Robert FitzwalterAlso spelled Fitzwater, FitzWalter, fitzWalter, etc. (died 9 December 1235) was one of the leaders of the baronial opposition against King John, and one of the twenty-five sureties of Magna Carta. He was feudal baron of Little Dunmow, Essex and constable of Baynard's Castle, in London, to which was annexed the hereditary office of castellan and chief knight banneret of the City of London. Part of the official aristocracy created by Henry I and Henry II, he served John in the wars in Normandy, in which he was taken prisoner by King Philip II of France and forced to pay a heavy ransom.
Fitzwalter was implicated in the baronial conspiracy of 1212. According to his own statement, the king had attempted to seduce his eldest daughter, but Robert's account of his grievances varied from time to time. The truth seems to be that he was irritated by the suspicion with which John regarded the new baronage. Fitzwalter escaped a trial by fleeing to France. He was outlawed, but returned under a special amnesty after John's reconciliation with the pope.
Fitzwalter continued, however, to take the lead in the baronial agitation against the king, and upon the outbreak of hostilities in 1215 was elected "Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church". It was due to his influence in London that his party obtained the support of the city and used it as their base of operations. The clause in Magna Carta prohibiting sentences of exile, except as the result of a lawful trial, refers more particularly to his case. He was one of the twenty-five barons appointed to enforce the promises of Magna Carta, and his aggressive attitude was one of the causes that contributed to the revival of civil war later in 1215.
Fitzwalter was one of the envoys who invited Prince Louis to England, and was the first of the barons to do homage when Louis entered London. Slighted by the French as a traitor to his natural lord, he served Louis with fidelity until he was captured at the Battle of Lincoln in May 1217. Released on the conclusion of peace, he joined the Fifth Crusade, but returned at an early date to make his peace with the regency. The remainder of his life was uneventful, and he died peacefully in 1235. He was the father of three children: Matilda, Robert, and Christina (who married William FitzGeoffrey de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex). He is remembered as a champion of English liberty, and has also become associated with various legends, including that of Robin Hood.
Family
Robert Fitzwalter was the son of Walter Fitz Robert of Woodham Walter and his wife Maud (or Mathilde), the daughter of Richard de Lucy of Diss (a member of the de Lucy family). Robert was a feudal baron of the fourth generation after the Norman Conquest, great-grandson of Richard fitz Gilbert (d. c. 1090). His paternal grandfather was Richard fitz Gilbert's son Robert Fitz Richard, steward of Henry I, to whom the king had granted the lordship of Dunmow and of the honour or soke of Baynard's Castle in the southwest angle of the City of London, to which the hereditary office of castellain and chief banneret of the City of London was annexed, both of which had become forfeited to the crown by William Baynard. While steward Robert may have been descended from the powerful Norman counts of Brionne, among the higher ranks of the nobility of the Norman Conquest, the house of Fitzwalter belongs properly to the administrative families, who in the latter part of the twelfth century had stepped into the place of the old feudal houses. The house of Fitzwalter's possession of the soke of Baynard's Castle, which grew into an ordinary ward, brought it into intimate relations with the Londoners. Robert Fitzwalter was himself engaged in trade and owned wine ships which received special privileges from King John.
Nothing of Fitzwalter's birth and early life is recorded. A possible early record of him is a mention of a knight named "Robert Fitzwalter" at a tournament in Henry the Young King's retinue in 1180 at Lagny-sur-Marne. Fitzwalter was married to Gunnor or Gunnora, daughter and heiress of Robert de Valognes, sometime before his father died in 1198. His eldest son, named Robert Fitzwalter, junior, was taken prisoner along with him at Lincoln, but died before him. At his death, his heir, Walter, was underage, so that the son who fought with him at Lincoln must have been dead. This Sir Walter Fitzwalter (also known as Fitz Robert) of Dunmow Castle (c. 1222–1258), married to Ida Longespée,There may have been two Ida Longespées. The one who married Sir Walter FitzRobert of Woodham Walter, Essex, had issue, including Ela FitzWalter, wife of William de Odyngsells. These Idas have been given different parents by different genealogists: G. Andrews Moriarty suggested the two Idas were sisters; Gerald Paget suggests the Ida who married Walter FitzRobert may have been the daughter of William Longespée II, Earl of Salisbury, by his wife, Idoine de Camville. must have been either a younger son or a grandson. After the death of Gunnor (she was alive in 1207) it is said that Fitzwalter married a second wife, Rohese, who survived him. He also had a daughter, Christina, who married William FitzGeoffrey de Mandeville, 3rd Earl of Essex.
Career When Baron Walter died in 1198, Fitzwalter succeeded to his estates, being already more than of full age and married to his first wife, Gunnor. His marriage to Gunnor had brought him 30½ knight's fees, and he inherited more than 66 from his father. He also acquired two knight's fees through Gunnor's uncle Geoffrey of Valognes, and about 1204 obtained livery of seisin of the lands of his own uncle, Godfrey de Luci, bishop of Winchester. Francisque Xavier Michel said that Fitzwalter came to be "one of the greatest men in England, and one of the most powerful". His lands were mainly situated in the north, so that his interests now became close to those of a faction called the "Aquilonares", whom he would later lead in the struggle against King John.
