Individual Details
Robert de Ferrers
(1239 - 1274)
There are differences about the identity of Robert de Ferrers' (1239-1274) second wife. Cokayne says some say it was Eleanor Basset. Palmer says it was Alianor Basset. thePeerage.com and Wikipedia say it was Alianor de Bohun. Wikipedia recites some litigation around 1284 to 1286 by which Alianor, the second wife, tried to recover some of Robert's properties from Edmund, the King's brother. The article suggests that in that litigation, reference is made to her brother, Humphrey de Bohun.
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Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Vol 3 (1890)
b. about 1241 ; as soon as he was of full age took an active part against the King in the Barons' rebellion, plundering Worcester, &c. He sat in Montfort's) Parl., of 1264 and was at the battles of Lewes and Evesham on the side of the rebels. After submission and pardon bv apoc. pat; 5 Dec. 1265 (inasmuch as he had been excepted from the terms of the dictum of Kenilworth) he again rebelled and was defeated at the battle of Chesterfield early in 1200, taken prisoner to London and "in the Parl, held the same year [1200] was totally disherited wherebv his Earldom became forfeited. In March 1268/9 an agreement was made whereby he was allowed to retain Chartly in Staffordshire and Holbrooke in Derbyshire, yielding up Tutbury and all other his lands and honours. He m. firstly (he being 9 and she 8 years old) before 6 Feb. 1253, Marie, da. of Hugh Le Brun, Count of Angouleme in France, who was br. of the half-blood (ex parte materna) to King Henry III. He m. secondly, Eleanor, "da, as some say to Ralph, Lord Basset." He d. in or before 1279. His widow was living 1281.
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Palmer, Charles Ferrers Raymund (1819-1900), The History of the Town and Castle of Tamworth, p. 364
Robert de Ferrers, 8th and last earl of Derby, was a minor at his father's death. He sided withthe barons against Hen. III.; so that, in 1266, he was deprived of titles and estates. His lands were conferred on Edmund Plantagenet, the king's son. He d. in 1274, of the gout, in poverty. He had two wives,—Maria, dau. of Hugh le Brun, earl of Angolesme, and niece of Hen. s. p.; and 1269 Alianore, dau. of Ralph lord Basset, living at his decease; by whom he had a son, John, progenitor of the family of Ferrers, barons of Chartley. He bore his father's arms without the border.
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thePeerage.com
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby1
M, #38866, b. circa 1239, d. circa 27 April 1279
Last Edited=24 Sep 2014
Consanguinity Index=1.59%
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby was born circa 1239 at Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England.2 He was the son of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy.1 He married, firstly, Marie de Lusignan, daughter of Hugues XI de Lusignan, Comte de la Marche and Yolande de Bretagne, Comtesse de Penthièvre et Porhoët, in 1249. He married, secondly, Alianor de Bohun, daughter of Sir Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Briouze, in 1269. He died circa 27 April 1279.2
He succeeded to the title of 6th Earl of Derby in 1254. He lived at Chartley, Staffordshire, England.3
Children of Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby and Alianor de Bohun
Alianore de Ferrers+3
John de Ferrers, 1st Lord Ferrers (of Chartley)+ b. 20 Jun 1271, d. 1312
Citations
[S125] Richard Glanville-Brown, online, Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.
[S130] Wikipedia, online http;//www.wikipedia.org. Hereinafter cited as Wikipedia.
[S8] BP1999 volume 1, page 1069. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S8]
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A Topographical History of Staffordshire, William Pitt (1817), p. 205
UTTOXETER
Is a handsome market-town of Totmanslow South, situated on a gentle eminence, near the western bank of the Dove. It is 14 miles distant from Stafford, and 135 from London. In the year 181 1, Uttoxeter contained 605 inhabited houses, 628 families; 1376 males, and 1779 females : total of inhabitants 3155.
This town is undoubtedly a place of great antiquity, and from its inviting situation on the bank of a river, was probably inhabited before the invasion of the Romans. The most ancient record in existence, however, is dated in the year 1252, when Earl Ferrers granted a Charter to the Burgesses of Uttoxeter.
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History of the Town of Uttoxeter, Francis Redfern 1865
p. 327
A junior Ferrers of Tutbury held Loxley, which is about two miles west of Uttoxeter, in Henry II.'s reign [1154-1189] , and in the time of Henry III [1216-1272], it belonged to Robert de Ferrers. In 1327 John de Kynardesleye married Johanna, daughter to a second Thomas de Ferrers. John Kynnersley was owner of Loxley eighteen Edward III. Thomas Kynnersley, twentysecond Charles I.; Craven Kynnersley, seven George II.; and Clement Kynnersley, ten George III., were sheriffs. An ancestor of the Kynnersley's was seated at Kynnersley Castle, Herefordshire, at the Conquest. There is a horn preserved at Loxley, with the proud name of " Robin Hood's Horn," which was formerly in the family of Ferrers, at Chartly. There is no particular reason given for its being Robin Hood's Horn, although it bears his initials; but from bearing three horse-shoes (two and one) it probably belonged to the Ferrars, and came into the family of Kynnersley by the marriage of Johanna, daughter of Thomas de Ferrers, to John de Kynnardesleye, through which marriage it is supposed Loxley also came into the possession of the Kynnersleys
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From Wikipedia
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby. (2016, April 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:35, May 11, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_de_Ferrers,_6th_Earl_of_Derby&oldid=716739122
Sir Robert de Ferrers, sometime Earl of Derby, died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St Thomas's Priory at Stafford, in Staffordshire. In Michaelmas term 1279 his widow, Eleanor, sued Edmund the king's brother for dower in a third of Tutbury, Scropton, Rolleston, Marchington, Calyngewode, Uttoxeter, Adgeresley, and Newborough, Staffordshire, and Duffield, Spondon, Chatesdene, and nine other vills named in Derbyshire; Edmund appeared in court and stated he held nothing in Spondon or Chatesdene, and as regards the rest Eleanor had no claim to dower in them, because neither at the time Robert had married her nor any time afterwards had he been seised of them. About 1280 Eleanor petitioned the king for the restoration of the manor of Chartley, Staffordshire, stating it was part of the inheritance of her son, John de Ferrers, who is under age and in the king's keeping. In 1284 she sued Thomas de Bray in a plea regarding custody of the land and heir of William le Botiller. In 1286 a commission was appointed by the king to investigate the persons who hunted and carried away deer and felled and carried away trees in the park of Eleanor late the wife of Robert de Ferrers at Chartley, Staffordshire. In 1290 she and her brother, Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, acknowledged they owed a debt of £200 to Robert de Tibetot and Matthew de Columbers, the king's butler. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1313/4, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
Notes
^ Turbutt 1999, p. [page needed].
^ Maddicott 2004.
^ Bland 1887, "Robert de Ferrers".
^ Lysons & Lysons 1817, pp. 3-11.
^ manucaptor (antonym mainpernor) A person who stands surety that another (esp. a prisoner) will fulfil a legal obligation to appear in court on a specified day. (OED 2007)
References
Maddicott, J.R. (2004). "Ferrers, Robert de, sixth earl of Derby (c. 1239–1279". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9366. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Lysons, Daniel; Lysons, Samuel (1817). "General history: Historical events". Magna Britannia: volume 5: Derbyshire. Institute of Historical Research. pp. 3–11.
Turbutt, Gladwyn (1999). Medieval Derbyshire. A History of Derbyshire (in four volumes) 2. Cardiff: Merton Priory Press. ISBN 1-898937-34-6.
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From Dictionary_of_National_Biography v 18 1889, p. 386
He [Robert de Ferrers (1240-1279)] soon entered into public life as a champion of the baronial cause against Henry III. The king regarded with peculiar dislike his niece’s husband, whose marriage connections should have brought him into the court party (Rishanger, p. 49, Rolls Ser.; C'hron. de Melsa, ii. 132).
On the outbreak of civil war in 1263 Ferrers took three castles from Edward, the king’s son (Dunst. p. 224). On 19 Feb. he captured Worcester after a long siege and several attacks (Ann. Worcester, p. 448). He showed much violence to the conquered city, destroying the Jewry, spoiling religious and seculars alike, and devastating the King’s parks (RISHANGER, p. 13). By a subsequent march to Gloucester Ferrers saved the sons of Leicester from a formidable attack of Edward, captured Edward, and detained him in prison for a short time (Dumt. p. 228).
In the spring of 1264 he was one of the confederate barons who refused to obey the king ’s writ of summons (Worcester, p. 450). He took arms and marched to Chester, where he gained a decided victory over a royalist army of Welsh and English (Dumt. p. 235); but his old opponent Edward mercilessly devastated his lands in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and destroyed his castle of Tutbury.
On 23 Aug [1264?] he was assigned with Leicester to treat of certain arduous business of state (Fadera, i. 445), and he was one of the five earls who received summonses to the famous parliament of 20 Jan. 1265 (Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 71). He was here accused of violence and robbery after the peace, and attacked so violently by the king that Montfort to save his life shut him up in the Tower (Waverley, p. 358; Robert or Gloucsster, ii. 550, ed. Hearne).
It was, however, suspected by many that Ferrers had joined the Earl of Gloucester in his opposition to Montfort, and that his arrest was designed to weaken the aristocratic party that distrusted Montfort’s ambition (Wykes, p. 175, holds strongly this view, which is, however, discredited by Henry’s hostility). His lands were seized, he was brought to trial, and only avoided judicial condemnation by a complete submission (Cal. Rot. Pat. 49 H. III , mm. 18, 22).
The fall of Montfort brought him no relief (Wykes, p. 175), and he does not seem to have been released from prison before the spring of 1266. He now, however, put himself at the head of the ‘disinherited’ whom the harsh treatment of the victors had driven into revolt, and gathered an army in his own district in Derbyshire.
On 15 May he was with his troops at Chesterfield when he was surprised by Henry of Almayn, and, after a complete defeat, was himself taken prisoner as he lay helpless with gout, from which he suffered like his father and grandfather (Wykes, pp. 188-9 ; Cont. FLOR. Wig. 197 ; Lib. de Ant. Leg. p.86; ROBERT of GLOUCESTER, ii. 564; c . Archeologia, ii. 276-85).
