Otton de Grandson

Otton de Grandson, also known as Otto or Othon (* around 1238, † 1328 in Grandson), was a knight and friend of King Edward I.

He was a son of the Burgundian lords of Grandson Peter and Agnes of Neuchâtel. One of his brothers was Gerhard, bishop of Verdun. Otton and his younger brother William probably came in 1252 in the wake of Count Peter of Savoy at the English court. From the year 1267 he belonged to the household of Crown Prince Edward Plantagenet, whom he accompanied in 1270 on his crusade. Supposedly he was, and not Eleanor of Castile, who after an assassination attempt sucked the prince the poison from the body.

Upon her return Otton received from nunmehrigen King Edward I in 1277 to manage the Channel Islands entrusted. He then worked as a diplomat in Scotland and Gascony. From 1284 to 1294 he held the office of Chief Justiciar in Wales. In 1290, he went again to the Holy Land where he commanded the British troops in the defense of Acre. In the fighting in 1291, he was just like his compatriot Jean de Grailly seriously injured, but taken with a ship shortly before the fall of the city to Cyprus to safety. Together with the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, he supported then the Armenians in Cilicia against the Mamluks.

Around the year 1299 Otton returned to England, where he became a member of Parliament as Baron Grandison. After the arrival in power of King Edward II, he returned, however, returned to his Burgundian home, but still retained a written contact with the English Court at, especially since he ruled to be the Channel Islands. His acquired assets in England enabled him to Grandson, a Franciscan convent and start a Carthusian monastery at Concise.

The Notre -Dame Cathedral of Lausanne donated Otton a frontal. After his death he was also buried there, his magnificent grave monument with sun figure and canopy is still preserved. He was not married, several generations of his brothers were both in Grandson as well as in England still long Descendants represented.