General Notes

Eustace Fitz-John (nephew and heir of Serlo de Burgh, founder of Knaresborough Castle), one of the most powerful of the northern barons and a great favourite with King Henry I. With his two brothers, he was a witness to the foundation of the abbey of Cirencester, co. Gloucester, 1133. He m. 1st, Agnes, eldest dau. of William Fitz Nigel, Baron of Halton, constable of Chester. By this lady he acquired the Barony of Halton, and had an only son, Richard Fitz-Eustace. Eustace Fitz-John m. 2ndly, Beatrice, only dau. and heiress of Yvo de Vesci, Lord of Alnwick, in Northumberland, and of Malton, in Yorkshire, by whom he had issue, William, progenitor of the great baronial house of de Vesci. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 121, Clavering, Barons Clavering]

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Eustace Fitz-John, nephew and heir of Serlo de Burgh (of the great family of Burgh), the founder of Knaresborough Castle, in Yorkshire, and son of John, called Monoculus, from having but one eye, is said by an historian of the period in which he lived, to have been "one of the chiefest peers of England," and of intimate familiarity with King Henry I, as also a person of great wisdom and singular judgment in councils. He had immense grants from the crown and was constituted governor of the castle of Bamburg, in Northumberland, temp. Henry I, of which governorship, however, he was deprived by King Stephen, but he subsequently enjoyed the favour of that monarch. He fell the ensuing reign, anno, 1157, in an engagement with the Welsh, "a great and aged man, and of the chiefest English peers, most eminent for his wealth and wisdom." By his first wife, the heiress of Vesci, he had two sons, and by Agnes, his 2nd wife, dau. of William FitzNigel, Baron of Halton, and constable of Chester, he left another son, called Richard Fitz-Eustace. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 555, Vesci, Barons Vesci]