He was loaded with chains and confined a prisoner in Windsor Castle. In the ‘Dictum Se Kenilworth' (29 Nov. 1266) he was, with the sons of Montfort, specially exempted from the general composition, and was required to redeem his lands by the exceptionally heavy fine of seven years’ rent. On 5 Aug., however, Henry had granted his estates to his brother, Edmund of Lancaster (Cal. Rot. Pat. 50 H. III, m. 9).
On 1 May 1269 Ferrers pledged himself in his prison at Chippenham to pay Edmund the enormous sum of 50,000l. on one day for his interest in his estates (DUGDALE, i. 264 ; Knighton, c. 2438; Chron. de Melaa, ii. 132). This, however, he failed to do, so that the great mass of the Derby estates passed permanently to the house of Lancaster, as the suits which Ferrers and his widow after him brought against Earl Edmund failed to dislodge him from his possessions (see summary of the pleadings in DUGDALE, Baronage, i. 264-5; and Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 187).
Ferrers took no further part in public life, though about June 1269 he was released from his prison at Wallingford by the forbearance of Edward (DUGDALE, i. 264; cf. Cal. Rot. Pat. 53 H. III, m. 16) and received restitution of part of his property.
His violence and want of settled policy had ruined his career, and he had long been equally distrusted by both sides (Rishanger, p. 13). Though still occasionally spoken of as earl (e.g. Cal. Genealog. p. 43 in the 4 E. I) he had practically lost that position, and his descendants were never able to win back the title now that the estates were gone to a more powerful house.
He died before 20 Nov. 1279. … [H]e left a son JOHN, born in June 1271 at Cardiff, who succeeded to his grandmother Margaret’s share of the Winchester estates (Cal. Genealogicum, p. 464, 762), and, after joining Bohun and Bigod in the struggle for the charters, was summoned to parliament in 1299 and died in 1324. He was the ancestor of the Lords Ferrers of Chartley.
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From FindAGrave
Birth: 1239
Derbyshire, England
Death: Apr., 1279
Staffordshire, England
6th Earl of Derby, Baron of Tutbury, Staffordshire.
Son and heir of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy, born at Tutbury Castle, Derbyshire. Grandson of William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby and Agnes of Chester, Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester and Helen de Galloway.
Robert was married at the age of ten to seven year old Marie de Lusignan, the daughter of Hugh XI, Count de la Marche, a half brother of King Henry III. Mary died in 1266, and they had no issue.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children:
* John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley, married Hawise de Muscegros
* Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter
Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
Robert's father died in 1254, and Robert inherited his estates and became a knight at the age of fifteen, but his estates were in a wardship under Prince Edward, who later sold the wardship to the queen for six thousand marks.
When he became of age in 1260, Robert took possession of his vast estates; a large portion of Derbyshire, parts of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, Chartley Castle, and Lancaster between the Ribble and the Mersey. The Ferrers family was one of the wealthiest of the era. Debts from his father's death and discrepancies involving Chartley created financial difficulties, Robert was impetuous, violent and unreliable, and actually attacked the priory of Tutbury, the church his parents patronized.
Robert took sides with Simon de Montfort against the King in the Second Baron's War of 1263, taking three castles belonging to Prince Edward. Further disputes regarding Peverel Castle from Robert's grandfather's days as Steward fueled Robert's hatred for Edward, who returned to attack Northampton Castle, followed by attacks at Chartley Castle and the destruction of Tutbury Castle. Once Edward and King Henry were captured, Ferrers took several royal castles as well as Peverel.
Montfort soon would accuse Ferrers of "diverse trespasses" and send Robert to the Tower of London. After the Battle of Evesham, Robert was released upon payment of 1500 marks, pardoned and his inheritance returned, his support was useful to Henry because of his locations.
Robert still chose to meddle with the rebels, forced to move north and encountered the Royal forces at Chesterfield in 1266, where Robert was defeated and taken prisoner, held at Windsor Castle until 1269. King Henry's second son, Edmund, was given Robert's lands.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children; John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley and Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter. Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
He lived for another ten years, during which he attempted to regain his estates, with little success, he regained only the manor at Chartley by 1275.
Sir Robert died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St. Thomas Priory at Stafford, Staffordshire. His widow would spend many years suing for the recovery of Robert's estates to no avail. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1314, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
Family links:
Parents:
William Ferrers (1193 - 1254)
Margaret De Quincy Ferrers (1218 - 1281)
Spouse:
Alianore de Bohun Ferrers (1243 - 1314)*
Children:
Eleanor de Ferrers FitzWalter*
Siblings:
Joan Ferrers Berkeley (____ - 1309)*
Agnes de Ferrieres (1224 - 1290)**
Eleanor de Ferrieres (1232 - 1274)**
Joan de Ferrieres (1233 - 1267)**
Robert de Ferrers (1239 - 1279)
William De Ferrers (1240 - 1288)*
*Calculated relationship
**Half-sibling
Burial:
St Thomas Priory, Stafford
Stafford
Stafford Borough
Staffordshire, England
Maintained by: Anne Shurtleff Stevens
Originally Created by: Jerry Ferren
Record added: Dec 13, 2011
Find A Grave Memorial# 81904106
-- MERGED NOTE ------------
There are differences about the identity of Robert de Ferrers' (1239-1274) second wife. Cokayne says some say it was Eleanor Basset. Palmer says it was Alianor Basset. thePeerage.com and Wikipedia say it was Alianor de Bohun. Wikipedia recites some litigation around 1284 to 1286 by which Alianor, the second wife, tried to recover some of Robert's properties from Edmund, the King's brother. The article suggests that in that litigation, reference is made to her brother, Humphrey de Bohun.
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Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Vol 3 (1890)
b. about 1241 ; as soon as he was of full age took an active part against the King in the Barons' rebellion, plundering Worcester, &c. He sat in Montfort's) Parl., of 1264 and was at the battles of Lewes and Evesham on the side of the rebels. After submission and pardon bv apoc. pat; 5 Dec. 1265 (inasmuch as he had been excepted from the terms of the dictum of Kenilworth) he again rebelled and was defeated at the battle of Chesterfield early in 1200, taken prisoner to London and "in the Parl, held the same year [1200] was totally disherited wherebv his Earldom became forfeited. In March 1268/9 an agreement was made whereby he was allowed to retain Chartly in Staffordshire and Holbrooke in Derbyshire, yielding up Tutbury and all other his lands and honours. He m. firstly (he being 9 and she 8 years old) before 6 Feb. 1253, Marie, da. of Hugh Le Brun, Count of Angouleme in France, who was br. of the half-blood (ex parte materna) to King Henry III. He m. secondly, Eleanor, "da, as some say to Ralph, Lord Basset." He d. in or before 1279. His widow was living 1281.
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Palmer, Charles Ferrers Raymund (1819-1900), The History of the Town and Castle of Tamworth, p. 364
Robert de Ferrers, 8th and last earl of Derby, was a minor at his father's death. He sided withthe barons against Hen. III.; so that, in 1266, he was deprived of titles and estates. His lands were conferred on Edmund Plantagenet, the king's son. He d. in 1274, of the gout, in poverty. He had two wives,—Maria, dau. of Hugh le Brun, earl of Angolesme, and niece of Hen. s. p.; and 1269 Alianore, dau. of Ralph lord Basset, living at his decease; by whom he had a son, John, progenitor of the family of Ferrers, barons of Chartley. He bore his father's arms without the border.
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thePeerage.com
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby1
M, #38866, b. circa 1239, d. circa 27 April 1279
Last Edited=24 Sep 2014
Consanguinity Index=1.59%
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby was born circa 1239 at Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England.2 He was the son of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy.1 He married, firstly, Marie de Lusignan, daughter of Hugues XI de Lusignan, Comte de la Marche and Yolande de Bretagne, Comtesse de Penthièvre et Porhoët, in 1249. He married, secondly, Alianor de Bohun, daughter of Sir Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Briouze, in 1269. He died circa 27 April 1279.2
He succeeded to the title of 6th Earl of Derby in 1254. He lived at Chartley, Staffordshire, England.3
Children of Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby and Alianor de Bohun
Alianore de Ferrers+3
John de Ferrers, 1st Lord Ferrers (of Chartley)+ b. 20 Jun 1271, d. 1312
Citations
[S125] Richard Glanville-Brown, online, Richard Glanville-Brown (RR 2, Milton, Ontario, Canada), downloaded 17 August 2005.
[S130] Wikipedia, online http;//www.wikipedia.org. Hereinafter cited as Wikipedia.
[S8] BP1999 volume 1, page 1069. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S8]
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A Topographical History of Staffordshire, William Pitt (1817), p. 205
UTTOXETER
Is a handsome market-town of Totmanslow South, situated on a gentle eminence, near the western bank of the Dove. It is 14 miles distant from Stafford, and 135 from London. In the year 181 1, Uttoxeter contained 605 inhabited houses, 628 families; 1376 males, and 1779 females : total of inhabitants 3155.
This town is undoubtedly a place of great antiquity, and from its inviting situation on the bank of a river, was probably inhabited before the invasion of the Romans. The most ancient record in existence, however, is dated in the year 1252, when Earl Ferrers granted a Charter to the Burgesses of Uttoxeter.
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History of the Town of Uttoxeter, Francis Redfern 1865
p. 327
A junior Ferrers of Tutbury held Loxley, which is about two miles west of Uttoxeter, in Henry II.'s reign [1154-1189] , and in the time of Henry III [1216-1272], it belonged to Robert de Ferrers. In 1327 John de Kynardesleye married Johanna, daughter to a second Thomas de Ferrers. John Kynnersley was owner of Loxley eighteen Edward III. Thomas Kynnersley, twentysecond Charles I.; Craven Kynnersley, seven George II.; and Clement Kynnersley, ten George III., were sheriffs. An ancestor of the Kynnersley's was seated at Kynnersley Castle, Herefordshire, at the Conquest. There is a horn preserved at Loxley, with the proud name of " Robin Hood's Horn," which was formerly in the family of Ferrers, at Chartly. There is no particular reason given for its being Robin Hood's Horn, although it bears his initials; but from bearing three horse-shoes (two and one) it probably belonged to the Ferrars, and came into the family of Kynnersley by the marriage of Johanna, daughter of Thomas de Ferrers, to John de Kynnardesleye, through which marriage it is supposed Loxley also came into the possession of the Kynnersleys
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From Wikipedia
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby (1239–1279) was an English nobleman.
