Robert Fitz Hugh Baron of Malpas

  General Notes:

~George Ormerod's The History of County Palatine and City of Chester, Vol II, p. 598, Robert Fitz Hugh, Baron of Malpas at the time of the Domesday Survey and witness to the foundation of the abbey of St. Werburgh, 1093. Vol. II. p. 628, He is given as father of Mabel, wife of William le Belward. ⁷¹³

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ⁷²⁰
Within the limits of the parish of Malpas, and comprehended in the original barony, is the township of Egerton. When the Saxon counties had been formed, this part of Chesire, as we learned from the Domesday Book, belonged to Edwin, Earl of Mercia, a grandson of Earl Leofric and Lady Godiva. After the battle of Hastings, the Saxon rights were transferred by the victorious Norman to his sister's son, Hugh d'Avranches, surnamed Lupus, the pious profligate whom he had created Palatine Earl of Chester. Malpas was selected by him as the site of one of the numerous fortresses with which, at regular intervals, he strenghthened his Welsh border, and was given by him, with other estates from the forfeited lands of Earl Edwin, to his natural son Robert Fitz-Hugh, whom he created Baron of Malpas, and who was one of the eight barons of his Parliament.

~County Families of Lancashire and Cheshire

• Web Reference: Malpas.

• Background Information. ⁶⁸⁶
Robert Fitz Hugh, Baron of Malpas, where he had a castle, did not have sons. During the reign of Richard I, the barony passed in right of his coheiresses by moieties, to Robert Patrick and David Belward, or le Clerk. The daughter and eventually sole heiress of the Patricks, brought this moiety into the Sutton family. On the death of William de Malpas, son of David le Clerk, without lawful issue, his illegitimate son David, possessed himself of his father's moiety, which was inherited by the posterity of his two daughters. Beatrice, one of these daughters brought a fourt part of the barony in marriage, to the Suttons, in which nearly the whole appears to have been vested during the reign of Henry VII.

~History of the City of Chester, pp. 115-116 [Source cited: Harl. MSS. 2079, pp. 124, 131]

• Background Information. ⁹²²
Robert Fitz Hugh, Baron of Malapas, one of the barons of Hugh Lupus, Earl Palatine of Chester, and generally believed to be his illegitimate son. He was among on of the most powerful of "the cruel potentates that spilt the Welshmen's blood," along with the other Lords-Marchers, in their battles with along the border.

Robert's castle of Malpas commanded the important and difficult pass that formed one of the gates of Wale. In his descendants, and probably in him, was vested the office of Serjeant of the Peace for all Cheshire, except the hundreds of Wirrall and Macclesfield.

Robert had two daughters, Letitia the wife of Richard Patric; and Mabilia, the wife of William Belward. William Belward is the Cheshire knight mentioned by Camden, "each of whose sons took different surnames, while their sons, in turn, also took different surnames from their fathers. They altered their names in respect to habitation, to Egerton, Cotgrave and Overton ; in respect to color, to Gough, which is red ; in respect to learning, to Ken-clarke (a knowing clerk or learned man) : in respect to quality, to Goodman ; in respect to stature, to Little : and in respect to the Christian name of one of them, to Richardson, though all were descended from William Belwards." [Remaines, p. 141] "Who would conceived, without good proof," asks Sir Edward Dering, "that Malpas, Gough, Golborne, Egerton, Goodman, Cotgrave, Weston, Little, Kenclerke, and Richardson, were all in short time issue of William Belward?" [Lower's Curiosities of Heraldry, App. p. 305] Yet there is one name left off this list, that of Cholmondeley.

~The Battle Abbey Roll, Vol. II, p. 54