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Hugh le Despenser (1262 – October 27, 1326), sometimes referred to as "the elder Despenser", was for a time the chief adviser to King Edward II of England.

He was the son of Hugh le Despenser II, and Aliva Basset, sole daughter and heiress of Philip Basset. His father was killed at Evesham when Hugh was just a boy, but Hugh's patrimony was saved through the influence of his maternal grandfather (who had been loyal to the king).^[1]

He married Isabel de Beauchamp, daughter of William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick and Maud FitzJohn.

He was created a baron by writ of summons to Parliament in 1295. He was one of the few barons to remain loyal to Edward during the controversy regarding Piers Gaveston. Despenser became Edward's loyal servant and chief administrator after Gaveston was executed in 1312, but the jealousy of other barons - and, more importantly, his own corruption and unjust behaviour - led to his being exiled along with his son Hugh the younger Despenser in 1321, when Edmund de Woodstoke replaced him as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

Edward found it difficult to manage without them, and recalled them to England a year later, an action which enraged the queen, Isabella, the more so when Despenser was created Earl of Winchester. When Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer, led a rebellion against the king, both Despensers were captured and executed. The elder Despenser was hanged at Bristol on October 27, 1326. Beforehand, he was brutally tortured; his genitals were cut off "because of his unnatural practices with the king," though evidence of homosexuality between Edward II and the Despensers is not proven.

1. ^ Fryde 28

• Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 72-31, 74-31, 74A-31, 93A-29
• Fryde, Natalie (1979). The tyranny and fall of Edward II, 1321-1326. ISBN 0521548063. 
• Karau, Björn: Günstlinge am Hof Edwards II. von England - Aufstieg und Fall der Despensers, MA-Thesis, Kiel 1999. (Free Download: http://www.despensers.de/download.htm)
• Hunt, William (1888). "Hugh Despenser". Dictionary of National Biography 14.