He was born at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire, England, the son of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby, by his second wife Margaret de Quincy (born 1218), a daughter of Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester and Helen of Galloway.
Born 1239
Tutbury Castle, Derbyshire
Died 1279
Occupation English nobleman
Spouse(s) Mary de Lusignan and Eleanor de Bohun
Children John and Eleanor
Parent(s) William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy
Early yearsEdit
In 1249, at the age of 10, he married the seven-year-old Mary (or Marie), daughter of Hugh XI of Lusignan Count of La Marche, the eldest of Henry III's half-brothers, at Westminster Abbey. This arranged marriage is an indication of Henry's high regard for Robert's father. William died in 1254, so that Robert became a knight and inherited the title while he was still a minor. He and his estates became a ward of Prince Edward. In 1257, Edward sold the wardship to the queen and Peter of Savoy for 6000 marks, which might have been a source of the later antipathy of Ferrers for the prince.
InheritanceEdit
Robert came of age in 1260 and took possession of the vast estates he inherited. The first of these passed to him from his Norman ancestors, a large part of Derbyshire that included the area later known as Duffield Frith, together with parts of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire. In addition, he received Chartley Castle in Staffordshire, and all Lancashire between the Ribble and the Mersey. This came from the estate of Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester, whose sister, Robert's grandfather had married. By careful management, the estate had become worth around £1500, which meant that the Ferrers family was among the wealthiest in the country.
However the estate was crippled by charges arising from William's death. Firstly a third of its worth was accounted for by his mother's dower, which included the major asset of Chartley. Nearly half was supporting a debt of around £800 incurred by his father, which the exchequer was calling in. To pay this he had taken a further loan, possibly from Jewish financiers in Worcester. Finally there was provision for his brother William and his wife Mary, who held two manors herself. It would seem that before taking his inheritance his only income had been the maritagium bestowed by King Henry.
Baronial unrestEdit
Unlike his predecessors, Robert was impetuous and violent, in part, perhaps, because he had inherited a severe form of gout from his grandfather. He was also unreliable and lacking in political sophistication.[1] Almost as soon as he took control of his estate, he attacked the priory of Tutbury, which his family were patrons of.
In the early years, Robert had taken little interest in politics, perhaps because of his preoccupation with the estate. Nevertheless, he was acquainted with the reforms that were being pursued, and with Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and Simon de Montfort, friends of the family.
When Montfort returned to England in 1263 to begin a rebellion against the king that became known as the Second Barons' War, Robert had to take sides, and moved towards Montfort. He is on record during May and June as taking the 'Three Castles'—Grosmont, Skenfrith, and Whitecastle in South Wales, which belonged to Prince Edward. When in January 1264, Louis IX of France declared the Provisions of Oxford unlawful and invalid, further unrest followed.
Robert first attacked Worcester in February 1264, sacking the Jewish quarter, plundering the religious and private houses, and damaging the fences and lands of the Royal parks in the neighbourhood. He carried away the bonds recording his loans, effectively ameliorating his debt problem. He then went on to join Simon de Montfort's forces at Gloucester Castle, recently taken by Edward. To Robert's extreme annoyance, Edward escaped, having made a truce with Henry de Montfort, Simon's son. It would seem that the motives of Ferrers were less about support for reform than they were about hatred of Edward.
The origins of this may well have been in the Ferrers family's long held claims on the estate of Peverel Castle through the marriage of Margaret Peverel to Robert the second earl. King John had assigned stewardship of the estate to the fourth earl, Robert's grandfather, but King Henry had taken it back and awarded it to Prince Edward in 1222. Finally there was Edward's custodianship during Robert's minority and the fact that some land had not been relinquished. Be that as it may, Robert of Gloucester observed that "Of no one was Edward more afraid."
Edward's brief escape, however, allowed him, to attack Northampton Castle where Ferrers brother William, Anker de Frescheville, Lord of Crich and Baldwin Wake, Lord of Chesterfield were taken prisoner in March 1264. Edward went on to attack Ferrers at Chartley Castle, and later to destroy Tutbury Castle. This was followed by the Battle of Lewes in May. That Robert did not join Montfort there would support the idea that his activities were largely motivated by self-interest.
Prince Edward and the king having finally been captured gave Ferrers his opportunity, gaining the royal castles of Bolsover, Horston, and Tickhill, in Yorkshire. By the end of 1264, he had also taken Peverel and, it is believed, Chester Castles.
Retribution
Montfort's Parliament of 1265 broadened elected representation beyond the nobility to freeholder groups . Some of the Barons felt that he had gone too far and he began to lose support. Meanwhile, Edward continued under house arrest, and Montfort was working out an agreement for his release that included surrender of large portions of his lands.
That these were lands that Ferrers had appropriated made Montfort a new and dangerous adversary. Montfort summoned Ferrers to the session of Parliament for January 1265, ordered him to surrender Peverel Castle, and accused him of "divers trespasses", after which he had him arrested and sent to the Tower of London.
J. R. Maddicott, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, suggests that:
The summons to a parliament that otherwise comprised only staunch Montfortians was an almost blatant device to remove Derby from the scene of his triumphs and to open his lands, new and old, to a Montfortian takeover ... It is a mark of Earl Robert's characteristic lack of political cunning that he fell into the trap, with predictable results. ... Derby's removal was essential to Montfort's territorial ambitions, and that it could be accomplished without much risk because the earl's violent self-seeking had left him friendless[2]
Rebellion once moreEdit
Meanwhile, Montfort was steadily losing support and, in May, the Earl of Gloucester deserted to the side of the King. With his assistance, and that of Roger de Mortimer, Edward escaped from Kenilworth Castle. When he defeated Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in August 1265, the rebels were shown little mercy.
In spite of Ferrers's activities against Prince Edward's estates, his support in the North Midlands was potentially useful to King Henry, as was his money. Ferrers was released and, on paying 1500 marks, was given a pardon, his inheritance was secured, and mediation arranged in his quarrel with Prince Edward.
Far from accepting his good fortune, in 1266 he joined a number of previous Montfortian supporters, including Baldwin de Wake, lord of Chesterfield, in a fresh rebellion. Initially, it would seem that the rebels gathered at Ferrers's substantial Duffield Castle.[3] However, from Tutbury, the royalist army, under Prince Henry, a nephew of Henry III, bypassed Duffield and proceeded to Chesterfield to intercept a force from the North under John d'Ayville.
Robert was, therefore, compelled to move northwards, crossing the River Amber, which was then flooded, reaching Chesterfield on May 15, 1266, just as d'Ayville arrived from Dronfield. In what has come to be known as the Battle of Chesterfield, they engaged the Royal forces in battle and were defeated. One account suggests that they were surprised in their quarters and most of them killed. Other accounts suggest that Ferrers himself managed to take Chesterfield but was left exposed by the defeat of the other participants. Most of them withdrew into the forest where they lived as outlaws for two years. Ferrers was taken prisoner, some accounts suggesting that he was taken while having treatment for his gout, some that he was in hiding and was betrayed.[4]
Robert was captured, attainted of high treason, and imprisoned in Windsor Castle until 1269. Duffield Castle was pulled down and Henry's second son, Edmund, was given possession of his lands and goods.
However, the Dictum of Kenilworth, issued in October 1266, provided that Ferrers could reclaim his lands in return for a redemption payment of seven times their annual value. They were returned at Windsor in 1269, with a debt of £50,000 to be paid to Edmund by 9 July.
Although the chances of Robert finding such a sum were remote, Edmund and his associates made their position more secure by a move that was unlikely to have been intended by those who drafted the Dictum of Kenilworth. Ferrers was taken to the manor of Cippenham, Buckinghamshire, the property of Richard, earl of Cornwall. There, in the presence of John Chishall, the chancellor, he was required to assign the lands to twelve manucapters[5]
He was kept imprisoned at Richard of Cornwall's Wallingford Castle until the end of May and on 9 July the estate was transferred to Edmund. In time it would provide a considerable part of the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, while Ferrers was left virtually landless and deprived of his title.
Declining yearsEdit
Ferrers lived on for another ten years, during which he attempted to regain his estates, with little success, largely because the machinations at Cippenham had been quietly supported by the King and his council. Edmund, in any case, was absent at the crusades until 1273 and no legal redress could be sought.
Soon after Edmund's return, Ferrers seized his old Chartley Castle by force, but was soon ejected. He then took a more considered approach, enlisting the help of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. In 1274, when Edward, now King, returned to England, Ferrers pleaded that he had accepted the Kenilworth ruling, with its seven years' redemption period, but that Edmund had refused. Edmund's defence was the Cippenham 'agreement' and Ferrers's failure to meet its terms. Ferrers argued that the 'agreement' was made under duress, but it was held that chancellor Chishall's presence at the signing gave it full legal validity.
Ferrers's case was dismissed and, although, in 1275, he was able to recover his manor at Chartley (but not the castle), it marked the end of the great position of what had been one of England's most powerful families.
His final years were spent in the company of his family. His first wife, Mary, had died some time between 1266 and 1269, and the marriage had been childless. He married (2nd) 26 June 1269 Eleanor, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Knt., of Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, and Eleanor de Braose, and granddaughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford. Until 1275, when he recovered Chartley, the family appeared to have lived on his mother's dower lands in Northamptonshire. The couple had two children: John born at Cardiff, Wales 20 June 1271 (who later became 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley), and Eleanor, wife of Robert Fitz Walter, Knt., 1st Lord Fitz Walter.
