Sir William de Ros Knight, Lord of Helmsley

  Information about this person:

• Background Information. ¹⁴¹
William de Ros, did homage at the age of 30 plus, for his father's lands, 27 Jun 1285. In 1277, 1277, 1281 and 1282, he did his part of the service due from his father in Wales. He was summoned to military council at Gloucester, 1286, and against the Scots in 1291, and following years up to May 1316. He received an urgent summons to a Council upon Gascon affairs at Westminster, June 1294. He was summoned, 24 Jun 1295, to a council of magnates, peers and officials at Westminster and to Parliament, 6 Feb 1298/9 until 16 Oct 1315 by write directed to Whilelmo de Ros de Hamelak, which would make him Lord Ros of Helmsley.

After the rebellion of Robert de Ros of Wark, who held Wark of him, the Castle of Wark was granted to him Dec 1301 for his good service in Gascony and elsewhere. In Nov 1306, he was appointed Joint Warden of Northumberland. On 21 Jun 1308, he was appointed Joint Lieutenant and Warden in Scotland. He was summoned to the King's Coronation, Feb 1307/8. In Aug 1309, he joined the Barons's letter to the Pope about abuses in England. He was among those ordered to remain in the North against the Scots, Feb 1312/13.

Robert de Ros married Maud, the younger daughter and coheir of John de Vaux, son of Oliver de Vaux. She probably predeceased her husband, and was buried in Pentney Priory, Norfolk, her bowels in the wall at Belvoir. He died sometime between 12 May and 16 Aug 1316, and was was buried at Kirkham. Besides their eldest son, William, they had a younger son, John de Ros of Watton, and a daughter, Agnes, who married Payn de Tiptoft, first Lord Tiptoft.

~Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, (Ros), Vol. XI , pp. 96-97

• Background Information. ⁸⁴⁴
William de Ros, 2^nd Baron Ros, was son of Robert de Ros, 1^st baron Ros of Helmsley or Hamlake, who died in 1285, and Isabel daughter and heiress of William d'Albini of Belvoir [Calendariun Genealogicum, i. 358]. The father was grandson of Robert de Ros, surnamed Furfan, son of William de Ros (d. 1258), by his wife Lucia, daughter of Reginald Fitz-Piers, and nephew of Robert de Ros, baron Ros of Wark (d. 1274). On 24 Oct. 1248 Henry III granted a respite for a debt owing from the father to the crown [Excerpta e Rotulis Finium, ii. 42]. In 1276-1277, the first baron Ros went by license on a pilgrimage to St. Edmund of Pontigny [Dep-Keeper of the Public Records, 40th Rep. App. p. 268]; he died in 1285 [Calendarium Genealogicum, 1. 358], leaving, besides William, a son Robert, and possibly a third son, John de Ros, bishop of Carlisle.

William, the second baron, who acquired Belvoir Castle in right of his mother, first appears as a member of the king's suite in his expedition to Wales in 1277 [Deputy-Keeper of Publ. Rec. 46th Rep. p. 268]. In June 1291, he was in Scotland on the king's service [Cal. of Patent Rolls, Edward I, p. 433]. He also appeared among the claimants to the Scottish crown on account of the marriage of his great-grandfather, Robert de Ros, called Furfan, with Isabella, daughter of William the Lion [Rymer, new edit. ii.75; Rishanger, p. 125]. When his petition came to be examined on Friday, 7 Nov. 1292, he said his advisers were not present and received a respite till the morrow. On Sunday, 9 Nov. he withdrew his claim ['Annals Regni Scotiæ' in Rishanger, p. 276]. In 1293 his cousin, Robert de Ros of Wark, son of Robert de Ros (d. 1274), fled into Scotland and joined the Scots. William asked for reinforcements to defend Wark Castle. These were sent by the king, but were surprised and cut to pieces by Robert [Rishanger, pp. 155-6]. Wililam received the confiscated lands of his cousin, and seems to have remained faithful. He was in Gascony in the king's service on 24 Jan. 1297, and deputed the guardianship of Wark Castle to his brother Robert [Stevenson, Documents illustrative of the Hisory of Scotland, ii. 161-2]. He joined in the letter of the barons from Lincoln to the pope in 1301, in which they asserted Edward's rights over Scotland, and disputed Boniface VIII's right to interfere ['Annales Londonienses' in Stubbs's Chron. of Edw. I and Edw,. II, i. 123]. On 8 Nov. 1307 he and Robert, earl of Angus were appointed jointly and severally to defend the county of Northumberland against the incursions of the Scots [Cal.Pat. Rolls, Edw. II, 1307-13, p. 14]. On 6 Aug. 1309 he joined in the letter to the pope from Stamford on ecclesiastical abuses [Annales Londonienses, i. 162]. Archbishop Greenfield summoned him to a council at York on 1 Jan, 1315, to devise means of resistance to the threatened Scottish invasion after the defeat of Bannockburn, and to another on the Monday after Ascension day of the same year (5 May) [Letters from the Northern Registers, i. 237, 247].

William died in 1317. On 10 June 1309 he gave the manor of Warter to the Angustinian priory of Warter, East Riding of Yorkshire [Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edw. II, 1307-13, p. 161]. He seems to have also been a benefactor of the Cistercian abbey of Thornton in Linconshire, and of the Augustinian priory of Pentney in Norfolk [Calendarium Genealogicum. ii. 699, 719]. He married Maud, daughter and coheiress of John de Vaux of Walton, Norfolk, leaving three sons: William, John, and Thomas; and three daughters: Agnes, Margaret, and Matilda. He was succeeded by his eldest son, William, third baron Ros (d. 1342), whose son William, fourth baron Ros (1326-1352), by Margaret, daughter of Ralph Neville, accompanied Edward III to France in 1346, was knighted by the king at La Hogue, and died in Palestine in 1352 [Adam de Murimuth, p. 200; Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke, ed. Thompson, p. 79; Baker, Northamptonshire, i. 269].

[Sources cited by author: Baker's Northamptonshire; Dugdale's Baronage of England; Loagman's Edward III.]

~W. E. Rhodes, National Dictionary of Biography, Vol. XVII, pp. 219-220

William married Maud de Vaux, daughter of John de Vaux and Sibyl de Longchamps, in 1287 in England ¹⁶⁰.^,821 (Maud de Vaux was born in 1261 in England,⁸²¹ died before 1316 in Hamlake, Yorkshire, England ¹⁴¹ and was buried in Pentney Priory, Norfolk, England ¹⁴¹.)