Robert de Ros

Sir Robert de Ros (died c. 1227) was an Anglo-Norman feudal baron, soldier and administrator who was one of the twenty-five barons appointed under clause 61 of the 1215 Magna Carta agreement to monitor its observance by King John of England. Origins Born about 1182, he was the son and heir of Everard de Ros (died before 1184) and his wife Roese (died 1194), daughter of William Trussebut, of Warter. Robert "Farfan" had a sister Alice, who married William II de Percy, 3rd feudal baron of Topcliffe (d. 1174/5), and left two daughters Maud and Agnes as co-heiresses. The Ros family, from the village of Roos in Yorkshire, had in 1158 acquired the barony of Helmsley, also in Yorkshire, and before 1189 by gift of King Henry II the barony of Wark on Tweed in Northumberland. Career Left fatherless, his lands were initially in the keeping of the Chief Justiciar of England, Ranulf de Glanvill. In 1191, though under age, he paid a 1,000-mark fee to inherit his father's lands. In that year he also married a widow who was an illegitimate daughter of King William I of Scotland. Later he inherited from his mother one-third of the Trussebut estates, which included lands near the town of Bonneville-sur-Touques in Normandy, of which he became hereditary bailiff and castellan. In 1196, during fighting between King Richard I of England and King Philip II of France, Richard captured a French knight worth a significant ransom and put him in the castle of Bonneville. When the keeper of the castle let the knight escape, an angry Richard had the man hanged and imprisoned Ros, fining him 1,200 marks (though he was later let off 275 marks).