an enumeration of fiefs and their reliefs made by the Jurats of the then recently instituted Royal Court to the King's commissioners, Wiger and Broghton, ii Edward I) is thus designated: 'Item, dicunt quod feodum Malet debet dimidium relevium.'
Identical Christian names
Many of the earlier Christian names of the insular branch were identical and contemporaneous with those borne by the parent stock; those of Robert and William are found in Jersey in the reign of John; they were also borne in Normandy at the same period; and likewise by members of the branch which established itself in England at the Conquest. This branch, early in the 13th century, ceased to form part of the line of the Sires de Graville in Normandy, since feudal possessions in England and that duchy no longer continued to be held on equal terms, and tenure by Anglo-Norman barons after the battle of Bouvines, which took place in 1214, and established its final separation from England.
Continued possession of Seigneurie
But the Jersey family continued in possession of the Seigneurie and the Maison de Mallet [until sometime between 1274 and 1309--see above] which latter remained unchanged in name until the beginning of the 17th century, when it lost [for the second, and no doubt final, time--see above] its ancient owners, by the marriage of Isabella, the daughter and heir of Henry Mallet, Seigneur of La Malletiere, La Hague, and Les Esperons, who was the last representative of the elder branch. [There are two issues in the latter phrase that need to be addressed. Firstly, junior branches in existence at the extinction by 1309 of the genuine elder branch, will have produced, a century and a half later, multiple sons. We have no reason to believe that the probable husband of the de la Hougue heiress was the elder among either his siblings or cousins. As the male members of both latter groups are likely to have outnumbered the single individual who made this marriage, "the elder branch" may well have been and still be, that of St Martin, as now shown in Descendants of Laurens Mallet (1470), in which parish most of the family`s members were living in about 1500. Note that the Mallet fief was not regained in about 1450 by the old Jersey law of `retraite`, as the time span was too great. Secondly, the writer of the Armorial of Jersey`s Mallet article, on behalf of J. B. Payne, stated that the second line of Mallet seigneurs ended with Isabella. 20th century research has shown that her branch most certainly survived her death in 1604. Her great-uncle, Richard Mallet, has descendants to this day.]
In 1602, Helier de Carteret became possessed, by purchase from this Isabella Mallet, of the fiefs of La Hague and Les Esperons, which, from a declaration of dues and tenures made in 1489, were at that time held by her ancestor, John Mallet, Seigneur of La Hague, La Malletiere, and Les Esperons; the two latter fiefs having been in the possession of this family upwards of a century.
Move to St Martin
[This section has now been shown to be inaccurate and misleading. It has been retained as having formed a part of the original article in Payne. Readers should study the introductory notes and footnotes of Descendants of Robert Malet and Descendants of Laurens Mallet (1470), which provide amended and hopefully accurate details of the early Mallets.] Anterior, however, to the extinction of the elder branch in the person of Isabella Mallet, a second son, John, leaving the Maison de Mallet, now called les Pres, established himself in the neighbouring parish of St Martin. From him descended lineally the late Rev John Mallet, Rector of his original ancestral parish of Grouville during 48 years, who died in 1851, aged 85, and was highly esteemed not only for his erudition, but respected for his stern integrity, private and public worth.
Crimean War
This gentleman ["was also a lineal descendant, maternally, from the same Isabella Mallet above spoken of"--this statement regarding Isabella Mallet is most unlikely to be true. Indeed, the three children of Isabella and her husband are unlikely to have had many descendants, if any: see J. A. Messervy, in ABSJ, IV, 407] is now represented by the heir of his eldest son, the Seigneur of St Ouen, and by his two surviving younger sons, Robert Philip, whose eldest son, Adolphus Robert, Ensign HM 38th Regt, died at Lucknow, in 1858, shortly after the capture of that town by the late Lord Clyde; and William Edmund, whose only son, Laurens Matthew, Lieut RN, now senior Lieutenant of HMS "Assurance", entered the navy in 1850, and has served throughout the whole of the late Crimean campaign, for which he has received the Order of the Medjidie and the Crimean and Turkish medals. He also served in China, where, by the explosion of a Chinese junk, he was blown up and very severely burnt; for this service he has also received the Chinese medal ; and during his service in HMS "Falcon", on the West Coast of Africa, whilst repelling the attacks, on the river Gambia, of a large body of natives, he received a gun-shot wound in the face; and, for enforcing the rights of the English and other merchants trading in that settlement, he received their thanks, and those of the Governor of Sierra Leone, Col Stephen J Hill.
Church service
Several members of this Norman family appear to have made the church the subject of their peculiar choice in the olden time, among whom, in addition to the late Rector of Grouville, Sire Thomas Mallet was Dean of Jersey in 1515; Sire Anthony Malet Vice-Dean, and Rector of Grouville in 1519; and Sire Francis Mallet, Rector of Trinity in 1558. And Richard Mallet was Jurat of the Royal Court from 1524 to 1557; whilst, in the present century, it has given six of its members to the naval and military services, evincing thus its attachment for "la robe et I'epée".
Marriages
In its elder and younger branches it has also formed alliances by marriage with some of the principal insular families, among which are those of La Hague, Dumaresq in several branches, Lempriere of St John, La Hougue Boete, de Carteret, and the house of St Ouen. The celebrated Sir George de Carteret, of Hawnes, Bedford, one of the most distinguished scions of that house, too, was the maternal great-grandson of Isabella Mallet, [This is now known to be incorrect: see Descendants of Robert Malet, with its associated introductory and foot notes] Lady of La Malletiere, La Hague, and Les Esperons; but, following the Norman custom, it does not bear any quarterings of arms.
Arms
The arms of the Norman house of Malet de Graville were recorded, in the list of Norman barons drawn up in 1096, and deposited in the Cathedral of Bayeux, by William Malet, second of that name, Sire de Graville, whose name occurs after those of the Comtes d'Eu and d'Harcourt. The supporters, two grifiins, date at least from 1355, having been borne by John Malet, Sire de Graville, who married Eleonora, daughter of Guy de Chatillon, Comte de St Pol, Grand Butler of France, and of Mary of Brittany, daughter of John II, Duke of Brittany, and of Beatrix of England, daughter of Henry III, as is attested by an existing impression of his seal attached to a document, dated 26 June 1355.
They are still borne by the Marquis de Malet, present head and representative of this ancient and noble house, who, in a letter addressed to a member of this family, expresses in congratulatory terms the gratification he has derived from the knowledge of the existence of so ancient a branch in Jersey. It is one of the few in France which has constantly written its name without the prefix of the particle de, assumed by the parent house only since the latter part of the 17th century. The name itself is generally believed to have been bestowed upon an early Scandinavian member, on account of his great personal strength and prowess in wielding the iron mace, a ponderous and formidable weapon called Mall in the Norse tongue.
