Thomas Demarle COUCY, SIRE COUCY AND MARLE

                   Note:
Although Thomas died a hundred years after Coucy was built into one of the biggest bastions in Europe, he left perhaps the wickedest reputation of any Lord or Noble I can recall reading about.
He did not like his father who had left his mother - yet both went on the first Crusade in 1096. At the death of his father in 1116 he succeeded also to his mothers lands de Marla
He treated his peasants and the surrounding areas so badly he was excommunicated. He had two daughters by his first wife, Yda of Hainault, and then married a Dame de Montaigu. Melisende, mother of Melisende who married Hugh IV de Gournay, was his third wife. Depite such war-like activities in the area he died in his bed in 1130. [SOURCE: Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuckman and notes by Alan Nineham.] [BrÃ[cedilla]derbund WFT Vol. 3, Ed. 1, Tree #6402]