General Notes

Robert de Ros, surnamed Furfan, in the 1st Richard I [1189], paid 1,000 marks fine to the crown for livery of his lands. In the 8th of the same reign [1197], being with the king in Normandy, he was committed to the custody of Hugh de Chaumont, for what offence appears not; with especial charge to the said Hugh, that he should keep him as safe as his own life; but Chaumont trusting William de Spiney with his prisoner, that person being corrupted, allowed him to escape out of the castle of Bonville. de Ros eventually gained nothing, however, by this escape, for Richard caused him nevertheless to pay 1,200 marks for his freedom, while he had the false traitor Spiney, hanged for his breach of faith. In the next reign, however, Robert de Ros found more favour, for upon the accession of King John, that monarch gave him the whole barony of his great-grandmother's father, Walter Espee, to enjoy in as large and ample a manner as he, the said Walter, ever held it. Soon after which he was deputed, with the bishop of Durham, and other great men, to escort William, King of Scotland into England, which monarch coming to Lincoln, swore fealty there to King John, upon the cross of Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of all the people. About the 14th of King John's reign [1213], Robert de Ros assumed the habit of a monk, whereupon the custody of all his lands, viz., Werke Castle, in the co. Northumberland, with his whole barony, was committed to Philip de Ulcote, but he did not continue long a recluse, for we find him the very next year executing the office of sheriff for the county of Cumberland. At the commencement of the struggle between the barons and John, this feudal lord took part with the king, and obtained, in consequence, some grants from the crown; but he subsequently espoused the baronial cause, and was one of the celebrated twenty-five appointed to enforce the observance of Magna Charter. In the reign of King Henry III he seems, however, to have returned to his allegiance, and to have been in favour with that prince, for the year after the king's accession, a precept was issued by the crown to the sheriff of Cumberland, ordering the restoration of certain manors granted by King John to de Ros. This feudal lord was the founder of the castle of Helmsley, otherwise Hamlake, in Yorkshire, and of the castle of Werke in Northumberland -- the former of which he bequeathed to his eldest son--the latter to the younger, with a barony in Scotland to be held of the elder by military service. In his latter days he became a Knight Templar, to which order himself and his predecessors had ever been munificently liberal, and dying in that habit, anno 1227, was buried in the Temple Church. Robert de Ros m. Isabel, natural dau. of William the Lion, King of Scotland, and widow of Robert de Brus, and had issue two sons, William, his successor; and Robert, Baron Ros of Werke. He was succeeded by his elder son. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, London, 1883, p. 458, Ros, or Roos, Barons Ros]