Whalton and its Vicinity, by the Rev. J. E. Elliot. 233 



Henry I., certified knight's fees, disposed of lands, and exer- 

 cised other manorial rights in the barony, and was undoubtedly 

 de facto, Baron of Whalton. His son, Robert Fitz-Walter, 

 is supposed by Hodgson to have been the same person as 

 Robert de Crammaville, who, at the assizes in Newcastle 

 in 1194, was certified to have been Baron of Whalton, as his 

 ancestors had been time out of mind. Why King John dis- 

 possessed the Fitz- William line cannot now be explained. 

 As the old ballad says — 



" He ruled England with main and with might, 

 And did much wrong, but maintained little right." 



Robert Fitz-Roger was employed as his ambassador to the 

 King of Scots in 1209. He appears to have inherited the 

 talents of his ancestor, Eustace Fitz- John, and also to have 

 had the same turn for adding to the family property ; for he 

 held also the Barony of Warkworth, and had a grant of Eure 

 in Yorkshire from Richard I. Besides Whalton, or Qualton, 

 as it is spelt, he obtained from John the manors of Newburn, 

 Rothbury, and Corbridge ; with the power of infangthief 

 and gallows, and a ducking stool, pillory, toll, assize of bread 

 and ale, with market and fair. Robert Fitz-Roger was suc- 

 ceeded by his son, John Filz-Robert, who seems to have 

 been a man of some mark in his day, as he was High-Sheriff 

 for Northumberland four years together from 1224.-21. He 

 was also one of the twenty-five, to whom the barons, after ex- 

 torting Magna Charta from King John, delegated the most 

 extensive authority and power to see it properly fulfilled.* 

 He died in 1240, leaving a son, who succeeded him in the 

 Barony of Eure in Yorkshire, and was the ancestor of the 

 noble family of Eures or Evors ; one of whom, in the reign of 

 Henry VIII., made himself famous by the ferocity with which 

 he ravaged the Scotch border. Another son, named Roger Fitz- 

 John, succeeded to the Barony of Whalton and other lands. 

 The widow of John Fitz-Robert, Ada de Baliol — great aunt of 

 Baliol afterwards King of Scotland, — paid 200 marks for his 

 custody and that of his brother Hugh, they being minors at 

 their father's death. Roger died in 1249, in Henry HI.'s 

 reign, leaving a son, Robert Fitz-Roger, a minor; and his 

 grandmother offered 1200 marks for his custody. These 

 wardships were the opportunities enjoyed by the crown under 



* B. de Molleville's Hist, of Eng., p. 245. 



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