• Born: Abt 1170, Helmsley, Holderness, Yorkshire, England
• Marriage: Isabel mac Crínán ^{141,160,526,821,844}
• Died: Bef 23 Dec 1226, elmsley, Holderness, Yorkshire, England ^141,844

  Information about this person:

• Dates & Events: Robert de Ros was one of the Magna Carta Surity Barons. ^141,160,844

• Background Information. ⁸⁴⁴
Robert de Ros, baron, was the son of Everard de Ros of Helmsley or Hamlake in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The family also held lands in Holderness, where was situated Ros, to which they gave, or from which they received, their name. Robert succeeded to his father's lands in 1191 paying a relief of one thousand marks. In 1195 he was bailiff and castellan of Bonneville-sur-Touques in Lower Normandy, near which the Norman lands of the family lay [Stapleton, Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ, vol. i. pp. cxl, clxiv, vol. ii. pp. lxxvi, lxxvii]. In 1196, after a battle between the men of Philip Augustus and those of Richard I, Richard handed over to Robert's keeping Hugh de Chaumont, a wealthy knight and intimate friend of Philip Augustus. Robert imprisoned him in his castle of Bonneville. But his servant, the keeper of the castle, William d'Epinay, was bribed into conniving at Hugh's escape. Richard, angry at the loss of so important a prisoner, ordered d'Epinay to be hanged, and imposed a fine of twelve hundred marks on his master. Two hundred and forty marks of this were still unpaid on 29 Jan 1204, when King John remitted one hundred marks [Patent Rolls, p. 3].
Immediately after his accession John sent Robert and others to William the Lion of Scotland, Robert's father-in-law, to arrange an interview between the two sovereigns for 20 Nov. 1199 [Rog. Hov. iv. 140]. On 6 Jan, 1200 he received from the king a grant of all the honors and lands which had belonged to Walter Espec in the county of Northumberland, including Wark, where Robert built a castle.

In the succeeding years, Robert witnessed several royal charters, chiefly at places in the north of England. On 7 Oct. 1203 was again at Bonneville-sur-Touques [Charter Rolls, p. 111 b], and seems to have been in Normandy in John's service during the later mouths of that year, returning to England before 22 Feb 1204, when he was at York [ib. pp. 114 a, 119 b; Rotuli Normanniæ, p. 113]. In the spring of 1205 he had some difficulty with John, possibly about the balance of his fine, and his lands were ordered to be seized [Close Rolls, i. 24 b], but an order for their restoration was soon issued [ib. i. 31]. On 28 Feb. 1206 he received license, whenever he should take the cross, to pledge his lands for money to any one of the king's subjects any time during the following three years [Hunter, Rotuli Selecti. p. 17]. This permission was renewed on 26 Feb 1207. We do not know whether Robert took the crusading vow. For some reason, possibly on account of the arrears of his fine, his son Robert was in the king's hands as a hostage on 13 Feb of that year [Patent Rolls, p. 59 b]. Robert seems to have let another prisoner escape, a certain Thomas de Bekering, and on 28 Dec. 1207 was acquitted of a fine of three hundred marks for this new offence [Close Rolls, i. 99]. On 10 April 1209 he was sent with others by the king to meet the king of Scotland [Patent Rolls, p. 91].

In 1212 Robert seems to have assumed the monastic habit, and on 15 May of that year John therefore handed over the custody of his lands to Philip de Ulecot [Close Rolls, i. 116 b]. His profession cannot, however, have lasted long, for on 30 Jan. 1213 the king committed to him the forest and of Cumberland [Patent Rolls, p. 96 b]. Also, on 25 Feb. be was made one of a commission to inquire into grievances, more especially the exaction of the royal officers in the counties of Lincoln and York [ib. p. 97]. Among other royal favors, which he received, this year was that of a license to send across the seas a ship laden with wool and hides to bring back wine in exchange [9 Sep Close Rolls, i. 149 b]. He interceded with the king in favor of his suzerain in Holderness, William of Aumâle, and succeeded in getting him a safe-conduct as a preliminary to a reconciliation [1 Oct. Patent Rolls, p. 104b]. On 3 Oct, he was one of the witnesses to John's surrender of the kingdom to the pope. He was one of the twelve great men who undertook to compel John to keep his promises made in favor of the English church [Charter Rolls, p 195; Literæ Cantuarienses, Rolls Ser. i. 21].

During the troubled year 1214 and the early part of 1215 Robert continued in John's service as sheriff of Cubmberland, and on 10 April 1215 received the royal manors of Sowerby, Carleton, and Oulsby, all near Penrith in Cumberland and Westmoreland [Close Rolls, i. 194)]. About the same time John ordered Peter des Roches to do all that he could to secure the election of Robert's aunt as abbess of Barking, and in no wise permit the election of the sister of Robert FitzWalter, one of the baronial leaders [ib. i. 202]. John failed, despite these favors, to secure Ros's adherence in his struggle with the barons. According to Roger of Wendover (ii. 114), Ros was one of the chief 'incentors of this pest' (i.e. the baronial resistance to the king) in the meeting of the magnates at Stamford in the week following 19 April. He was one of the twenty-five barons elected to compel the observance of the great charter [Matt. Paris, ii. 605], and took part in the resistance to John after his absolution from his oath by the pope. In consequence Innocent IV excommunicated him in January 1216 [Roger Wend. ii. 169].

