128 DUFFIELD CASTLE. 



Derby, until he is of legal age.* No sooner had Robert Earl Ferrers 

 come of age, and the restraints of guardianship removed, than his 

 strangely wayward and violent disposition asserted itself with much 

 impetuosity, and he began a career that soon involved him in uni- 

 versal reprobation and distrust. Matthew Paris sums up his politi- 

 cal character most tersely, as " fidus nee Regi nee Baronibus."t 

 In 1263, when civil war broke out between the king and some of 

 the discontented barons, Earl Ferrers, forgetful of the fine example 

 of loyalty set him by his father, and oblivious of the claims of 

 near kinship by marriage to the Crown, collected his Derbyshire 

 men-at-arms and marched upon Worcester. He sacked the city, 

 destroyed the Jewry, plundered both religious and private houses, 

 and overthrew the fences of the royal parks in the neighbourhood. 

 On the news reaching London, the king sent an army, under the 

 command of his son Edward, into Derbyshire to lay waste his lands. 

 His castle of Tutbury was demolished, and it is reasonable to 

 assume, as we know the army marched over the Derbyshire manors, 

 that Dufneld castle was attacked, but was found to be too strong 

 for any sudden capture. 



We next find him acting in union with Montford, Earl of 

 Leicester, and Clare, Earl of Gloucester and the other rebellious 

 barons, who were in arms against the king. He took part in the 

 battle of Lewes, when the king and his son were taken prisoners. 

 Then came the dispute between Montfort and Clare ; Earl Ferrers 

 siding with the latter, was captured by Simon de Montfort, but 

 speedily escaped. This was soon followed by the battle of Evesham, 

 August 14th, 1265, when the Earl of Gloucester rescued the king 

 from his detention by the Earl of Leicester ; but, with the extra- 

 ordinary fickleness that seems to have been so peculiarly his own, 

 Earl Ferrers refused all assistance to Clare, and though not at the 

 battle, was waging war against the royalists in another part of the 

 kingdom. 



The king seems to have acted with much clemency towards the 



* Rot. Lit. Pat. 41 Henry III., merab. 9. Add. MSS. 15663, f. 152. 

 t Matt. Paris Hist. AngL, p. 992. 



