General Notes

1  NOTE Robert de Ferrers, being a minor at the time of hisfather'sdeceas
e, the queen and Peter de Savoy gave 6,000 marks for thecustody of his lan
ds during his minority. His lordship, whenarrived at manhood, became o
ne of the most active of thediscontented nobles arrayed against Henry I
II and, commencinghis career by the plunder and destruction of Worceste
r, theking, to retaliate, sent a force under Prince Edward into theco
s. of Stafford and Derby, which wasted the earl's lands withfire and swo
rd and demolished his castle at Tutworth. Hislordship, afterwards joini
ng with Montfort, Earl of Leicester,and Clare, Earl of Gloucester, partici
pated in the victoryachieved at Lewes, in Sussex, wherein the king and t
he princewere made prisoners, but continuing to adhere to Leicester, hew
as defeated with that nobleman by his former companion in arms,the Ea
rl of Gloucester, at Evesham, and obliged to throw himselfupon the mer
cy of the king, which, in consideration of a cup ofgold, adorned with prev
ious stones (obtained from Michal deTony, upon a mortgage on one of his ma
nors in Northamptonshire),and 1,500 marks, was extended to him and he rece
ived a fullpardon for all his misdemeanours, the king undertaking toprote
ct him against Prince Edward and others toward whom, at anytime during t
he troubles, he had done wrong, upon conditionthat, if he should transgre
ss against, he was without hope offavour, to be wholly disinherited. For t
he strict observance ofwhich provision, the earl not only obliged himse
lf by specialcharter, then freely sealed to the king, but by his oath ofal
legiance at the time renewed.
The charter and oath, however, were but feeble restraints uponhis lordsh
ip for in the very next spring we find him again atthe head of a powerf
ul army in the northern part of Derbyshire,and soon after defeated in a pi
tched battle at Chesterfield byPrince Henry, eldest son of the King of Alm
aine. Here, hislordship was amongst those who made their escape from the f
ieldbut, hiding himself under some sacks of wool in a church, he wasthe
re discovered through the treachery of a woman and thenceconveyed a prison
er to London, whereupon he was totallydisinherited, by the parliament th
en sitting at Westminster, ofthe Earldom of Derby as well as of his territ
orial possessions,the greater part of which were conferred by the king up
on his2nd son, Edmund (surname Crouchback), Earl of Leicester andLancaste
r, to whom many writers of authority attribute also thedignity of Ea
rl of Derby, but Dugdale expressly says, "althoughhe (the prince) had poss
ession of the greater part of thisRobert's land and exercised (perhaps) t
he power of earl in thatcounty, I am not satisfied that he really was Ea
rl of Derby; inregard, I cannot find that the same Edmund had any patent o
fcreation to that honour as he had to those of Leicester andLancaster
." It seems that this unfortunate nobleman continued inconfinement about t
hree years, but in the 53rd Henry III [1269]there was so much interest ma
de for him that the king acceptedof security, whereby he might receive sat
isfaction for hislordship's misdemeanours, and issue his precept to Prin
ce Edmundto make restitution of his lands; when an agreement was enteredin
to between the disinherited earl and the prince, by which thelatter, for t
he sum of œ50,000 to be paid at once upon a certainday, was to relinqui
sh all interest in the lands; but thatpayment not being made good, the sec
urities to the covenantpassed over the lands to Prince Edmund and his hei
rs for ever.Subsequently, however, the ousted lord instituted a suit in th
eCourt of King's Bench against the prince for the restitution ofthe proper
ty upon the allegation that the agreement he hadsealed was extorted from h
im when a prisoner and underapprehension of his life; but after divers ple
adings, a decisionof the court in the beginning of Edward I's reign confir
med thelands t