Sir Robert de Ferrers, sometime Earl of Derby, died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St Thomas's Priory at Stafford, in Staffordshire. In Michaelmas term 1279 his widow, Eleanor, sued Edmund the king's brother for dower in a third of Tutbury, Scropton, Rolleston, Marchington, Calyngewode, Uttoxeter, Adgeresley, and Newborough, Staffordshire, and Duffield, Spondon, Chatesdene, and nine other vills named in Derbyshire; Edmund appeared in court and stated he held nothing in Spondon or Chatesdene, and as regards the rest Eleanor had no claim to dower in them, because neither at the time Robert had married her nor any time afterwards had he been seised of them. About 1280 Eleanor petitioned the king for the restoration of the manor of Chartley, Staffordshire, stating it was part of the inheritance of her son, John de Ferrers, who is under age and in the king's keeping. In 1284 she sued Thomas de Bray in a plea regarding custody of the land and heir of William le Botiller. In 1286 a commission was appointed by the king to investigate the persons who hunted and carried away deer and felled and carried away trees in the park of Eleanor late the wife of Robert de Ferrers at Chartley, Staffordshire. In 1290 she and her brother, Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, acknowledged they owed a debt of £200 to Robert de Tibetot and Matthew de Columbers, the king's butler. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1313/4, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
NotesEdit
^ Turbutt 1999, p. [page needed].
^ Maddicott 2004.
^ Bland 1887, "Robert de Ferrers".
^ Lysons & Lysons 1817, pp. 3-11.
^ manucaptor (antonym mainpernor) A person who stands surety that another (esp. a prisoner) will fulfil a legal obligation to appear in court on a specified day. (OED 2007)
ReferencesEdit
Maddicott, J.R. (2004). "Ferrers, Robert de, sixth earl of Derby (c. 1239–1279". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9366. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Lysons, Daniel; Lysons, Samuel (1817). "General history: Historical events". Magna Britannia: volume 5: Derbyshire. Institute of Historical Research. pp. 3–11.
Turbutt, Gladwyn (1999). Medieval Derbyshire. A History of Derbyshire (in four volumes) 2. Cardiff: Merton Priory Press. ISBN 1-898937-34-6.
************
From Dictionary_of_National_Biography v 18 1889, p. 386
He [Robert de Ferrers (1240-1279)] soon entered into public life as a champion of the baronial cause against Henry III. The king regarded with peculiar dislike his niece’s husband, whose marriage connections should have brought him into the court party (Rishanger, p. 49, Rolls Ser.; C'hron. de Melsa, ii. 132).
On the outbreak of civil war in 1263 Ferrers took three castles from Edward, the king’s son (Dunst. p. 224). On 19 Feb. he captured Worcester after a long siege and several attacks (Ann. Worcester, p. 448). He showed much violence to the conquered city, destroying the Jewry, spoiling religious and seculars alike, and devastating the King’s parks (RISHANGER, p. 13). By a subsequent march to Gloucester Ferrers saved the sons of Leicester from a formidable attack of Edward, captured Edward, and detained him in prison for a short time (Dumt. p. 228).
In the spring of 1264 he was one of the confederate barons who refused to obey the king ’s writ of summons (Worcester, p. 450). He took arms and marched to Chester, where he gained a decided victory over a royalist army of Welsh and English (Dumt. p. 235); but his old opponent Edward mercilessly devastated his lands in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and destroyed his castle of Tutbury.
On 23 Aug [1264?] he was assigned with Leicester to treat of certain arduous business of state (Fadera, i. 445), and he was one of the five earls who received summonses to the famous parliament of 20 Jan. 1265 (Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 71). He was here accused of violence and robbery after the peace, and attacked so violently by the king that Montfort to save his life shut him up in the Tower (Waverley, p. 358; Robert or Gloucsster, ii. 550, ed. Hearne).
It was, however, suspected by many that Ferrers had joined the Earl of Gloucester in his opposition to Montfort, and that his arrest was designed to weaken the aristocratic party that distrusted Montfort’s ambition (Wykes, p. 175, holds strongly this view, which is, however, discredited by Henry’s hostility). His lands were seized, he was brought to trial, and only avoided judicial condemnation by a complete submission (Cal. Rot. Pat. 49 H. III , mm. 18, 22).
The fall of Montfort brought him no relief (Wykes, p. 175), and he does not seem to have been released from prison before the spring of 1266. He now, however, put himself at the head of the ‘disinherited’ whom the harsh treatment of the victors had driven into revolt, and gathered an army in his own district in Derbyshire.
On 15 May he was with his troops at Chesterfield when he was surprised by Henry of Almayn, and, after a complete defeat, was himself taken prisoner as he lay helpless with gout, from which he suffered like his father and grandfather (Wykes, pp. 188-9 ; Cont. FLOR. Wig. 197 ; Lib. de Ant. Leg. p.86; ROBERT of GLOUCESTER, ii. 564; c . Archeologia, ii. 276-85).
He was loaded with chains and confined a prisoner in Windsor Castle. In the ‘Dictum Se Kenilworth' (29 Nov. 1266) he was, with the sons of Montfort, specially exempted from the general composition, and was required to redeem his lands by the exceptionally heavy fine of seven years’ rent. On 5 Aug., however, Henry had granted his estates to his brother, Edmund of Lancaster (Cal. Rot. Pat. 50 H. III, m. 9).
On 1 May 1269 Ferrers pledged himself in his prison at Chippenham to pay Edmund the enormous sum of 50,000l. on one day for his interest in his estates (DUGDALE, i. 264 ; Knighton, c. 2438; Chron. de Melaa, ii. 132). This, however, he failed to do, so that the great mass of the Derby estates passed permanently to the house of Lancaster, as the suits which Ferrers and his widow after him brought against Earl Edmund failed to dislodge him from his possessions (see summary of the pleadings in DUGDALE, Baronage, i. 264-5; and Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 187).
Ferrers took no further part in public life, though about June 1269 he was released from his prison at Wallingford by the forbearance of Edward (DUGDALE, i. 264; cf. Cal. Rot. Pat. 53 H. III, m. 16) and received restitution of part of his property.
His violence and want of settled policy had ruined his career, and he had long been equally distrusted by both sides (Rishanger, p. 13). Though still occasionally spoken of as earl (e.g. Cal. Genealog. p. 43 in the 4 E. I) he had practically lost that position, and his descendants were never able to win back the title now that the estates were gone to a more powerful house.
He died before 20 Nov. 1279. … [H]e left a son JOHN, born in June 1271 at Cardiff, who succeeded to his grandmother Margaret’s share of the Winchester estates (Cal. Genealogicum, p. 464, 762), and, after joining Bohun and Bigod in the struggle for the charters, was summoned to parliament in 1299 and died in 1324. He was the ancestor of the Lords Ferrers of Chartley.
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From FindAGrave
Birth: 1239
Derbyshire, England
Death: Apr., 1279
Staffordshire, England
6th Earl of Derby, Baron of Tutbury, Staffordshire.
Son and heir of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy, born at Tutbury Castle, Derbyshire. Grandson of William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby and Agnes of Chester, Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester and Helen de Galloway.
Robert was married at the age of ten to seven year old Marie de Lusignan, the daughter of Hugh XI, Count de la Marche, a half brother of King Henry III. Mary died in 1266, and they had no issue.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children:
* John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley, married Hawise de Muscegros
* Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter
Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
Robert's father died in 1254, and Robert inherited his estates and became a knight at the age of fifteen, but his estates were in a wardship under Prince Edward, who later sold the wardship to the queen for six thousand marks.
When he became of age in 1260, Robert took possession of his vast estates; a large portion of Derbyshire, parts of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, Chartley Castle, and Lancaster between the Ribble and the Mersey. The Ferrers family was one of the wealthiest of the era. Debts from his father's death and discrepancies involving Chartley created financial difficulties, Robert was impetuous, violent and unreliable, and actually attacked the priory of Tutbury, the church his parents patronized.
Robert took sides with Simon de Montfort against the King in the Second Baron's War of 1263, taking three castles belonging to Prince Edward. Further disputes regarding Peverel Castle from Robert's grandfather's days as Steward fueled Robert's hatred for Edward, who returned to attack Northampton Castle, followed by attacks at Chartley Castle and the destruction of Tutbury Castle. Once Edward and King Henry were captured, Ferrers took several royal castles as well as Peverel.
Montfort soon would accuse Ferrers of "diverse trespasses" and send Robert to the Tower of London. After the Battle of Evesham, Robert was released upon payment of 1500 marks, pardoned and his inheritance returned, his support was useful to Henry because of his locations.
Robert still chose to meddle with the rebels, forced to move north and encountered the Royal forces at Chesterfield in 1266, where Robert was defeated and taken prisoner, held at Windsor Castle until 1269. King Henry's second son, Edmund, was given Robert's lands.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children; John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley and Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter. Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
He lived for another ten years, during which he attempted to regain his estates, with little success, he regained only the manor at Chartley by 1275.
Sir Robert died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St. Thomas Priory at Stafford, Staffordshire. His widow would spend many years suing for the recovery of Robert's estates to no avail. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1314, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
Family links:
Parents:
William Ferrers (1193 - 1254)
Margaret De Quincy Ferrers (1218 - 1281)
Spouse:
Alianore de Bohun Ferrers (1243 - 1314)*
Children:
Eleanor de Ferrers FitzWalter*
Siblings:
Joan Ferrers Berkeley (____ - 1309)*
Agnes de Ferrieres (1224 - 1290)**
Eleanor de Ferrieres (1232 - 1274)**
Joan de Ferrieres (1233 - 1267)**
Robert de Ferrers (1239 - 1279)
William De Ferrers (1240 - 1288)*
*Calculated relationship
**Half-sibling
Burial:
St Thomas Priory, Stafford
Stafford
Stafford Borough
Staffordshire, England
Maintained by: Anne Shurtleff Stevens
Originally Created by: Jerry Ferren
Record added: Dec 13, 2011
Find A Grave Memorial# 81904106
***************
Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Vol 3 (1890)
b. about 1241 ; as soon as he was of full age took an active part against the King in the Barons' rebellion, plundering Worcester, &c. He sat in Montfort's) Parl., of 1264 and was at the battles of Lewes and Evesham on the side of the rebels. After submission and pardon bv apoc. pat; 5 Dec. 1265 (inasmuch as he had been excepted from the terms of the dictum of Kenilworth) he again rebelled and was defeated at the battle of Chesterfield early in 1200, taken prisoner to London and "in the Parl, held the same year [1200] was totally disherited wherebv his Earldom became forfeited. In March 1268/9 an agreement was made whereby he was allowed to retain Chartly in Staffordshire and Holbrooke in Derbyshire, yielding up Tutbury and all other his lands and honours. He m. firstly (he being 9 and she 8 years old) before 6 Feb. 1253, Marie, da. of Hugh Le Brun, Count of Angouleme in France, who was br. of the half-blood (ex parte materna) to King Henry III. He m. secondly, Eleanor, "da, as some say to Ralph, Lord Basset." He d. in or before 1279. His widow was living 1281.
