General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> 1st Earl Of Suffolk, K.G.
Robert de Ufford, 2nd baron, K.G., was summoned to parliament from 27 January, 1332, to 14 January, 1337. This nobleman was in the wars of Gascony in the reign of Edward II and he obtained, in the beginning of Edward III's reign, in requital of his eminent services, a grant for life of the town and castle of Orford, co. Suffolk, and, soon after, further considerable territorial possessions, also by grant from the crown in consideration of the personal danger he had incurred in arresting, by the king's command, Mortimer and some of his adherents in the castle of Nottingham. His lordship was solemnly advanced in the parliament to the dignity of Earl of Suffolk, 16 March, 1336, "habendum sibi et hæredibus sula." Whereupon he was associated with William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, and John Darcy, steward of the king's household, to treat with David Brus, of Scotland, touching a league of peace and amity. And the same year, going beyond sea on the king's service, had an assignation of £300 out of the exchequer towards his expenses in that employment, which was in the wars of France, for it appears that he then accompanied the Earl of Derby, being with him at the battle of Cagant. After which time he was seldom out of some distinguished action. In the 12th Edward III [1339], being in the expedition made into Flanders, he was the next year one of the marshals when King Edward besieged Cambray, and his lordship within a few years subsequently was actively engaged in the wars of Brittany. In the 17th of this reign [1344], the Earl of Suffolk was deputed to the court of Rome, there to treat in the presence of his holiness, touching an amicable peace and accord between the English monarch and Philip de Valois, and he marched the same year with Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, to the relief of Loughmaben Castle, then besieged by the Scots. Soon after this he was made admiral of the king's whole fleet northward. For several years subsequently, his lordship was with King Edward in France, and he was one of the persons presented by that monarch with harness and other accoutrements for the tournament at Canterbury in the 22nd year of his reign [1349]. In seven years afterwards we find the earl again in France with the Black Prince; and at the celebrated battle of Poictiers, fought and so gloriously won in the following year, his lordship achieved the highest military renown by his skill as a leader and his personal courage at the head of his troops. He was subsequently elected a knight of the Garter.
His lordship m. Margaret, sister of Sir John Norwich, and widow of Sir Thomas Cailly, and had issue, Robert, William, Cecilie, Catherine, and Margaret.
The earl's last testament bears date in 1368, and he d. in the following year. Amongst other bequests, he leaves to his son, William, "the sword wherewith the king girt him when he created him earl; as also his bed, with the eagle entire; and his summer vestment, powdered with leopards." His lordship was s. by his only surviving son, William de Ufford. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, England, 1883, p. 543, Ufford, Barons Ufford, Earls of Suffolk]