After the king's successes in the north in the early part of that year, a castle belonging to Robert was one of the only two that remained in the possession of the barons in the north of England [ib. ii. 167]. John granted his lands to William, earl of Aumâle, on 27 Jan. 1216 [Close Rolls, i. 240 b]. He was summoned to deliver up Carlisle Castle, and expressed his readiness to do so, merely asking for a safe-conduct for an interview, which the King promised [ib. i. 209]. John repented the offer on 12 April, but it led to nothing. Robert held the government of' Northumberland, and seems to have continued his resistance even after John's death. His son William was captured at Lincoln in May 1217 [Cont. Gerv. Cant. 11. 111].

Robert in time submitted, and Henry III commanded his manors of Sowerby, Carleton, and Owlsby to he restored to him on 23 July 1218, and orders to different bailiffs of the king to allow him to hold his lands unmolested were issued on 22 Nov. 1220 [Close Rolls, i. 141]. In February 1221 he was summoned to help in besieging and destroying Skipsea Castle [ib. i. 474 b]. In 1222, he seems to have complained to the king that the king of Scotland was encroaching on English territory, and a commission of inquiry was appointed [ib. i. 496 b]. Whether it was that the sheriff of Cumberland, apparently bishop of Carlisle, had delayed to restore his lands through jealousy, or that they had been seized again, their restoration was again ordered on 24 May 1222. On 23 May of the following year the king forbade the same sheriff of Cumberland to exact tallages from the royal manors given to Robert. A renewed order to give Robert seisin of these manors on 6 Feb. 1225 seems to point to further disobedience to the king's former orders [ib. ii. 15]. Robert witnessed the third reissue of the Great charter on 11 Feb. of that year. On 26 Feb 1226, Henry ordered the barons of the exchequer to deduct from the firm of the county owing by Walter, bishop of Carlisle, the revenues of the royal manors given to Robert de Ros.

Robert again took the monastic habit before 18 Jan 1227 [ib. ii. 166 b]. He died in that year, and was buried in the Temple Church at London. He married Isabella, daughter of William the Lion, king of Scotland, and had by her two sons William (d. 1257-8), whose son Robert, first baron Ros, is noticed under William de Ros, second baron Ros; and his second son was Robert de Ros, Baron Ros of Wark. He gave the manor of Ribston (West Riding Yorkshire) to the knights templars, who established a commandary there [Stapleton, Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Norm. vol. ii. p. lxxvii]. He also gave several houses in York to the same order [Close Rolls, i. 117 b]. He founded the leprosery of St. Thomas the Martyr at Bolton (probably in Northumberland, five and a half miles west of Alnwick) [Close Rolls, ii. 182].


[Other Sources cited by the author: Rotuli Chartarum Johannis, Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, and Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, Rotuli Normanniæ, and Hunter's Rotuli Selecti, all published by the Record Commission; Roger of Hoveden, Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, Shirley's Letters of Henry III (Rolls Ser.); Dugdale's Baronage of England, i. 546; Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 269; Poulson's Holderness; Stapletons's Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ, 2 vols. 8vo, 1840.]

~W. E. Rhodes, National Dictionary of Biography, Vol. XVII, pp. 216-218

• Background Information. ¹⁴¹
Robert de Ros, who bore the nickname of Furfan, was a minor and a ward of the King in 1185. His lands were in the custody of Ranulf de Glanville. He had livery of his lands in 1190. As son-in-law of William the Lion, King of Scotland, he was his escort into England, Nov 1200, to do homage and again in 1209. He appears to have obey the summons to muster at Porchester for an expedition to Normandy, May 1205. In 1205/6, he proposed to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He served the King in Ireland in 1210. Although he had been closely associated with the King, he was one of his vigorous opponents in the matter of the Magna Charta, and was one of the twenty-five elected to see that its provisions were observed. He and his son, Robert, were included in the Bull excommunication, Jan 1215/6. He returned his allegiance to the King in Nov 1217, and was one of the escorts of Alexander II to England, and in 1218, his Cumberland estates were confirmed to him. In 1221, he was one of the barons called upon for help in the siege of Skipsea Castle. He witnessed, at Westminster the confirmation of the Magna Charta and the Forest charter in 1224/5.

Robert married at Haddington, early in 1911, Isabella, widow of Robert de Brus, and illegitimate daughter of William, the Lion, King of Scotland. He died as a Templar, retired from secular life before 23 Dec 1226, when his son did homage for his lands.

~Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, (Ros), Vol. XI , pp. 92-93

Robert married Isabel mac Crínán, daughter of William I "The Lion" King of Scotland and Isabel de Avenell. ^{141,160,526,821,844} (Isabel mac Crínán was born about 1170 in Scotland.)

Helmsley Castle