******************
Palmer, Charles Ferrers Raymund (1819-1900), The History of the Town and Castle of Tamworth, p. 364
Robert de Ferrers, 8th and last earl of Derby, was a minor at his father's death. He sided withthe barons against Hen. III.; so that, in 1266, he was deprived of titles and estates. His lands were conferred on Edmund Plantagenet, the king's son. He d. in 1274, of the gout, in poverty. He had two wives,—Maria, dau. of Hugh le Brun, earl of Angolesme, and niece of Hen. s. p.; and 1269 Alianore, dau. of Ralph lord Basset, living at his decease; by whom he had a son, John, progenitor of the family of Ferrers, barons of Chartley. He bore his father's arms without the border.
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thePeerage.com
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby1
M, #38866, b. circa 1239, d. circa 27 April 1279
Last Edited=24 Sep 2014
Consanguinity Index=1.59%
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby was born circa 1239 at Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England.2 He was the son of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy.1 He married, firstly, Marie de Lusignan, daughter of Hugues XI de Lusignan, Comte de la Marche and Yolande de Bretagne, Comtesse de Penthièvre et Porhoët, in 1249. He married, secondly, Alianor de Bohun, daughter of Sir Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Briouze, in 1269. He died circa 27 April 1279.2
He succeeded to the title of 6th Earl of Derby in 1254. He lived at Chartley, Staffordshire, England.3
Children of Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby and Alianor de Bohun
Alianore de Ferrers+3
John de Ferrers, 1st Lord Ferrers (of Chartley)+ b. 20 Jun 1271, d. 1312
Citations
[S125] Richard Glanville-Brown, online
[S130] Wikipedia, online http;//www.wikipedia.org. Hereinafter cited as Wikipedia.
[S8] BP1999 volume 1, page 1069. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S8]
*************
A Topographical History of Staffordshire, William Pitt (1817), p. 205
UTTOXETER
Is a handsome market-town of Totmanslow South, situated on a gentle eminence, near the western bank of the Dove. It is 14 miles distant from Stafford, and 135 from London. In the year 181 1, Uttoxeter contained 605 inhabited houses, 628 families; 1376 males, and 1779 females : total of inhabitants 3155.
This town is undoubtedly a place of great antiquity, and from its inviting situation on the bank of a river, was probably inhabited before the invasion of the Romans. The most ancient record in existence, however, is dated in the year 1252, when Earl Ferrers granted a Charter to the Burgesses of Uttoxeter.
*****************
History of the Town of Uttoxeter, Francis Redfern 1865
p. 327
A junior Ferrers of Tutbury held Loxley, which is about two miles west of Uttoxeter, in Henry II.'s reign [1154-1189] , and in the time of Henry III [1216-1272], it belonged to Robert de Ferrers. In 1327 John de Kynardesleye married Johanna, daughter to a second Thomas de Ferrers. John Kynnersley was owner of Loxley eighteen Edward III. Thomas Kynnersley, twentysecond Charles I.; Craven Kynnersley, seven George II.; and Clement Kynnersley, ten George III., were sheriffs. An ancestor of the Kynnersley's was seated at Kynnersley Castle, Herefordshire, at the Conquest. There is a horn preserved at Loxley, with the proud name of " Robin Hood's Horn," which was formerly in the family of Ferrers, at Chartly. There is no particular reason given for its being Robin Hood's Horn, although it bears his initials; but from bearing three horse-shoes (two and one) it probably belonged to the Ferrars, and came into the family of Kynnersley by the marriage of Johanna, daughter of Thomas de Ferrers, to John de Kynnardesleye, through which marriage it is supposed Loxley also came into the possession of the Kynnersleys
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From Wikipedia
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby. (2016, April 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:35, May 11, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_de_Ferrers,_6th_Earl_of_Derby&oldid=716739122
Sir Robert de Ferrers, sometime Earl of Derby, died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St Thomas's Priory at Stafford, in Staffordshire. In Michaelmas term 1279 his widow, Eleanor, sued Edmund the king's brother for dower in a third of Tutbury, Scropton, Rolleston, Marchington, Calyngewode, Uttoxeter, Adgeresley, and Newborough, Staffordshire, and Duffield, Spondon, Chatesdene, and nine other vills named in Derbyshire; Edmund appeared in court and stated he held nothing in Spondon or Chatesdene, and as regards the rest Eleanor had no claim to dower in them, because neither at the time Robert had married her nor any time afterwards had he been seised of them. About 1280 Eleanor petitioned the king for the restoration of the manor of Chartley, Staffordshire, stating it was part of the inheritance of her son, John de Ferrers, who is under age and in the king's keeping. In 1284 she sued Thomas de Bray in a plea regarding custody of the land and heir of William le Botiller. In 1286 a commission was appointed by the king to investigate the persons who hunted and carried away deer and felled and carried away trees in the park of Eleanor late the wife of Robert de Ferrers at Chartley, Staffordshire. In 1290 she and her brother, Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, acknowledged they owed a debt of £200 to Robert de Tibetot and Matthew de Columbers, the king's butler. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1313/4, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
Notes
^ Turbutt 1999, p. [page needed].
^ Maddicott 2004.
^ Bland 1887, "Robert de Ferrers".
^ Lysons & Lysons 1817, pp. 3-11.
^ manucaptor (antonym mainpernor) A person who stands surety that another (esp. a prisoner) will fulfil a legal obligation to appear in court on a specified day. (OED 2007)
References
Maddicott, J.R. (2004). "Ferrers, Robert de, sixth earl of Derby (c. 1239–1279". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9366. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Lysons, Daniel; Lysons, Samuel (1817). "General history: Historical events". Magna Britannia: volume 5: Derbyshire. Institute of Historical Research. pp. 3–11.
Turbutt, Gladwyn (1999). Medieval Derbyshire. A History of Derbyshire (in four volumes) 2. Cardiff: Merton Priory Press. ISBN 1-898937-34-6.
************
From Dictionary_of_National_Biography v 18 1889, p. 386
He [Robert de Ferrers (1240-1279)] soon entered into public life as a champion of the baronial cause against Henry III. The king regarded with peculiar dislike his niece’s husband, whose marriage connections should have brought him into the court party (Rishanger, p. 49, Rolls Ser.; C'hron. de Melsa, ii. 132).
On the outbreak of civil war in 1263 Ferrers took three castles from Edward, the king’s son (Dunst. p. 224). On 19 Feb. he captured Worcester after a long siege and several attacks (Ann. Worcester, p. 448). He showed much violence to the conquered city, destroying the Jewry, spoiling religious and seculars alike, and devastating the King’s parks (RISHANGER, p. 13). By a subsequent march to Gloucester Ferrers saved the sons of Leicester from a formidable attack of Edward, captured Edward, and detained him in prison for a short time (Dumt. p. 228).
In the spring of 1264 he was one of the confederate barons who refused to obey the king ’s writ of summons (Worcester, p. 450). He took arms and marched to Chester, where he gained a decided victory over a royalist army of Welsh and English (Dumt. p. 235); but his old opponent Edward mercilessly devastated his lands in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and destroyed his castle of Tutbury.
On 23 Aug [1264?] he was assigned with Leicester to treat of certain arduous business of state (Fadera, i. 445), and he was one of the five earls who received summonses to the famous parliament of 20 Jan. 1265 (Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 71). He was here accused of violence and robbery after the peace, and attacked so violently by the king that Montfort to save his life shut him up in the Tower (Waverley, p. 358; Robert or Gloucsster, ii. 550, ed. Hearne).
It was, however, suspected by many that Ferrers had joined the Earl of Gloucester in his opposition to Montfort, and that his arrest was designed to weaken the aristocratic party that distrusted Montfort’s ambition (Wykes, p. 175, holds strongly this view, which is, however, discredited by Henry’s hostility). His lands were seized, he was brought to trial, and only avoided judicial condemnation by a complete submission (Cal. Rot. Pat. 49 H. III , mm. 18, 22).
The fall of Montfort brought him no relief (Wykes, p. 175), and he does not seem to have been released from prison before the spring of 1266. He now, however, put himself at the head of the ‘disinherited’ whom the harsh treatment of the victors had driven into revolt, and gathered an army in his own district in Derbyshire.
On 15 May he was with his troops at Chesterfield when he was surprised by Henry of Almayn, and, after a complete defeat, was himself taken prisoner as he lay helpless with gout, from which he suffered like his father and grandfather (Wykes, pp. 188-9 ; Cont. FLOR. Wig. 197 ; Lib. de Ant. Leg. p.86; ROBERT of GLOUCESTER, ii. 564; c . Archeologia, ii. 276-85).
He was loaded with chains and confined a prisoner in Windsor Castle. In the ‘Dictum Se Kenilworth' (29 Nov. 1266) he was, with the sons of Montfort, specially exempted from the general composition, and was required to redeem his lands by the exceptionally heavy fine of seven years’ rent. On 5 Aug., however, Henry had granted his estates to his brother, Edmund of Lancaster (Cal. Rot. Pat. 50 H. III, m. 9).
On 1 May 1269 Ferrers pledged himself in his prison at Chippenham to pay Edmund the enormous sum of 50,000l. on one day for his interest in his estates (DUGDALE, i. 264 ; Knighton, c. 2438; Chron. de Melaa, ii. 132). This, however, he failed to do, so that the great mass of the Derby estates passed permanently to the house of Lancaster, as the suits which Ferrers and his widow after him brought against Earl Edmund failed to dislodge him from his possessions (see summary of the pleadings in DUGDALE, Baronage, i. 264-5; and Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 187).
