General Notes

Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk, whose guardianship Alexander, King of Scotland, obtained for 500 marks. This nobleman attained high reputation in all martial and warlike exercises. Skillful and valiant alike in the tilting and battle field, he held a high rank amongst the chivalrous spirits of his day, and won many a trophy in court and camp. In the tournament held at Blithe, in Nottingham (21st Henry III., 1237), which terminated in a conflict between the southern and northern lords, the Earl of Norfolk was pre-eminently distinguished, and in a few years afterwards he gained new laurels at the battle of Zantoigne. But the most remarkable event in his lordship's life was his personal dispute with King Henry III., as thus stated by Dugdale:--"In the 39th Henry III, the Earl of Norfolk, making a just apology for Robert de Ros (a great baron of that age), then charged with some crime which endangered his life, he had very harsh language given him by the king, being openly called traytor; whereat, with a stern countenance he told him (the king) that he lies; and that he never was, nor would be a traytor; adding, 'if you do nothing but what the law warranteth, you can do me no harm.' -- 'Yes,' quoth the king, 'I can thrash your corn and sell it, and so humble you.' To which he replied, 'If you do so, I will send you the heads of your thrashers.' But by the interposing of the lords then present this heat soon passed over, so that (shortly after) he was, together with the Earl of Leicester and some others, sent on an embassy to the King of France to treat with him for restoring some rights which he withheld from the king." His lordship was subsequently appointed by the barons, after their victory at Lewes (48th Henry III.), governor of the castle of Orford, in Suffolk. To this nobleman, by reason of his mother Maud being the eldest co-heiress of William Mareschal, Earl of Pembroke, the Marshalship of England, with the rights thereunto belonging, was assigned. His lordship m. Isabel, sister of Alexander, King of Scotland, but died issueless in 1270, when all his honours and possessions devolved upon his nephew, Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 53, Bigod, Earls of Norfolk]