Robert held the government of Northumberland, and seems to have continued his resistance even after John's death. His son William was captured at Lincoln in May 1217 (Cont. Gerv. Cant. ii. 111).
Robert in time submitted, and Henry III commanded his manors of Sowerby, Carleton, and Oulsby to be restored to him on 23 July 1218, and orders to different bailiffs of the king to allow him to hold his lands unmolested were issued on 22 Nov. 1220 (Close Rolls, i. 441). In February 1221 he was summoned to help in besieging and destroying Skipsea Castle (ib. i. 474 b). In 1222 he seems to have complained to the king that the king of Scotland was encroaching on English territory, and a commission of inquiry was appointed (ib. i. 496 b). Whether it was that the sheriff of Cumberland, apparently Walter, bishop of Carlisle, had delayed to restore his lands through jealousy, or that they had been seized again, their restoration was again ordered on 24 May 1222. On 23 May of the following year the king forbade the same sheriff of Cumberland to exact tallages from the royal manors given to Robert. A renewed order to give Robert seisin of these manors on 6 Feb. 1225 seems to point to further disobedience to the king's former orders (ib. ii. 15). Robert witnessed the third reissue of the Great charter on 11 Feb. of that year. On 26 Feb. 1226 Henry ordered the barons of the exchequer to deduct from the firm of the county owing by Walter, bishop of Carlisle, the revenues of the royal manors given to Robert de Ros. Robert again took the monastic habit before 18 Jan. 1227 (ib. ii. 166 b). He died in that year, and was buried in the Temple Church at London. He married Isabella, daughter of William the Lion, king of Scotland, and had by her two sons: William (d. 1257–8), whose son Robert, first baron Ros, is noticed under William de Ros, second baron Ros; and Robert de Ros, Baron Ros of Wark [q. v.] He gave the manor of Ribston (West Riding of Yorkshire) to the knights templars, who established a commandery there (Stapleton, Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Norm. vol. ii. p. lxxvii). He also gave several houses in York to the same order (Close Rolls, i. 117 b). He founded the leprosery of St. Thomas the Martyr at Bolton (probably in Northumberland, five and a half miles west of Alnwick) (Close Rolls, ii. 182).
[Rotuli Chartarum Johannis, Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, and Rotuli Litterarum Patentium, Rotuli Normanniæ, and Hunter's Rotuli Selecti, all published by the Record Commission; Roger of Hoveden, Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, Shirley's Letters of Henry III (Rolls Ser.); Dugdale's Baronage of England, i. 546; Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 269; Poulson's Holderness; Stapleton's Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniæ, 2 vols. 8vo, 1840.]
ROS, ROBERT de, Baron Ros of Wark (d. 1274), was the second son of Robert de Ros (d. 1227) [q. v.], and inherited from him the lordship of Wark and a barony in Scotland. He is very liable to be confused with his nephew and contemporary, Robert de Ros of Helmsley or Hamlake and Belvoir (d. 1285) [see under Ros, William de, second Baron Ros]. He is first mentioned as being in the king's hands as a hostage on 13 Feb. 1207 (Patent Rolls, p. 59 b). He was associated with the justices of the bench by a writ dated 6 July 1234, and in the month of August of that year was appointed a justice on three itinera. In 1237 he was constituted chief justice of the forests in the northern counties, and was still filling that office on 24 Sept. 1242 (‘Rôles Gascons,’ ed. Michel, in Coll. de Documents Inédits, i. 16). About that time he seems to have retired to his Scottish barony, and in 1244 concurred in sending the king of Scotland's treaty of peace with Henry III to Innocent IV for confirmation. In 1252, on the marriage of Henry III's daughter Margaret to Alexander III of Scotland, the king of England appointed Robert, who seems at the time to have held the office of marshal of his household, one of the guardians of the young queen (Matt. Paris, Hist. Maj. v. 272). Three years later the king accused Robert and his co-guardians of ill-treating the queen. A certain physician named Reginald, to whom she is said to have confided her troubles, died mysteriously, not without suspicion of poison, after remonstrating with and threatening the guardians. Henry went towards Scotland with an army, and sent Richard, earl of Gloucester, and John Mansel to make inquiries. They entered Edinburgh Castle in the guise of simple men-at-arms of Robert de Ros, and gained access to the queen, who complained that she was in a sort of imprisonment. She was not allowed to travel through her kingdom, have a special household, or even choose her own bed-chamber women, ‘nor was she allowed to live with her husband as his wife.’ The royal emissaries brought this separation to an end, and summoned Robert and his companions to answer for their conduct. They pleaded the extreme youth of the king and queen (ib. v. 504). The wealth of Robert and his fellows also excited the cupidity of the needy and extravagant Henry III. Though the earl marshal took his part, Wark and others of Robert's lands were seized and his movable property confiscated and sold. A fine of one thousand