Ferrers took no further part in public life, though about June 1269 he was released from his prison at Wallingford by the forbearance of Edward (DUGDALE, i. 264; cf. Cal. Rot. Pat. 53 H. III, m. 16) and received restitution of part of his property.
His violence and want of settled policy had ruined his career, and he had long been equally distrusted by both sides (Rishanger, p. 13). Though still occasionally spoken of as earl (e.g. Cal. Genealog. p. 43 in the 4 E. I) he had practically lost that position, and his descendants were never able to win back the title now that the estates were gone to a more powerful house.
He died before 20 Nov. 1279. … [H]e left a son JOHN, born in June 1271 at Cardiff, who succeeded to his grandmother Margaret’s share of the Winchester estates (Cal. Genealogicum, p. 464, 762), and, after joining Bohun and Bigod in the struggle for the charters, was summoned to parliament in 1299 and died in 1324. He was the ancestor of the Lords Ferrers of Chartley.
*************
From FindAGrave
Birth: 1239
Derbyshire, England
Death: Apr., 1279
Staffordshire, England
6th Earl of Derby, Baron of Tutbury, Staffordshire.
Son and heir of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy, born at Tutbury Castle, Derbyshire. Grandson of William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby and Agnes of Chester, Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester and Helen de Galloway.
Robert was married at the age of ten to seven year old Marie de Lusignan, the daughter of Hugh XI, Count de la Marche, a half brother of King Henry III. Mary died in 1266, and they had no issue.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children:
* John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley, married Hawise de Muscegros
* Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter
Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
Robert's father died in 1254, and Robert inherited his estates and became a knight at the age of fifteen, but his estates were in a wardship under Prince Edward, who later sold the wardship to the queen for six thousand marks.
When he became of age in 1260, Robert took possession of his vast estates; a large portion of Derbyshire, parts of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, Chartley Castle, and Lancaster between the Ribble and the Mersey. The Ferrers family was one of the wealthiest of the era. Debts from his father's death and discrepancies involving Chartley created financial difficulties, Robert was impetuous, violent and unreliable, and actually attacked the priory of Tutbury, the church his parents patronized.
Robert took sides with Simon de Montfort against the King in the Second Baron's War of 1263, taking three castles belonging to Prince Edward. Further disputes regarding Peverel Castle from Robert's grandfather's days as Steward fueled Robert's hatred for Edward, who returned to attack Northampton Castle, followed by attacks at Chartley Castle and the destruction of Tutbury Castle. Once Edward and King Henry were captured, Ferrers took several royal castles as well as Peverel.
Montfort soon would accuse Ferrers of "diverse trespasses" and send Robert to the Tower of London. After the Battle of Evesham, Robert was released upon payment of 1500 marks, pardoned and his inheritance returned, his support was useful to Henry because of his locations.
Robert still chose to meddle with the rebels, forced to move north and encountered the Royal forces at Chesterfield in 1266, where Robert was defeated and taken prisoner, held at Windsor Castle until 1269. King Henry's second son, Edmund, was given Robert's lands.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children; John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley and Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter. Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
He lived for another ten years, during which he attempted to regain his estates, with little success, he regained only the manor at Chartley by 1275.
Sir Robert died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St. Thomas Priory at Stafford, Staffordshire. His widow would spend many years suing for the recovery of Robert's estates to no avail. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1314, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
Family links:
Parents:
William Ferrers (1193 - 1254)
Margaret De Quincy Ferrers (1218 - 1281)
Spouse:
Alianore de Bohun Ferrers (1243 - 1314)*
Children:
Eleanor de Ferrers FitzWalter*
Siblings:
Joan Ferrers Berkeley (____ - 1309)*
Agnes de Ferrieres (1224 - 1290)**
Eleanor de Ferrieres (1232 - 1274)**
Joan de Ferrieres (1233 - 1267)**
Robert de Ferrers (1239 - 1279)
William De Ferrers (1240 - 1288)*
*Calculated relationship
**Half-sibling
Burial:
St Thomas Priory, Stafford
Stafford
Stafford Borough
Staffordshire, England
Maintained by: Anne Shurtleff Stevens
Originally Created by: Jerry Ferren
Record added: Dec 13, 2011
Find A Grave Memorial# 81904106
-- MERGED NOTE ------------
There are differences about the identity of Robert de Ferrers' (1239-1274) second wife. Cokayne says some say it was Eleanor Basset. Palmer says it was Alianor Basset. thePeerage.com and Wikipedia say it was Alianor de Bohun. Wikipedia recites some litigation around 1284 to 1286 by which Alianor, the second wife, tried to recover some of Robert's properties from Edmund, the King's brother. The article suggests that in that litigation, reference is made to her brother, Humphrey de Bohun.
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Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Vol 3 (1890)
b. about 1241 ; as soon as he was of full age took an active part against the King in the Barons' rebellion, plundering Worcester, &c. He sat in Montfort's) Parl., of 1264 and was at the battles of Lewes and Evesham on the side of the rebels. After submission and pardon bv apoc. pat; 5 Dec. 1265 (inasmuch as he had been excepted from the terms of the dictum of Kenilworth) he again rebelled and was defeated at the battle of Chesterfield early in 1200, taken prisoner to London and "in the Parl, held the same year [1200] was totally disherited wherebv his Earldom became forfeited. In March 1268/9 an agreement was made whereby he was allowed to retain Chartly in Staffordshire and Holbrooke in Derbyshire, yielding up Tutbury and all other his lands and honours. He m. firstly (he being 9 and she 8 years old) before 6 Feb. 1253, Marie, da. of Hugh Le Brun, Count of Angouleme in France, who was br. of the half-blood (ex parte materna) to King Henry III. He m. secondly, Eleanor, "da, as some say to Ralph, Lord Basset." He d. in or before 1279. His widow was living 1281.
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Palmer, Charles Ferrers Raymund (1819-1900), The History of the Town and Castle of Tamworth, p. 364
Robert de Ferrers, 8th and last earl of Derby, was a minor at his father's death. He sided withthe barons against Hen. III.; so that, in 1266, he was deprived of titles and estates. His lands were conferred on Edmund Plantagenet, the king's son. He d. in 1274, of the gout, in poverty. He had two wives,—Maria, dau. of Hugh le Brun, earl of Angolesme, and niece of Hen. s. p.; and 1269 Alianore, dau. of Ralph lord Basset, living at his decease; by whom he had a son, John, progenitor of the family of Ferrers, barons of Chartley. He bore his father's arms without the border.
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thePeerage.com
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby1
M, #38866, b. circa 1239, d. circa 27 April 1279
Last Edited=24 Sep 2014
Consanguinity Index=1.59%
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby was born circa 1239 at Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, England.2 He was the son of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy.1 He married, firstly, Marie de Lusignan, daughter of Hugues XI de Lusignan, Comte de la Marche and Yolande de Bretagne, Comtesse de Penthièvre et Porhoët, in 1249. He married, secondly, Alianor de Bohun, daughter of Sir Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Briouze, in 1269. He died circa 27 April 1279.2
He succeeded to the title of 6th Earl of Derby in 1254. He lived at Chartley, Staffordshire, England.3
Children of Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby and Alianor de Bohun
Alianore de Ferrers+3
John de Ferrers, 1st Lord Ferrers (of Chartley)+ b. 20 Jun 1271, d. 1312
Citations
[S125] Richard Glanville-Brown, online
[S130] Wikipedia, online http;//www.wikipedia.org. Hereinafter cited as Wikipedia.
[S8] BP1999 volume 1, page 1069. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S8]
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A Topographical History of Staffordshire, William Pitt (1817), p. 205
UTTOXETER
Is a handsome market-town of Totmanslow South, situated on a gentle eminence, near the western bank of the Dove. It is 14 miles distant from Stafford, and 135 from London. In the year 181 1, Uttoxeter contained 605 inhabited houses, 628 families; 1376 males, and 1779 females : total of inhabitants 3155.
This town is undoubtedly a place of great antiquity, and from its inviting situation on the bank of a river, was probably inhabited before the invasion of the Romans. The most ancient record in existence, however, is dated in the year 1252, when Earl Ferrers granted a Charter to the Burgesses of Uttoxeter.
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History of the Town of Uttoxeter, Francis Redfern 1865
p. 327
A junior Ferrers of Tutbury held Loxley, which is about two miles west of Uttoxeter, in Henry II.'s reign [1154-1189] , and in the time of Henry III [1216-1272], it belonged to Robert de Ferrers. In 1327 John de Kynardesleye married Johanna, daughter to a second Thomas de Ferrers. John Kynnersley was owner of Loxley eighteen Edward III. Thomas Kynnersley, twentysecond Charles I.; Craven Kynnersley, seven George II.; and Clement Kynnersley, ten George III., were sheriffs. An ancestor of the Kynnersley's was seated at Kynnersley Castle, Herefordshire, at the Conquest. There is a horn preserved at Loxley, with the proud name of " Robin Hood's Horn," which was formerly in the family of Ferrers, at Chartly. There is no particular reason given for its being Robin Hood's Horn, although it bears his initials; but from bearing three horse-shoes (two and one) it probably belonged to the Ferrars, and came into the family of Kynnersley by the marriage of Johanna, daughter of Thomas de Ferrers, to John de Kynnardesleye, through which marriage it is supposed Loxley also came into the possession of the Kynnersleys
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From Wikipedia
Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby (1239–1279) was an English nobleman.
He was born at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire, England, the son of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby, by his second wife Margaret de Quincy (born 1218), a daughter of Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester and Helen of Galloway.
Born 1239
Tutbury Castle, Derbyshire
Died 1279
Occupation English nobleman
Spouse(s) Mary de Lusignan and Eleanor de Bohun
Children John and Eleanor
Parent(s) William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy
Early yearsEdit
In 1249, at the age of 10, he married the seven-year-old Mary (or Marie), daughter of Hugh XI of Lusignan Count of La Marche, the eldest of Henry III's half-brothers, at Westminster Abbey. This arranged marriage is an indication of Henry's high regard for Robert's father. William died in 1254, so that Robert became a knight and inherited the title while he was still a minor. He and his estates became a ward of Prince Edward. In 1257, Edward sold the wardship to the queen and Peter of Savoy for 6000 marks, which might have been a source of the later antipathy of Ferrers for the prince.