In the years following 1200, Fitzwalter is recorded as a participant in several lawsuits. In 1200, Fitzwalter was surety for half the fine incurred by his brother, Simon Fitzwalter, for marrying without royal licence. In 1201, he made an agreement in the curia regis with St Albans Abbey with respect to the wood of Northaw. Another suit sprang from his claim to the custody of the Hertford Castle as of ancient right. He withdrew this suit for a time, and in August 1202 King John made Fitzwalter warden of Hertford Castle by royal letters patent, releasing him from his family's debts to Jewish moneylenders as well.
Early in 1203, Fitzwalter was in attendance on the king in Normandy, in February and March at Rouen. Fitzwalter was made joint-governor of the castle of Le Vaudreuil (near the mouth of the Eure) with Saer de Quincy, later Earl of Winchester, his half-first cousin (both being grandsons of Matilda/Maud de St Liz/Senlis).Saer de Quincy, 1st Earl of Winchester was the grandson of Saer de Quincy I by his wife Matilda/Maud de St Liz/Senlis (Sanders, I.J. English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent 1086–1327, Oxford, 1960, p.129, note 8) the widow of Robert FitzRichard (1064–1136), feudal baron of Little Dunmow in Essex and steward to King Henry I, the grandfather of Robert FitzWalter (d.1235) After Easter King Philip II Augustus of France took the field, and despite being well fortified and supplied, the governors of Vaudreuil surrendered at the first summons. Philip shut them up in close confinement at Compiègne, where they remained until redeemed by a heavy ransom of five thousand marks. On 5 July, John issued letters patent from Rouen to certify that they had surrendered the castle by his precept, witnessed by William Marshal, but in late November, Fitzwalter's cousin William d'Aubigny was still engaged in selling some of Fitzwalter's lands to raise the ransom. The surrender of Vaudreuil has been ascribed to the cowardice of Fitzwalter and de Quincy, which contemporary sources mocked greatly. However, the actual reason for their actions, and those of the two kings, was mysterious at the time, and remains unknown. In October 1206, Fitzwalter witnessed the truce made between John and Philip Augustus at Thouars.
1212 Conspiracy The misgovernment of John provoked Fitzwalter's profound resentment, and in 1212 he entered into intrigues with Eustace de Vesci and the Welsh prince Llewelyn ab Iorwerth against the king. According to his own statement, the king had attempted to seduce his eldest daughter Matilda, but his account of his grievances varied from time to time. Several other barons later made similar accusations, and these stories were well recorded by monastic chroniclers, so later the story of Matilda developed into a complex legend. Financial factors, "unjust exaction which reduced [the barons of England] to extreme poverty", as the monk Roger of Wendover put it, were more likely the primary reason for the dissatisfaction of barons such as Fitzwalter.
In 1212, John's quarrel with Pope Innocent III and Philip Augustus reached a breaking point, and Innocent absolved the barons of England from their allegiance to John. John was preparing to march at Nottingham against his rebellious son-in-law Llewelyn ab Iorwerth. His suspicions that his barons were plotting to capture him were aroused by private intelligence, and he turned back to London with his foreign mercenaries, disbanding his regular forces. He demanded that each baron send a relative to him as a hostage. Most of the barons did so, but Fitzwalter and de Vesci decided to flee to France and Scotland, respectively. They were condemned to perpetual exile. But John was so much alarmed that he shut himself up from his subjects and abandoned his projected Welsh campaign. John now seized upon Fitzwalter's estates, and on 14 January 1213 destroyed Baynard's Castle. He also demolished Robert's castle of Benington and his woods in Essex. Fitzwalter remained in exile until John's submission to the pope. Fitzwalter's sister, Alice Peche, was required to provide hostages to prove her loyalty. One hostage was her and Gilbert Peche's daughter, Alice.
On 13 May 1213, John promised peace and security to him as part of the conditions of his reconciliation with Rome, and on 27 May, issued letters patent informing him that he might safely come to England. On 19 July, his estates were restored. John also granted a hundred marks to his steward as compensation, and directed a general inquest into his losses, like those made in the case of the clerks who had suffered by the interdict.
Magna Carta revolt
Fitzwalter, however, remained a vigorous opponent of John's later measures. Matthew Paris said that John specially hated him, Archbishop Stephen Langton, and Saer de Quincy. In August 1213, he was at St Paul's Cathedral in London when Archbishop Langton read a charter signed by Henry I and announced that services could be conducted ahead of the lifting of the interdict on England. On 4 November 1214, Fitzwalter met in secrecy with the Archbishop and the other barons at Bury St Edmunds. The assembled barons resolved to withdraw their fealty from King John and swore at the altar of the abbey church that they would wage war on John if he did not accept their demands of a charter by Christmas. The barons and the King both began to arm themselves, and John secured the support of the Pope and took up the cross as a crusader. By January, John still refused to accede to the barons' demands and when Fitzwalter and several other barons visited him in armour at the headquarters of the Knights Templar in England in London (the modern Inns of Court) he asked for a truce until Easter.