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. Royal service 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