InheritanceEdit
Robert came of age in 1260 and took possession of the vast estates he inherited. The first of these passed to him from his Norman ancestors, a large part of Derbyshire that included the area later known as Duffield Frith, together with parts of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire. In addition, he received Chartley Castle in Staffordshire, and all Lancashire between the Ribble and the Mersey. This came from the estate of Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester, whose sister, Robert's grandfather had married. By careful management, the estate had become worth around £1500, which meant that the Ferrers family was among the wealthiest in the country.
However the estate was crippled by charges arising from William's death. Firstly a third of its worth was accounted for by his mother's dower, which included the major asset of Chartley. Nearly half was supporting a debt of around £800 incurred by his father, which the exchequer was calling in. To pay this he had taken a further loan, possibly from Jewish financiers in Worcester. Finally there was provision for his brother William and his wife Mary, who held two manors herself. It would seem that before taking his inheritance his only income had been the maritagium bestowed by King Henry.
Baronial unrestEdit
Unlike his predecessors, Robert was impetuous and violent, in part, perhaps, because he had inherited a severe form of gout from his grandfather. He was also unreliable and lacking in political sophistication.[1] Almost as soon as he took control of his estate, he attacked the priory of Tutbury, which his family were patrons of.
In the early years, Robert had taken little interest in politics, perhaps because of his preoccupation with the estate. Nevertheless, he was acquainted with the reforms that were being pursued, and with Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and Simon de Montfort, friends of the family.
When Montfort returned to England in 1263 to begin a rebellion against the king that became known as the Second Barons' War, Robert had to take sides, and moved towards Montfort. He is on record during May and June as taking the 'Three Castles'—Grosmont, Skenfrith, and Whitecastle in South Wales, which belonged to Prince Edward. When in January 1264, Louis IX of France declared the Provisions of Oxford unlawful and invalid, further unrest followed.
Robert first attacked Worcester in February 1264, sacking the Jewish quarter, plundering the religious and private houses, and damaging the fences and lands of the Royal parks in the neighbourhood. He carried away the bonds recording his loans, effectively ameliorating his debt problem. He then went on to join Simon de Montfort's forces at Gloucester Castle, recently taken by Edward. To Robert's extreme annoyance, Edward escaped, having made a truce with Henry de Montfort, Simon's son. It would seem that the motives of Ferrers were less about support for reform than they were about hatred of Edward.
The origins of this may well have been in the Ferrers family's long held claims on the estate of Peverel Castle through the marriage of Margaret Peverel to Robert the second earl. King John had assigned stewardship of the estate to the fourth earl, Robert's grandfather, but King Henry had taken it back and awarded it to Prince Edward in 1222. Finally there was Edward's custodianship during Robert's minority and the fact that some land had not been relinquished. Be that as it may, Robert of Gloucester observed that "Of no one was Edward more afraid."
Edward's brief escape, however, allowed him, to attack Northampton Castle where Ferrers brother William, Anker de Frescheville, Lord of Crich and Baldwin Wake, Lord of Chesterfield were taken prisoner in March 1264. Edward went on to attack Ferrers at Chartley Castle, and later to destroy Tutbury Castle. This was followed by the Battle of Lewes in May. That Robert did not join Montfort there would support the idea that his activities were largely motivated by self-interest.
Prince Edward and the king having finally been captured gave Ferrers his opportunity, gaining the royal castles of Bolsover, Horston, and Tickhill, in Yorkshire. By the end of 1264, he had also taken Peverel and, it is believed, Chester Castles.
Retribution
Montfort's Parliament of 1265 broadened elected representation beyond the nobility to freeholder groups . Some of the Barons felt that he had gone too far and he began to lose support. Meanwhile, Edward continued under house arrest, and Montfort was working out an agreement for his release that included surrender of large portions of his lands.
That these were lands that Ferrers had appropriated made Montfort a new and dangerous adversary. Montfort summoned Ferrers to the session of Parliament for January 1265, ordered him to surrender Peverel Castle, and accused him of "divers trespasses", after which he had him arrested and sent to the Tower of London.
J. R. Maddicott, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, suggests that:
The summons to a parliament that otherwise comprised only staunch Montfortians was an almost blatant device to remove Derby from the scene of his triumphs and to open his lands, new and old, to a Montfortian takeover ... It is a mark of Earl Robert's characteristic lack of political cunning that he fell into the trap, with predictable results. ... Derby's removal was essential to Montfort's territorial ambitions, and that it could be accomplished without much risk because the earl's violent self-seeking had left him friendless[2]
Rebellion once moreEdit
Meanwhile, Montfort was steadily losing support and, in May, the Earl of Gloucester deserted to the side of the King. With his assistance, and that of Roger de Mortimer, Edward escaped from Kenilworth Castle. When he defeated Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in August 1265, the rebels were shown little mercy.
In spite of Ferrers's activities against Prince Edward's estates, his support in the North Midlands was potentially useful to King Henry, as was his money. Ferrers was released and, on paying 1500 marks, was given a pardon, his inheritance was secured, and mediation arranged in his quarrel with Prince Edward.
Far from accepting his good fortune, in 1266 he joined a number of previous Montfortian supporters, including Baldwin de Wake, lord of Chesterfield, in a fresh rebellion. Initially, it would seem that the rebels gathered at Ferrers's substantial Duffield Castle.[3] However, from Tutbury, the royalist army, under Prince Henry, a nephew of Henry III, bypassed Duffield and proceeded to Chesterfield to intercept a force from the North under John d'Ayville.
Robert was, therefore, compelled to move northwards, crossing the River Amber, which was then flooded, reaching Chesterfield on May 15, 1266, just as d'Ayville arrived from Dronfield. In what has come to be known as the Battle of Chesterfield, they engaged the Royal forces in battle and were defeated. One account suggests that they were surprised in their quarters and most of them killed. Other accounts suggest that Ferrers himself managed to take Chesterfield but was left exposed by the defeat of the other participants. Most of them withdrew into the forest where they lived as outlaws for two years. Ferrers was taken prisoner, some accounts suggesting that he was taken while having treatment for his gout, some that he was in hiding and was betrayed.[4]
Robert was captured, attainted of high treason, and imprisoned in Windsor Castle until 1269. Duffield Castle was pulled down and Henry's second son, Edmund, was given possession of his lands and goods.
However, the Dictum of Kenilworth, issued in October 1266, provided that Ferrers could reclaim his lands in return for a redemption payment of seven times their annual value. They were returned at Windsor in 1269, with a debt of £50,000 to be paid to Edmund by 9 July.
Although the chances of Robert finding such a sum were remote, Edmund and his associates made their position more secure by a move that was unlikely to have been intended by those who drafted the Dictum of Kenilworth. Ferrers was taken to the manor of Cippenham, Buckinghamshire, the property of Richard, earl of Cornwall. There, in the presence of John Chishall, the chancellor, he was required to assign the lands to twelve manucapters[5]
He was kept imprisoned at Richard of Cornwall's Wallingford Castle until the end of May and on 9 July the estate was transferred to Edmund. In time it would provide a considerable part of the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, while Ferrers was left virtually landless and deprived of his title.
Declining yearsEdit
Ferrers lived on for another ten years, during which he attempted to regain his estates, with little success, largely because the machinations at Cippenham had been quietly supported by the King and his council. Edmund, in any case, was absent at the crusades until 1273 and no legal redress could be sought.
Soon after Edmund's return, Ferrers seized his old Chartley Castle by force, but was soon ejected. He then took a more considered approach, enlisting the help of Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. In 1274, when Edward, now King, returned to England, Ferrers pleaded that he had accepted the Kenilworth ruling, with its seven years' redemption period, but that Edmund had refused. Edmund's defence was the Cippenham 'agreement' and Ferrers's failure to meet its terms. Ferrers argued that the 'agreement' was made under duress, but it was held that chancellor Chishall's presence at the signing gave it full legal validity.
Ferrers's case was dismissed and, although, in 1275, he was able to recover his manor at Chartley (but not the castle), it marked the end of the great position of what had been one of England's most powerful families.
His final years were spent in the company of his family. His first wife, Mary, had died some time between 1266 and 1269, and the marriage had been childless. He married (2nd) 26 June 1269 Eleanor, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, Knt., of Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, and Eleanor de Braose, and granddaughter of Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford. Until 1275, when he recovered Chartley, the family appeared to have lived on his mother's dower lands in Northamptonshire. The couple had two children: John born at Cardiff, Wales 20 June 1271 (who later became 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley), and Eleanor, wife of Robert Fitz Walter, Knt., 1st Lord Fitz Walter.
Sir Robert de Ferrers, sometime Earl of Derby, died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St Thomas's Priory at Stafford, in Staffordshire. In Michaelmas term 1279 his widow, Eleanor, sued Edmund the king's brother for dower in a third of Tutbury, Scropton, Rolleston, Marchington, Calyngewode, Uttoxeter, Adgeresley, and Newborough, Staffordshire, and Duffield, Spondon, Chatesdene, and nine other vills named in Derbyshire; Edmund appeared in court and stated he held nothing in Spondon or Chatesdene, and as regards the rest Eleanor had no claim to dower in them, because neither at the time Robert had married her nor any time afterwards had he been seised of them. About 1280 Eleanor petitioned the king for the restoration of the manor of Chartley, Staffordshire, stating it was part of the inheritance of her son, John de Ferrers, who is under age and in the king's keeping. In 1284 she sued Thomas de Bray in a plea regarding custody of the land and heir of William le Botiller. In 1286 a commission was appointed by the king to investigate the persons who hunted and carried away deer and felled and carried away trees in the park of Eleanor late the wife of Robert de Ferrers at Chartley, Staffordshire. In 1290 she and her brother, Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, acknowledged they owed a debt of £200 to Robert de Tibetot and Matthew de Columbers, the king's butler. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1313/4, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
NotesEdit
^ Turbutt 1999, p. [page needed].
^ Maddicott 2004.
^ Bland 1887, "Robert de Ferrers".
^ Lysons & Lysons 1817, pp. 3-11.
^ manucaptor (antonym mainpernor) A person who stands surety that another (esp. a prisoner) will fulfil a legal obligation to appear in court on a specified day. (OED 2007)
ReferencesEdit
Maddicott, J.R. (2004). "Ferrers, Robert de, sixth earl of Derby (c. 1239–1279". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/9366. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Lysons, Daniel; Lysons, Samuel (1817). "General history: Historical events". Magna Britannia: volume 5: Derbyshire. Institute of Historical Research. pp. 3–11.
Turbutt, Gladwyn (1999). Medieval Derbyshire. A History of Derbyshire (in four volumes) 2. Cardiff: Merton Priory Press. ISBN 1-898937-34-6.
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From Dictionary_of_National_Biography v 18 1889, p. 386
He [Robert de Ferrers (1240-1279)] soon entered into public life as a champion of the baronial cause against Henry III. The king regarded with peculiar dislike his niece’s husband, whose marriage connections should have brought him into the court party (Rishanger, p. 49, Rolls Ser.; C'hron. de Melsa, ii. 132).
On the outbreak of civil war in 1263 Ferrers took three castles from Edward, the king’s son (Dunst. p. 224). On 19 Feb. he captured Worcester after a long siege and several attacks (Ann. Worcester, p. 448). He showed much violence to the conquered city, destroying the Jewry, spoiling religious and seculars alike, and devastating the King’s parks (RISHANGER, p. 13). By a subsequent march to Gloucester Ferrers saved the sons of Leicester from a formidable attack of Edward, captured Edward, and detained him in prison for a short time (Dumt. p. 228).
In the spring of 1264 he was one of the confederate barons who refused to obey the king ’s writ of summons (Worcester, p. 450). He took arms and marched to Chester, where he gained a decided victory over a royalist army of Welsh and English (Dumt. p. 235); but his old opponent Edward mercilessly devastated his lands in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and destroyed his castle of Tutbury.
On 23 Aug [1264?] he was assigned with Leicester to treat of certain arduous business of state (Fadera, i. 445), and he was one of the five earls who received summonses to the famous parliament of 20 Jan. 1265 (Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 71). He was here accused of violence and robbery after the peace, and attacked so violently by the king that Montfort to save his life shut him up in the Tower (Waverley, p. 358; Robert or Gloucsster, ii. 550, ed. Hearne).
It was, however, suspected by many that Ferrers had joined the Earl of Gloucester in his opposition to Montfort, and that his arrest was designed to weaken the aristocratic party that distrusted Montfort’s ambition (Wykes, p. 175, holds strongly this view, which is, however, discredited by Henry’s hostility). His lands were seized, he was brought to trial, and only avoided judicial condemnation by a complete submission (Cal. Rot. Pat. 49 H. III , mm. 18, 22).
The fall of Montfort brought him no relief (Wykes, p. 175), and he does not seem to have been released from prison before the spring of 1266. He now, however, put himself at the head of the ‘disinherited’ whom the harsh treatment of the victors had driven into revolt, and gathered an army in his own district in Derbyshire.
On 15 May he was with his troops at Chesterfield when he was surprised by Henry of Almayn, and, after a complete defeat, was himself taken prisoner as he lay helpless with gout, from which he suffered like his father and grandfather (Wykes, pp. 188-9 ; Cont. FLOR. Wig. 197 ; Lib. de Ant. Leg. p.86; ROBERT of GLOUCESTER, ii. 564; c . Archeologia, ii. 276-85).
He was loaded with chains and confined a prisoner in Windsor Castle. In the ‘Dictum Se Kenilworth' (29 Nov. 1266) he was, with the sons of Montfort, specially exempted from the general composition, and was required to redeem his lands by the exceptionally heavy fine of seven years’ rent. On 5 Aug., however, Henry had granted his estates to his brother, Edmund of Lancaster (Cal. Rot. Pat. 50 H. III, m. 9).
On 1 May 1269 Ferrers pledged himself in his prison at Chippenham to pay Edmund the enormous sum of 50,000l. on one day for his interest in his estates (DUGDALE, i. 264 ; Knighton, c. 2438; Chron. de Melaa, ii. 132). This, however, he failed to do, so that the great mass of the Derby estates passed permanently to the house of Lancaster, as the suits which Ferrers and his widow after him brought against Earl Edmund failed to dislodge him from his possessions (see summary of the pleadings in DUGDALE, Baronage, i. 264-5; and Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 187).
Ferrers took no further part in public life, though about June 1269 he was released from his prison at Wallingford by the forbearance of Edward (DUGDALE, i. 264; cf. Cal. Rot. Pat. 53 H. III, m. 16) and received restitution of part of his property.
His violence and want of settled policy had ruined his career, and he had long been equally distrusted by both sides (Rishanger, p. 13). Though still occasionally spoken of as earl (e.g. Cal. Genealog. p. 43 in the 4 E. I) he had practically lost that position, and his descendants were never able to win back the title now that the estates were gone to a more powerful house.
He died before 20 Nov. 1279. … [H]e left a son JOHN, born in June 1271 at Cardiff, who succeeded to his grandmother Margaret’s share of the Winchester estates (Cal. Genealogicum, p. 464, 762), and, after joining Bohun and Bigod in the struggle for the charters, was summoned to parliament in 1299 and died in 1324. He was the ancestor of the Lords Ferrers of Chartley.
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From FindAGrave
Birth: 1239
Derbyshire, England
Death: Apr., 1279
Staffordshire, England
6th Earl of Derby, Baron of Tutbury, Staffordshire.
Son and heir of William de Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby and Margaret de Quincy, born at Tutbury Castle, Derbyshire. Grandson of William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby and Agnes of Chester, Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester and Helen de Galloway.
Robert was married at the age of ten to seven year old Marie de Lusignan, the daughter of Hugh XI, Count de la Marche, a half brother of King Henry III. Mary died in 1266, and they had no issue.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children:
* John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley, married Hawise de Muscegros
* Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter
Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
Robert's father died in 1254, and Robert inherited his estates and became a knight at the age of fifteen, but his estates were in a wardship under Prince Edward, who later sold the wardship to the queen for six thousand marks.
When he became of age in 1260, Robert took possession of his vast estates; a large portion of Derbyshire, parts of Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, Chartley Castle, and Lancaster between the Ribble and the Mersey. The Ferrers family was one of the wealthiest of the era. Debts from his father's death and discrepancies involving Chartley created financial difficulties, Robert was impetuous, violent and unreliable, and actually attacked the priory of Tutbury, the church his parents patronized.
Robert took sides with Simon de Montfort against the King in the Second Baron's War of 1263, taking three castles belonging to Prince Edward. Further disputes regarding Peverel Castle from Robert's grandfather's days as Steward fueled Robert's hatred for Edward, who returned to attack Northampton Castle, followed by attacks at Chartley Castle and the destruction of Tutbury Castle. Once Edward and King Henry were captured, Ferrers took several royal castles as well as Peverel.
Montfort soon would accuse Ferrers of "diverse trespasses" and send Robert to the Tower of London. After the Battle of Evesham, Robert was released upon payment of 1500 marks, pardoned and his inheritance returned, his support was useful to Henry because of his locations.
Robert still chose to meddle with the rebels, forced to move north and encountered the Royal forces at Chesterfield in 1266, where Robert was defeated and taken prisoner, held at Windsor Castle until 1269. King Henry's second son, Edmund, was given Robert's lands.
Robert married a second time around 1269 to Eleanor de Bohun, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun and Eleanor de Braose. They had two children; John, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley and Eleanor, wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter, Lord FitzWalter. Some records include another son, Thomas, but he might have died young.
He lived for another ten years, during which he attempted to regain his estates, with little success, he regained only the manor at Chartley by 1275.
Sir Robert died shortly before 27 April 1279, and was buried at St. Thomas Priory at Stafford, Staffordshire. His widow would spend many years suing for the recovery of Robert's estates to no avail. Eleanor, Countess of Derby, died 20 Feb. 1314, and was buried at Walden Abbey, Essex.
Family links:
Parents:
William Ferrers (1193 - 1254)
Margaret De Quincy Ferrers (1218 - 1281)
Spouse:
Alianore de Bohun Ferrers (1243 - 1314)*
Children:
Eleanor de Ferrers FitzWalter*
Siblings:
Joan Ferrers Berkeley (____ - 1309)*
Agnes de Ferrieres (1224 - 1290)**
Eleanor de Ferrieres (1232 - 1274)**
Joan de Ferrieres (1233 - 1267)**
Robert de Ferrers (1239 - 1279)
William De Ferrers (1240 - 1288)*
*Calculated relationship
**Half-sibling
Burial:
St Thomas Priory, Stafford
Stafford
Stafford Borough
Staffordshire, England
Maintained by: Anne Shurtleff Stevens
Originally Created by: Jerry Ferren
Record added: Dec 13, 2011
Find A Grave Memorial# 81904106
Events
| Birth | 1239 | Tutbury, Staffordshire, England | |||
| Marriage | 1248 | Alianor Basset | |||
| Miscellaneous | 1252 | William Ferrers granted charter to Burgess of Uttoxeter near Loxley | |||
| Title (Nobility) | 1254 - 1266 | 6th Earl of Derby |  | ||
| Death | 1274 | ||||
| Title (Nobility) | Said to be Lord of Loxley, Staffordshire |
Families
| Spouse | Marie de Lusignan ( - 1266) |
| Spouse | Alianor Basset ( - ) |
| Spouse | Alianor de Bohun (1240 - 1314) |
| Child | John de Ferrers (1271 - 1312) |
| Child | Alianore de Ferrers (1270 - ) |
| Father | William de Ferrers (1193 - 1254) |
| Mother | Margaret de Quincey (1218 - 1284) |
| Sibling | Joan de Ferrers ( - 1309) |
| Sibling | William de Ferrers (1240 - 1288) |
Endnotes
1. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Vol 3 (1890).
2. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Vol 3 (1890).